Listed 9 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "SARDIS Ancient city TURKEY" .
Sardeis or Sardis: Eth. Sardianos. The ancient capital of the kingdom
of Lydia, was situated at the northern foot of Mount Tmolus, in a fertile plain
between this mountain and the river Hermus, from which it was about 20 stadia
distant. (Arrian, Anab. i. 17.) The small river Pactolus, a tributary of the Hermus,
flowed through the agora of Sardes. (Herod. v. 101.) This city was of more recent
origin, as Strabo (xiii. p. 625) remarks, than the Trojan times, but was nevertheless
very ancient, and had a very strong acropolis on a precipitous height. The town
is first mentioned by Aeschylus (Pers. 45); and Herodotus (i. 84) relates that
it was fortified by a king Meles, who, according to the Chronicle of Eusebius,
preceded Candaules. The city itself was, at least at first, built in a rude manner,
and the houses were covered with dry reeds, in consequence of which it was repeatedly
destroyed by fire; but the acropolis, which some of the ancient geographers identified
with the Homeric Hyde (Strab. xiii. p. 626; comp. Plin. v. 30; Eustath. ad Dion.
Per. 830), was built upon an almost inaccessible rock, and surrounded with a triple
wall. In the reign of Ardys, Sardes was taken by the Cimmerians, but they were
unable to gain possession of the citadel. The city attained its greatest prosperity
in the reign of the last Lydian king, Croesus. After the overthrow of the Lydian
monarchy, Sardes became the residence of the Persian satraps of Western Asia.
(Herod. v 25; Pans. iii. 9. § 3.) On the revolt of the Ionians, excited by Aristagoras
and Histiaeus, the Ionians, assisted by an Athenian force, took Sardes, except
the citadel, which was defended by Artaphernes and a numerous garrison. The city
then was accidentally set on fire, and burnt to the ground, as the buildings were
constructed of easily combustible materials. After this event the Ionians and
Athenians withdrew, but Sardes was rebuilt; and the indignation of the king of
Persia, excited by this attack on one of his principal cities, determined him
to wage war against Athens. Xerxes spent at Sardes the winter preceding his expedition
against Greece, and it was there that Cyrus the younger assembled his forces when
about to march against his brother Artaxerxes. (Xenoph. Anab. i. 2. § 5.) When
Alexander the Great arrived in Asia, and had gained the battle of the Granicus,
Sardes surrendered to him without resistance, for which he rewarded its inhabitants
by restoring to them their freedom and their ancient laws and institutions. (Arrian,
i. 17.) After the death of Alexander, Sardes came into the possession of Antigonus,
and after his defeat at Ipsus into that of the Seleucidae of Syria. But on the
murder of Seleucus Ceraunus, Achaeus set himself up as king of that portion of
Asia Minor, and made Sardes his residence. (Polyb. iv. 48, v. 57.) Antiochus the
Great besieged the usurper in his capital for a whole year, until at length Lagoras,
a Cretan, scaled the ramparts at a point where they were not guarded. On this
occasion, again, a great part of the city was destroyed. (Polyb. vii. 15, &c.
viii. 23.) When Antiochus was defeated by the Romans in the battle of Magnesia,
Sardes passed into the hands of the Romans. In the reign of Tiberius the city
was reduced to a heap of ruins by an earthquake; but the emperor ordered its restoration.
(Tac. Ann. ii. 47; Strab. xiii. p. 627.) In the book of Revelation (iii. 1, &c.),
Sardes is named as one of the Seven Churches, whence it is clear that at that
time its inhabitants had adopted Christianity. From Pliny (v. 30) we learn that
Sardes was the capital of a conventus: during the first centuries of the Christian
era we hear of more than one council held there; and it continued to be a wealthy
city down to the end of the Byzantine empire. (Eunap. p. 154; Hierocl. p. 669.)
The Turks took possession of it in the 11th century, and two centuries later it
was almost entirely destroyed by Tamerlane. (Anna Comn. p. 323; M. Ducas, p. 39.)
Sardes is now little more than a village, still bearing the name of Sart, which
is situated in the midst of the ruins of the ancient city. These ruins, though
extending over a large space, are not of any great consequence; they consist of
the remains of a stadium, a theatre, and the triple walls of the acropolis, with
lofty towers.
