Eighteenth Dynasty, were really Pisidians, was not new to them. North of
their hills, however, lay broader valleys leading up to the central
plateau; and, if Herodotus is to be believed, an organized monarchical
society, ruled by the "Heraclids" of Sardes, was already developed
there. We know practically nothing about it; but since some three
centuries later the Lydian people was rich and luxurious in the Hermus
valley, which had once been a fief of the Hatti, we must conclude that
it had been enjoying security as far back as 1000 B.C. Who those
Heraclid princes were exactly is obscure. The dynastic name given to
them by Herodotus probably implies that they traced their origin (i.e.
owed especial allegiance) to a God of the Double War-Axe, whom the
Greeks likened to Heracles, but we liken to Sandan, god of Tarsus and of
the lands of the south-east. We shall say more of him and his
worshippers presently.

Leaving aside the northern fringe-lands as ill known and of small
account (as we too shall leave them), our traveller would pass up from
the Lydian vales to find the Cappadocian Hatti no longer the masters of
the plateau as of old. No one of equal power seems to have taken their
place; but there is reason to think that the Mushki, who had brought
them low, now filled some of their room in Asia Minor. But these Mushki
had so far adopted Hatti civilization either before or since their great
raiding expedition which Tiglath Pileser I of Assyria repelled, that
their domination can scarcely have made much difference to the social
condition of Asia Minor. Their capital was probably where the Hatti
capital had been--at Boghazkeui; but how far their lordship radiated
from that centre is not known.

In the south-east of Asia Minor we read of several principalities, both
in the Hatti documents of earlier centuries and in Assyrian annals of