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Ancient Lydia (Maeonia)

Lydia was situated in the Western part of Asia Minor on the river Galis with its main city Sardis. It was first mentioned by Homer in the 8th century BC under the name Maeonia. It was celebrated for fertile soil and rich deposits of gold and silver. Lydia became most powerful under the dynasty of the Mermnadae [royal family to rule Lydia to the time of Cyrus]. In the 6th century BC Lydian conquests transformed the kingdom into an empire. Under the rule of King Croesus Lydia attained its greatest splendor. The empire came to an end however when the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great captured Sardis about 546 BC and incorporated Lydia into the Persian Empire. After the defeat of Persia by Alexander III Lydia was brought under Greek and Macedonian control. Soon after that Lydians were assimilated by the Greek language and Greek culture and though Strabo in the 1st century AD talks about Lydians as an ethnos they did not have much of their original language at that moment ...

The History of the Ancient Near East Electronic Compendium