The western Anatolian kingdom renowned for inventing coinage and the fabled wealth of Croesus; conquered by Cyrus the Great of Persia in 547 BC, it served as the conduit between Greek and Near Eastern civilizations.
Conquered by Achaemenid Persian king Cyrus the Great c. 547 BCE following the Battle of Thymbra and the subsequent 14-day siege of Sardis, ending the reign of king Croesus and incorporating Lydia as a Persian satrapy.
Places Lydia in the wider Near Eastern world of the 7th–6th centuries BC.
Herodotus devotes nearly half of Book I to Lydia — the reign of Croesus, the fall of Sardis, and Lydian customs; the essential primary source for the kingdom.