Chapter XII: The Nations of Asia Minor (2)

Hence the decision would seem to be correct that the Cimmerians ought to be struck out of history as a mythical nation and a mythical name, which was perhaps intended to correspond to the misty, wintry nature of some remote lands, did not the poet Callinus of Ephesus, whose date falls about the year 700 B.C., speak of "the approaching army of the Cimmerians, who achieved mighty deeds:" did not Herodotus himself tell us that the expelled Cimmerians "settled on the peninsula at the place where the Greek city of Sinope now stands"; and also narrate that the Cimmerians, while king Ardys ruled over the Lydians (654-617 B.C.), invaded Lydia, and captured Sardis, the metropolis, except the citadel; and that Alyattes king of Lydia (612-563 B.C.) first expelled the Cimmerians entirely out of Asia Minor:[768] did not Aristotle tell us that the Cimmerians had been settled for a hundred years in Antandros, on the Trojan coast, and Scymnus of Chius, that the Milesian Abron, who founded Sinope, was said to have been slain by the Cimmerians, that Coes and Cretines founded the city anew, "after the Cimmerians, when their array traversed Asia"?[769]

The Cimmerians then were not a legendary fiction: the Cimmerian Bosporus really owed its name to a people who called themselves, or were known to the Greeks, by this name, as also the hamlet of Cimmerikum on the Crimea, and Cimmerium on the peninsula of Kertch. Strabo, the best authority on the Eastern districts of Asia Minor, of which he was a native, says: "The wanderings of the Scythian Madys (it is the Madyas of Herodotus) and of Kobos the Trerian are unknown to most people. The Cimmerians, who are called Treres,[770] or a tribe of them, dwelt on the gloomy Bosporus. They came from a far distant region, and are said to have been driven out by the Scythians. They have often attacked the right side, _i.e._ the eastern side of the Pontus, and fought against the Cappadocians, Paphlagonians, and Phrygians;[771] they crossed the Halys, and forced their way as far as the Ionian cities.[772] Their first invasion is placed by the chronologers in the time of Midas, who put an end to his life by drinking bull's blood, _i.e._ as we saw above (p. 528) in the period from 738 to 693 B.C., or according to others, in the time of Homer, or shortly before him.[772] But Lygdamis, with a horde of his own, forced his way to Lydia and Ionia, and conquered Sardis, though he remained in Cilicia.[773] Callisthenes says that Sardis was first taken by the Cimmerians, then by the Treres, and finally by Cyrus. The first capture is also proved by Callinus. At length the Treres, under Kobos, are said to have been driven out by the Scythians under Madys."[774]

From this account it is clear that the Cimmerians, or a part of them, were called Treres, a name also given to a Thracian tribe between the Skomius and Hebrus, on the Bistonian Lake;[775] that they made at least two invasions into the west of Asia Minor; that the second of these, which in Strabo is undertaken under the command of Lygdamis, is the same as the invasion of the Cimmerians which Herodotus places in the time of king Ardys of Lydia. In both writers this invasion extends to Sardis and to some of the Greek cities on the coast, and Plutarch expressly establishes the identity of the invasion of the Treres under Lygdamis with that of the Cimmerians in Herodotus, on ancient authorities.[776] Justin calls the Cimmerians a part of the Scythians, who, owing to their internal contentions, migrated under the leadership of Ilinus and Scolopitus, and established themselves on the coast of Cappadocia.[777]

The incursion of the Scythians into Media, with which Herodotus has combined the migration of the Cimmerians, took place, as we shall show from Herodotus' own statement, about the year 630 B.C. But if Alyattes of Lydia was the first to expel the Cimmerians from the west of Asia Minor after they had been settled for a century in Antandros, these Cimmerians must have been in Asia at least as early as 663 B.C., since Alyattes reigned till 563 B.C. Further, if Herodotus only mentions the destruction of Sardis, which took place about 630 B.C., and is wholly silent on the first destruction by the Cimmerians, this first capture must have taken place before the time from which he commences his accurate account of Lydian history, _i.e._ before the accession of Gyges in the year 689 B.C., or, according to the data of Herodotus, even before 719 B.C. This capture of Sardis is the only one which could have been known to Callinus. Further, the Cimmerians are said to have invaded Phrygia at the time of that Midas who put himself to death in the year 693 B.C. Hence they must have been in Asia Minor before this year, and if they overpowered Phrygia, they could easily at the same time have forced their way as far as the western coast. Moreover, Strabo remarks that the Milesians built Sinope, when they had become acquainted with the favourable position of the place and the weakness of the people, but the people were not weak after the Cimmerians had occupied the mouth of the Halys. The first foundation of Sinope under Abron must therefore be placed before the arrival of the Cimmerians in Asia Minor. The ancient Sinope founded the city of Trapezus in the year 756 B.C.,[778] and therefore that city must have been founded at least ten years earlier, and its destruction by the Cimmerians must be placed after the year 756 B.C. Hence the Cimmerians might have reached the mouth of the Halys about 750 B.C., though they cannot have come along the coast from Colchis, but over the sea. With this agrees the statement that the Cimmerians forced their way into Asia Minor in the year 782.[779]

