* The site of Pteria has been fixed at Boghaz-keui by Texier, an identification which has been generally adopted; Euyuk is very probably Teiria, a town of the Lcucosyrians, mentioned by Hecatsous of Miletus in his work.

The friendly relations into which they entered with the natives on these journeys resulted before long in barter and intermarriage, though their influence made itself felt in different ways, according to the character of the people on whom it was brought to bear.

[Illustration:  104.jpg THE STEEP BANKS OF THE HALYS FAILED TO ARREST THEM]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by A. Boissier.  The road leading from Angora to Yuzgat crosses the river not far from the site shown here, near the spot where the ancient road crossed.

They gave as a legacy to Phrygia one of their alphabets, that of Kyme, which soon banished the old Hittite syllabary from the monuments, and they borrowed in exchange Phrygian customs, musical instruments, traditions, and religious orgies.  A Midas sought in marriage Hermodike, the daughter of Agamemnon the Kymsoan, while another Midas, who had consulted the oracle of Delphi, presented to the god the chryselephantine throne on which he was wont to sit when he dispensed justice.

[Illustration:  105.jpg VIEW OVEK THE PLAIN OF SARDES]

     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.

This interchange of amenities and these alliances, however, had a merely superficial effect, and in no way modified the temperament and life of the people in inner Asia Minor.  They remained a robust, hardworking race, attached to their fields and woods, loutish and slow of understanding, unskilled in war, and not apt in defending themselves in spite of their natural bravery.  The Lydians, on the contrary, submitted readily to foreign influence, and the Greek leaven introduced among them became the germ of a new civilisation, which occupied an intermediate place between that of the Greek and that of the Oriental world.  About the first half of the eighth century B.C. the Lydians had become organised into a confederation of several tribes, governed by hereditary chiefs, who were again in their turn subject to the Heraclidae occupying Sardes.* This town rose in terraces on the lower slopes of a detached spur of the Tmolus running in the direction of the Hermos, and was crowned by the citadel, within which were included the royal palace, the treasury, and the arsenals.  It was surrounded by an immense plain, bounded on the south by a curve of the Tmolus, and on the west by the distant mountains of Phrygia Katake-kaumene.  The Maeonians still claimed primacy over the entire race, and the family was chosen from among their nobles.  The king, who was supposed to be descended from the gods, bore, as the insignia of his rank, a double-headed axe, the emblem of his divine ancestors.  The Greeks of later times said that the axe was that of their Heracles, which was wrested by him from the Amazon Hippolyta, and given to Omphale.**