City
Sardes
Sart
Listen to the story
Sardes is one of the map's curiosities: the copyist of around 1200 drew the pair of towers that marks a town, but forgot to write the name beside it, so scholars have supplied it. The city lies at modern Sart in Turkey, where the Pactolus valley opens into the Hermus valley below Mount Tmolus. It was the residence of the Lydian kings and later a Persian centre. Badly damaged by an earthquake under Tiberius, it was rebuilt with the emperor's help. After Diocletian's reforms it became capital of the province of Lydia, with an imperial arms factory, and it was one of the seven Christian communities of Asia addressed in the Book of Revelation.