From this investigation it follows that the Cimmerians once possessed the north shore of the Black Sea on the straits from Kaffa, westward perhaps as far as the mouth of the Danube. Since the Treres, a Thracian nation, are always mentioned in connexion with the Cimmerians, and it is ascertained that Thracian tribes possessed the western coast of Pontus from the Thracian Bosporus northwards as far as the mouth of the Danube, and as the Agathyrsi in Transylvania are also called Thracians, there can hardly be any doubt remaining that the Cimmerians were of Thracian origin, or at least nearly related to the Thracians. According to the account of Herodotus the Cimmerians held a consultation on the Tyras (Dniester), their kings were said to have been killed there, and in confirmation of the story he appeals to the tumuli which were still to be seen on the Dniester. The only certain conclusion to be drawn from this statement is that mounds on the Dniester were shown to Herodotus as coming down from an older population of those districts. The Cimmerians, who arrived in Asia Minor (the Tauri, on the peninsula which was named after them, appear to be a remnant of this nation, who maintained their old settlements, and the modern name Crimea goes back to the Cimmerians), must have been a numerous and martial people, if they were able not only to establish themselves firmly in the East on the Halys, but also to force their way to the western coast, there to settle down in several places and maintain themselves in these, and to capture twice the fortified metropolis of the Lydians, the most warlike nation in Asia Minor.

According to the genealogy in Genesis, Gomer is the eldest son of Japhet. This name is without doubt the Semitic term for the population on the north shore of the Pontus, who were known to the Greeks as Cimmerians. In the sixth century B.C. the prophet Ezekiel mentions Gomer beside Togarmah.[780] Esarhaddon, king of Assyria (681-668 B.C.), tells us that Tiuspa from the distant land of the Cimmerians (Gimirai) submitted to him with his army. Assurbanipal (668-626 B.C.) relates: "The Cimmerians were not afraid of my fathers or of me, and would not take the yoke of my sovereignty. Gugu (Gyges), king of Ludi (Lydia), a land beyond the sea, a distant region, of which my fathers had not heard the name, sent a messenger into my presence, in order to implore my friendship and kiss my feet. From the day on which he accepted my yoke, he took Cimmerians, desolators of his land, alive in the battle with his own hand. From the number of the captured leaders he bound two with strong fetters of iron, and sent them with numerous presents to Nineveh, the city of my dominion. He constantly sent messengers to ask for my friendship. He omitted to do so when he disregarded the will of Asshur, the god, my creator, trusted to his own power, and hardened his heart. He sent his forces to aid Pisamilki (Psammetichus), king of Egypt, who had thrown off the yoke of my sovereignty. I heard this, and prayed to Asshur and Istar thus: May his body be cast out to his enemies, and his servants be carried away captive. Asshur answered me: His body shall be cast out to his enemies, and his servants carried away captive. The Cimmerians, whom he had brought under his feet by the renown of my name, conquered and laid waste his whole land. His son (Ardys) sat upon his throne. He sent to me and received the yoke of my supremacy, saying thus: I am thy subject and servant, and my people will do all thy will."[781]

Thus the account of the Greeks is completely established. To be subjugated by Esarhaddon the Cimmerians must have been in Asia Minor in the first decades of the seventh century B.C., they must also have got the upper hand here to such a degree that Gyges, king of Lydia, found it impossible to defend himself against them without the help of the Assyrians. The first capture of Sardis must have taken place before the accession of Gyges, on that campaign which the Cimmerians made in the year 693 B.C. to Phrygia. On the other hand it may be that the Cimmerians had got possession of the city of Antandrus in the reign of Gyges. When Gyges had repulsed the Cimmerians he thought that he had no longer any need of Assyria. For this, according to Assurbanipal, he was punished by a second invasion of the Cimmerians, who desolated his land; he lost his life in the battle, of which the Greeks know nothing, and his son and successor Ardys was again forced to submit to Assyria. That Ardys had to fight severe battles with the Cimmerians is proved by the second capture of Sardis, which took place in his reign about the year 630 B.C. While the Cimmerians were thus engaged in the West, the city of Miletus, or some exiled Milesians, seized the opportunity to re-found Sinope. Alyattes succeeded in forcing back the Cimmerians and attacking them with such vigour that they were no longer able to undertake any invasions to the West. Even Sinope had no more to fear from them, although their settlements lay in the neighbourhood of this city. At a subsequent period in the third century B.C. the invading Celts threw the whole of Asia Minor into a panic, and plundered it, until they were confined to Galatia; and the invasion of the Cimmerians appears to have taken a similar course. The Celts, however, maintained themselves within a limited district; the Cimmerians disappeared so entirely among the Cappadocians, that Syncellus calls Gomer the progenitor of the Cappadocians, and the Armenians denote the Cappadocians by the name Gamir.[782]

