A report on Lydia, Ionia and Achaemenid Empire

Map of the Lydian Kingdom in its final period of sovereignty under Croesus, c. 547 BC.

Greek settlements in western Asia Minor, Ionian area in green.

The ruins of the ancient city of Pergamon

The Achaemenid Empire at its greatest territorial extent under the rule of Darius I (522 BC–486 BC)

Art relics from the Ionian cities of Asia

Portrait of Croesus, last King of Lydia, Attic red-figure amphora, painted ca. 500–490 BC.

One of the earliest electrum coins struck in Ephesus, 620–600 BC. Obverse: Forepart of stag. Reverse: Square incuse punch.

Tripolis on the Meander is an ancient Lydian city in Turkey.

The site of Miletus, once coastal, now inland. The plain was a bay in Classical Greece.

Map of the expansion process of Achaemenid territories

Gorgone with serpent, Ionia, 575-550 BC.

Cyrus the Great is said, in the Bible, to have liberated the Hebrew captives in Babylon to resettle and rebuild Jerusalem, earning him an honored place in Judaism.

Büyük Menderes River also known as Maeander is river in Lydia.

The tomb of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid Empire. At Pasargadae, Iran.

The Pactolus river, from which Lydia obtained electrum, a combination of silver and gold.

Possible coin of Ionia. Circa 600-550 BC

The Achaemenid Empire at its greatest extent, c. 500 BC

Early 6th century BC Lydian electrum coin (one-third stater denomination).

Ionia, Achaemenid Period. Uncertain satrap. Circa 350–333 BC

The Persian queen Atossa, daughter of Cyrus the Great, sister-wife of Cambyses II, Darius the Great's wife, and mother of Xerxes the Great

The Library of Celsus in Ephesus was built by the Romans in 114–117. The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, built by king Croesus of Lydia in the 6th century BC, was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Map showing events of the first phases of the Greco-Persian Wars

Lydian delegation at Apadana, circa 500 BC

Greek hoplite and Persian warrior depicted fighting, on an ancient kylix, 5th century BC

Lydia's borders under the reign of Alyattes's son Croesus

Achaemenid king fighting hoplites, seal and seal holder, Cimmerian Bosporus.

Bin Tepe royal funeral tumulus (tomb of Alyattes, father of Croesus), Lydia, 6th century BC.

Achaemenid gold ornaments, Brooklyn Museum

Persian Empire timeline including important events and territorial evolution – 550–323 BC

Croesus at the stake. Side A from an Attic red-figure amphora, ca. 500–490 BC

Relief showing Darius I offering lettuces to the Egyptian deity Amun-Ra Kamutef, Temple of Hibis

Lydia, including Ionia, during the Achaemenid Empire.

The 24 countries subject to the Achaemenid Empire at the time of Darius, on the Egyptian statue of Darius I.

Xerxes I tomb, Lydian soldier of the Achaemenid army, circa 480 BC

The Battle of Issus, between Alexander the Great on horseback to the left, and Darius III in the chariot to the right, represented in a Pompeii mosaic dated 1st century BC – Naples National Archaeological Museum

Alexander's first victory over Darius, the Persian king depicted in medieval European style in the 15th century romance The History of Alexander's Battles

Photo of a 15th-century map showing Lydia

Frataraka dynasty ruler Vadfradad I (Autophradates I). 3rd century BC. Istakhr (Persepolis) mint.

Church of St John, Philadelphia (Alaşehir)

Dārēv I (Darios I) used for the first time the title of mlk (King). 2nd century BC.

Winged sphinx from the Palace of Darius in Susa, Louvre

Volume of annual tribute per district, in the Achaemenid Empire, according to Herodotus.

Achaemenid tax collector, calculating on an Abax or Abacus, according to the Darius Vase (340–320 BC).

Letter from the Satrap of Bactria to the governor of Khulmi, concerning camel keepers, 353 BC

Relief of throne-bearing soldiers in their native clothing at the tomb of Xerxes I, demonstrating the satrapies under his rule.

Achaemenid king killing a Greek hoplite. c. 500 BC–475 BC, at the time of Xerxes I. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Persian soldiers (left) fighting against Scythians. Cylinder seal impression.

Color reconstruction of Achaemenid infantry on the Alexander Sarcophagus (end of 4th century BC).

Seal of Darius the Great hunting in a chariot, reading "I am Darius, the Great King" in Old Persian (𐎠𐎭𐎶𐏐𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁𐎴 𐏋, "adam Dārayavaʰuš xšāyaθiya"), as well as in Elamite and Babylonian. The word "great" only appears in Babylonian. British Museum.

