Ardys II

Ardys (, also ; , ; reigned 644–637 BC ) was the son of Gyges of Lydia, whom he succeeded as the second king of the Mermnad dynasty.

Name The name is the Latin form of , which is itself the Hellenised form of a Lydian language name which was a cognate of either the Hittite bird-name or of the Hittite word for descendant, .

Life Background During the 7th century BC, the Cimmerians, a nomadic people from the Eurasian Steppe who had invaded Western Asia, attacked Lydia several times but had been repelled by Ardys's father, Gyges. In 644 BC, the Cimmerians attacked Lydia for the third time, led by their king Lygdamis. The Lydians were defeated, Sardis was sacked, and Ardys's father Gyges was killed, following which Ardys became the king of Lydia.

Ardys's reign was short-lived, likely due to the period of severe crisis Lydia was facing because of the Cimmerian invasions.

Aftermath Ardys's son and successor Sadyattes might have also been killed during another Cimmerian attack in 635 BC or deposed that year for being unable to protect Lydia from the Cimmerian attacks. and in alliance with the Lydians, the Scythians under their king Madyes entered Anatolia, expelled the Treres from Asia Minor, and defeated the Cimmerians so that they no longer constituted a threat again, following which the Scythians extended their domination to Central Anatolia until they were themselves expelled by the Medes from Western Asia in the 600s BC. This final defeat of the Cimmerians was carried out by the joint forces of Madyes, whom Strabo credits with expelling the Treres and Cimmerians from Asia Minor, and of Sadyattes’s son and Ardys’s grandson, the king Alyattes of Lydia, whom Herodotus of Halicarnassus and Polyaenus claim finally defeated the Cimmerians.