Sardis is thus alluded to in the Apocalypse206:—

“1. And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write:—These things saith he that hath the seven spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name, that thou livest, and art dead.

“2. Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die; for I have not found thy works perfect before God.

“3. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.

“4. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white; for they are worthy.”

Sardis was situated five hundred and forty stadia from Ephesus; viz. seven miles and a half.

When this city was built is not, we believe, upon record. It was the capital of Lydia, and situated on the banks of the Pactolus, at the foot of Mount Tmolus; having the Cayster to the south, and Hermus to the north.

During the reign of Atys, son of Gyges, the Cimmerians, being expelled their own country by the Nomades of Scythia, passed over into Asia, and possessed themselves of Sardis. Some time after this, Croesus became king of Lydia, and a war ensued between him and Cyrus the Great. At that period no nation of Asia was more hardy, or more valiant, than the Lydians. They fought principally on horseback, armed with long spears, and were very expert in managing the horse. Sardis, according to Herodotus, was taken by storm; according to PolyÆnus, by surprise. Cyrus availed himself of a truce, which he had concluded with Croesus, (the richest of kings), to advance his forces, and making his approach by night, took the city. Croesus, still remaining in possession of the citadel, expected the arrival of his Grecian succours: but Cyrus, putting in irons the relatives and friends of those who defended the citadel, showed them in that state to the besieged. At the same time he informed them by a herald, that, if they would give up the place, he would set their friends at liberty; but that, if they persevered in their defence, he would put them to death. The besieged chose rather to surrender, than cause their relations to perish. Such is the relation of PolyÆnus.

The Persians obtained possession of Sardis, and made Croesus captive, after a siege of fourteen days, and a reign of fourteen years. Thus was a mighty empire destroyed in a few days. Croesus being brought into the presence of Cyrus, that prince ordered him to be placed in chains upon the summit of a huge wooden pile, with fourteen Lydian youths standing round him. Before this, however, Cyrus gave the citizens to understand, that if they would bring to him and his army all their silver and gold, their city should be spared. On learning this, they brought to him all their wealth; but Croesus was ordered to be burned alive. Before we give an account of this barbarous order, however, we must refer to a circumstance which had occurred several years before.

Solon, one of the most celebrated of legislators, having established a new system of laws at Athens, thought to improve his knowledge by travel. He went, therefore, to Sardis. The king received him very sumptuously;—dressed in magnificent apparel, enriched with gold, and glittering with diamonds. Finding that the Grecian sage did not appear in any way moved by this display, Croesus ordered, that all his treasures, royal apartments, and costly furniture, should be shown to him. When Solon had been shown all these, he was taken back to the king, who then inquired of him:—Which of all the persons he had seen during his travels, he esteemed the most happy? “A person named Tellus,” answered Solon, “a citizen of Athens; an honest and good man; one who had lived all his days without indigence, and always seen his country flourishing and happy; who had children that were universally esteemed; and whose children he had the satisfaction, also, of seeing, and who died at last gloriously fighting for his country.”

When Croesus heard this, thinking that if he were not esteemed the first in happiness, he would at least be thought the second, he inquired “Who, of all you have seen, was the next in happiness to Tellus?” “Cleobis and Biton of Argos,” answered Solon, “two brothers who left behind them a perfect pattern of fraternal affection, and of the respect due from children to their parents. Upon a solemn festival when their mother, a priestess of Juno, was to go to the temple, the oxen that were to draw her not being ready, the two sons put themselves to the yoke, and drew their mother’s chariot thither, which was above five miles distant. All the mothers, ravished with admiration, congratulated the priestess on the piety of her sons. She, in the transport of her joy and thankfulness, earnestly entreated the goddess to reward her children with the best thing that heaven can give to man. Her prayers were heard. When the sacrifice was over, her two sons fell asleep in the very temple to which they had brought her, and there died in a soft and peaceful slumber. In honour of their piety,” concluded Solon, “the people of Argos consecrated statues to them in the temple of Delphos.”

Croesus was greatly mortified at this answer; and therefore said with some token of discontent, “Then you do not reckon me in the number of the happy at all?” “King of Lydia,” answered Solon, “besides many other advantages, the gods have given to us Grecians a spirit of moderation and reserve, which has produced among us a plain, popular, kind of philosophy, accompanied with a certain generous freedom, void of pride and ostentation, and therefore not well suited to the courts of kings. This philosophy, considering what an infinite number of vicissitudes and accidents the life of man is liable to, does not allow us to glory in any prospects we enjoy ourselves, or to admire happiness in others which may prove only superficial and transient.”

