Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/259

 THE LYDIANS, THEIR COUNTRY, HISTORY, AND RELIGION. 243 then the ground shoots up into a sharp ridge, the culminating point of which is two hundred metres in height (Fig. I53). 1 A deep sink- ing, or ravine, occurs east and west of the ridge ; in the one which is all but dry in summer flows the Pactolus after rainfall, whilst the other, fed by a copious perennial spring, has enough of water to turn a mill. These waters, it would seem, were utilized in olden days by draining them into a ditch that covered the town to the northward, whence they ran to join the Pactolus, to fall together into the Hermus. The principal quarter of the city, now occupied by the bazaar, and the rendezvous of caravans, was on this side, and faced the point where the two streams met. From the bed of the torrent to the foot of the hill are spacious platforms which support the houses and structures of the town ; it was an open city both in the day of the Lydian kings and the Achaemenidae ; the whole effort of the defence was directed to the citadel. 2 Little need was there to aid the work of nature ; even now the steep rugged paths leading to the summit, once girded by a wall, are climbed with great difficulty (Fig. 154). Rising on the site where the mountain more nearly approaches the river, the fortress commanded and watched over the adjacent country far and wide. Under its protecting shadow, each year since the advent of Gyges, as the spring came round, the Lydian cavalry assembled in the grass meadows around, and formed them- selves into those squadrons that were wont to be away the whole summer on warlike expeditions. At the outset, aided by the lonians, Gyges had seized the whole of Mysia, from the Gulf of Adramyttion to the farther bank of the Rhyndacus. 3 Had not the new king, in order to strengthen his as yet tottering throne, asked for the moral support of the Delphic oracle at the beginning of his reign, and repaid it with a liberal hand ? * Had not he helped the aspect (" Sardes," Kleine Schriften zur Geschichte und Cultur, torn. i. pp. 1-47, i8mo. Leipzig : Brockhaus, 1887). 1 The market of Sardes extended along the two banks of Pactolus. See Herodotus, v. 101. 2 This may be inferred both from Herodotus's account of the siege of Sardes by Cyrus (i. 80-84), an d the attack directed against it, fifty years later, by the Athenians and lonians (v. 100, 101). In both instances the defenders of the place gave up to the enemy the lower city, and withdrew themselves into the citadel 3 Strabo, XIII. i. 22. 4 Herodotus, i. 14 ; Nicholas of Damascus, Fr. 49,