SARDIS

SARDIS
Our present itinerary will take us on a round trip from İzmir to Sardis, the ancient capital of Lydia, stopping enroute to see monu-ments from the Hittite, Lydian, Graeco-Roman, beylik and Ottoman periods.
We head out from İzmir on highway 565, vvhich takes us north-east to Manisa, a drive of 43 kilometers. Some seven kilometers from the center of İzmir, we pass through Bornova, a garden sub-urb that in Ottoman times vvas the residence of many of the vvealthy English merchants of Smyrna, a fevv of vvhose descendants con-tinue to live there today.
After passing Bornova the highvvay crosses the plain of İzmir and begins to climb, going över the Sabuncu Pass at an altitude of 707 meters. On our left is Yamanlar Dağı, vvhose highest peak is at 981 meters, and on our right is Manisa Dağı, the ancient Mt. Sipylus, vvhose summit is 1,493 meters above sea level.
Both of these mountains have legendary associations with the myth of Tantalus, said to be a son of Zeus and a daughter of Cronus named Pluto. Tantalus married a daughter of Atlas, the Pleiad Dione, who bore him several children, the most notable being their daughter Niobe and their son Pelops. Tantalus vvas extremely rich and built a city on Mt. Sipylus, vvhere he enter-tained the gods. But he abused the friendship of his divine guests, stealing nectar and ambrosia from their table and revealing their secrets to men. At one of his feasts he served up to the gods the butchered body of his son Pelops, vvho vvas later restored to life and escaped to the Peloponnesus, vvhich is named for him. The gods punished Pelops by destroying his city in an earthquake, after vvhich they confined him to a cave under Mt. Sipylus. There he vvas condemned to an eternity of thirst and starvation, with fresh vvater and abundant fruit alvvays just beyond his reach, "tan-talizing" him, to use the vvord that derived from his name and

fate. Homer describes the fate of Tantal us in Book XI of The Odyssey, where Odysseus telis of those vvhom he saw on his visit to the Undenvorld:
And I saw Tantalos, also, suffering hard pains, standing in lake vvater that came up to his chin, and thirsty as he was, he tried to drink, but could capture nothing; for every time the old man tried to drink, stooped över, the water vvould drain avvay and disappear, and the black earth shovved at his feet, and the divinity drained it away. Över his head trees with lofty branches had fruit like a shower
descending, pear trees and pomegranate trees and apple trees wiüı fruit
shining, and figs that were sweet and olives ripened well, but each time the old man would straighten up and reach up with his hands for
them, theVind vvould toss them avvay to the cloud overhanging,...
Travelers in times past identified a number of natural features on Mt. Sipylus and Yamanlar Dağı with Tantalus and his family. As Pausanias writes: "Some traces of the life of Pelops and of Tantalos are stili left in our country today; the lake named after him and his by no means inglorious grave, and Pelop's throne, on the mountain top at Sipylos..."
Manisa is situated in the valley of the Hermus at the foot of Mt. Sipylus, which rises above the town to the south. Manisa derives from Magnesia ad Sipylum, the ancient city on this site, its second name distinguishing it from Magnesia ad Maeandrum, which was located some distance to the south on the Maeander river. Accord-ing to tradition, both of these cities were founded by settlers from Magnesia in northeastern Greece, the so-called Magnetes, who are supposed to have stayed on in Asia Minör after fighting in Agamemnon's army at the siege of Troy. Magnesia ad Sipylum is first mentioned by the historian Hellanicus of Lesbos, a contempo-

rary of Herodotus, vvhose life spanned most of the fıfth century B.C. Like most of the other Greek cities in vvestern Asia Minör, it was a pawn during the wars of the Diadochi, and then early in the second century B.C. it was absorbed by Pergamum.
The city gave its name to the historic battle of Magnesia, vvhich was fought north of the Hermus one rainy morning in early Janu-ary 189 B.C, when the Pergamenes and their Roman allies de-feated the forces of Antiochus III, ending forever Seleucid rule in Asia Minör. The Seleucid forces in the battle were commanded by Hannibal, vvhose elephants were left dead in their hundreds upon the battlefield, a sight that so distressed Antiochus that he decided to sue for peace, never again going to war.