In Cappadocia also, rock tombs, sculptures, and fragments of buildings have been discovered, the authors of which and the date of their erection we cannot ascertain even approximately. Near Amasia, on the middle course of the Iris, we find graves hewn in the rocks, of which those lying nearest the city may have belonged to the first kings of Pontus. Near Aladja also the facade of a large rock-tomb may be seen. Near Uejuek, on an elevated terrace, are the ruins of a palace, the lower part of which is formed by great blocks worked and joined in the Cyclopian style, and the blocks are in part covered with sculptures. In the middle of the south front is a spacious doorway guarded by two pairs of lions; one pair is detached, the other is worked out of the stone posts of the doorway, like the protecting figures in the palaces of Nineveh.[783] Near Boghaskoi, which is perhaps the site of the ancient city of Pteria, at the foot of a lofty limestone plateau, overhung by cones of rock, in the fork of a mountain stream which flows northward to the Halys, are the remains of a building about 200 feet in length and 140 feet in breadth. A broad staircase leads from the river to a terrace, on which rises the palace surrounded by a wall. As at Uejuek, the lower part of the structure consists of Cyclopian blocks of fifteen to twenty feet in length, and some six feet in depth. About thirty chambers, greater or smaller, surround the court of this structure. The ground plan is like that of the palaces of Nineveh; in the sculptures a resemblance has been traced to the reliefs of the buildings of the Achaemenids. Pteria was afterwards the abode of a Persian commander. On the rocky plateau over the palace we see the remains of two citadels, surrounded by lines of fortification, of which the Cyclopian foundations may still be traced.[784] Two miles and a half to the north-west of the ruins of the citadels, in the rocks surrounding the plateau, remarkable sculptures have been discovered. In a deep recess of the rocks the rough walls, which have been but slightly hewn and smoothed, are covered with reliefs. There are two rows of figures which meet each other. They advance from the outer curve of the niche along the side-walls, on the right and left, towards the back wall. While the figures in these rows are only from two to three feet high, the shapes on the back wall, which form the centre of the picture, are of the size of life, and indeed the main figure is even larger. All the figures are in profile. The main figure, which moves from left to right, as does the long row of figures following it on the left side of the niche, is a bearded warrior, who steps over, or even upon, two bending figures with high and pointed caps, falling over in front, and in garments which fall in folds from the girdle. In his right hand he carries a sceptre, the left hand, which is not very distinct, holds a flower out of which peers a circle, or an oval ring. His doublet hardly reaches to the knee; the head is covered with a tall conical cap, and on the feet are pointed shoes. He is followed by two male figures suitably clothed, who stand on mountain summits; then between two winged genii are two figures with round caps, who carry bowls, and behind them a form in a long garment, with a bent staff in his hand, and a winged circle on his head. Then follow warriors armed with sabres, or clubs, in the same short doublet and the same pointed shoes as the three leaders, and between them are two demons, the only figures presenting a full face, with round, broad faces, who carry two segments of a circle, one upon the other. They were followed by warriors and two priests with pointed caps falling over in front. The end of the row on the left entrance is formed by a series of twelve warriors, who march on without armour, close together, and with even step. On the right side of the niche is another row, coming to meet the row described. Opposite the leader of the warriors, in the middle of the north wall, is a large female figure, who advances from the right to the left on a lion or leopard, whose feet rest on four mountain summits. She wears a long robe falling in folds to her ankles; her hair streams down, and upon it is a cylindrical head-dress; the right hand carries a staff, while the left, which holds something similar to the ring already mentioned, is held out towards the outstretched left hand of the leader of the warriors. Behind her, on a smaller scale, but also riding on a lion with the feet resting on mountain summits, is a youthful warrior, without a beard, in the clothing of the main figure; the head is covered with a lofty pointed cap, the shoes are also pointed; in the girdle is the two-edged bill, in the left hand a long battle-axe, and in the right a staff. He is followed by two female figures above a double eagle, in the dress of the main female figure; behind them come thirteen more female figures of a similar kind, with staves or harps in their hands. The whole picture contains more than sixty figures. In a niche receding to the back we find, beside a demon of remarkable shape, a young beardless man with an exceedingly tall conical cap; in his outstretched right hand he appears to carry the picture of a temple; and with his left he embraces the neck of a very youthful female form, whose head-dress and robe fall down in numerous folds. Beside them march twelve warriors with lower caps than those in the main recess, and scythe swords in their right hands; the left arm is raised as high as the shoulder, since they are treading on the left heel, and the top of the right foot.[785]

If this great rock picture is not intended to represent some act of religious worship, it might depict the conclusion of a treaty between two nations. In this case it might belong to the period in which Media, under Cyaxares, extended her borders to the Halys, and came into fierce conflict with the Lydians. This war was brought to an end by a treaty of peace, accompanied by the betrothal of the daughter of Alyattes of Lydia to the son of Cyaxares. The picture might be explained in reference to this treaty and betrothal, did not the style and manner appear closely allied to the figure near Smyrna (p. 151), and a relief not far from Ancyra.[786]

As to the religious rites of the Cappadocians, we know that they worshipped the god Men, who is called a moon-god, and a female deity, Mene, or Ma. On the Lycus, an affluent of the Iris, at Cabeira, stood the sanctuary of Men in the middle of large precincts; the sanctuary of Mene was at Comana, on the Iris, and was the oldest, richest, and most important sanctuary in the land. Ma, or Mene, was a war-goddess whom Greeks and Romans called Enyo and Bellona; to Strabo she is known as Artemis, and this name is evidence of her relation to the moon, no less than of her position as a war-goddess. That relation is confirmed by further evidence. Comana, says Strabo, is thickly populated; but the inhabitants are effeminate; the greater part are fanatics or religious maniacs, and there is also a number of women who serve the goddess with their bodies, of whom the greater part are dedicated to the temple. Here, twice in the year, the "Exodus of the Goddess" was celebrated. To this festival pilgrims, male and female, came from every side, and in frenzy and ecstasy performed certain sacred customs, which consisted partly in wounding themselves with swords, and partly in sensual excesses. In the south of Cappadocia, on the upper Sarus, there was a second city of Comana, which also possessed a sanctuary of Ma. Here, as at Comana on the Iris, six thousand servants are said to have attended upon Ma.[787] We know the tendencies of the Syrian worship, to bring man, by means of certain services, nearer to the deity to whom the services are performed, and make him resemble the peculiar nature of the deity whom he worships. The maidens who served the maiden goddess in her temples on the Pontus carried weapons like the goddess, and honoured her by dancing in armour.