The fertile plain of Sardes bore the name of Sardiene or Sardianon
pedion, and near the city was the celebrated tomb of Alyattes. Sardes was believed
to be the native place of the Spartan poet Alcman, and it is well known that the
two rhetoricians Diodorus and the historian Eunapius were natives of Sardes.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited June 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Tarne is mentioned by Homer (Il. v. 44), and after him by Strabo (ix. p. 413), as a town in Asia Minor; but Pliny (v. 30) knows Tarne only as a fountain of Mount Tmolus in Lydia.
Sardis or Sardes (hai Sardeis, Ion. Sardies, contracted Sardi_s). One
of the most ancient and famous cities of Asia Minor, and the capital of the great
Lydian monarchy, stood on the southern edge of the rich valley of the Hermus,
at the northern foot of Mount Tmolus, on the little river Pactolus, 30 stadia
(three geographical miles) south of the junction of that river with the Hermus.
On a lofty precipitous rock, forming an outpost of the range of Tmolus, was the
almost impregnable citadel, which some suppose to be the Hyde of Homer, who, though
he never mentions the Lydians or Sardis by name, speaks of Mount Tmolus and the
Lake of Gyges. The erection of this citadel was ascribed to Meles, an ancient
king of Lydia. It was surrounded by a triple wall, and contained the palace and
treasury of the Lydian kings. At the downfall of the Lydian Empire, it resisted
all the attacks of Cyrus, and was only taken by surprise. The story is told by
Herodotus, who relates other legends of the fortress. The rest of the city, which
stood in the plain on both sides of the Pactolus, was very slightly built, and
was repeatedly burned down, first by the Cimmerian Gauls in the seventh century
B.C., then by the Greeks in the great Ionic revolt, and again, in part at least,
by Antiochus the Great (B.C. 215); but on each occasion it was restored. Under
the Persian and Greco-Syrian Empires, it was the residence of the satrap of Lydia.
The rise of Pergamum greatly diminished its importance; but under the Romans it
was still a considerable city, and the seat of a conventus iuridicus. In the reign
of Tiberius, it was almost entirely destroyed by an earthquake, but was restored
by the aid of that emperor. It was one of the seven Christian Churches of the
province of Asia. In 1402 it was totally demolished by Tamerlane; but the triple
wall of its acropolis can still be traced, and there are remains of the temple
of Cybele, a theatre, the stadium, and other structures, together with some vestiges
of the necropolis, four miles distant from the city across the river Hermus. The
site of the city is still called Sart.
Capital of Lydia,
in Asia Minor.
Sardis was the city of residence of Croesus, the Lydian king of the
VIth century B. C.. Lydia
at the time was a very rich country, owing in particular to the gold of the Tmolus
mountains that was carried down under the form of gold dust by the Pactolus
river flowing through Sardis.
Herodotus depicts the court of Croesus as a brilliant place visited
by all the Wise Men of Greece
who lived in that time and tells the story of the visit of Solon there and his
contempt for Croesus' wealth. Based on Herodotus' account, Sardis is linked in
more than one way to the later history of Athens
and Greece. By attacking
Cyrus when he felt his kingdom in danger in the face of Persian expansion, and
being defeated by him, Croesus led to the subjection of the Ionian cities he had
himself earlier subjected, such as Miletus,
to the dominion of Persia:
eventually, Lydia became,
under Darius, one of the satrapies of the Persian Empire and Sardis the city of
residence of the Satrap of that province.
And it is the uprising of the Ionian cities in 498 under the leadership
of Aristagoras of Miletus,
and the help it received from Athens
and Eretria, leading to the
destruction of Sardis by fire at the hands of the rebels that same year which
was seen by many, starting with Herodotus, as the cause of the Persian Wars.
Herodotus puts the origin of Croesus' dynasty as kings of Lydia
in a certain Gyges and tells us, at the very start of his Histories, the story
of how that Gyges usurped power over Candaules.
Bernard Suzanne (page last updated 1998), ed.
