Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/246

 230 LYDIAS. the first king of the Jlermnad dynasty, who is said to have murdered Candaules, is an entirely mythical personasje, at least the story which Herodotus relates about him is nothing but a popular tradition. He reigned until B.C. 678, and conquered several of the adjacent countries, such as a great part of Mysia and the shores of the Hellespont, and annexed to his dominions the cities of Colophon and Magnesia, which had until then been quite independent of both the Maeonians and the Lydians. Gyges was suc- ceeded by Ardys, who reigned from b. c. 678 to 629, and, continuing the conquests of his predecessor, made himself master of Priene. His reign, however, was disturbed by the invasion of his kingdom by the Cimmerians and Treres. He was succeeded by Sadyattes, of whom nothing is recorded except that he occupied the throne for a period of twelve years, from B.C. 629 to 617. His successor Alyattes, from B. c. 61 7 to 560, expelled the Cimmerians from Asia Minor, and conquered most of the Ionian cities. In the east he extended his dominion as far as the river Halys, where he came in contact with Cyaxares the Mede. His successor Croesus, from b. c. 560 to 546, extended his conquests so for as to embrace the whole peninsula of Asia Jlinor, in which the Lycians and Cilicians alone successfully resisted him. He governed his vast dominions with justice and moderation, and his yoke was scarcely felt by the conquered nations. But as both Lydia and the Persian monarchy were conquering states, and separated from each other only by the river Halys, a conflict was unavoidable, and the kingdom of Lydia was conquered by Cyrus. The detail of these occurrences is so well known that it does not require to be repeated here. Lydia became annexed to the Persian empire. We have already noticed the mea- sures adopted by Cyrus to deprive the Lydians of their warlike character ; but as their country was always considered the most valuable portion of Asia Minor, Darius, in the division of his empire, made Lydia and some small tribes, apparently of Maeonian origin, together with the Mysians, the second satrapy, and demanded from it an annual tribute for the royal treasury of 500 talents. (Herod, iii. 90.) Sardes now became the residence of a Pei'sian satrap, who seems to have ranked higher than the other governors of provinces. Afterwards Lydia shared the fate of all the other Asiatic countries, and more and more lost its nationality, so that in the time of Strabo (xiii. p. 631) even the language of the Lydians had entirely disappeared, the Greek having taken its place. After the death of Alex- ander, Lydia was subject for a time to Antigonus; then to Achaeus, who set himself up as king at Sardes, but was afterwards conquered and put to death by Antiochus. (Polyb. v. 57.) After the defeat of Antiochus by the Romans, Lydia was an- nexed by them to the kingdom of Eumenes. (Liv. xxxviii. 39.) At a still later period it formed part of the proconsular province of Asia (Plin. v. 30), and continued to retain its name through all the vicissitudes of the Byzantine empire, until finally it fell under the dominion of the Turks. (Comp. Th. Menke, Lydiaca, Dlssertatio Ethnographica, Berlin, 1844, Svo. ; Cramer, Asia Minor, vol. i. p. 413, &c. ; Forbiger, Handbuch der Alien Geogr. vol. ii. p. 167, &c. ; Clinton, Fasti Hell. Append.^ p. 361, &c., 3rd edit. ; Niebuhr, Lectures on Ancient His- tory, vol. i. p. 82, &c.) [L. S.] LY'DIAS. [LuDi.s.] LY'GII, LU'GII, or LI'GII (A0O7101, Aouioi, LYNCESTIS. Avyioi), is the general name for a number of small tribes in the north-east of Germany, all of which belonged to the Suevi. (Strab. vii. p. 290; Ptol. ii. 11. § 18; Dion Cass. Ixvii. 5; Tac. Germ. 43, Ann. xii. 29, 30.) The ancients speak of them as a Ger- man nation, but there can be Mttle doubt that, pro- perly speaking, they were Slavonians, who had been subdued by the Suevi, and had gradually become united and amalgamated with them. Their name contains the root lug. which in the old German sig- nifies a wood or marsh, and still has the same mean- ing in the Slavonic; it seems, therefore, to be de- scriptive of the nation dwelling in the plains of the Vistula and the Oder. The Lygii are first men- tioned in history as belonging to the empire of Maroboduus, when they were united with the Mar- comanni and Hermunduri. When the Quadi rose against king Vannius, in A. D. 50, the Lygii and Hermunduri were still united, and opposed the in- fluence of the Romans in Germany. (Tac. Ann. I. c.) In the reign of Domitian, about a. d. 84, they made war on the Quadi, their neighbours, who in vain sought the protection of the Romans. (Dion Cass. I. c.) After this time the Lygii disappear from history, and it is possible that they may have be- come lost among the Goths. The different Lygian tiibes, which are mentioned by Tacitus (Arii, Helve- cones, Manimi.Elysii or Helisii,and Naharvali), seem to h.ave been united among one another by a common worship, the principal seat of which was among the Naharvali. The name of their two common gods was Alci, who were tvorshipped without images ; and Tacitus observes that their mnde of worship was free from all foreign admixture. Ptolemy mentions, as tribes of the Lygii, the Omanni, Duni, and Buri, who are either not noticed by Tacitus at all, or are classed with other tribes. (Comp. Wilhelm, Gtr- manien, p. 242, &c. ; Zeuss, die Dent.schen, p. 124 ; Latham, on Tacit. Germania, p. 158.) [L. S.] LYGOS. [CONSTANTIXOPOLIS, p. 257.] LYNCESTIS (AU7K7JO-TIS, Strab. vii. p. 326; Ptol. iii. 13. § 33), the country of the Lyncestae (Auy/cTjo-Ti'a, Thuc. ii. 99, iv, 83, 124 ; Strab. vii. pp. 323, 326), once a small independent kingdom, and afterwards a province of the Macedonian mo- narchy. This district was situated to the S. of the Pelagones, and between that people, and the Eordaei. It was watered by the Erigon, and lay in the centre of the Egnatian ^V'ay, which connected Rome, Con- stantinople, and Jerusalem. The pass which sepa- rated Lyncestis from Eordaea, where Philip made his unsuccessful stand against the Romans, is described by Polybius (xviii. 6) as al f'ts rrtv 'EopSalav vnfp- €oai, — and Thucydides (iv. 83) calls a defile in the same mountains v ia€oATj rf/s Avjkov, in re- lating the attempt of Perdiccas against Lyncestis, which ended in a separate negotiation between his ally Brasidas and Arrhibaeus king of the Lyncestae. (Thuc. iv. 83.) It was by the same pass in the following year that Brasidas effected his skilful and daring retreat from the united forces of the Lyn- cestae and Illyrians. (Thuc. iv. 124.) According to Strabo (vii. p. 326), Irrha, th« daughter of Arrhabaeus (as he writes the name), was mother of Eurydice, who married Amyntas, father of Philip. Through this connection Lyn- cestis may have become annexed to Macedonia. The geography of this district is well illustrated by the operations of the consul Sulpicius against Philip, in the campaign of B. c. 200. (Liv. xxsi. 33.) From the narrative of Li'y, which was undoubtedly