Brief History of Sardis
Huge capital of the Temple of Artemis, Sardis. Photo © Dick Osseman.
View of the Bath-Gymnasium complex. Photo © Dick Osseman.
Inside the Bath-Gymnasium complex. Photo © Dick Osseman.
Carved capital in the gymnasium complex. Photo © Dick Osseman.
Views of the Sardis Synagogue. Photo © Dick Osseman.
Floor mosaic in the Sardis Synagogue. Photo © Dick Osseman.
Ruins of a Byzantine church at Sardis. Photo © Dick Osseman.
The early Lydian kingdom was far advanced in the industrial arts and Sardis was the chief seat of its manufactures. Sardis became the Lydian capital as early as 700 BC.
The last Lydian king, Croesus (560-546 BC), famous for his extraordinary wealth, is said to have panned gold from the nearby river Pactolus and was the first monarch in history to mint coins.
According to legend, the gold came from the famous King Midas who, cursed with the golden touch, washed in the Pactolus to rid himself of it. It is likely that trade and organization of commerce, however, were the real sources of the Lydian wealth. King Croesus controlled most of western Asia Minor and made generous offerings to the temples of Delphi, Artemis and Didyma.
Sardis was dominated by Persia from 546 BC, when King Croesus and Sardis fell to Cyrus. The ancient historian Herodotus records the shock of the Lydian defeat, as they considered the city impregnable. Sardis was captured by Antiochus the Great at the end of the 3rd century BC.
In 17 AD Sardis experienced a devastating earthquake, after which Emperor Tiberius rebuilt the city. It was one of the great cities of western Asia Minor till the later Byzantine period. Its importance was due to its military strength, its location on an important highway leading from the interior to the Aegean coast, and its possession of the wide and fertile plain of the Hermus.
A great colonnaded marble road of 4600 feet in length divided the Roman city, whose population was estimated as large as 120,000 in the time of the Apostle John. A variety of inscriptions on extant statuary reveal the relationship with succeeding Emperors. Hadrian visited the city in 123 AD. Later, Emperor Diocletian reorganized Asia in (297 AD) and Sardis became capital of the revived district of Lydia.
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.
But it still retained its titular supremacy and continued to be the seat of the metropolitan bishop of the province of Lydia, formed in AD 295. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, served in the second century, and some of his sermons have been preserved. Several representatives from Sardis attended the Councils of Nicea (325), Ephesus (431), and the so-called "Robber Council" of Ephesus (449).
Sardis was conquered by the Arabs in 716 AD, and eventually by the Ottoman Turks in 1306. The city continued its decline until its capture (and probable destruction) by Timur in 1402.
By the 19th century, Sardis was in ruins, its last construction coming chiefly of the Roman period. Since 1958, both Harvard and Cornell Universities have sponsored archeological excavations of Sardis.
- The Archaeological Exploration of Sardis – Harvard University Art Museums
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