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Greek city of Sardes in Asia Minor
Bronze 17mm (5.66 grams) Struck 133-80 B.C.
Reference: Sear 4734
Laureate head of young Hercules right, lion’s skin knotted round.
Naked Apollo standing left, holding raven and laurel-branch; ΣΑΡΔΙΑΝΩΝ behind,
monogram to left; all within laurel wreath.
The ancient capital of the Lydian Kings, Sardeis lay under a
fortified hill in the Hermos valley, at the important road junction. In the
pre-Alexandrian age it was the center of the principal Persian satrapy, ad in
all probability the mint-place of much of the Persian imperial coinage of darics
and sigloi. In 189 B.C. it came under the rule of the Attalids of Pergamon, and
fifty-six years later it passes to the Romans.
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In
Greek
and
Roman mythology
, Apollo
,
is one of the most important and diverse of the
Olympian deities
. The ideal of the
kouros
(a
beardless youth), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the
sun; truth and prophecy;
archery
;
medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more. Apollo is the son
of Zeus
and
Leto, and has a
twin
sister, the chaste huntress
Artemis
.
Apollo is known in Greek-influenced
Etruscan mythology
as Apulu. Apollo was worshiped in both
ancient Greek
and
Roman religion
, as well as in the modern
Greco
–Roman
Neopaganism
.
As the patron of Delphi
(Pythian Apollo), Apollo was an
oracular
god — the prophetic deity of the
Delphic Oracle
.
Medicine and healing were associated with Apollo, whether through the god
himself or mediated through his son
Asclepius
,
yet Apollo was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and deadly
plague
as well as one who had the ability to cure. Amongst the god’s
custodial charges, Apollo became associated with dominion over
colonists
, and as the patron defender of herds and flocks. As the leader of
the Muses
(Apollon
Musagetes) and director of their choir, Apollo functioned as the patron god
of music and poetry
.
Hermes
created
the lyre
for him,
and the instrument became a common
attribute
of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were called
paeans
.
In Hellenistic times, especially during the third century BCE, as Apollo
Helios he became identified among Greeks with
Helios
,
god of
the sun
, and his sister Artemis similarly equated with
Selene
,
goddess
of the moon
.
In Latin texts, on the other hand, Joseph Fontenrose declared himself unable to
find any conflation of Apollo with
Sol
among the
Augustan poets
of the first century, not even in the conjurations of
Aeneas
and
Latinus
in
Aeneid
XII
(161–215).
Apollo and Helios/Sol remained separate beings in literary and mythological
texts until the third century CE.
HERCULES – This celebrated
of mythological romance was at first called Alcides, but received the name of
Hercules, or Heracles, from the Pythia of Delphos. Feigned by the poets of
antiquity to have been a son of “the Thunderer,” but born of an earthly mother,
he was exposed, through Juno’s implacable hatred to him as the offspring of
Alemena, to a course of perils, which commenced whilst he was yet in his cradle,
and under each of which he seemed to perish, but as constantly proved
victorious.
At
length finishing his allotted career with native valor and generosity, though
too frequently the submissive agent of the meanness and injustice of others, he
perished self-devotedly on the funeral pile, which was lighted on Mount Oeta.
Jupiter raised his heroic progeny to the skies; and Hercules was honored by the
pagan world, as the most illustrious of deified mortals. The extraordinary
enterprises cruelly imposed upon, but gloriously achieved, by this famous
demigod, are to be found depicted, not only on Greek coins, but also on the
Roman series both consular and imperial. The first, and one of the most
dangerous, of undertakings, well-known under the name of the twelve labors of
Hercules, was that of killing the huge lion of Nemea; on which account the
intrepid warrior is represented, clothes in the skin of that forest monarch; he
also bears uniformly a massive club, sometimes without any other arms, but at
others with a bow and quiver of arrows. On a denarius of the Antia gens he is
represented walking with trophy and club.
When his head alone is typified, as in Mucia gens, it is covered with the lion’s
spoils, in which distinctive decoration he was imitated by many princes, and
especially by those who claimed descent from him – as for example, the kings of
Macedonia, and the successors of Alexander the Great. Among the Roman emperors
Trajan is the first whose coins exhibit the figure and attributes of Hercules.
Sardisb>, also Sardes (Lydian:
Sfard,
Greek
: Σάρδεις,
Persian
: Sparda), modern Sart in the
Manisa
province
of Turkey
, was
the capital of the ancient kingdom of
Lydia
, one of the
important cities of the
Persian Empire
, the seat of a
proconsul
under the
Roman
Empire
, and the metropolis of the province Lydia in later Roman and
Byzantine
times. As one of the
Seven churches of Asia
, it was addressed by the author of the
Book of Revelation
in terms which seem to imply that its population was
notoriously soft and fainthearted. Its importance was due, first to its military
strength, secondly to its situation on an important highway leading from the
interior to the
Aegean
coast, and thirdly to its commanding the wide and fertile plain of the Hermus.
