Tiara felting instructional at A Magyar Jurta

Thanks Giannis Kadoglou for this link. Scythian-inspired Felt Hat It should be useable with the Persian tiara pattern.

Wandering Sheep

I really meant to post this weeks ago.  Wandering Sheep produces handmade felt goods, including tiaras.  A flat stitched tiara is acceptable if it's low-crowned for a Persian impression, but if you prefer to reenact as a Phrygian or the ever-popular Scythian, you'll need a tall pointed hat and a properly molded one will look immeasurably better.

This link was brought to my attention by one of my Facebook friends, sorry I forgot who.

Peoples of the empire: The Lydians

Geographical definition
Lydia (Lydian Śfard, O.P. Sparda) lay in the middle of western Anatolia, north of Caria, south of Mysia on the northern coast, and east of Ionia and Aeolia on the western coast.  Its capital Sardis is today the village of Sart.  The name Lydia derives from the Assyrian name for the region, Luddu.

History
Politically, Lydia postdates the Bronze Age collapse, but it occupied the area of a Luwian-speaking kindom called Mirâ and Lendering suggests that "there is considerable continuity between Mirâ and Lydia".  While agriculturally productive, Lydia contained few large cities and most people lived in smaller towns.

Much of Lydia's wealth and power was founded on gold mined from the river Pactolus (the modern Sart Çayı), which flows through Sardis and where King Midas was said in Greek mythology to have washed away his power of turning things into gold.  According to Herodotus, the Lydians invented gold and silver coins.

The late Lydian kings belonged to the Mermnad or Gygian dynasty, founded by the usurper Gyges, whom Herodotus says was obliged by the queen to murder her husband, King Candaules, after some funny business.  Others say otherwise, as others are wont to do.

In any event, the Mermnad dynasty expanded Lydian power considerably, so that by the end it was a sizable empire that ruled most of western Anatolia, including the Greek cities of Ionia.  Lydia was accidentally ended by King Croesus, who decided to attack Cyrus after the Persian prince overthrew Astyages, possibly wishing to reinstate Astyages (with whom Lydia had a treaty), or seize land for himself.  He did this, the historian says, after the Oracle of Delphi promised him that if he did, a great empire would fall.  Now, you and I could guess how that ends, but Croesus was, as Jamie Rieger put it, a "first time customer."

Together with the Egyptians, Babylonians and Spartans, the Lydians launched an invasion of formerly Median territory across the Halys River (modern Kızılırmak) in central Anatolia.  Traditionally, this event is said to have happened in 547 BC, but that's based on a misreading of a damaged part of the Nabonidus Chronicle which is actually more likely referring to Urartu, not Luddu.

In any case, the two kings fought inconclusively at the Battle of Pteria in Cappadocia, and with winter drawing on, Croesus dismissed his allies and returned to his capital, only to notice too late that Cyrus was standing right behind him.  According to the Greek poet Bacchylides, Croesus tried to immolate himself as his capital fell, but Apollo spirited him away.  Herodotus rewrites the story a bit and has Cyrus decide to burn Croesus alive because hey, you only king of the world once.  Then he thought better of it, but at that point the pyre was already raging and Croesus nearly died before Apollo sent a storm to extinguish it.

Per Herodotus, Cyrus appointed two officials to rule Lydia, a native named Pactyes as civil administrator and a Persian named Tabalus as satrap.  Upon Cyrus' departure, Pactyes rebelled.  Cyrus prepared to level Sardis, but Croesus entreated him to punish only those who had rebelled and to pacify Lydia by reordering the economy so that the Lydians became hedonistic girlymen (really).  Lydia, and particularly Sardis, was and remained a center of craftsmanship, famous for ceramics and goldwork.  Darius would later employ Lydian ivory carvers at Susa.  Lydians at the Persepolis apadana bear ornate beakers, bowls and small horses or donkeys in fancy harness drawing a chariot.

As for Pactyes, he fled to Aeolia and bounced around for a while before being captured on Chios just off the Aeolian coast.  Nothing is said of his death, but I think it's safe to assume that it was swift and squicky.