Achaemenid calvalryman in the satrapy of Hellespontine Phrygia, Altıkulaç Sarcophagus, early 4th century BC.

Armoured cavalry: Achaemenid Dynast of Hellespontine Phrygia attacking a Greek psiloi, Altıkulaç Sarcophagus, early 4th century BC.

Reconstitution of Persian landing ships at the Battle of Marathon.

Greek ships against Achaemenid ships at the Battle of Salamis.

Iconic relief of lion and bull fighting, Apadana of Persepolis

Achaemenid golden bowl with lioness imagery of Mazandaran

A section of the Old Persian part of the trilingual Behistun inscription. Other versions are in Babylonian and Elamite.

A copy of the Behistun inscription in Aramaic on a papyrus. Aramaic was the lingua franca of the empire.

The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven wonders of the ancient world, was built by Greek architects for the local Persian satrap of Caria, Mausolus (Scale model)

Reconstruction of the Palace of Darius at Susa. The palace served as a model for Persepolis.

Lion on a decorative panel from Darius I the Great's palace, Louvre

Apadana Hall, Persian and Median soldiers at Persepolis

Lateral view of tomb of Cambyses II, Pasargadae, Iran

Plaque with horned lion-griffins. The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Lydia (Lydian: ‎𐤮𐤱𐤠𐤭𐤣𐤠, Śfarda; Aramaic: Lydia; Λυδία, Lȳdíā; Lidya) was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern western Turkish provinces of Uşak, Manisa and inland Izmir.

- Lydia

In 546 BC, it became a province of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, known as the satrapy of Lydia or Sparda in Old Persian.

- Lydia

From this region, Cyrus rose and defeated the Median Empire—of which he had previously been king—as well as Lydia and the Neo-Babylonian Empire, following which he formally established the Achaemenid Empire.

- Achaemenid Empire

It was bounded by Aeolia to the north, Lydia to the east and Caria to the south.

- Ionia

The cities within the region figured large in the strife between the Persian Empire and the Greeks.

- Ionia

This treaty restored control of the Greek cities of Ionia and Aeolis on the Anatolian coast to the Persians while giving Sparta dominance on the Greek mainland.

- Achaemenid Empire

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The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven wonders of the ancient world, was built by Greek architects for the local Achaemenid satrap of Caria, Mausolus (Scale model)

Caria

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Carian cities in white. This map depicts the current rivers and coastline and certain features have changed over the years, notably Miletus, Heracleia, and Myus were on the south side of a gulf and Priene on the north side; the river Maeander has since filled in the gulf. Also politically Telmessos, Miletus, and Kalynda were sometimes considered Carian and sometimes not

Relief of an Amazonomachy from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.

Theatre at Halicarnassus in Bodrum, with the Bodrum Castle seen in the background.

A kylix found in Milas on display at Milas Museum

Coin of Maussolos as Achaemenid Satrap of Caria. Circa 377/6-353/2 BC

Artemisia, Queen of Halicarnassus, and commander of the Carian contingent, at the Battle of Salamis, 480 BC. Wilhelm von Kaulbach

Coin of Caria, Achaemenid Period. Circa 350-334 BC.

Carian soldier of the Achaemenid army, circa 480 BC. Relief on the tomb of Xerxes I.

Marble head of a goddess, found in the Hadrianic Baths of Aphrodisias, 2nd century AD.

The Temple of Zeus Lepsinos at Euromus was built on the site of an earlier Carian temple in the 2nd century AD during the reign of the emperor Hadrian.

Caria (from Greek: Καρία, Karia, Karya) was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia (Mycale) south to Lycia and east to Phrygia.

The expansionism of Lydia under Croesus (560-546 BC) incorporated Caria briefly into Lydia before it fell before the Achaemenid advance.

Caria was then incorporated into the Persian Achaemenid Empire as a satrapy (province) in 545 BC. The most important town was Halicarnassus, from where its sovereigns, the tyrants of the Lygdamid dynasty (c.520-450 BC), reigned.

Ionians

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The Ionians (Ἴωνες, Íōnes, singular Ἴων, Íōn) were one of the four major tribes that the Greeks considered themselves to be divided into during the ancient period; the other three being the Dorians, Aeolians, and Achaeans.

The Seleucid king Antiochos ("Aṃtiyako Yona Rājā" ("The Yona king Antiochos")) is named as a recipient of Ashoka's medical treatments, together with his Hellenistic neighbours, in the Edicts of Ashoka (circa 250 BCE).

