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Pythius The Lydian
Pythius () is a Lydian mentioned in book VII of Herodotus' ''Histories'', chh. 27-29 and 38-39. He is the son of Atys, and the grandson of Croesus, the last native king of Lydia before the Persian conquest. The Persian king Xerxes I, son of Darius I, encounters Pythius, the second most wealthy person after Xerxes, on his way to invade Greece c. 480 BC. Pythius had grown wealthy through his gold mines in Celaenae, Phrygia. He met the Persian king in Celaenae and entertains him before offering to provide money for the expenses of war. This Xerxes politely declines, and instead rewards Pythius' generosity by giving him 7000 gold darics The daric was a gold coin which, along with a similar silver coin, the siglos, represented the bimetallic monetary standard of the Achaemenid Empire.Michael Alram"DARIC" ''Encyclopaedia Iranica'', December 15, 1994, last updated November 17, 201 ... in order that his fortune might be an even 4,000,000 (ch. 29). His five sons accompanied Xerxes. L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lydia
Lydia (; ) was an Iron Age Monarchy, kingdom situated in western Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey. Later, it became an important province of the Achaemenid Empire and then the Roman Empire. Its capital was Sardis. At some point before 800 BC, the Lydian people achieved some sort of political cohesion, and existed as an independent kingdom by the 600s BC. At its greatest extent, during the 7th century BC, it covered all of western Anatolia. In 546 BC, it became a Lydia (satrapy), satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire, known as ''Sparda'' in Old Persian. In 133 BC, it became part of the Roman Republic, Roman Asia (Roman province), province of Asia. Lydian coins, made of electrum, are among the oldest in existence, dated to around the 7th century BC. Geography Lydia is generally located east of ancient Ionia in the modern western Turkish provinces of Uşak Province, Uşak, Manisa Province, Manisa and inland İzmir Province, İzmir.Rhodes, P.J. ''A History of the Classical Greek ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