//
Geography
Map of Sardis and Other Cities within the Lydian Empire
Sardis was situated in the middle of
Hermus
valley, at the foot of
Mount Tmolus
, a steep and lofty spur which formed the citadel. It was about
4 kilometres (2.5 mi) south of the Hermus. Today, the site is located by the
present day village of Sart, near
Salihli
in
the Manisa province of Turkey, close to the
Ankara
–
İzmir
highway
(approximately 72 kilometres (45 mi) from
İzmir
). The part
of remains including the bath-gymnasium complex, synagogue and Byzantine shops
is open to visitors year-round.
History
The earliest reference to Sardis is in the
The
Persians
of
Aeschylus
(472 BC); in the Iliad
the name Hyde seems to be given to the city of the
Maeonian
(i.e. Lydian) chiefs, and in later times Hyde was said to be the
older name of Sardis, or the name of its citadel. It is, however, more probable
that Sardis was not the original capital of the Maeonians, but that it became so
amid the changes which produced the powerful Lydian empire of the 8th century
BC.
The city was captured by the
Cimmerians
in the 7th century, by the
Persians
and by the
Athenians
in
the 6th, and by
Antiochus III the Great
at the end of the 3rd century. In the Persian era
Sardis was conquered by
Cyrus the Great
and formed the end station for the Persian
Royal Road
which began in
Persepolis
,
capital of
Persia
. During the
Ionian Revolt
, the
Athenians
burnt down the city. Sardis remained under Persian domination
until it surrendered to
Alexander the Great
in 334 B.C..
Once at least, under the emperor
Tiberius
,
in 17 AD, it was destroyed by an earthquake; but it was always rebuilt. It was
one of the great cities of western
Asia Minor
until the later Byzantine period.
The early Lydian kingdom was far advanced in the industrial arts and Sardis
was the chief seat of its manufactures. The most important of these trades was
the manufacture and dyeing of delicate woolen stuffs and carpets. The stream
Pactolus
which flowed through the market-place “carried golden sands” in early antiquity,
in reality gold dust out of Mt. Tmolus; later, trade and the organization of
commerce continued to be sources of great wealth. After
Constantinople
became the capital of the East, a new road system grew up
connecting the provinces with the capital. Sardis then lay rather apart from the
great lines of communication and lost some of its importance. It still, however,
retained its titular supremacy and continued to be the seat of the
metropolitan bishop
of the province of Lydia, formed in 295 AD. It is
enumerated as third, after
Ephesus
and
Smyrna
, in the
list of cities of the
Thracesion
thema
given by
Constantine Porphyrogenitus
in the 10th century; but over the next four
centuries it is in the shadow of the provinces of Magnesia-upon-Sipylum and
Philadelphia, which retained their importance in the region.
After 1071 the Hermus valley began to suffer from the inroads of the
Seljuk Turks
but the successes of the general
Philokales
in 1118 relieved the district and the ability of the
Comneni
dynasty together with the gradual decay of the
Seljuk Sultanate of Rum
retained it under Byzantine dominion. When
Constantinople
was taken by the
Venetians
and Franks
in 1204 Sardis came under the rule of the Byzantine
Empire of Nicea
. However once the Byzantines retook Constantinople in 1261,
Sardis with the entire
Asia Minor
was neglected and the region eventually fell under the control of
Ghazi (Ghazw)
emirs, the
Cayster
valleys and a fort on the citadel of Sardis was handed over to them
by treaty in 1306. The city continued its decline until its capture (and
probable destruction) by the
Mongol
warlord Timur
in 1402.
Archaeological
expeditions
By the nineteenth century, Sardis was in ruins, showing construction chiefly
of the Roman period. The first large scale archaeological expedition in Sardis
was directed by a
Princeton University
team between years 1910 – 1914, unearthing the Temple
of Artemis, and more than a thousand Lydian tombs. The excavation campaign was
halted by World War I
, followed by the
Turkish War of Independence
. Some surviving artifacts from the Butler
excavation were added to the collection of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
in
New York
.
The excavation is currently under the directorship of Nick Cahill, professor
at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison
. 4[citation
needed]The laws governing archaeological expeditions in Turkey
ensure that all archaeological artifacts remain in Turkey. Some of the important
finds from the site of Sardis are housed in the
Archaeological Museum of Manisa
, including Late Roman mosaics and sculpture,
a helmet from the mid-6th century BC, and pottery from various periods.
Sardis
synagogue
Since 1958, both
Harvard
and
Cornell Universities
have sponsored annual archeological expeditions to
Sardis. These excavations unearthed perhaps the most impressive synagogue in the
western diaspora yet discovered from antiquity, yielding over eighty Greek and
seven Hebrew inscriptions as well as numerous mosaic floors. (For evidence in
the east, see
Dura Europos
in Syria
.) The discovery of the Sardis synagogue has reversed previous
assumptions about Judaism in the later Roman empire. Along with the discovery of
the godfearers
/theosebeis inscription from the
Aphrodisias
, it provides indisputable evidence for the continued vitality of
Jewish communities in Asia Minor, their integration into general Roman imperial
civic life, and their size and importance at a time when many scholars
previously assumed that Christianity had eclipsed Judaism.[
neededcitation]
The synagogue was a section of a large bath-gymnasium complex, that was in
use for about 450 – 500 years. In the beginning, middle of the second century
AD, the rooms the synagogue is situated in were used as changing rooms or
resting rooms. The complex was destroyed in 616 AD by the Sassanian-Persians.[
neededcitation]
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