Fall of Sardis (547 BC): Cyrus the Great Defeats Croesus

The fall of Sardis, usually dated to 547 or 546 BC, was the capture of the capital of Lydia by Cyrus the Great of Persia. It ended the reign of Croesus, the proverbially rich Lydian king, and turned the Persians from a new power in Iran into masters of almost all of Anatolia. The conquest also brought Persia face to face with the Greek cities of the Aegean coast, setting the stage for the long conflict between Persians and Greeks.

Background: Lydia and the rise of Persia

Lydia was a kingdom in western Anatolia with its capital at Sardis, at the foot of Mount Tmolus. Its rulers of the Mermnad dynasty grew rich from the gold-bearing sands of the Pactolus river and from trade, and the Lydians are credited with some of the earliest coins, described in Lydian Coins.

Croesus came to the throne around 560 BC. He brought most of the Greek cities of Ionia under his control and sent lavish gifts to Greek sanctuaries, above all to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. His eastern border was the Halys river (the modern Kızılırmak), fixed after a war with the Medes that ended at the Battle of the Eclipse in 585 BC.

Around 550 BC Cyrus, a Persian king from the south-west of Iran, overthrew the Median king Astyages, who was Croesus’s brother-in-law. The episode is covered in Cyrus the Great Founds the Persian Empire. For Croesus, the fall of the Medes was both a threat and an opportunity to expand eastwards.

The war begins

Herodotus says Croesus consulted the oracles before acting. Delphi answered that if he attacked the Persians he would destroy a great empire. Croesus also made alliances with Amasis of Egypt, Nabonidus of Babylon and the Spartans.

Croesus crossed the Halys into Cappadocia and fought Cyrus near Pteria, probably in central Anatolia. The battle was indecisive. Because winter was coming, Croesus withdrew to Sardis, dismissed his mercenaries and planned to renew the war in spring with his allies.

Cyrus did not wait. He marched swiftly west and appeared before Sardis before the Lydian allies could gather. According to Herodotus, the Lydian cavalry, among the best in Asia, met him on the plain outside the city. On the advice of his general Harpagus, Cyrus put camels at the front of his army, and the Lydian horses, unused to their smell and sight, panicked. Later Greek tradition, notably Xenophon, calls the encounter the Battle of Thymbra, but his account is largely fictional.

The siege and capture

The defeated Lydians shut themselves inside the citadel. Herodotus says the siege lasted 14 days. A soldier named Hyroeades then noticed a Lydian climbing down a steep, unguarded part of the acropolis to fetch a fallen helmet. He led a party up the same route, and the city was taken.

The Babylonian Nabonidus Chronicle records that in 547 BC Cyrus marched to a land whose name is damaged on the tablet, killed its king and installed a garrison. The name has long been read as Lydia, but some scholars dispute this reading. The traditional date of 547 or 546 BC is therefore widely used but not certain.

The fate of Croesus

Herodotus tells a famous story in which Cyrus placed Croesus on a pyre. Croesus called out the name of Solon, the Athenian sage who had warned him that no one should be called happy until his life was over. Moved, Cyrus ordered the fire put out, and a sudden rainstorm, sent by Apollo, saved the king. Croesus then became an adviser at the Persian court.

The poet Bacchylides, writing in the 460s BC, gives a different version: Croesus built a pyre for himself and his family, and Apollo carried him away to the land of the Hyperboreans. Some historians think Croesus died at Sardis, others that he survived in Persian service. The pyre stories are best read as legend.

Consequences

Cyrus left a Persian named Tabalus in charge of Sardis and gave a Lydian, Pactyes, responsibility for the royal treasure. Pactyes soon rebelled and besieged Tabalus, but the revolt collapsed when Persian troops arrived. Cyrus’s generals Mazares and then Harpagus went on to subdue the Ionian, Aeolian and Carian cities of the coast in the following years.

Sardis became the seat of a Persian satrap (provincial governor) and the main Persian centre in the west. It was later the western end of the Royal Road of Persia. The Greek cities of Ionia now paid tribute to Persia, a situation that led to the Ionian Revolt of 499 BC, during which rebels burned Sardis.

Timeline

• 585 BC, 28 May: Battle of the Eclipse; the Halys river becomes the border between Lydia and Media.
• c. 560 BC: Croesus becomes king of Lydia.
• c. 550 BC: Cyrus overthrows Astyages, king of the Medes.
• c. 547 BC: Croesus crosses the Halys; indecisive battle near Pteria.
• c. 547-546 BC: Cyrus defeats the Lydians outside Sardis and takes the citadel after a 14-day siege.
• c. 546-545 BC: Revolt of Pactyes is crushed; Harpagus conquers the Greek coastal cities.
• 498 BC: Ionian rebels and their Athenian allies burn Sardis.

Why it matters

The fall of Sardis made Persia the dominant power from the Aegean to Central Asia within a few years of its rise. It placed Greek cities under Persian rule and created the frontier on which the Greco-Persian Wars would later be fought. The story of Croesus, the rich king humbled by fortune, also became one of the best-known moral tales of the ancient world.