The History of the Ancient Civilizations. Duncker Max

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 Mæander to the south, bears the Semitic name of Cadmus, i.e. "the Eastern;" and at the foot of the range lies the city of Ninoë (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, Alcæus, 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 (Mæonians) as an "armed equestrian people," and mention their trade and wealth.[835]

North of the Lydians, in the river valleys of the Caïcus 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 Ægean 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