Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/263

 THE LYDIANS, THEIR COUNTRY, HISTORY, AND RELIGION. 247 had so often resisted, every town was loyal to a man. 1 If such was the state of affairs, it was because, despite the many evils the Mermnadae had inflicted upon Ionia, they could rightly have assumed the style of " Philhellenic kings," as many Oriental princes did a few centuries afterwards. If no means were spared to incorporate the maritime centres with their empire, this arose from the regard and admiration they had for the Greeks, and the consciousness of the superiority of their genius. Not only had Gyges and his successors sent rich offerings to the shrines of Asiatic and continental Greece, 2 but they also kept their artists employed, 3 welcomed their philo- sophers to their court, 4 and kept up relations of the most amicable nature with Miltiades, tyrant of Thracian Chersonesus, and the Athenian Alcmseonidae. 5 If temples, during their campaigns in Ionia, suffered from the ravages of war, they were rebuilt, at their expense, on a grander and nobler style than before. 6 Thus, it was Croesus who supplied the money for the building of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. 7 And the Lydians, when menaced by Persia, turned for help to Sparta and Athens. 8 What further proves the great popularity Croesus enjoyed in the Grecian world, is the fact that his misfortunes did not rob him of the halo which had been his. Pindar, long after the fall of Sardes, cites him as an instance of the persistency with which fame preserves the memory of princes whose liberality has won them the esteem and admiration of their contemporaries : " The benevolent virtue of Croesus," he says to Hieron, " dies not." ! That which helped not a little to reconcile the lonians to the dominion of Lydia was the wealth of the latter. The Greeks were a shrewd, keen-witted people ; they could behave heroically in an open fight, but when luck was against them, they readily 1 Herodotus, i. 141. a Ibid.,'. 14, 25, 50-52, 92; Theopompus, Frag. 184; MULLER, Frag. Hist. Grcec., torn. i. 8 Herodotus, i. 25, 51. 4 Ibid., 27, 29. If chronology tells against Solon having been the guest of Croesus at Sardes, there is a great degree of probability that Bias of Priene and Pittacos of Mitylene visited the place. No one would have dreamt of taking Solon to the Lydian court, had not other sages been right royally entertained there. 5 Herodotus, vi. 37, 125. 6 Ibid., i. 19-22. 7 Ibid., 92. " Ibid., 56, 69, 70, 83. 9 PINDAR, Pyth., i. 184 : ov 0ivti KpoiVou <tAd<pwr apfrd.