In Sardis the kings of Lydia, whom the Greeks counted 'barbarians' (Herod, i. 6), reigned in Oriental splendour and luxury. But centuries of material prosperity made the Lydian character soft and voluptuous, and the fall of Croesus, whom Solon warned in vain of the fickleness of fortune, became to the Greeks the supreme illustration of the danger of careless security.
When Cyrus, king of Persia, besieged the city (549 B.C.), and ottered a reward to the soldier who should lirst mount the wall, ' a Mardian named Hyroeades endeavoured to climb up on that part of the citadel where no guard was stationed, because there did not appear to be any danger that it would be taken on that part, for on that side the citadel was precipitous and impracticable. . . . Having seen a Lydian come down this precipice the day before, for a helmet that had rolled down, and cany it up again, he noticed it carefully, and re- flected on it in his mind ; he thereupon ascended the same way, followed by divers Persians ; and when great numbers had gone up, Sardis was thus taken and the town plundered ' (Herod, i. 84). The same daring exploit was performed by the Cretan Lago- ras, who scaled the heights and captured the cita- del for Antiochus the Great (218 B.C.). After the defeat of Antiochus at Magnesia (190 B.C.), Sardis was gifted by the Romans to the kings of Pergamos. From the time of Alexander the Great it bad en- joyed the constitution of a self-governing city of the Greek type, and under the Romans it became the head of a conventus juridicus in the Hermus valley. It still amassed wealth, but its ancient power and prestige were gone. The once brave, warlike, victorious Sardians had long been despised as ' tender-footed Lydians,' who could only ' play on the cithara, strike the guitar, and sell bj' retail ' (Herod, i. 55, 155). Living on the traditions of a splendid past, Sardis sank into a second-rate pro- vincial town. It seemed to have no power of material or moral self-recovery. In A.D. 17 it was destroyed by an earthquake, and rebuilt with the aid of Imperial funds.
The delineation which the Apocalypse gives of the Church of Sardis is singularly like that which history gives of the city. It is scarcely possible to imagine that the writer was unconscious of the resemblance when he added touch after touch to his picture, and the parallel could not but strike every intelligent reader. In the time of Domitian the Christian community needed to be told humiliating truths regarding itself. Years of evangelism had not delivered it from the spirit of the city which boasted hergi'eat name and fame, while she lapped herself in .soft Lydian airs and closed her eyes to the dangers of overweening self-confidence. Within a single generation the Church is repeating the city's history of a thousand years. (1) It has a name to live and is dead (Rev 3'). It is now only apparently what it once was really — a living Clmrcli. The youthful vitality is spent, its spiritual renown has become a nominis umbra. Religiously as well as politically decadent, Sardis seemed incapable of reanimation. Ramsay characterizes it as ' the city of death.' (2) The Church, like the city, has ' ful-
filled ' none of its works. Beginning witli great aTubitions, high hopes, and noble endeavours, it has lacked the grace of perseverance, and .so has realized nothing. After a springtime rich in pro- mise, how meagre the harvest ! (3) The Chnrcli is warned that it must watch, if it is not to be sur- prised as by a thief in the night (3'). To any public- spirited Sardian that was 'the most unkindcst cut of all,' for in the critical times of history Sardis had always been cauglit napping. (4) It is implied, though not directly asserted, that the Church of Sardis had deliled its garments with the immorality of the soft and dissolute city which li.ad been the age- long worshipper of Cybele, when it ought by this time to be like an urbs Candida, wearing the white robes of purity and victory. No one of the Seven Churches of the province of Asia, not even Laodicea, is so severely rebuked as Sardis. All the more warm and tender are tlie words of praise addressed to the few who have kept themselves unspotted ' even in Sardis.' Their virtue has a peculiar grace because it blooms in such an atmosphere, and the reward of their purity will be fellowship with the perfectly pure — God and His holy angels.
Literature. — W. M. Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia, 1904, p. 354 f. ; C. Wilson, in .Murray's Bandtjook to Asia Minor, 1S95. JaMES STRAHAN.
SARDIUS {adpStov, a much better attested form in Rev 4^ than the TR i7dp5ios = Vulg. 'savdinus'). — The writer of the Apocalypse compares Him that sits upon the throne of heaven to a sardius (Rev 4', AV 'sardine stone'). The sixth foundation of the wall of the New Jerusalem is a sardius (21-"). This stone is doubtless the modern orange-red or golden 'sard,' which is a translucent quartz coloured with iron, nearly allied with the clearer and lighter- tinted carnelian. The Greeks commonly connected the word with Sardis, where the stone was said to have been first found ; but it may be related to the Persian zerd, ' yellow.' Pliny says that the sardius of Babylonia was more highly prized than that of Sardis {ffN xxxvii. 7). Tliis stone was more frequently engraved than any other. It was used for Assyrian cylinder seals, Egyptian scarabs, and early Greek and Etruscan gems.