Sardis Through the Centuries

By All Over InformationUpdated August 10, 20268 min read

Sardis is one of the oldest and most storied cities of Anatolia, and for a few centuries in the first millennium BC its name meant wealth to the entire ancient world. Today its ruins lie in the wide Hermus valley below the rock of the acropolis on Mount Tmolus, near the village of Sartmahmut, and walking among them means following more than two thousand years of history in a single afternoon. From Lydian kings to Persian satraps, Roman governors, Byzantine bishops, and the villagers who built their houses among the marble, this guide takes you through the centuries in order.

The Valley Before the City

The setting of Sardis explains almost everything about it. The city grew at the foot of Mount Tmolus, on the edge of the broad Hermus valley, where the routes climbing west from the Anatolian plateau met the roads leading down to the Aegean coast. Whoever held this spot controlled the trade between the sea and the great inland empires.

People lived in the valley from very early times, and the mountain carried its own kind of wealth. The stream called the Pactolus ran past the city, and legend said it washed gold down from Tmolus. Whether or not the river truly ran with gold, the region’s minerals were real, and the promise of riches clung to this landscape from the beginning.

By the time the Lydians rose to power, the acropolis rock and the fertile valley below it already formed a natural capital, with the defense of the cliff, the water of the streams, and the farmland of the plain.

The Rise of the Mermnad Kings

Sardis enters history as the capital of the Lydian kingdom, a state that grew from local beginnings into the strongest power of western Anatolia. The rise came under the Mermnad dynasty, which seized the throne in the early seventh century BC. Its first king, Gyges, was remembered in Greek legend for a magic ring that made him invisible, and for the ambition that made him king.

The real Gyges was a conqueror as well as a legend. He extended Lydian power across the region, raided the Greek cities of the coast, and made Sardis the seat of a rich and aggressive kingdom. His successors pushed the borders outward until the kingdom reached from the Aegean to the borders of the eastern empires.

Under the Mermnads, the acropolis was fortified on its sheer rock, the lower city spread across the plain beside the Pactolus, and the wealth of the region flowed into the royal treasury.

Sardis, Turkey — Photo by Sevgi001461 on Pixabay

Croesus and the Golden Age

The most famous of the Lydian kings was Croesus, who ruled in the sixth century BC and turned Sardis into the richest city of its age. His kingdom dominated western Anatolia, and his treasury became so proverbial that his name still means wealth today.

Croesus’s generosity was as famous as his riches. He sent spectacular gifts to the Greek sanctuaries, including golden offerings to the oracle of Delphi, and Greek writers filled their histories with his splendor.

But the golden age carried the seed of its own end. When Croesus prepared for war against the rising power of Persia, he asked the oracle at Delphi whether he should attack. The answer came that a great empire would fall. Confident that the prophecy meant Persia, Croesus marched, and the empire that fell was his own.

The Invention of Coinage

Sardis gave the world something more durable than a legend of wealth: the invention of money as we know it. In the seventh century BC, the Lydians began stamping small lumps of electrum, the natural alloy of gold and silver found in the region, with a mark guaranteeing their weight and value. It was the world’s first true coinage.

The idea changed the ancient economy. Before coins, trade ran on weighed metal and barter; after them, a merchant could carry value in his pocket and trust the stamp on the metal. The innovation spread from Lydia to the Greek world and then around the Mediterranean.

Croesus later refined the system, issuing separate gold and silver coins and setting standards of purity that rulers would imitate for centuries. Traces of these workshops have been found by archaeologists in the city itself.

The Fall to Persia

The oracle’s warning proved true in 546 BC. Croesus crossed the river Halys to meet the Persian king Cyrus the Great, was defeated in battle, and retreated to Sardis, where the Persians laid siege to the city. The fall came quickly, and legend says Cyrus, amazed at the captured king’s wealth, spared Croesus and kept him as an adviser.

Sardis became the seat of a Persian satrap, the western capital of the greatest empire the world had yet seen. The royal road from Persia ended here, and the city thrived as the gateway between the Aegean and the east.

The city’s troubles were not over. In 499 BC, the Ionian Greek cities rose in revolt, marched inland, and burned Sardis to the ground. The revolt failed, but the memory of the burning city lasted just as long.

Alexander and the Hellenistic City

Alexander the Great reached Sardis in 334 BC, and this time the city opened its gates without a fight. The Persian garrison surrendered, and Sardis passed peacefully into the new Greek empire of the Macedonians.