Out of these armed maidens in the temples of Ma there grew up among the Greeks a peculiar and widely-developed legend--the legend of the warlike tribe of the Amazons. When the Greek colonists landed on the western coast of Asia Minor, they found, in the land of the Lydians, where they built Smyrna, Cyme, and Ephesus, seats of the worship of a goddess whom they compared to their Artemis, and whose attendants were eunuchs and armed maidens (p. 556). They next perceived that similar seats of worship were to be found in the East also, on the coasts of the Pontus. Thus the Homeric poems already placed the "Amazons equal to men" on the east of the Phrygians, and represented king Priam as meeting them with his men on the banks of the Sangarius.[788] As natives of Asia Minor the Amazons must have fought with the Trojans against the Greeks. Arctinus represented the Amazons as coming to Troy after the death of Hector, and distressing the Greeks till Achilles slew their queen, the beautiful "Penthesilea, the daughter of the dread, manslaying Ares." The cyclic poets knew the abode of the Amazons more accurately than Homer; they place them at Themiscyra, on the Thermodon;[789] and at this place Pindar represents them as drawing up their army. AEschylus also places the Amazons on the Thermodon;[790] according to Pherecydes the war-god begot the Amazons with Harmonia on the Thermodon.[791] We have seen that the Greeks gave the name Harmonia to Astarte, the moon-goddess of the Phenicians. When the Greeks at the time of Arctinus had founded Sinope and Trapezus in those regions, they believed that they were in the land of the Amazons; and Sinope was thought to have been previously inhabited by the Amazons.[792] The places at which the Greeks here founded a new home were thought to have been named and sanctified long before their arrival, not only by the voyage of the Argonauts, for Heracles, Theseus, and Peirithous were said to have set foot there, in order to perform their mighty deeds against the Amazons. At the command of Eurystheus Heracles had been compelled to bring the girdle from Hippolyte, the queen of the Amazons, for Admete. Theseus and Peirithous had carried off Antiope. Among the Phenicians, as we have seen, Baal-Melkarth looses the girdle of the moon-goddess; the Greeks transferred the legend of Melicertes to their Heracles. Even as early as the thirteenth or twelfth century B.C. the ships of the Phenicians had probably brought the worship of the warlike moon-goddess to the coast of Attica. At any rate, at a later time, tombs of the Amazons, _i.e._ abandoned seats of the worship of the Artemis of Syria and Asia Minor, were shown there. After the Attic territory was united under the rule of a military monarchy, of which, among the Ionians, Theseus was the embodiment, the Phenicians were driven back from the coasts of the Greeks: Theseus was said to have conquered the Minotaur and the Amazons. In order to establish the existence of Amazons in Attica, Theseus was said to have carried off Antiope. To avenge this wrong, the Amazons marched from their distant home on the Thermodon to Attica; and the Athenians considered it one of their greatest services towards their common fatherland that they had conquered the Amazons, "an enemy who threatened all Hellas."[793]

Out of these elements the Greeks framed a circumstantial history of the Amazons. Even among the historians, their home is the land of the Thermodon. Here the Amazons dwelt, according to Herodotus, Diodorus, and Strabo, and here, as Diodorus tells us, they offered splendid sacrifices to Ares and Artemis Tauropolus. Their first queen is said to have been the daughter of Ares, and she built the great city of Themiscyra; the second queen extended the dominion of the Amazons as far as Syria; and finally queen Myrina reduced the whole of Syria, and received the voluntary submission of the Cilicians.[794] It is obvious that the Amazons founded all the cities where the worship of the maiden war-goddess flourished or had ever existed. Roused by the crime of Theseus, they marched to the west, founded the sanctuary of Ephesus, where "they set up the image of the goddess under the trunk of an elm, and, armed with shields, danced the war-dance, so that their quivers sounded."[795] Then they marched to the north, and founded Smyrna, Myrina, and Cyme.[796] Analogous rites proved that they were also in Lesbos and Samothrace. Through Thrace and Thessaly, and finally across Euboea, they are said to have marched to Attica; tombs of the Amazons were shown at Scotussa and Cynoscephalae, in Thessaly, and at Chalcis, in Euboea.[797] After returning home, the Amazons next marched to the aid of the Trojans, and were conquered by Achilles. When the Greeks had founded Cyrene on the coast of Attica, and found, among the Libyan tribes of the surrounding district, the worship of a female war-goddess--when they found the Libyan women wearing corslets of goatskins, they came to the conclusion that the Amazons once dwelt on the Tritonian lake in Libya.[798]

