Sardis

, or Sardes , now Sart , a town of Asia Minor, the capital of the kingdom of Lydia, situate at the foot of mount Tmolus, on the banks of the Pactolus. It is celebrated for the many sieges it sustained against the Cimmerians, Persians, Medes, Maced on i ans, Ionians, and A then i ans, and for the battle in which, B.C. 262, Antiochus Soter was defeated by Eumenes king of Pergamus. It was destroyed by an earthquake in the reign of Tiberius, who ordered it to be rebuilt. It fell into the hands of Cyrus, B.C. 548, and was burnt by the A then i ans, B.C. 504, which became the cause of the invasion of Attica by Darius. Plutarch , Alexander .— Ovid , Metamorphoses , bk. 11 , lis. 137, 152, . — Strabo , bk. 13 .— Hero dot us , bk. 1 , ch. 7 , .