"Aṃtiyako Yona Rājā" ("The Greek king Antiochos"), mentioned in Major Rock Edict No.2, here at Girnar. Brahmi script.

In its narrowest sense, the term referred to the region of Ionia in Asia Minor.

Ionians appear in a number of Old Persian inscriptions of the Achaemenid Empire as Yaunā (𐎹𐎢𐎴𐎠), a nominative plural masculine, singular Yauna; for example, an inscription of Darius on the south wall of the palace at Persepolis includes in the provinces of the empire "Ionians who are of the mainland and (those) who are by the sea, and countries which are across the sea; ...."

Under the Codridae they set forth for Anatolia and founded 12 cities in Caria and Lydia following the model of the 12 cities of Achaea, formerly Ionian.

Miletus

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Map of Miletus and other cities within the Lydian Empire

The Ionic Stoa on the Sacred Way in Miletus

Apollo statue found in Miletus. Currently in Istanbul Archeology Museum

Coinage of Miletus at the time of Aristagoras. Late 6th-early 5th century BC.

Electrum coinage of Miletus, circa 600–550 BC.

The plan of Milet in the Classical period

An Ottoman mosque from the Turkish period in Miletus site

The Market Gate of Miletus at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin

Location of Miletus at the Maeander River's mouth

Map of the Black Sea, featuring the chronological phasing of major Milesian colonial foundations.

Thales of Miletus was a Greek mathematician, astronomer and pre-Socratic philosopher from the city. He is otherwise historically recognized as the first individual known to have entertained and engaged in scientific philosophy

The name Fikellura derives from a site on the island of Rhodes to which this fabric has been attributed. It is now established that the center of production was Miletus.

The Sacred Way from Miletus with the remains of the stoa

Remains of the stoa connecting the main Bath of Faustina to the Palaestra

Right entrance of the ancient Greek theatre

Miletus (Hittite transcription Millawanda or Milawata (exonyms); Miletus; Milet) was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia, near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Ionia.

Before the Persian rule that started in the 6th century BC, Miletus was considered among the greatest and wealthiest of Greek cities.

In the late 7th century BC, the tyrant Thrasybulus preserved the independence of Miletus during a 12-year war fought against the Lydian Empire.

Croesus

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Gold coin of Croesus, Lydian, around 550 BC, found in what is now modern Turkey

Croesus showing his treasures to Solon. Frans Francken the Younger, 17th century

Silver croeseid issued by King Croesus of Lydia (561–545 BC), obverse: lion and bull protomes

Defeat of Croesus at the Battle of Thymbra, 546 BC.

Croesus vanquished, standing in front of Cyrus

Croesus on the pyre, Attic red-figure amphora, Louvre (G 197)

Croesus (Lydian: Krowiśaś; Phrygian: Akriaewais; Ancient Greek:, Kroisos; Latin: ; reigned: c. 585 – c. 546 BC ) was the king of Lydia, who reigned from 585 BC until his defeat by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 547 or 546 BC.

Croesus continued his attacks against the other Greek cities of the western coast of Asia Minor until he had subjugated all of mainland Ionia, Aeolis, and Doris, but he abandoned his plans of annexing the Greek city-states on the islands and he instead concluded treaties of friendship with them, which might have helped him participate in the lucrative trade the Aegean Greeks carried out with Egypt at Naucratis.

Modern studies also consider doubtful the Graeco-Roman historians' traditional account of the Halys River as having been set as the border between the Lydian and the Median kingdom, which appears to have been a retroactive narrative construction based on symbolic role assigned by Greeks to the Halys as the separation between Lower Asia and Upper Asia as well as on the Halys being a later provincial border within the Achaemenid Empire.

Cyrus the Great

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Cyrus II of Persia (c.

The four-winged guardian figure representing Cyrus the Great or a four-winged Cherub tutelary deity. Bas-relief found on a doorway pillar at Pasargadae on top of which was once inscribed in three languages the sentence "I am Cyrus the king, an Achaemenian." Scholars who doubt that the relief depicts Cyrus note that the same inscription is written on other palaces in the complex.

"I am Cyrus the King, an Achaemenian" in Old Persian, Elamite and Akkadian languages. It is known as the "CMa inscription", carved in a column of Palace P in Pasargadae. These inscriptions on behalf of Cyrus were probably made later by Darius I in order to affirm his lineage, using the Old Persian script he had designed.