A nation of heroines was certainly never found by the Greeks on the Thermodon. On the other hand, they received accounts of the warlike queens of the Saces and Massagetae, of Zarinaea, Sparethra, and Tomyris, who fought against the Medes and Persians; and on the coasts of the Black Sea, in the colonies of the Milesians, they heard of the riding, the archery, and hunting of the women of the Sauromatae. Hence the Greeks resolved to make the Amazons the ancestors of the Sarmatians. They were represented as taking ship from the Thermodon across the Black Sea to the coast of the Maeotis, because here, in the Crimea, on the "promontory of the maiden," a cruel maiden goddess, who was also called Artemis Tauropolus by the Greeks, was worshipped. Herodotus, and after him Ephorus, tells us that the Amazons fled over the Pontus from the Thermodon, and landed on the shore of the Maeotis. Here they took the young men among the Scythians, who, according to Herodotus, were settled between the mouths of the Danube and the Don, as their husbands, and with them marched eastwards over the Tanais (Don), beyond which river and north of the Caucasus lay, according to Herodotus, the dwellings of the Sauromatae, whom later writers call the Sarmatians. Hence the Sarmatian women still preserved the customs of the Amazons; they carried bows and javelins, and wore the same clothing as the men, sat on horseback, and rode with or without their husbands to the chase or to battle, and no maiden married till she had slain an enemy; "so that some never married at all, because they were unable to satisfy this rule." The language of the Sauromatae was the same as the language of the Scythians, but they spoke it badly, because the Amazons had never perfectly learned it. These statements, and especially the assertion that the Sarmatian women fought as long as they were maidens, were repeated by Greek writers--in other respects very trustworthy--in the fifth and fourth century B.C. Others also maintained that the women were rulers among the Sarmatians.[799] Poetry and plastic art had stamped the legend of the Amazons so firmly on the Greeks that they could not break loose from it. Several of the historians of Alexander of Macedon tell us that the queen Thalestris, with 300 Amazons, sought out Alexander from a great distance, and made a proposal of marriage to him, on his return from Hyrcania,[800] a story which has perhaps arisen out of the fact that the satrap Atropates of Media sent 100 mounted women to Alexander.[801] When at a later time Pompey fought in the Caucasus, and women were found among the wounded, it was thought that the real Amazons were at last found;[802] and the story was now told that the Amazons dwelt northward of the Gelen (in Ghilan), on the southern foot of the Caucasus. In order to solve the difficulty of their propagation of the race, the story was invented that for two months in the spring they met the Gargareans--a neighbouring tribe--on the mountains by night, and associated with them, as accident might determine. The boys were then sent to the Gargareans, who brought them up in common; the daughters were retained by the Amazons.[803] In order to explain the name Amazon, which in Greek can mean "without a breast," the story was invented that they burnt off the right breast of the maidens, so that they might use the right arm better, and draw the bow--a story which Hippocrates had already told about the daughters of the Sarmatians.[804] On the monuments of plastic art the Amazons have both breasts; the older period represents them with a broad girdle, an ample robe, and a Phrygian cap, a crescent shield (the symbol of the moon-goddess), a bow, and a battle-axe. In later sculptures the Amazons, when they had been connected with the Scythians and the Sarmatians, were generally represented on horseback, in a Doric tunic, with naked arms and thighs, a helmet on the head, and a spear in the hand.

On the western slopes of the table-land of Asia Minor, in the river valleys of the Hermus and Maeander, the Lydians were settled. Their land reached from the sources of the Hermus in Mount Dindymon to the AEgean sea, from Messogis and Cadmus in the south to the Temnus range in the north. The valley of the Hermus was exuberantly fertile, and still more luxuriant was the vegetation in the district round the Gygaean lake. The mountain pastures supported herds of powerful horses and numerous flocks of sheep. The Pactolus brought sands of gold down from Tmolus; in the rocks of this range and its western continuation, Sipylus, rich veins of gold are said to have been found.[805]

But little has been preserved of the legendary accounts of the Lydians about their rulers in the earliest times. About the middle of the fifth century B.C. the Lydian Xanthus, the son of Candaules, wrote the history of his people in four books, in the Greek language. Of this some fragments have come down to us, which can here and there be supplemented by the statements of Herodotus. From both we learn that the Lydians traced back the origin of their royal house to the gods. Atys, the son of the god Manes, was the first sovereign of the Lydians; after him came his son Lydus, who gave the name to the people. From the brother of Lydus, whom Xanthus calls Torrhebus, and Herodotus Tyrsenus, the tribe of the Torrhebians or Tyrsenians was derived. The territory of the Torrhebi lay on the upper Cayster. From Asius, the son of Cotys, the son of Atys, sprang the tribe of the Asionaeans, who inhabited the Asian meadow.[806] From Atys, their progenitor, the first king, his successors, the first house of Lydian kings, were called Atyads. Among the successors of Lydus the most pious and just was Alkimus. During his reign there was peace and quiet in Lydia; every man lived securely and without fear, and all things prospered. After him reigned king Akiamus, who sent Ascalus with an army to Syria. There Ascalus founded the city of Ascalon. After this, as Herodotus narrates, a lion was born to king Meles from his concubine, and this lion, in obedience to an oracle, he caused to be carried round the walls of Sardis, his metropolis, in order that they might be impregnable.[807] According to Xanthus, Meles, who was a tyrannous and cruel king, was overthrown by Moxus, a very just and brave man, after he had vowed to the gods that, in gratitude for their deliverance, the Lydians should henceforth offer to them a tenth of all their animals. Then Moxus marched to Syria, and there took Atargatis captive, with her son Ichthys (fish). As a punishment for her rebellion she was thrown into the lake of Ascalon, and eaten by the fish. Then king Cambletes reigned, who sacrificed his wife, and ate her, and then slew himself with his sword before all the people. After him Jardanus, who had been an enemy of Cambletes, ruled over Lydia.[808] Jardanus was followed by his daughter Omphale.[809] To avenge the insult which had been paid to her before she ascended the throne of Lydia, she compelled the maidens of the land to give themselves up to the slaves at an appointed place, and slew the strangers whom she entertained, when she had lain with them.[810] After Omphale, Tylon reigned, who died from the bite of a snake, but was again restored to life by a marvellous herb.[811] But with the slave-girl of Jardanus, according to Herodotus, or, according to others, with Omphale, Heracles begot Alcaeus; the son of Alcaeus was Belus; the son of Belus was Ninus, and the son of Ninus was Agron. With the accession of Agron the dominion of the Atyads came to an end, and that of the Heracleids commenced, who then continued to rule over Lydia for 505 years.[812]

