* Myra is mentioned also in the Bezan text of Ac 211.
Λυκιακὸν Σύστημα. Nearly 100 places in Lycia are known to have struck coins, and Pliny, Nat. Hist. v. 28, says there were formerly 70 cities, and in his time only 36; but only 23 had votes in the Assembly, called τὸ κοινὸν συνέδριον (six cities of the first rank had three votes each, those of the second class two votes, of the third one). In reward for their fidelity to Rome in the Mithni- datic war, the freedom of the Lycians was con- firmed by Sulla. They suffered exactions occasion- ally, especially from Cassius in B.C. 43; but their freedom was again confirmed by Antony. Lycia was formed into a Roman province by Claudius in A.D. 43 on account of the dissensions between the cities; and m 74 was formed into a double province along with Pamphylia (see Mommsen on Corp. Inser. Latin. IL. Suppl. No. 6737). From 43 onwards the governor was a pretorian /egatus Augusti pro pretore; and the old Systema was transformed into a union called Κοινὸν Λυκίων, meeting in the worship of the Emperors under the presidency of a Lykiarch.
Christianity does not Spe to have spread very rapidly in Lycia ; and perhaps to this is due the petition against the Christians addressed by the Joint province to the Emperor Maximin in A.D. 312 (similar to many petitions from cities of the Empire, replies to which were returned in identical terms, quoted by Eusebius, Hist. Lccles. ix. 7). Part of the petition, with a scrap of Maximin’s reply, has been found at Arykanda, and is pub- fished by Mommsen in Arch. Epigr. Mittheil. aus Gst. 1893, p. 93 ff.
An important Jewish mnecripeion of Tlos in Lycia is published in Hranos Vindobonensis, p. 99.
LITERATURE.—See the series of Austrian publications, the result of numerous recent Austrian explorations and exca- vations, especially Benndorf-Niemann, Lykia, in two folio vols., Heberdey, Opramoas, etc. ; also Pinder-Friedlinder, Beitrdge zur alt. Miinzkunde, i. 93-122 ; Hill, Ca ue of the Coins of Lycia, ete.; Fougéres, de communi Lycworum; Marquardt, Rom, Staatsalt. i. 375ff.; and the older travellers, especially Fellows and Spratt. W. M. Ramsay.
LYDDA.—See Lop.
LYDIA (Avéla).—A purple-seller from Thyatira (Ac 164-15. #), It is probable that Lydia was her proper name, as we know that it was a name commonly borne by women (Hor. Od. i. 8, iii. 9, vi. 20); but (see p. 177%) it may have been a designation derived from the district of Lydia, in which Thyatira was situated. The account of Lydia’s occupation is confirmed by what we learn from other sources of the purple dyes of this district (cf. Hom. 11. iv. 141; Cland. Rapt. Pro- serp. i. 270); and the whole incident in Acts points to her having been a woman of some position and means (cf. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, p: 214). She had made her home apparently at P. ilippi, and, having become a Jewish proselyte, was in the habit of resorting to a place of prayer which was located by a riverside, according to a common
ractice among the Jews for the facility of the out ablutions which their worship required (Farrar, St. Paul, i. p. 487). There she was found along with certain other women by St. Paul and his companions on their first Sabbath in Philippi ; and in her, at any rate, the apostle found a ready listener. The Lord opened her heart, and along with her ‘household’ she was baptized, the first Christian convert, so far as we know, whom St. Paul made in Europe. (For the significance of her conversion, taken in connexion with those subse-
uently mentioned in this chap., see Lightfoot, hilipp. p. 52ff.). Lydia’s gratitude showed itself
in the eager desire (παρεβιάσατο, v.", ef. Lk 24°) that the apostle and his companions should take
LYDIA
up their abode in her house; and it was thither that ὑπο again returned after their imprisonment (v.*). Ὁ the Church which grew out of this little company St. Paul afterwards addressed the most jubilant of all his Epistles ; though the fact that Lydia herself is not mentioned in it by name makes it probable that she had either died or left Philippi in the interval. G. MILLIGAN.
LYDIA (Avila).—A large country on the west of Asia Minor, bounded on the north by Mysia (called in later times Hellespontus), on the east by Phrygia, on the south by Caria, and on the west by the A2gean Sea. It contained the valleys of the Cayster, the lower Hermus with its tributary the Cogamos, and the Caicus, also as much of the lower Meander valley as lay north of that river. Several of the great Ionian cities, Smyrna, Colo- phon, Ephesus, ete., were situated on its western coast. The aneient Lydian kingdom, once great and powerful, was conquered by the Persians about 546.* It passed under the rule of Alexander the Great in 334; and it was disputed by his successors after his death, especially between the Perga- menian and Seleucid kings, until the victory of the allied Roman and Pergamenian armies in B.c. 190 near Magnesia, in the Hermus valley, brought it entirely into the Pergamenian kingdom of Eumenes (as is mentioned in 1 Mac 88). In B.c. 133 Lydia, according to the will of Attalus Π|., the last Pergamenian king, passed into the Roman Empire, and formed part of the province Asia. The name Lydia henceforth had no political, but only a geographical, ethnological, and antiquarian exist- ence. The generic name Asia alone was employed by the Romans; and Lydia was merged in that great province, which embraced also Caria, Mysia, and Phrygia. Geographers and historians wrote about Lydia ; coins (e.g. of Tralleis and Kidramos) and inscriptions (e.g. CIG 5852, 5984, 6855d) mention facts of old Lydian religion or mytho- logy ; but those who had regard to existing facts of society and government had no reason to use the name.