Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/92

 the Persians deemed the conquest of Lydia one of the most important of their achievements, in the erroneous belief that the Lydians were a great naval power. The Lydians had a navy, and may have built it themselves (though Heeren thinks not); but their real wealth lay in the great power of their capital, Sardes, and in the fertility of the plains above and below it. The city has well nigh perished, but the meadows, once her joy, still retain their marvellous luxuriance. Moreover, that Lydia was very early a state unusually rich, may be inferred from the gold coins still occasionally found there. These, it is now believed, are the oldest specimens of coined money, a fact affording a striking proof of the accuracy of Herodotus, who, as a Greek, would naturally have given the first origin of coinage to Argos, or to some other Greek state.

Next in order, as memorable for their sea-faring and trading abilities, are the inhabitants of Phocæa, Ephesus, and Smyrna, who long contested with the Phœnicians the supremacy of the Archipelago; cities too, which, in a humbler degree, would seem to have worked out an inter-commercial system, much resembling the Hanseatic League of later days.

Miletus, again, as the capital of Caria, achieved no small maritime renown, and was the parent of colonies maintaining their sway for centuries along the inhospitable shores of the northern side of the Black Sea. "Her extensive commerce," says Heeren, "was not confined to the Mediterranean, but sought to monopolize the navigation of the Euxine and of the Sea of