We come now to SARDES, by far the most important city of Lydia. The date of its foundation has not been recorded, but it must have early been a place of note, as Herodotus states that it was plundered by the Cimmerians, though they could not capture its citadel.[33] Its real importance, however, evidently began when it became the capital of the Lydian monarchs, men whose unusual wealth has been fully attested by Herodotus, who had himself seen the gifts of Crœsus in the treasury at Delphi. The story of the mode whereby the citadel of Sardes was taken by Cyrus is most likely true; indeed is, in some degree, confirmed by a later capture, under circumstances not unsimilar, by Lagoras, a general of Antiochus the Great (Polyb. vii. 4-7). Footnote 33: Sardes, from Σάρδεις; but it is often written Sardis. Under the reign of Crœsus, Sardes was unquestionably a great and flourishing city, the resort of men of learning and ability, who were, Herodotus tells us, attracted thither by the fame and hospitality of the king (i. 29): on the success of Cyrus, it was simply transferred from the native dynasty of rulers to the conquering Persians, becoming thus, not only the capital of Persian Asia Minor, but the occasional residence of the monarch himself. Thus Xerxes spent the winter there when preparing his unwise invasion of Greece (Herod. vii. 32-37); and here, too, Cyrus the Younger collected the army so easily crushed on the fatal day of Cunaxa. Xenophon remarks that the beauty of its gardens excited the admiration of even the Spartan Lysander, who was amused by the tale that Cyrus himself had often played there the part of gardener (Œcon. p. 880; cf. Cic. de Senect. c. 17). The town itself seems to have consisted chiefly of thatched houses, and so was easily burnt by the Ionians in their revolt. The burning of Sardes was felt by the Persian monarch to be a gross insult, the more so that his rule had been notoriously mild and equitable. Sardes made no resistance to Alexander the Great; hence, its people were permitted by that monarch to retain their ancient laws and customs (Arrian, i. 17). During the wars of the Seleucidæ it was, at different times, subject to the prevailing ruler of that house, and, hence, passed over to the Romans after the defeat of Antiochus at Magnesia.[34] Colonel Leake has given, in his Asia Minor, some interesting notes by Mr. Cockerell on the antiquities of this town, with a special account of the famous temple of Cybele, or the Earth, which stood on the banks of the Pactolus, and of which three great columns were then standing.[35] This temple was burnt by the Ionians in B.C. 503, and never completely reconstructed.[36] Most interesting to the Christian are the remains of two churches, one supposed to be that of the Church of the Panagia, and another, in front of it, said to be that of St. John. The former is almost wholly constructed of magnificent fragments of earlier edifices, and is, perhaps, as Colonel Leake