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The Hermus river

The great river of Lydia, on whose plain Sardis stands, 6th-5th century BCE

The Hermus, now the Gediz, is the largest river of Lydia. It flows west past Sardis to the sea near Phocaea, and the Pactolus joins it below the city. Its broad plain fed Sardis, and there Cyrus's camels routed Croesus's horse about 547.

In the game: The Hermus is the Sardis level's river: its plain is the level's farmland, and its ferrymen and figs appear in the chatter.

The river of the plain

Ancient account

Herodotus describes the plain before Sardis as wide and open, crossed by rivers, the Hyllus among them, that flow into the largest, the Hermus. He says the Hermus comes down from the mountain sacred to the Mother of Dindymus and runs into the sea by Phocaea.

Herodotus 1.80

The battle on the plain

Ancient account

On that plain, Herodotus says, Cyrus set men on his baggage camels in front of his army, on Harpagus's advice. The Lydian horses could not bear the smell and sight of the camels and turned, and the Lydians fought on foot and were driven into Sardis.

Herodotus 1.80

The Pactolus and the market

Ancient account

The Pactolus ran through the market of Sardis, bringing gold dust from Tmolus, and then flowed into the Hermus, which went on to the sea. In 498 the people trapped by the fire gathered in the market and along the Pactolus.

Herodotus 5.101

The royal tombs above it

In the record

North of the Hermus lies the great Lydian cemetery of Bin Tepe, with the mound Herodotus calls the tomb of Alyattes, father of Croesus, one of the largest tumuli of the ancient world. Its earth and stone base survive, as he describes.

Herodotus 1.93; excavations at Bin Tepe