Lydia became a satrapy with its capital remaining at Sardis.  Around 530, Oroetus became its satrap, and in 522 murdered the Greek conqueror Polycrates of Samos.  Oroetus himself met a bad end because of Darius' distrust of him.  Bagaeus may have succeeded him; afterward came Otanes, one of Darius' six companions, who conquered Samos outright, and finally the great king's brother, Artaphernes.  Under his rule, Lydia was the site of intense fighting during the Ionian Revolt.  Much of Sardis was burned by the rebels, but Artaphernes held the citadel and led the Persian counterattack.

Artaphernes was apparently relieved of his post in 492 by his son, also called Artaphernes, who co-led the first invasion of Greece along with Datis in 492-490, and commanded the Lydians as infantry in Xerxes' 480 invasion.

During the fifth century, Lydia was settled by many foreigners, Persian and Ionian estate owners and foreign garrisons like the Hyrcanians on the rivers Caicus and Hermus (modern Bakırçay and Gediz).  Religion began to show Iranian influences; deities like Anahita were adopted, and the god Pldans was associated (according to Lendering) with Ahura Mazda.

The Greeks who are our main sources lose interest in Lydia after 480.  The next known news is the 440 attempt of the satrap Pissuthnes to take Samos after it revolted against the Athenian empire.  During the first decade of the Peloponnesian War, Pissuthnes backed Athens' rebellious holdings.

In 420, he himself rebelled against Darius II, but was arrested and executed by Tissaphernes, who was then given the satrapy around 415.  Tissaphernes had to continue fighting Pissuthnes' son Amorges, who lived in Iasus in Caria and had Athenian support.  Tissaphernes countered him by backing the Spartans, so the two Persians had become players in the Peloponnesian War.  As part of the treaty, the Spartans sailed to Iasus and arrested Amorges in the winter of 412-411.  The continued Persian support of Sparta probably hastened the defeat of Athens.

Having run out of common enemies, Persia and Sparta once again had to fight.  In 399, the Spartan Thibron or Thimbron invaded Asia Minor and captured some cities, but his siege of Larissa failed in its aim of gaining concessions from Tissaphernes.  Agesilaus II had considerably more success and raided as far as Sardis itself.  Tissaphernes was then (394) killed by a Persian courtier, Tithraustes, who may have acted on behalf of Parysatis for Tissaphernes' role in the defeat and death of her son Cyrus the Younger.

Tithraustes briefly replaced Tissaphernes and persuaded Agesilaus to attack Phrygia.  In 393, Tithraustes was replaced by Tiribazus, who began to funnel money to Sparta to counter Athens' growing power in the Corinthian War.  Artaxerxes II disagreed with this course and replaced Tiribazus in 392 with Struthas, who attacked the Spartans.  The Spartans in return began raiding Lydia once again.  In or before 387, Tiribazus returned to Lydia and renewed his cooperation with Sparta, bringing the Corinthian War to an end.

The next known satrap of Lydia was Autophradates, who fought for years in the Revolt of the Satraps, mainly on the king's side but at one point (362) defecting to the rebels.  Autophradates may have been the same commander who, together with Pharnabazus, commanded Persian operations in the Aegean after the death of Memnon of Rhodes.  He appears to have left his post before 334, by which time we hear of the Lydian satrap Spithridates fighting and dying against Alexander the Great at the Granicus.

With the satraps' failure to stop Alexander there, western Anatolia fell.  Sardis surrendered in the summer of 334.  It was given to Alexander's general Menander at the Partition of Babylon (323), then to Cleitus the White at the Partition of Triparadisus (321)   The satrapy was initially under the control of the empire of Antigonus, then Lysimachus, one of Alexander's bodyguards, from 301-281, and finally, when he was killed, Lydia passed to the Seleucids for 91 years until falling into the Roman sphere of influence.

Throughout the Hellenistic period, Lydia was settled by Greeks and became Hellenized.  In the first century BC, Strabo wrote that the Lydian language had become extinct in Lydia itself though still spoken in Kibyra to the south.  From this time, the country could perhaps be regarded as only a traditional placename.