This extract is cited July 2003 from the Plato and his dialogues URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
A titular see of Lydia, in Asia Minor probably the ancient Hyde of
Homer (Iliad, II, 844; XX, 385), at the foot of Mount Tmolus; see also Strabo
(XIII, iv, 5); Pliny (Hist. nat., v, 29), Stephen of Byzantium, s.v. The name
Sardes, which replaced that of Hyde, seems to have been derived from the Shardani,
a people mentioned in the cuneiform inscriptions as inhabiting this region. At
an early period Sardes was the capital of the Lydians, an early dynasty of whom
reigned from 766 to 687 B.C.; a second, that of Mermnades founded by Gyges in
687 B.C., reigned until 546 B.C. Its last king, the celebrated Croesus, was dethroned
by Cyrus. Thenceforth it was the residence of the Persian satraps, who administered
the conquered kingdom. The capture of the city by the Ionians and the Athenians
in 498 B.C. was the cause of wars between the Persians and Greeks. In 334 it surrendered
without a struggle to Alexander the Great, after whose death it belonged to Antigonus
until 301, when it fell into the power of the Seleucides. Antiochus III having
been defeated at Magnesia by the Romans 190 B.C., Sardes was incorporated with
the Kingdom of Pergamus, then with the Roman Empire, becoming the capital of the
Province of Lydia. The famous river Pactolus flowed through its agora, or forum.
In the Apocalypse (iii, 1-3) a letter is written to the Church of
Sardes by St. John, who utters keen reproaches against it and its bishop. Among
its martyrs are mentioned the priest Therapon, venerated 27 May, and Apollonius
(10 July). Among its bishops, of whom Le Quien (Oriens Christ., I, 859-66) gives
a long list, were St. Meliton (second century), writer and apologist; St. Euthymius,
martyred for the veneration of images (26 Dec., 824); John, his successor who
also suffered for the Faith; Andronicus, who made several attempts for the reunion
of the Churches. As religious metropolis of Lydia, Sardes ranked sixth in the
hierarchy. As early as the seventh century (Gelzer, "Ungedruckte. . .Texte der
Notitiae episcopatuum," 537), it had 27 suffragans, which number scarcely varied
until the end of the tenth century. At the beginning of the fourteenth century
the town, which was still very populous, was captured and destroyed by the Turks.
In 1369 it ceased to exist, and Philadelphia replaced it as metropolis (Waeechter,"Der
Verfall des Griechentums in Kleinaim XIV Jahrhundert," 44-46). Since then it has
been a Greek titular metropolitan see. At present, under the name of Sart, it
is but a miserable Turkish village in the sandjak of Saroukhan, and the vilayet
of Smyrna. Not one well-preserved and important monument is found among the very
extensive ruins.
S. Vailhe, ed.
Transcribed by: John Fobian
This text is cited June 2004 from The Catholic Encyclopedia, New Advent online edition URL below.
In the plain of the Hermus river about 10 km inland from the Aegean
coast at the foot of Mt. Tmolos, a spur of which forms its acropolis. The site
occupies ca. 2.5 sq. km astride the modern E-W highway between Izmir and Salihli,
and extends S into the valley of the Pactolus river, famed in antiquity for its
gold-bearing sands.
Excavations have established continuous habitation of the region since
at least 3000 B.C. Mycenaean IIIC and Protogeometric pottery (ca. 1200-ca. 900
B.C.) lends credence to Herodotos' claim that Greek warriors, "sons of Herakles,"
seized Sardis and founded a dynasty in ca. 1185 B.C. About 680 B.C. Gyges took
Sardis from Kandaules, the last of the Heraklid kings, and founded the Mermnad
dynasty. Under the Merinnads, Gyges, Ardys, Sadyattes, Alyattes, and Croesus,
Sardis achieved international prominence as capital of Lydia. The period of greatest
Lydian artistic and technical achievement was 650-550 B.C. Economic prosperity
derived from the supply of gold and the ability to purify it, and from the invention
of coinage and the establishment of a bimetallic monetary standard. In the time
of Croesus (560/1-547) the population is estimated at 50,000.
In 547 Sardis fell to Cyrus, who made it his western capital from
which the Anatolian and Ionic Satrapies of the Persian Empire were ruled. It was
the western terminus to the Royal Road maintained by the Persian kings from Iran
to the Mediterranean. In 334 B.C. the satrap Mithrines surrendered the city to
Alexander the Great, whose generals held it until its capture in 282 B.C. by Seleucus
I, satrap of Babylon. Antiochos III besieged and destroyed Sardis in 213 B.C.
but let the city be replanned along Hellenistic lines.