Having said this much, Solon paused a little,—then proceeded to say, that “the life of man seldom exceeds seventy years, which make up in all twenty-five thousand five hundred and fifty days, of which two are not exactly alike; so that the time to come is nothing but a series of various accidents, which cannot be foreseen. Therefore, in our opinion,” continued Solon, “no man can be esteemed happy, but he whose happiness God continues to the end of his life. As for others, who are perpetually exposed to a thousand dangers, we account their happiness as uncertain, as the crown is to a person that is still engaged in battle, and has not yet obtained the victory.”

It was not long before Croesus experienced the truth of what Solon told him. Cyrus made war upon him, as we have already related: and he was now condemned to be burned. The funeral pile was prepared, and the unhappy king being laid thereon, and just on the point of execution, recollecting the conversation he had had with Solon some few years before, he cried aloud three times, “Solon! Solon! Solon!” When Cyrus heard him exclaim thus, he became curious to know why Croesus pronounced that celebrated sage’s name with so much earnestness in the extremity to which he was reduced. Croesus informed him. The conqueror instantly paused in the punishment designed; and, reflecting on the uncertain state to which all sublunary things are subject, he caused him to be taken from the pile, and ever afterwards treated him with honour and respect. This account is from Rollin, who has it from Herodotus and other ancient writers.

Croesus is honourably mentioned by Pindar, in his celebrated contrast between a good sovereign and a bad one:—

On the division of the Persian monarchy into satrapies, Sardis became the residence of the satrap who had the government of the sea-coast.

In the third year of the war arising from the revolt of the Ionians against the Persian authority, the Ionians having collected all their forces together, set sail for Ephesus, whence, leaving their ships, they marched by land to Sardis. Finding that city in a defenceless state, they made themselves masters of it; but the citadel, into which the Persian governor Artaphernes had retired, they were not able to force. Most of the houses were roofed with reeds. An Ionian soldier therefore having, whether with intention or by accident was never ascertained, set fire to a house, the flames flew from roof to roof, and the whole city was entirely destroyed, almost in a moment. In this destruction the Persians implicated the Athenians; for there were many Athenians among the Ionians. When Darius, therefore, heard of the conflagration, he immediately determined on making war upon Greece; and that he might never forget the resolution, he appointed an officer to the duty of crying out to him every night at supper,—“Sir, remember the Athenians.” It is here, also, to be remembered, that the cause why the Persians afterwards destroyed all the temples they came near in Greece, was in consequence of the temple of Cybele, the tutelary deity of Sardis, having been, at that period, reduced to ashes.

Xerxes, on his celebrated expedition, having arrived at Sardis, sent heralds into Greece, demanding earth and water. He did not, however, send either to Athens or LacedÆmon. His motive for enforcing his demand to the other cities, was the expectation that they, who had before refused earth and water to Darius, would, from the alarm at his approach, send it now. In this, however, he was for the most part mistaken. Xerxes wintered at this city.

Alexander having conquered the Persians at the battle of the Granicus, marched towards Sardis. It was the bulwark of the Persian empire on the side next the sea. The citizens surrendered; and, as a reward for so doing, the king gave them their liberties, and permitted them to live under their own laws. He gave orders, also, to the Sardians to erect a temple to Olympian Jove.

After the death of Alexander, Seleucus, carrying on a war with Lysimachus, took possession of Sardis, B. C. 283. In 214 B. C. Antiochus the Great made himself master of the citadel and city. He kept possession of it twenty-five years, and it became his favourite place of retreat after having lost the battle of Magnesia. His taking it is thus described by Polybius:—“An officer had observed, that vultures and birds of prey gathered round the rock on which the citadel was placed, about the offals and dead bodies, thrown into a hollow by the besieged; and inferred that the wall standing on the edge of the precipice was neglected, as secure from attack. He scaled it with a resolute party, while Antiochus called off the attention both of his own army and of the enemy by a feint, marching as if he intended to attack the Persian gate. Two thousand soldiers rushed in at the gate opened for them, and took their post at the theatre, when the town was plundered and burned.”

Attalus Philomater, one of the descendants of the Antiochus just mentioned, bequeathed Sardis, with all his other possessions, to the Roman people; and, three years after his death, it was in consequence reduced to a Roman province.

Under the reign of Tiberius, Sardis was a very large city; but it was almost wholly destroyed by an earthquake. The emperor, however, had sufficient public virtue to order it to be rebuilt, and at a very great expense. In this patronage of Sardis, he was imitated by Hadrian, who was so great a benefactor, that he obtained the name of Neocorus. The patron god was Jupiter, who was called by a name synonymous with protector.