Painting of king Astyages sending Harpagus to kill young Cyrus

Detail of Cyrus Hunting Wild Boar by Claude Audran the Younger, Palace of Versailles

Victory of Cyrus over Lydia's Croesus at the Battle of Thymbra, 546 BC

Croesus on the pyre. Attic red-figure amphora, 500–490 BC, Louvre (G 197)

Ancient Near East circa 540 BC, prior to the invasion of Babylon by Cyrus the Great

Achaemenid soldiers (left) fighting against Scythians, 5th century BC. Cylinder seal impression (drawing).

Queen Tomyris of the Massagetae receiving the head of Cyrus

Tomb of Cyrus in Pasargadae, Iran, a UNESCO World Heritage Site (2015)

Cyrus the Great is said in the Bible to have liberated the Jews from the Babylonian captivity to resettle and rebuild Jerusalem, earning him an honored place in Judaism.

Cyrus the Great (center) with his General Harpagus behind him, as he receives the submission of Astyages (18th century tapestry)

Painting of Daniel and Cyrus before the Idol Bel

Statue of Cyrus the great at Olympic Park in Sydney

17th-century bust of Cyrus the Great in Hamburg, Germany

The Cyrus cylinder, a contemporary cuneiform script proclaiming Cyrus as legitimate king of Babylon

600–530 BC; Kūruš), commonly known as Cyrus the Great and also called Cyrus the Elder by the Greeks, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the first Persian empire.

The reign of Cyrus lasted about thirty years; his empire took root with his conquest of the Median Empire followed by the Lydian Empire and eventually the Neo-Babylonian Empire.

Meanwhile, the Persians invited the citizens of Ionia who were part of the Lydian kingdom to revolt against their ruler.

Fragment from Histories, Book VIII on 2nd-century Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 2099

Histories (Herodotus)

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Considered the founding work of history in Western literature.

[[Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed|Candaules, King of Lydia, shews his wife by stealth to Gyges...]], by William Etty (1830)

Edwin Long's 1875 interpretation of The Babylonian Marriage Market as described by Herodotus in Book 1 of the Histories

Nile crocodile allowing the trochilus to eat leeches in its mouth. Drawing by Henry Scherren, 1906

Scythian warriors, drawn after figures on an electrum cup from the Kul'Oba kurgan burial near Kerch (Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg)

Statue of Athena, the patron goddess of Athens

Leonidas at Thermopylae, by Jacques-Louis David (1814)

The Battle of Salamis, by Wilhelm von Kaulbach (1868)

The Serpent Column dedicated by the victorious Greeks in Delphi, later transferred to Constantinople

Dedication in the Histories, translated into Latin by Lorenzo Valla, Venice 1494

Reconstruction of the Oikoumene (inhabited world), ancient map based on Herodotus,

The Indian Gold Hunters, after Herodotus: gold ants pursuing gold hunters.

Croesus Receiving Tribute from a Lydian Peasant, by Claude Vignon

The Histories also stands as one of the earliest accounts of the rise of the Persian Empire, as well as the events and causes of the Greco-Persian Wars between the Persian Empire and the Greek city-states in the 5th century BC. Herodotus portrays the conflict as one between the forces of slavery (the Persians) on the one hand, and freedom (the Athenians and the confederacy of Greek city-states which united against the invaders) on the other.

The rulers of Lydia (on the west coast of Asia Minor, today modern Turkey): Candaules, Gyges, Ardys, Sadyattes, Alyattes, Croesus (–7)

The history and geography of the Ionians, and the attacks on it by Harpagus

Anatolia

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Large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent.

Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum, c. 20,000 years ago. Anatolia was connected to the European mainland until c. 5600 BCE, when the melting ice sheets caused the sea level in the Mediterranean to rise around 120 m, triggering the formation of the Turkish Straits. As a result, two former lakes (the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea) were connected to the Mediterranean Sea, which separated Anatolia from Europe.

Göbeklitepe were erected as far back as 9600 BC.

Aphrodisias was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage Site List in 2017

Sanctuary of Commagene Kings on Mount Nemrut (1st century BCE)

Byzantine Anatolia and the Byzantine-Arab frontier zone in the mid-9th century

Mediterranean climate is dominant in Turkish Riviera

The most ancient period in the history of Anatolia spans from the emergence of ancient Hattians, up to the conquest of Anatolia by the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BCE.

The northern regions included Bithynia, Paphlagonia and Pontus; to the west were Mysia, Lydia and Caria; and Lycia, Pamphylia and Cilicia belonged to the southern shore.

In 499 BCE, the Ionian city-states on the west coast of Anatolia rebelled against Persian rule.