Greek and Lydian Evidence of Diversity, Erasure, and Convergence in Western Asia Minor

Abstract

After the Persian, Greek, and Roman conquests of Lydia, a separate Lydian culture and language gradually disappeared under the influence of the kind of socioeconomic and sociolinguistic forces that have more recently reduced the diversity of the world’s cultures and languages. There is evidence, however, that a convergence between Greek and Anatolian (particularly Lydian) cultures stretched back into the Bronze Age. This kind of convergence would explain Herodotus’ remarkable statement that Greeks and Lydians follow much the same customs.