Sardis was one of the first towns that embraced the Christian religion, having been converted by St. John; and some have thought that its first bishop was Clement, the disciple of St. Paul.

In the time of Julian great efforts were made to restore the Pagan worship, by erecting temporary altars at Sardis, where none had been left, and repairing those temples of which vestiges remained.

A. D. 400, the city was plundered by the Goths, under Tribigildus and Cairanas, officers in the Roman pay, who had revolted from the emperor Arcadius.

A. D. 1304, the Turks, on an insurrection of the Tartars, were permitted to occupy a portion of the Acropolis; but the Sardians, on the same night, murdered them in their sleep.

The town is now called Sart or Serte. When Dr. Chandler visited it in 1774, he found the site of it “green and flowery.” Coming from the east, he found on his left the ground-work of a theatre; of which still remained some pieces of the vault, which supported the seats, and completed the semicircle.

Going on, he passed remnants of massy buildings; marble piers sustaining heavy fragments of arches of brick, and more indistinct ruins. These are in the plain before the hill of the Acropolis. On the right hand, near the road, was a portion of a large edifice, with a heap of ponderous materials before and behind it. The walls also are standing of two large, long, and lofty rooms, with a space between them, as of a passage. This remnant, according to M. Peysonell, was the house of Croesus, once appropriated by the Sardians as a place of retirement for superannuated citizens. The walls in this ruin have double arches beneath, and consist chiefly of brick, with layers of stone: it is called the Gerusia. The bricks are exceedingly fine and good, of various sizes, some flat and broad. “We employed,” continues Dr. Chandler, “a man to procure one entire, but the cement proved so very hard and tenacious, it was next to impossible. Both Croesus and Mausolus, neither of whom could be accused of parsimony, had used this material in the walls of their palaces. It was insensible of decay; and it is asserted, if the walls were erected true to their perpendicular, would, without violence, last for ever.”

Our traveller was then led toward the mountain; when, on a turning of the road, he was struck with the view of a ruin of a temple, in a retired situation beyond the Pactolus, and between Mount Tmolus and the hill of the Acropolis. Five columns were standing, one without the capital, and one with the capital awry, to the south. The architrave was of two stones. A piece remains of one column, to the southward; the other part, with the column which contributed to its support, has fallen since the year 1699. One capital was then distorted, as was imagined, by an earthquake; and over the entrance of the Naos was a vast stone, which occasioned wonder by what art or power it could be raised. That magnificent portal has since been destroyed; and in the heap lies that huge and ponderous marble. The soil has accumulated round the ruin; and the bases, with a moiety of each column, are concealed. This, in the opinion of Dr. Chandler, is probably the Temple of Cybele; and which was damaged in the conflagration of Sardis by the Milesians. It was of the Ionic order, and had eight columns in front. The shafts are fluted, and the capitals designed with exquisite taste and skill. “It is impossible,” continues our traveller, “to behold without deep regret, this imperfect remnant of so beautiful and so glorious an edifice!”

In allusion to this, Wheler, who visited Sart towards the latter part of the seventeenth century, says:—“Now see how it fareth with this miserable church, marked out by God; who, being reduced to a very inconsiderable number, live by the sweat of their brows in digging and planting the gardens of the Turks they live amongst and serve; having neither church nor priest among them. Nor are the Turks themselves there very considerable, either for number or riches; being only herdsmen to cattle feeding on those spacious plains; dwelling in a few pitiful earthen huts; having one mosque, perverted to that use from a Christian church. Thus is that once glorious city of the rich king Croesus now reduced to a nest of worse than beggars. Their Pactolus hath long since ceased to yield them gold,208 and the treasures to recover them their dying glories. Yet there are some remains of noble structures, remembrances of their prosperous state, long since destroyed. For there are the remains of an old castle, of a great church, palaces, and other proud buildings, humbled to the earth.”

Several inscriptions have been found here; and, amongst these, one recording the good will of the council and senate of Sardis towards the emperor Antoninus Pius. Medals, too, have been found; amongst which, two very rare ones; viz. one of the Empress Tranquillina, and another of Caracalla, with an urn on the reverse, containing a branch of olives; under which is an inscription, which translated, is, “The sport Chysanthina of the Sardians twice Nercorus.” Another, stamped by the common assembly of Asia there, in honour of Drusus and Germanicus. Also one with the Emperor Commodus, seated in the midst of a zodiac, with celestial signs engraved on it: on the reverse, “Sardis, the first metropolis of Asia, Greece, Lydia.”209