Lydia
Lydia controlled the Hermus and Pactolus valleys, with its capital at Sardis below the Tmolus mountains. The Mermnad dynasty, especially Croesus, became a byword for wealth; the Pactolus river was associated with the legend of Midas and with alluvial gold. Lydia is credited with some of the earliest standardised electrum and gold coinage, a technology that changed trade across the Mediterranean. Sardis had a monumental temple of Artemis, a vast gymnasium complex and a synagogue; the Bin Tepe tumuli, including the tomb of Alyattes, are among the largest burial mounds in the ancient world. Lydian inscriptions preserve an Indo-European language related to Luwian. In 547 BCE Cyrus the Great took Sardis, and Lydia became a Persian satrapy; its roads and coinage were inherited by the empires that followed.
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