The sub-structure consisted of a circular wall of great blocks of
limestone resting on the solid rock, and it contained in the centre
a vault of grey marble which was reached by a vaulted passage. A huge
mound of red clay and yellowish earth was raised above the chamber,
surmounted by a small column representing a phallus, and by four stelæ
covered with inscriptions, erected at the four cardinal points. It
follows the traditional type of burial-places in use among the old
Asianic races, but it is constructed with greater regularity than most
of them; Alyattes was laid within it in 561, after a glorious reign of
forty-nine years.*

* Herodotus gave fifty-seven years' length of reign to
Alyattes, whilst the chronographers, who go back as far as
Xanthus of Lydia, through Julius Africanus, attribute to him
only forty-nine; historians now prefer the latter figures,
at least as representing the maximum length of reign.

[Illustration: 052.jpg MOULD FOR JEWELLERY OF LYDIAN ORIGIN]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.

It was wholly due to him that Lydia was for the moment raised to the
level of the most powerful states which then existed on the eastern
shores of the Mediterranean. He was by nature of a violent and
uncontrolled temper, and during his earlier years he gave way to fits of
anger, in which he would rend the clothes of those who came in his way
or would spit in their faces, but with advancing years his character
became more softened, and he finally earned the reputation of being a
just and moderate sovereign. The little that we know of his life reveals