Sardis (Sardes - Sard) Rev. 1:11;3:1-4
The fifth letter of St. John to the seven churches was to the
ancient and historic city of Sardis. As one of the oldest cities of
Asia Minor, the city lay along a highway that stretched from the
Persian
city of Susa, following a parallel course to the Tigris River,
passing through Cappadocia to Sardis. Located in the Hermus Valley
(modern R. Gediz) on the banks of a southern tributary, the Pactolus
(modern Sart Cay) and north of the range of the Tmolus Mountains
(modern Bozdag). It is about 30 miles southeast of Thyatira and
about 45 miles of Izmir (Smyrna).
The name Sardis is that of the stone, sardius (Greek: sardinos;
carnelian, RSV, cp. Rev 4:3). The semi-precious stone is
orange-brown but reflects deep red when light is passed through. It
was an economic stronghold of the wool industry. The acropolis was
built about 1500 feet above the plain on a ridge of the 5,800 foot
high Mount Tmolus. The precipice was difficult to reach and was
considered unassailable by an enemy. The lower city was more
accessible. Today the site is a ruin, but nearby the small Turkish
village bears the name Sart, and the memory of fabled characters
such as Midas and King Croesus of Sardis live on.
Sardis was a place of importance from the Lydian Kingdom in the 13th
century BCE. The Lydian Kingdom made Sardis its capital as early as
700 B.C. The first king of the Mermnad Dynasty was Gyges (687-652
B.C.), credited with the invention of the first coined money. The
earliest coins were made of electrum, an alloy of gold and silver.
In excavations in the early 1980s, many were found in buildings of
the Lydian period.
The last and most famous Lydian King Croesus (560-546 B.C.) was said
to have panned gold from the nearby river Pactolus introduced
coinage of pure gold and pure silver. Crucibles and a few gold
objects have made conclusive evidence for the gold-refining process
from the 6th century B.C. for modern archaeologists.
Following the Lydian Kingdom, Persian domination began in 546 BCE,
when King Croesus and Sardis fell to Cyrus. Herodotus records the
shock of the Lydian defeat, as they considered the city impregnable.
According to the ancient historian, the Persian forces were in the
valley below the citadel, when a Lydian soldier dropped his helmet
over the city wall. He scaled down the rock to get it. A local slave
watched carefully and when captured, revealed the citys
vulnerability. The soldiers used the information to capture the city
for Cyrus, and King Croesus was taken prisoner. At the end of the
Susa Road, Sardis became the most important Persian city in Asia
Minor.
With the decline of the Persians under the advancing Greeks, the
city surrendered willingly to Alexander the Great in 334 BCE. Sardis
became the western administrative center for the Seleucid Dynasty.
One notable battle of the period was in 214 BCE, when the city fell
to Antiochus the Great through the use of the employed by the
Persians more than three centuries earlier.
Sardis came under Pergamene rule from 189 to 133 BCE, and was passed
into the hands of the Romans upon the death of Attallus II. Under
Roman rule the city flourished until it was devastated by the great
earthquake in 17 CE (called by Eusebius the greatest earthquake in
human memory). and Tiberias assisted in the rebuilding of the city (Tacitus
Annals II.47). Some scholars feel that because of this great
indebtedness to Tiberius, the city gave itself to the cult of
emperor-worship, largely abandoning its historic love affair with
the Cybele cult. In 26 CE, Sardis lost the competition with Smyrna
for the coveted permission to build a temple to the emperor.
Until the change in 17 CE, Sardis was a center for the worship of
Cybele. Nash provides us with a good summary of information about
the Cult of Cybele: Cybele, also known as the Great Mother, was
worshipped throughout much of the Hellenistic world. The cult of
Cybele underwent a number of significant changes over a period of
several hundred years. Cybele undoubtedly began as a goddess of
nature; the early worship of her in Phrygia was not unlike that of
Dionysus. But it went beyond the sexual orgies that were part of the
primitive Dionysias cult, as the frenzied male worshipers of Cybele
were led to castrate themselves. Following their act of
self-mutilation, these followers of Cybele became Galli, or
eunuch-priests of the cult.
From her beginnings as a Nature-goddess, Cybele eventually came to
be viewed as the Mother of all gods and the mistress of all life
(Nash, Christianity and the Hellenistic World, pp.138-139). Barclay
points out that even on pagan lips, Sardis was a name of contempt.
Its people were notoriously loose living, notoriously pleasure-and
luxury loving. Sardis was a city of the decadence. In the old days
it had been a frontier town on the borders of Phyrgia, but now it
was a byword for slack and effeminate living... The most splendid
temple in Sardis was the one devoted to Artemis, the later memory of
the Cybele worship. It had apparently undergone three specific
phases of construction beginning in the C3 BCE, and ending at the
earthquake of 17 CE. Coins also depict sanctuaries to Aphrodite
Paphia.
A great colonnaded marble road of 4600 feet in length divided the
Roman city, whose population was estimated as large as 120,000 in
the time of the St. John. A variety of inscriptions on extant
statuary reveal the relationship with succeeding Emperors. Hadrian
visited the city in 123 CE. Later, Emperor Diocletian reorganized
Asia in (297 CE) and Sardis became capital of the revived district
of Lydia. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, served in the second century,
and some of his sermons have been preserved. Several representatives
from Sardis attended the First Council of Nicaea (325), Council of
Ephesus (431), and the so-called Robber Council of Ephesus (449).
Sardis was conquered by the Arabs in 716 CE, and eventually by the
Ottoman Turks in the 14th century.
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