Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/250

 234 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. up of gossiping stories current in the Greek cities of the seaboard ; more particularly hearsay evidence he had picked up at Delphi, where the stupendous gifts the shrine had received from the last kings of Lydia had served to keep green the memory of their names. It may be easily guessed that in such an atmo- sphere facts would necessarily undergo notable change and dis- figurement, so as to enhance the importance of the oracle and prove its infallibility. This is not the place for endeavouring to reconcile the con- flicting evidence found in Herodotus with that ascribed to Xanthus, or to enter into the very obscure question as to the chronological order of the Lydian kings. Of the history under notice we require no more than what will help to understand the monuments. Herodotus reckoned three dynasties as having succeeded each other in Lydia: the Atyadse, Heraclidae, and Mermnadse. 1 The first is purely fabulous ; born of the vanity of the Lydians, and of their desire to possess a past no less remote than their eastern neighbours. We feel on scarcely more solid ground with the Heraclidee, to w r hom Herodotus assigns five hundred years duration and twenty-two princes, since it is self- evident that a mere string of names, wholly bare of facts, could only have been obtained by artificial means ; exception may, perhaps, be made for the two or three last reigns. With the Mermnadse history may be said to begin. The exact date of the advent of Gyges, the founder of this dynasty, is not fixed with any degree of certainty. What seems pretty sure is that Greek chronographers put it too far back ; on the basis of Assyrian documents it is now moved on to the seventh century B.C. 1 On the other hand, the date of the overthrow of Crcesus and the taking of Sardes, his capital, by the Persians in 546 B.C. may be relied upon. It enables us to compute the reign of the Mermnadae at a little over a hundred and fifty years, during which they raised the Lydians, who up to that time had been of no account in the world, to the first rank in the peninsula, and masters of more than half of it. If Lydia ever produced original works, we may affirm beforehand that they belonged to this period, 1 Herodotus, i. 7. 2 Gelzer, who has studied with care the early period of Lydian history, gives the following dates as the result of his calculations. According to him, Gyges reigned from 687 to 653 ; his son Ardys from 652 to 616.