Manes and Atys are already known to us as deities of the Phrygians; they must therefore have been worshipped by the Lydians also. Lydus, the second king of the land, is taken from the name of the nation. The prosperous, peaceful reign of the good king Alkimus is no doubt founded on some conception of an early happy age. The story of the lion of Meles obviously goes back to the relations in which the lion was placed, in the religious rites of the Syrians, to the sun-god, who was also worshipped with zeal by the Lydians. We learn from a Lydian that the name Sardis was given to the city in honour of the sun-god.[813] The coins of Sardis which have been preserved regularly present the image of a lion and a bull.[814] The vow of Moxus is intended to explain the blood-tithe, which we have already found in use among the tribes of Syria. Still more definite are the references to Syrian rites in the supposed marches of Moxus and Ascalus to Syria, and the prominent position of Atargatis[815] and the temple of Ascalon, and the children of Atargatis, the fish. We know Atargatis, the Astarte of the Assyrians, as transformed into Hera, and the temple at Ascalon, the city of the Philistines, as the oldest and most famous sanctuary of the Syrian goddess of fertility. The name of the king Jardanus does not differ from "jarden" (river), and if Omphale is said to have forced the maidens of the land to prostitute themselves at a fixed place, we have already found this prostitution in the worship of the Syrian goddess of birth and the Babylonian Mylitta. The new dynasty which ascends the throne of Lydia after the Atyads with Agron is again derived from a god, according to the accounts of the Greeks, from Heracles and Omphale. The Greeks narrated that Omphale carried the lion's skin and club of Heracles, and that she clothed the hero in a transparent female robe of scarlet, and caused him to card wool and spin as her slave.[816] Lydian coins exhibit a female form with the lion's skin and the bow.[817] It was shown above that the Greeks connected Melkarth (Melicertes) with their Heracles, and that according to the mythus of the Syrians, the sun-god finds and overpowers the moon-goddess; that after the holy marriage, the god on his part succumbs to the goddess, and changes his nature with her; he assumes the female nature, she the male; she carries the weapons, while he performs woman's work. We saw that the Syrians symbolised the pre-eminent nature, the unity of the deity, in this amalgamation of the sexes--this female manhood and male womanhood. Johannes Lydus tells us that the Lydians worshipped the sun-god under the name Sandon, and adds, that because Sandon had lived as a woman, the men at the mysteries of the god clothed themselves in women's clothes, and put on transparent crimson garments, coloured with vermilion.[818] Thus the Greeks put their hero in the place of the Lydian sun-god, who overwhelms the lion, and changes his nature with the goddess; and if they farther tell us that Omphale gave her love to strangers, but also slew all who lay with her, this also is a trait which had already met us in the Syrian Astarte, in the nature of Ashera-Astarte, which at one time grants the enjoyment of love, and at another brings destruction.

The result of these considerations proves that the traits of the Lydian legends, which have been preserved, present us with very little beyond mere mythical elements. The connection of the Lydian worship with the worship of the Syrians comes plainly to the surface, and this connection is confirmed by all that we know from other sources of the rites of the Lydians. The name of their sun-god Sandon[819] recurs on Assyrian monuments, where it appears as Sandan.[820] In the Semitic languages the word means "helper," and is used as an attribute of the god Adar, with whom we are already acquainted as the god of the planet Saturn.[821] It is obvious that the title "helper" could be given not to Adar only, but to any other god, from whom special favour and assistance might be expected. The Lydians gave the title to the good sun-god, who vanquishes the glowing heat--the terrible sun-god--who looses the girdle of the moon-goddess, and changes his nature with her. When the Greek colonists landed on the coast of Lydia, they at first recognised their own Apollo, i.e. their god of light, in the Lydian god. They allowed the sanctuary of the Lydian god at Miletus to remain in the hands of a family of native priests, the Branchidae. As god of the country and protector of the coast, the Homeric poems give to Apollo the foremost place among the deities who defend Troy. The Lydians also on their side recognised the connection between their sun-god and the Apollo of the Greeks; Gyges and Croesus send rich presents to Delphi. But when the Greeks of the coast became more accurately acquainted with the nature and the myths of the Lydian sun-god, that side which chiefly corresponded to their Heracles, and the image of Heracles developed under the influence of the Phenician Melkarth, came into prominence. The nature of the female goddess also, whom the Lydians chiefly worshipped, is beyond doubt. Herodotus tells us that all the daughters of the Lydians sold themselves, and in this way collected their dowries; others narrate that they received slaves or foreigners in the groves and porticoes of the temples.[822] As we have seen, tradition connects this prostitution with the rule of Omphale, and Johannes Lydus assures us that the goddess Blatta worshipped in Lydia was the same as the Mylitta of the Babylonians. Hence the worship of Bilit, the Ashera of the Syrians, prevailed also among the Lydians, a fact which the campaigns (already mentioned) of Ascalus and Moxus to the shrine of Derceto at Ascalon also prove. That this goddess of the Lydians was not without her destructive side--the power and nature of Astarte--we could already infer from the bloody acts of Omphale (p. 562). At the mouths of the Cayster and the Hermus the Greeks found the shrines of a goddess, whose priests were eunuchs, and who was at the same time honoured with dances in armour by maidens, as the moon and war-goddess of the Cappadocians.[823] This goddess of the coasts of Lydia was called by the Greeks Artemis, and this name distinguishes her as at once a maiden goddess and the goddess of the moon and of war. And if at the same time the image of Artemis of Ephesus was represented with large breasts, the obvious conclusion is that in the goddess of Lydia, as in the goddesses of Babylonia and Syria, the two opposites, of continence and sensual enjoyment, of fertility and of destruction, were united.