The kings of Pergamon took over Sardis about 180 B.C., and in 133
B.C. it was left to the Romans by the bequest of the last Pergamene king, Attalos
III. Although its power as an administrative center was lost to Ephesos, Sardis
continued an important center throughout the Roman period and increased in size
and prosperity. An important Jewish community existed at Sardis from the 5th c.
B.C., attaining such influence that their synagogue was uniquely situated within
the Roman gymnasium complex. The Revelation of St. John lists Sardis as one of
the Seven Churches of Asia. The end of the Classical city probably came in A.D.
616 by a raid of the Sassanian king Chosroes II.
Ten m below the Byzantine bastion on the S side are three pre-Hellenistic
wall segments, the remains of the triple defenses admired by Alexander the Great
in 334 B.C. (Arr. Anab. 1.17.3-6).
The Lydian city was an irregular agglomeration (499 B.C.: Hdt. 5.101)
with an extension S into the Pactolus valley along a sacred road to the Artemis
precinct. As observed by Herodotos and Vitruvius, both public and private buildings
were of mudbrick, many with thatched roofs. The excavation of the Lydian bazaar
area can be seen near the highway on the S side. An open area was transformed
into an industrial and commercial center enclosed by an irregular stone wall which
is preserved for ca. 32.8 m. Abutting it were single-room houses or shops. Farther
S, excavation of a section of the Lydian city on the E bank of the Pactolus has
revealed more sophisticated architectural units attached in urban complexes to
form court-like spaces. Houses with interior hearths were built on high foundation
walls of mudbrick. Both terracing and split level design occur. In this sector
can be seen the remains of an archaic altar to Kybele and sacral precinct. South
and W of the altar are industrial areas where conclusive evidence for gold refineries
active ca. 600-547 has been found. Two floors of cupels (cavities for obtaining
electrum from base metals) set in a layer of gravel were identified. Adjacent
are remains of two sets of small furnaces used for cementation, the process of
separating gold from silver, as indicated by the presence of scraps of gold foil.
Other Lydian houses are known in a creek NE of the Artemis temple.
Outstanding among the Lydian remains are the huge burial mounds in
the cemetery of Bin Tepe (Turkish "Thousand Mounds") 6.4 km N of the
city area across the Hermus, S of the Gygean Lake (Marmara Golu). At the E end
of the cemetery stand three mounds larger than the rest. A poem by Hipponax (ca.
540 B.C.) suggests that the central one, with a diameter of over 200 m, is that
of Gyges. Within is a retaining wall or krepis of finely cut local limestone blocks
for a smaller interior mound, on which the monogram GuGu, the name by which Gyges
was known in Assyrian records, appears. The burial chamber has not been located.
The E mound of Alyattes, largest of the three, was compared by Herodotos to the
pyramids. It had a retaining wall of huge masonry, now vanished, which was recorded
as 1,115.23 m in circumference in 1853. A small burial chamber is built of highly
polished marble blocks fitted together with precision and held with iron clamps.
Pottery finds indicate construction in the late 7th or early 6th c. B.C. In the
precipitous necropolis ridge on the W bank of the Pactolus are hundreds of Lydian
rock-cut chamber tombs.
Attributable to the Persian era is the "Pyramid Tomb," a
stepped platform of limestone in Saitan Dere gorge, E of the Pactolus. The masonry
resembles that of Cyrus' structures at Pasargadai and the stepped sandstone altar
adjoining the Artemis temple on the W.
In the 3d c. B.C. the city was Hellenized, and the great Ionic Temple
of Artemis in the Pactolus valley was begun. It was fronted on each end by eight
columns almost 17.8 m high; twenty such columns were on each side. The extant
columns are largely Roman replacements. The two shrines of the double cella were
converted to the Roman Imperial cult ca. A.D. 140--that to the E dedicated to
Antoninus Pius, that to the W to his wife Faustina. The earliest parts of the
theater (at the foot of the acropolis, S of the highway), especially the masonry
walls supporting the two sides of the semicircular auditorium, and the plan of
the adjacent stadium belong to the Early Hellenistic period. The Hellenistic orientation
of the city featured a diagonal artery from the Pactolus to the gymnasium area
to the NE corner of the city. This thoroughfare obliquely crossed the colonnaded
main avenue of the Roman plan.