Under Alexander’s successors, Sardis was rebuilt as a Greek city. Its institutions, its language, and its public buildings took on the forms of the Hellenistic world. The city that had once ruled an empire now flourished as a great regional capital.

It was in this period that the grandest monument of Sardis was begun: the great Temple of Artemis, laid out on the plain beyond the city. Although it was never finished, its plan alone tells you how wealthy the city had become again.

The Temple of Artemis

The Temple of Artemis stands a short walk from the main ruins, in open countryside that still feels like the sacred ground of antiquity. It was begun in the Hellenistic age on a truly enormous scale, one of the largest Ionic temples ever planned, and its construction stretched across centuries.

Only a few columns remain standing, but they are enough to give the scale away. Each one is a giant of fluted marble, and the platform on which they stand stretches far across the field. Before the temple stood the great Altar of Zeus.

For you as a visitor, the temple is the most atmospheric stop at Sardis. There is no crowd here, only the columns rising from the grass, the birds, and the shape of the mountains closing the valley.

The Roman City: Gymnasium and Synagogue

Under Roman rule, Sardis was one of the great cities of the province of Asia. When an earthquake flattened much of the city in 17 AD, the emperor Tiberius paid for its rebuilding, and the new Sardis rose with colonnaded streets, baths, a stadium, and a vast gymnasium complex.

The ruins you can walk through today are mostly Roman. The gymnasium with its bath building has been partly restored, and its marble hall gives you a sense of the public life of the city.

The most remarkable discovery here is the great synagogue, found within the gymnasium complex and now one of the most important ancient synagogues ever excavated. Its floor was laid with intricate mosaics, and its walls carried inscriptions from the large Jewish community of Roman Sardis, a reminder of how cosmopolitan the city had become.

Byzantine Sardis and the Long Decline

Sardis remained a real city into the Byzantine age. It was the seat of a bishop, its churches were built in and around the old public buildings, and the acropolis was refortified as the empire’s eastern frontier drew nearer.

But the centuries took their toll. The city shrank within its walls, the great public buildings were stripped and turned to smaller uses, and the empire’s wars swept past it again and again.

The Turkish centuries that followed left the old city to the fields. A village grew up among the ruins, and the marble of Sardis was quarried by the builders of the new era.

The Rediscovery of Sardis

Sardis was rediscovered by travelers in the nineteenth century, and excavations have continued, with interruptions, ever since. The work has been spectacular: the Lydian fortifications, the workshops where the world’s earliest coins were struck, and the necropolis of Bin Tepe across the valley, where hundreds of burial mounds still mark the landscape.

Today the site is open for you to explore at your own pace. You can walk the marble courtyard of the gymnasium, stand in the restored synagogue, and drive out to the Temple of Artemis in its field.

What makes Sardis special among Turkish sites is its quietness. Nothing here is rushed. The centuries lie side by side in the grass, and the story they tell is one of the most complete in all of Anatolia.

Frequently asked questions

Was King Croesus really as rich as the legends say?

The ancient world certainly believed so. His name became a synonym for wealth in Greek and Roman literature, and the stories of his gifts to Delphi describe offerings of gold beyond measure. Modern archaeology has supported the legend in its own way: excavations at Sardis have uncovered gold-refining workshops and traces of the early minting of coins. The wealth was real, even if the river of gold was more poetry than geology.

What should you not miss at Sardis?

Two things above all. First, the gymnasium and synagogue complex, which shows the grandeur of Roman Sardis and holds one of the most important ancient synagogues ever found. Second, the Temple of Artemis, a short distance from the main site, a giant of Ionic architecture standing alone in the fields. If you have time, the view from the acropolis over the valley completes the picture.

How long did Sardis remain an important city?

Remarkably long. From the Lydian golden age in the sixth century BC, Sardis remained a major city through Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman times, roughly a thousand years of continuous importance. Its decline was slow, stretching across the Byzantine centuries as the city shrank and its buildings were reused. By the late medieval period it had become a village, but that is still a longer run than most cities of the ancient world ever achieved.

All Over Information

The All Over Information editorial team researches and writes practical English-language guides to Turkey. Facts are checked against official and local sources before publication, prices are published as dated ranges rather than quotes, and guides are revised when things change. We accept no sponsored posts, paid placements or paid links.