The forms of religious worship also would appear to have been in all essentials the same among the Lydians and the Syrians. Mutilation (which we know was practised very widely among the Lydians),[824] and the prostitution of girls, were common to both countries. We found above that the Arabs and Syrians believed their gods to be present in stones, and prayed to them in that shape. Not far from Magnesia on Sipylus, a stone, some twenty feet in height, juts out of a wall of marble, and this in ancient times must have been regarded with veneration as the idol of a native goddess. Even in the Homeric poems we find mention of this stone, and the legend connected with it by the Greek colonists. "I have seen the stone of Niobe on Sipylus," said Pausanias. "At a near view it is a fragment of stone, which does not look like a woman or a person weeping; but from a distance you might believe that you saw a weeping and mourning woman."[825]

The essential result of the examination of Lydian legend and Lydian worship is the obvious and very close relationship between the Lydian and Syrian deities and rites. Moreover, the mountain range which bounds the valley of the Maeander to the south, bears the Semitic name of Cadmus, _i.e._ "the Eastern;" and at the foot of the range lies the city of Ninoe (Nineveh, _i.e._ "to dwell.")[826] Again, from one side the languages of the Phrygians and Lydians are said to be distinctly different; on the other hand, most of the Lydian words which have been preserved to us by the Greeks--it is true they are not numerous--can be traced back to Semitic roots;[827] and the national genealogy of the Hebrews enumerates Lud among the sons of Shem, together with Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, and Aram. Yet, so far as the Lydian language allows us to form an opinion, elements of a different character are not entirely wanting. The gods Manes and Atys, from whom the first royal house was derived, and after whom it was named, the goddess Cybele, whose temple stood at Sardis,[828] do not belong to the circle of Semitic deities. Manes, as well as Atys, we found in Phrygia. Hence, looking back at the connection between the Armenians, Phrygians, and Thracians, already brought into prominence we may suppose that the original population of the river valley of the Hermus was Phrygian, and that Semitic invaders from the east subjugated these Phrygians and absorbed them; but not without adopting on their part some elements of the Phrygian language and worship.

That a monarchy was in existence among the Lydians before the first Heracleid ascended the throne cannot be doubted. In the time of the Heracleids we find mention made of the descendants of Tylon (p. 562), a king who is said to have belonged to the family of the Atyads. The foundation and fortification of Sardis also seem to belong to the period before the Heracleids, the period of the Atyads. Herodotus tells us that the second dynasty, the supposed descendants of Sandon-Heracles, gave twenty-two sovereigns to the Lydians, who ruled over Lydia for 505 years.[829] However astonishing the pedigree which Herodotus gives to these Heracleids (the son of Heracles, Alcaeus, begets Belus, Belus begets Ninus, and Ninus Agron),[830] we may regard his statement of the period for which this dynasty lasted, of which several later members are established, as historical. And since, after the Heracleids, the family of Gyges ruled for 140 years down to the time when Cyrus took Sardis, and since the taking of Sardis fell in the year 549 B.C., the Heracleids must have ascended the throne of Lydia 645 years previously, _i.e._ in the year 1194 B.C.[831] What degree of civilisation had been reached by the Lydians about the year 1000 B.C. we can only conclude from the fact that the Greek settlers on their coasts found money already coined by the Lydians, and therefore ascribe to them the invention of the art of coining.[832] The art of dying wool also was, in the opinion of the Greeks, an invention of the Lydians; and games at ball as well as at dice were thought to have been learnt from the Lydians by the Greeks.[833] That the Greeks made use of the Lydian flute, and subsequently of the Lydian cithara (both the cithara with three strings and that with twenty strings), and the Lydian harmonies to enrich their own music, is an established fact.[834] The Homeric poems describe the Lydians (Maeonians) as an "armed equestrian people," and mention their trade and wealth.[835]

North of the Lydians, in the river valleys of the Caicus Macestus and Rhyndacus, were settled the Mysians. According to Strabo, they spoke a language of mixed Phrygian and Lydian elements.[836] It was apparently the Mysian legend which told of king Tantalus, who possessed the greatest treasures, who slew his son and offered him for a banquet, _i.e._ for a sacrifice to the gods. His grave was shown on Sipylus.[837] Before the Greek colonists took the coasts from them, the Mysians may have risen to the first elements of civilisation; but when they were debarred from the sea, they remained within the limits of their mountains, pursuing an agricultural and pastoral life. About the year 500 B.C. their armour was still a small round shield and javelins, the points of which were hardened in the fire.[838] In spite of these miserable weapons they gave a good deal of trouble to the satraps of the Persian king, and even at a later time desolated the fruitful plains on the coasts by marauding inroads. Of their worship we only know that the Greeks found the rites of a god of light on the coasts at Thymbra, Chryse, and Cilla, who was invoked under the title Smintheus, a word which is said to mean the expeller or destroyer of field-mice;[839] and that a goddess of procreation and fertility was worshipped on Ida.[840] In the Homeric poems it is Aphrodite, by the side of Apollo, who protects Ilium, and favours Capys and the sons of Priam in the dells of Ida.