In A.D. 17 earthquakes leveled the Hellenistic city, and Tiberius
and Claudius offered funds for rebuilding. A master plan was formulated but the
building of individual structures lasted several generations. A marble-paved and
colonnaded main avenue was laid out S-W. It is now N of and under the modern highway.
On its N side an artificial terrace with substructures more than 5 m deep supported
the gymnasium complex. Symmetrical to the E-W axis, the gymnasium has a palaestra
on the E and large baths of imperial type on the W. The central unit, comprised
of a pair of double-apsed halls flanking a rectangular room, was completed by
A.D. 166 when an inscribed base was erected in honor of Lucius Verus.
The E section of the baths centered around a monumental hall, called
by the excavators the Marble Court, which has been restored (1964-73) to the top
of the second story. A dedicatory inscription to Caracalla, Geta, and Julia Domna
dates the facades to A.D. 211. The carved friezes, cornices, and floral soffits
are among the finest examples of the Severan Baroque style. The facade is comprised
of alternating two-story aediculae. Benches with Early Byzantine inscriptions
run along the N, S, and parts of the W sides. On the W side is an ornate gate
with four fluted spiral Ionic columns supporting an arcuated pediment, which leads
into a barrel-vaulted hall with a pool and fountains, possibly the aleipterion,
mentioned in inscriptions. On the E side the court was closed by a screen colonnade
which opened into the palaestra. Early Byzantine restoration is attested by inscriptions.
Between the palaestra and the main road, oriented E-W, is a large
basilican building which was used as a synagogue from ca. A.D. 200 to 616. Now
partly restored, the building comprises three parts: the entrance porch, which
fronted on a colonnaded road, a peristyle forecourt, and a long main hall ending
in an apse. The colonnade of the forecourt has been re-erected and a replica of
its krater fountain replaced. On the N wall above a marble dado is a restored
sample from a redecoration dating in the 5th or 6th c. A.D.: short pilasters support
arcades with a pattern of doves and kraters against a recessed background filled
with red mortar. In its earlier phase the masonry was covered with frescoes. Between
the three doors leading from the forecourt to the main hall are two small shrines,
one Doric and one Late Corinthian in style, which face the apse. The main hall
was divided into seven bays by six pairs of piers; at the W end is an apse lined
by three marble benches. The ritual furnishings include a massive marble table
supported by eagles in relief and flanked by two pairs of adorsed lions. The floors
of both the forecourt and hall were covered with geometric mosaics of the 4th
c. A.D. The walls were revetted with polychrome marble. The architectural system,
including donors' inscriptions, has been restored in one bay on the N wall and
one on the S. Samples of restored marble panels are on the S wall. Roughly a hundred
Hebrew and Greek inscriptions provide information about the Jewish community,
which may have numbered between 5000 and 10,000. Along the S side of the gymnasium
complex runs a continuous row of shops (ca. A.D. 400-600) which opened onto the
main avenue. One had a marble tank decorated with crosses and fed by terracotta
water pipes; apparently Christian and Jewish shopkeepers traded side by side.
South of the Byzantine Pactolus bridge, above the Lydian gold refineries,
are excavated ruins of a Roman bath and a small Middle Byzantine church. At the
NW corner of the Artemis Temple is a nearly complete church of the 4th-6th c.
with two apses en echelon. Major unexcavated buildings are remnants of the Roman
civic center on a terrace S of the highway, a Byzantine fort (farther S and uphill),
tunnels to the citadel, the theater, stadium, and a Roman odeum. By the N side
of the highway are piers of a large Justinianic church, perhaps a cathedral. Farther
down and N is a fine Roman basilica with apses at either end.
First scientific excavations of the site were undertaken from 1910
to 1914 and resumed for one season in 1922. Finds are in the Istanbul Museum,
Izmir Museum, Metropolitan Museum, New York, and Princeton University Museum.
In 1958 excavation was again resumed. Finds are in the Archaeological Museum,
Manisa, Turkey.
J. A. Scott & G.M.A. Hanfmann, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains 25 image(s), bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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