Language
Lydian was an Anatolian language, but differed in certain ways from its closest known relatives so that its exact line of descent is unknown.  While attested from the seventh to third centuries, the majority of the Lydian corpus dates to the Achaemenid period.  The Lydian alphabet was derived from or related to Greek.

Religion
Lydians were polytheists, but beyond the names of their gods, not much is known about their religious practices.  It appears that native Lydian altars were (or included) open-air structures.  Greek-style temples are known from Sardis, and the patronage described by Herodotus of Gyges, Alyattes and Croesus to the Oracle of Delphi may imply religious links with the Greeks.

The Lydian gods included Levs, a weather god who may or may not have been head of the pantheon (FWIW the Greeks interpreted him as Zeus), Baki (Dionysus) for whom they put on song and dance numbers, and Kuvava (Cybele) who had a temple at Sardis, but the most important goddess in Sardis was Artemis.  Many of their deities, including Kuvava, the vegetation goddess Kore (Greek for "young woman," perhaps implying an identification with Persephone), Santas (regarded by the Greeks as Heracles), and the moon god Pldans or Qldans, are or may be derived from much older Anatolian deities, particularly Hittite.

Candaules, whose name is thought to mean "dog throttler," may be connected with the discovery of dog bones in cooking pots at Sardis, which were perhaps cooked and buried as sacrifices to him.  The Greeks also documented temple prostitution in Lydia, as in other parts of the Mediterranean, though no fertility goddess of the sort usually connected with this practice is known here.

Clothing
Lydians at the Persepolis apadana wear long, seemingly un-belted tunics with fine verical pleats and short, horizontally-pleated sleeves.  The texture reminds me of a linen tunic that a reenactor at Marathon wore; he said that it was produced by twisting the tunic up tightly while it was wet and allowing it to dry so the pleats were set, but I may be completely off-base in thinking that the effects are one and the same.  The Persepolis Lydians also wear pull-on boots that rise to just above the ankle, rounded conical hats with several broad horizontal pleats or seams, long cords with bead-like finials hanging from the head just behind the ears (these look like part of the hat but are also seen on those with no hats), and a flowing cloak pinned over the left shoulder and passing under the right arm.

Weapons
Herodotus says simply that "Lydian armor was most similar to the Greek" (tr. Godley).  I have never seen depictions of Lydian weapons other than the figure at Naqs-e Rostam who wears a longsword on a sling, an image I am beginning to suspect is too consistent across the many nations on this table to be realistic.  Assuming Herodotus to be correct, an Argive shield and spear with a sauroter would probably be safe choices.  The famous Spangenhelm-like helmet found at Sardis may be either Lydian or Persian.

Note:  Much of the above information, particularly on religion, is culled from the long and detailed report by Annick Peyne to be found here.

Peoples of the empire: The Medes

History
Herodotus writes that the Medes (Gk. Medoi) were originally called (as rendered in Greek) Arioi, which is almost assuredly related to Old Persian self-designation Ariya, "Aryans."  The Median language is scarcely attested, but appears to have been in the Northwestern Iranian branch and possibly ancestral to Old Azeri.

The historian also says they consisted of six tribes, called (in Latin translation) the Busae (Gk. Busai), Parataceni (Paratakenoi), Struchates (Strukhatai), Arizanti (Arizantoi), Budii (Budioi) and Magi (Magoi).  Magi (sing. magus, Gk. mágos) elsewhere in Greek histories refers to the priests of Media and Persia, and some historians believe that they are one and the same; in other words, that the Median tribe traditionally acted as the Iranians' priests, as the tribe of Levi did among the Israelites.

There is no certainty that the Biblical Magi were Medes, or any sort of Iranians:  By the late Hellenistic period, the term had become generic for priests and scholars from Mesopotamia, the Iranian plateau and the Indian subcontinent.  Its association with occult knowledge, by extension, gave rise to the words "magic" and "mage."  For all that, early portrayals of the Biblical Magi do show them in Iranian (specifically Parthian) clothing, though this may simply be meant to indicate that they came from the same general part of the world.

