3. The Lydian empire.--The Lydians (Maeonians) were a branch of the Carian tribe. According to Herodotus, three dynasties ruled in Lydia; the Atyadae down to 1232; the Heraclidae down to 727; and the Mermnadae down to 557: the two first are almost wholly fabulous, and the proper history of Lydia may be said to commence with the last dynasty. Kings: Gyges, down to 689. From this period followed almost uninterrupted wars with the Greek settlements on the seacoast. Gyges takes Colophon. Ardys down to 640. He takes Priene. Under his reign, an irruption of the Cimmerians. Sadyattes down to 628. Alyattes down to 571. Expulsion of the Cimmerians. Capture of Smyrna. Croesus down to 557. He takes Ephesus, and subjugates Asia Minor as far as the Halys. Under his reign, the first rise of a Lydian empire, which however is overthrown by Cyrus. Asia Minor becomes a province of the Persian empire. _Contemporary_ with which, in Asia, were the Medic and Babylonian empires.--Among the Jews, the last period of the kingdom of Judah.--Among the Greeks, the yearly archons at Athens.--With the Romans, the kings. V. _Phoenicia._ The Phoenicians may be regarded as one of the most remarkable nations of Asia during this period; yet we have no complete, or even connected history of this people. But though a few scattered fragments are all we possess, we may from these trace out a general outline. The peculiar sources of Phoenician history.--How far Sanchoniathon deserves to be mentioned here?--Hebrew writers, particularly Ezekiel; Greek writers; Josephus--Eusebius, etc. and the fragments which he has preserved of Menander of Ephesus, and Dius, historians of Tyre. MIGNOT, _Memoires sur les Pheniciens_; inserted in _Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscript._ t. xxxiv-xlii. A series of twenty-four papers. The section concerning the Phoenicians in A. H. L. HEEREN'S _Researches on the Politics, etc._ 1. Observations on the internal state of Phoenicia. It did not constitute one state, or, at least, one single empire; but consisted of several, and their territories. Alliances, however, were naturally formed between them, and hence a kind of supremacy of the more powerful, particularly of Tyre. 2. But though Tyre stood at the head, and claimed a certain degree of superiority, each separate state still possessed its own particular government. In all of them we meet with kings, who appear to have possessed but a limited authority, as we always find magistrates associated with them in power. Among a mercantile and colonizing people, it was impossible that absolute despotism should endure for any length of time. Of the separate states, Tyre is the only one of which we possess a series of kings; and even that series is not complete.