The coast of Asia Minor, to the south of the Lydians, was in the possession of the Carians. Herodotus tells us that, according to the legends of the Cretans, the Carians were, in the most ancient times, called Leleges, and inhabited the islands of the AEgean at the time when Minos reigned in Crete. They were compelled to man the fleet of Minos. A long time afterwards they were driven out of the islands by the Ionians and Dorians, and migrated to Asia Minor. But the Carians themselves maintained that they had always lived in the land which they possessed.[841] We cannot hesitate to give the preference to the assertion of the Carians. From the numerous harbours of their coast they could easily cross to the neighbouring islands, and thus they could populate Rhodes Samos and Chios.[842] Advancing from one to another in the numerous islands of this sea, they reached the Cyclades and settled there. The most ancient population of Crete, called by the Greeks Eteocretes, may very likely have consisted of Carians only, as is proved by the position which Greek legend gives to the Carians in reference to Minos, as well as by other evidence. This occupation of the islands of the AEgean Sea by the Carians must be placed about the year 1500 B.C. For when the Phenicians colonised these islands in the thirteenth century, they were occupied by Carians. The Carian population became dependent on the Phenicians. Subsequently, about the year 1000 B.C., the Hellenes landed on the islands of the AEgean, and drove out the Carians. The Carians lost even Samos and Chios; they were again confined to their old home, and they could not even maintain themselves in that, for the best harbours of their coasts passed into the hands of the Greeks. Yet the Carians continued to be seamen and pirates. They lay in wait, as before, for the merchants, and overran the rich coast land. Even in the seventh century we meet with Carian pirates and mercenaries, and these not only on the mouths and banks of the Nile; and the Chronographers mention, apparently, a hegemony of the Carians on the sea, which is placed in the interval from the year 731 to the year 670 B.C.[843]

The Carians had no monarchy embracing the whole of their territory. But here also, so far as we can see, princes stood at the head of the various cities. A kind of confederation united the several places. About the year 500 we hear of assemblies of Carians on the banks of the Marsyas near the white pillars, and afterwards we find common sacrifices of the Carian cities, and days of meeting in the temple of Zeus Chrysaor, which was situated in the neighbourhood of Mylasa (now Milas) at Lagina (now Leina).[844] Among the Carians the Greek colonists found a style of armour superior to their own, and they adopted it. The "Catalogue of ships," in Homer, represents the leader of the Carians as going into battle decked with gold.[845] In Alcaeus "the Carian helmet laments," and Anacreon speaks "of putting the hand upon the well-fitted Carian haft." Herodotus tells us that the Greeks learned from the Carians to wear plumes upon their helmets, to paint devices upon their shields, and to furnish them with fixed handles,--in Homer the shields are carried over the shoulder by straps. Greaves also are said to have been invented by the Carians.[846]

We are unable to tell with certainty the origin or the national characteristics of the Carians, though Herodotus maintains that the Lydians, Mysians, and Carians spoke the same language. Of the religious worship of the Carians he tells us that they were the only nation who worshipped Zeus as a warrior. Mylasa was the centre of their worship. On the heights which tower over the plain of Mylasa, in a forest of plane-trees, near Labranda, lay the temple of "Zeus Stratius." The image of the god is said to have carried the double axe. Carian coins of the fourth century B.C. display the image of a god with a double axe.[847] The same axe is also found on the remains of Carian altars. The Greeks even maintain that the god was named after this axe, that his national name was Labrandeus, and that in Lydian and Carian _labrys_ meant a battle-axe. Plutarch says:--Arselis, the Carian of Mylasa, marched to the aid of Candaules, king of Lydia (he ruled about the year 700 B.C.), and afterwards he left the sacred axe of the kings of Lydia to the god of Labranda.[848] This giving up of the battle-axe to the god of the battle-axe allows us to suppose that the god of Mylasa is meant by the Carian of Mylasa; and that Arselis may have been the name or attribute of this god--a supposition which is changed into a certainty by the fact that in Semitic languages, Chars-el means "axe of El," "axe of God."[849] Beside this warrior Zeus, a warlike Aphrodite was also worshipped at Mylasa,[850] and if Strabo calls the goddess of Leina Hecate, the reason of the name may be the death-bringing power of the goddess Astarte-Ashera. The sacred fish who were to be found in a pool at Mylasa, with gold rings round the neck, would then be evidence of the bountiful, increase-giving side of the nature of this goddess.[851]

East of the Carians, on the south coast, in the valley of the Xanthus, were the settlements of the Lycians. The range of Taurus, which here rises to a height of 10,000 feet, sinks down in fields of snow and Alpine pastures to the course of the Xanthus. The sides of this valley, Mounts Kragus and Anti-Kragus, are beautifully wooded, and traversed by sounding rills. The view extends from the upper course of the river over the luxuriant vegetation of the plain down to the sea.

Herodotus tells us that this district was once known as Milyas, and that the Lycians, who were originally called Termilians, immigrated from Crete. Sarpedon and Minos contended for the throne, and as Minos got the upper hand, Sarpedon went with the Termilians to Asia, and took possession of Milyas. Afterwards Lycus, the son of the Attic king Pandion, when driven out by his brother Aegeus, came to Sarpedon, and from him the Termilians got the name of Lycians. Their laws were Cretan and Carian. They wore hats adorned with feathers, goat skins round their shoulders, sickle-shaped swords and daggers, coats of mail, greaves, bows, and arrows of reeds. They were named after the mother, and not after the father, and spoke of the mothers of their mothers as their ancestors. The son of a free woman and a slave was free and passed for a well-born man; but if a free man, even the first among them, begot children with a foreign woman or a concubine, these were outlaws.[852] Heraclides of Pontus extends these statements so far as to assert that the Lycians from ancient times had been under the dominion of their wives; Nicolaus, of Damascus tells us that the daughters of the Lycians, and not the sons, took the inheritance.[853]