Media (O.P. Māda) was the first nation the Persians conquered.  It was located in the central Zagros north of Persia.  According to Greek histories, the Medes formed a centralized monarchy centered at Ecbatana (O.P. Hamgmatana, modern Hamadan) between the 7th century BC and 549, when Cyrus overthrew them.  There is as yet no clear archaeological record of such a state.  It likely was more of a tribal confederation, lacking the Achaemenids' political centralization.

The Medes and Persians were at least nominally subject to the Assyrians and often suffered raids or had to pay tribute to them, but between 616 and 605 the Medes allied with the Babylonians and Scythians in overthrowing the Neo-Assyrian empire.  The defeat left the Median confederation and the Babylonian empire as the two great spheres of influence in West Asia, Babylon in most of the Middle East, and Media from the Halys River (modern Kızılırmak) in Turkey to perhaps as far east as Bactria in northern Afghanistan and south as far as Persia.

According to Herodotus, Cyrus was the son of a Median princess and Persian tributary king, thus leading to the famous Delphian quip that Lydia (Cyrus' next conquest) would fall "when a mule sits on the throne of Media."  Medes remained an important part of the early Achaemenid government and military, providing officers such as Mazares and Harpagus, who conquered Asia Minor under Cyrus, and Datis, who (together with Artaphernes) led the first Persian invasion of Greece.

After Alexander conquered the empire, he divided Media into northern and southern satrapies, eventually reinstating the native satrap Atropates (Âtarepâta or Aturpat), who went on to found the kingdom of Atropatene (Aturpatakan), which lent its name to both the Iranian province and the state of Azerbaijan.  The Medes themselves are often held to be ancestral to the Kurds.

Dress, arms and fighting methods
We've already, for all practical purposes, covered Median clothing and arms, which were very similar to those of the Persians, but lacking the elements borrowed from the Elamites, such as the court robe.  Like the Persians, they relied heavily on cavalry and wore the cavalry costume, both in combat and at the royal court.  The Medes in Achaemenid art are attested as carrying the gorytus and akinakes, and are usually identified by their large domed hats.  However, you can also elect to wear a tiara or kidaris, which is the usual headwear for "Persians" in Greek art of the time.

Playing with the kidaris or tiara

Personally, I don't find the look of the standard tiara appealing, but it is the most commonly-attested headwear for Persians in Greece, and is very easy to make at home.

A tiara pattern for a large head, with moderate-length neck flap (left).
If you choose felt, all you need to do is cut out the "blank," stitch up the front seam and turn the hat inside-out.

Persians appear to have sometimes worn tiaras tied around the crown with a cord of some kind.  On this practice run, I'm just using a bit of leftover cotton belting.

If you don't like the look of the long earflaps, they may be tied up Cappadocian-style, like a modern hunting cap or ushanka.

For an even tidier look, the flaps can be tucked into themselves.

From the back.

 

I'm going to have to rescind my words about the fabric needing to be soft enough for the peak to lay to one side.  It appears that even the very soft polyester felt I used on this prototype isn't flimsy enough for that purpose.  I'd guess that the flopped-over look was probably achieved using a fine woven cloth, either wool or linen.

Again, for the Graeco-Persian wars, I have only heard of felt being used.  Greek art typically shows Persian (or possibly Scythian, etc.) soldiers wearing tiaras with rather stiff-looking peaks that are often curled, but not flopped, forward.  So it's possible that the stiff peak is okay for our purposes.

Further thought on the domed hat

When I first examined low-res images of the Mede domed hat, I believed that the hat was bound around the outside.  However, having continued to examine the high-res images at Nirupars (such as the first and second images on this page) I'm forced to concede that the band is internal.  Possibly the edge of the hat was folded in and stitched down over it, but an easier method might be to sew small patches to the inside (like belt loops).  Either way, the band then passes through a hole in the back and is tied into a slipknot on the outside.