Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/248

 LYDIA AND CARIA. CHAPTER I. THE LYDIANS, THEIR COUNTRY, HISTORY, AND RELIGION. THE Lydia of Greek historians and geographers was comprised within the small basin of the Cayster, the lower and middle valley of the Hermus, and extended as far as the right bank of the Maeander, which served as line of delimitation between it and Caria. " Homer," says Strabo, " was unacquainted with the Lydians." 1 The country subsequently so named is styled by him " pleasant Mseonia." 2 Should the two names be taken to designate two different peoples who succeeded each in the country, or were they applied to twin groups of the same race, the last one of which finally obtained the upper hand ? There is a greater degree of probability for the latter hypothesis ; since the Lydian nation, as is well known, was made up of several tribes. The appellative Lydian would seem to have been borne by the tribe settled around the middle Hermus, and to have gradually extended to the whole people. This was mainly due to the foundation of Sardes, whose commanding situation would of itself secure to its owners a marked ascendency over the other clans. The ancients were fully conscious of the comparatively recent period of that city and its fortress. This they expressed after their own fashion, when they said that Sardes had risen after the Trojan war. 3 From the Greek lyric poets of the seventh and sixth centuries, we get the first glimpse of Lydia and the Lydians. As to the little that is known of their history, we are mostly indebted for it 1 Strabo, XII. viii. 3 ; XIII. iv. 5. 2 HOMER, Ittad, iii. 401 ; xviii. 291. The name of Maeoniawas not wholly wiped out ; under Roman domination it was still applied to a city and district north of Philadelphia, between it and Mount Tmolus.
 * Strabo, XII. iv. 5.