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Rh destiny. But this development was checked, in the first instance, by the rise of the Lydian kingdom, with a capital at Sardis. The inhabitants of Lydia once called Paeonians, had in some way, probably by conquest, been so far absorbed by another race as to adopt their name. Whether the conquerors were called Lydians, or were led by a Lydus, we do not know. All we can tell is that at some period subsequent to the Homeric poems the change of name took place. The Lydians first became important under a dynasty founded by Gyges about B.C. 727. He and his successors made repeated efforts to get possession of the Ionian and other Greek towns on the coast, and this was finally effected by Croesus, who reigned from B.C. 560 to B.C. 546.

The Ionian cities thus conquered consisted of twelve states—three in Caria, seven in Lydia, and two islands. Of these the most populous and powerful were Ephesus and Miletus, and the latter had made such a strenuous resistance to Croesus and his predecessors that it obtained specially favourable terms upon its submission. Though never politically powerful, the Ionians of Asia had been an adventurous, busy, and thriving mercantile people. Their colonists had fringed the coasts of the Propontis and Euxine; their seamen had made their way to Italy and Spain; and to them and the Æolians, as we have seen, belong most of the great names in literature before B.C. 550, and among them had been the earliest