Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom east of Ionia. Today it corresponds to the three Turkish provinces, Usak Province, Manisa Province and Izmir Province.
The capital of the kingdom was the famous city of Sardis and its most famous king was Croesus, who is also associated with the construction of one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus.
The Lydian empire ended after the attack of Cyrus the Great, the defeat of Croesus, the conquest of the country by the Persians and the subjugation of Ionia (546 BC). Since then, Lydia, apart from the coastal Ionian cities that had regained their freedom after the victorious wars of the Greeks against the Persians, constituted the Persian Satrapia of Lydia, until the advance of the Macedonian troops of Alexander the Great.
In this fertile region many ancient cities flourished at various times, cities such as Apollonis near Mysia, Gordion, Herakleia of Sipylus, Thyatira, Thyessus, Hierocaesarea, Magnesia ad Sipylum, Nysa, Saittai, Sardis the ancient capital of the Kingdom of Lydia at the foot of Tmolos and on the banks of Paktolos, Silandos, Tralleis, Philadelphia, etc.
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