ALYATTES  ,

king of Lydia (6o9-56o B.c.), the real founder of the Lydian empire, was the son of Sadyattes, of the house of the Mermnadae . For several years he continued the war against Miletus begun by his father, but was obliged to turn his attention to the Medes and Babylonians . On the 28th of May 585, during a battle on the Halys between him and Cyaxares, king of Media, an eclipse of the sun took place; hostilities were suspended, peace concluded, and the Halys fixed as the boundary between the two kingdoms . Alyattes drove the Cimmerii (see SCYTHE.%) from Asia, subdued the Carians, and took several Ionian cities (Smyrna, Colophon) . He was succeeded by his son Croesus . His tomb still exists on the plateau between lake Gygaea and the river Hermus to the north of Sardis—a large mound of earth with a substructure of huge stones . It was excavated by Spiegelthal in 1854, who found that it covered a large vault of finely-cut marble blocks approached by a flat-roofed passage of the same stone from the south . The sarcophagus and its contents had been removed by early plunderers of the'tomb, all that was left being some broken alabaster vases, pottery and charcoal . On the summit of the mound were large phalli of stone . See A. von Offers, "Viler die lydischen Konigsgraber bei Sat-des," Abh . Berl . Ak., 1858 .