Lydgate, John, an ancient English theologian, celebrated particularly as a poet, one of the successors of Chaucer, was a monk of the Benedictine abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, in Suffolk. The dates of only a (aw of the events of his life have been ascertained. He was ordained a subdeacon in 1389, a deacon in 1393, and a priest in 1397, whence it has been conjectured that he was born about 1375. He seems to have arrived at his greatest eminence about 1430. After a short education at Oxford he travelled in France and Italy, and re- turned a complete master of the language and literature of both countries. He chiefly studied Dante, Boccac- cio, and Alain Chartier, and became so distinguished a proficient in polite learning that he opened a school in his monastery for teaching the sons of the nobilit}' ver- sification and composition. Although philology was his subject, he was not unacquainted with the philosophy of the day : he was not only a poet and a rhetorician, but a geometrician, an astronomer, a theologist, and a disputant. He died about 1401. — English. Cyclop, s. v.; Warton, Hist. Engl. Poetry ; Chambers, Cyclop. Eng. Lit. i, 40 sq.
Lyd'ia {\vcia), the name of a country, and also of a woman in the New Testament.
1. The Hebrew Lro (•' Lydia" in Ezek. xxx, 5 ; see also Ludim), a province in the west of Asia Minor, sup- posed to have derived its name from Lud, the foiu-th son of Shem (Gen. x, 22). Thus Josephus states " those who are now called Lydians (AfCoi), but anciently Lu- diin (Aoicoi), sprung from Lud" (Aoiic^«, ^»^ i, 6, 4; compare Bochart, Opera, i, 83, and the authorities cited there). See Ethnology. Lydia was bounded on the east by Greater Phrv'gia, on the north by yEolis or JMy- sia. on the west by Ionia and the ^giean Sea, and on the south it was separated from Caria by the IMa-ander (see Smith's Diet, of Class. Geogr. s. v.). The country is (or the most part level (Schubert, Reisen, i, 309 sq.). Among the mountains, that of Tmolus was celebrated for its saffron and red wine (Xenoph. Cyrop. vi, 2, 21). Lydia, however, lay on the west coast of Asia Minor, and thus was far removed from the other possessions of the Shemitic nations, (ireek -WTiters inform us that Lydia was originally peopled by a Pelasgic race called fhfonians (Homer, Iliad, ii, 800; x, 431), who received their name from Ma;on, an ancient king (Bochart, /. c). They also state that the name Lydians was derived from a king who ruled them at a later period (Herod, i, 7).
LYDIA
586
LYDIUS
About eifrht centuries B.C. a tribe of another race mi- f^ralcil IrDm the east, anil subdued the Ma^unians. These were the Lydians. For some time after this conquest both nations are mentioned promiscuously, but the Lyd- ians gradually obtained power, and gave their name to the country (Kalisch, Ore Gen. x; Dionysius,i,oO; Pliny, V, oO ; comp. Strabo, xii, 572 ; xiv, 679). The best and most recent critics regard these Lydians as a Shemitic tribe, and consequently the descendants of Lud (Movers, Die Phijnicier, i, 475). This view is strengthened by the description of the character and habits of the Lyd- ians. They were warlike (Herod, i, 79), skilled in horse- manship (i6.), and accustomed to serve as mercenaries under foreign princes (vii, 71). Now, in Isa. Ixvi, 19, a warlilie people called Lud is mentioned in connection with Tarshish and Pul; and again in Ezek. xx\'ii, 10, the prophet says of Tyre, " They of Persia, and of Lud, and of Phut, were in thine arm}', thy men of war." There can scarcely be a doubt that this is the Shemitic nation mentioned in Genesis, and which migrated to Western Asia, and gave the province of Lydia its name. The identity has recently been called in question by professor and Sir Henry Rawlinson, but their arguments do not seem sufficient to set aside the great mass of cir- cumstantial evidence in its favor (Eawlinson's Herodo- tus, i, 160, 059, 667 ; comp. KaUsch, ad loc. Gen. ; Prich- ard, Phijsical History o/ iVanlind, iv, 562 sq. ; Niebuhr, Lectures on Ancient History, i, 87; Gesenius, Thesaunis, p. 745). In the palmy days of Lydia its kings ruled from the shores of the vEgtean to the river Halys; and Croesus, who was its king in the time of Solon and of Cyrus, was reputed the richest monarch in the world (Strabo, xv, 735). He was aTjle to bring into the field an army of 420,000 foot and 60,000 horse against Cyrus, by whom, however, he was defeated, and his kingdom annexed to the Persian empire (Herod, i, 6). Lydia af- terwards formed part of the kingdom of the Seleucidse ; and it is related in 1 Mace, viii, 8, that Antiochus the Great was compelled by the Roman.-- to cede Lydia to king Eumenes (comp. Apian. Syr. 38). Some difficulty arises in the passage referred to from the names " India and Media" found in connection with it ; but if we re- gard these as incorrectly given by the writer or by a copyist for '' Ionia and Mysia," the agreement with Livy's account of the same transaction (xxxvii, 56) will be sufficiently established, the notice of the maritime provinces alone in the book of Maccabees being explica- ble on the ground of their being best known to the in- habitants of Palestine. In the time of the travels of the apostles it was a province of the Roman empire (Ptolemy, v, 2, 16 ; Pliny, v, 30). Its chief towns were Sardis (the capital), Thyatira, and Philadelphia, all of which are mentioned in the New Testament, although the name of the province itself does not occur. Its con- nection with Jiidrea, under the Seleucidse, is referred to by Josephus (.-1 ut. xii, 3, 4). The manners of the Lyd- ians were corrupt even to a proverb (Herod, i, 93). — Kitto ; Smith. See Th. Menke, Lydicea (Berlin, 1844) ; CTamci, Asia Minor, i, 413; Forbiger, Handb.der Alien Geoyr. ii, 167 ; Clinton, Fasti Hellen. Appendix, p. 361 ; Niebuhr, Lectures on A nc. Hist, i, 82 ; Cellarius, Notiiiw, ii, 108 sq.; Mannert, Gwr/r.A^I, iii,345 sq. ; AUgem.Welt- histor. iv, 623 sq. ; Beck, Weltg. i, 308 sq. ; Heeren, Ideen, I, i, 154 sq.