Editing Lydia (section)

=====Croesus=====
{{main|Croesus}}
[[File:Croesus portrait.jpg|thumb|Portrait of [[Croesus]], last king of Lydia, Attic red-figure amphora, painted ca. 500–490 BC.]]
Alyattes died shortly after the Battle of the Eclipse, in 585 BC itself,<ref name="Dale"/> following which Lydia faced a power struggle between his son Pantaleon, born from a Greek woman, and his other son [[Croesus]], born from a Carian noblewoman, out of which the latter emerged successful.{{sfn|Mellink|1991|p=643-655}}

Croesus brought [[Caria]] under the direct control of the Lydian Empire,<ref name="Leloux-1"/> and he subjugated all of mainland [[Ionia]], [[Aeolis]], and [[Doric Hexapolis|Doris]], but he abandoned his plans of annexing the Greek city-states on the islands of the [[Aegean Sea]] and he instead concluded treaties of friendship with them, which might have helped him participate in the lucrative trade the Aegean Greeks carried out with Egypt at [[Naucratis]].<ref name="Leloux-1"/> According to Herodotus, Croesus ruled over all the peoples to the west of the Halys River, although the actual border of his kingdom was further to the east of the Halys, at an undetermined point in eastern Anatolia.{{sfn|Diakonoff|1985|page=125-126}}<ref name="The Battle of the Eclipse"/><ref name="Leloux-2"/><ref name="Rollinger 2003 1–12"/><ref name="Lendering 2003"/>

Croesus continued the friendly relations with the [[Medes]] concluded between his father Alyattes and the Median king [[Cyaxares]], and he continued these good relations with the Medes after he succeeded Alyattes and Astyages succeeded Cyaxares.<ref name="Leloux-2"/> And, under Croesus's rule, Lydia continued its good relations started by Gyges with the [[Sais, Egypt|Saite]] Egyptian kingdom, then ruled by the [[pharaoh]] [[Amasis II]].<ref name="Leloux-2"/> Croesus also established trade and diplomatic relations with the [[Neo-Babylonian Empire]] of [[Nabonidus]],<ref name="Leloux-2"/> and he further increased his contacts with the Greeks on the European continent by establishing relations with the city-state of [[Sparta]].<ref name="Leloux-1"/>

In 550 BC, Croesus's brother-in-law, the Median king Astyages, was overthrown by his own grandson, the Persian king [[Cyrus the Great]],<ref name="Leloux-2"/> and Croesus responded by attacking [[Pteria (Cappadocia)|Pteria]], the capital of a Phrygian state vassal to the Lydians which might have attempted to declare its allegiance to the new Persian Empire of Cyrus. Cyrus retaliated by intervening in Cappadocia and defeated the Lydians at Pteria in a [[Battle of Pteria|battle]], and again [[Battle of Thymbra|at Thymbra]] before [[Siege of Sardis (547 BC)|besieging]] and capturing the Lydian capital of [[Sardis]], thus bringing an end to the rule of the Mermnad dynasty and to the Lydian Empire. Lydia would never regain its independence and would remain a part of various successive empires.<ref name="Leloux-2"/>

Although the dates for the battles of Pteria and Thymbra and of end of the Lydian empire have been traditionally fixed to 547 BC,<ref name="Evans">{{cite journal |last=Evans |first=J. A. S. |author-link=James Allan Stewart Evans |date=1978 |title=What Happened to Croesus? |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3296933 |journal=The Classical Journal |volume=74 |issue=1 |pages=34–40 |doi= |jstor=3296933 |access-date=11 May 2022}}</ref> more recent estimates suggest that Herodotus's account being unreliable chronologically concerning the fall of Lydia means that there are currently no ways of dating the end of the Lydian kingdom; theoretically, it may even have taken place after the fall of [[Babylon]] in 539 BC.<ref name="Evans"/><ref>{{cite journal |last=Rollinger |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Rollinger |date=2008 |title=The Median 'Empire', the End of Urartu and Cyrus the Great's Campaign in 547 BC |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250139462 |journal=Ancient West & East |volume=7 |issue= |pages=51–66 |doi=10.2143/AWE.7.0.2033252 |access-date=12 May 2022 }}</ref>