The Historians' History of the World 02 [Israel, India, Persia, Phoenicia, Minor Nations of Western Asia]

“During his exile, Meles confided the government to Sadyattes, son of Cadys. This prince, descended from a far-off ancestor named Tylon, was regent in his master’s name, and when the three years were over and Meles came back from Babylon, he faithfully restored the power. Under the reign of Myrsus, Dascylus, the son of that Dascylus murdered by Sadyattes, fearing that plots were being laid for him by the Heraclids, abandoned Phrygia and took refuge among the Syrians who inhabited the province of Pontus, round Sinope. There he married a native, and it was from this marriage that Gyges was born.”

This narrative lends itself to diverse comments. First, does it offer a complete list of the last Sandonids in order of succession? If so, the catalogue in fragment 49 must be preferred to all the others, for the observation in the course of the recital that Spermos was not inscribed in the royal annals, shows that the author had drawn his information from official registers.c

In striking contrast with this account of the origin of the Lydian monarchy is the dramatic recital of Herodotus, which will be found in Appendix A on the classical traditions. From this story of Ardys and his successors, we may take up Professor Sayce’s brief summary of the whole of Lydian history.a

EARLY DYNASTIES

According to the native historian Xanthus (460 B.C.), three dynasties ruled in succession over Lydia. The first, that of the Attyads, is wholly mythical. It was headed by a god, and included geographical personages like Lydus, Asies, and Meles, or such heroes of folklore as Cambletes, who devoured his wife. To this mythical age belongs the colony which, according to Herodotus, Tyrsenus, the son of Attys, led to Etruria. Xanthus, however, puts Torrhebus in the place of Tyrsenus, and makes him the eponym of a district in Lydia. There was no connection between the Etrurians and Lydians in either language or race, and the story in Herodotus rests solely on the supposed resemblance of Tyrrhenus and Torrhebus. It is doubtful whether Xanthus recognised the Greek legends which brought Pelops from Lydia, or rather Mæonia, and made him the son of Tantalus. The legends must have grown up after the Greek colonisation of Æolis and Ionia, though Dr. Schliemann’s discoveries at Mycenæ have shown a certain likeness between the art of early Greece and that of Asia Minor, while the gold found there in such abundance may have been derived from the mines of Tmolus.

The second dynasty was also of divine origin, but the names which head it prove its connection with the distant East. Its founder, a descendant of Hercules and Omphale, was, Herodotus tells us, a son of Ninus and grandson of Belus. The Assyrian inscriptions have shown that the Assyrians had never crossed the Halys, much less known the name of Lydia, before the age of Asshurbanapal, and consequently the old theory which brought the Heraclids from Nineveh must be given up. But we now know that the case was otherwise with another oriental people, which was deeply imbued with the elements of Babylonian culture. The Hittites had overrun Asia Minor and established themselves on the shores of the Ægean before the reign of the Egyptian king, Ramses II. The subject allies who then fight under their banners include the Nasu or Mysians and the Dardani of the Troad from Iluna or Ilion and Pidasa (Pedasus); and, if we follow Brugsch, Iluna should be read Mauna and identified with Mæonia. At the same time the Hittites left memorials of themselves in Lydia. Mr. G. Dennis has discovered an inscription in Hittite hieroglyphics attached to the figure of “Niobe” on Sipylus, and a similar inscription accompanies the figure (in which Herodotus wished to see Sesostris or Ramses II) carved on the cliff of Karabel, the pass which leads from the plain of Sardis to that of Ephesus. We learn from Eusebius that Sardis was first captured by the Cimmerians 1078 B.C.; and, since it was four centuries later before the real Cimmerians appeared on the horizon of history, we may perhaps find in the statement a tradition of the Hittite conquest. Possibly the Ninus of Herodotus points to the fact that Carchemish was called “the old Ninus” while the mention of Belus may indicate that Hittite civilisation came from the land of Bel. At all events it was when the authority of the Hittite satraps at Sardis began to decay that the Heraclid dynasty arose. According to Xanthus, Sadyattes and Lixus were the successors of Tylon, the son of Omphale.