somebody else is having a letter composed to his son who is far from home. In sharp contrast with the crowd in the office, the hardware merchant next door has no business at all. Obviously there is little demand for construction materials these days, and the proprietor is rolling dice with his apprentice to while away the time.

SARDIS'S GOLDEN AGE
We're in the ancient city of Sardis, 72 kilometers south of Izmir in Salihli township of Manisa province. And the shops we just described are from the Late Roman period. But the city's history dates back much earlier than this to the 7th century B.C. Sardis, for centuries the capital city of the Lydian League, which put the first coins into circulation, came under the hegemony of several different states from the time of the Lydians up to the 14th century. These lands saw not only the Persians and the Hellenistic Greeks but also the Pergamenes, the Romans and the Byzantines. So this ancient city affords visitors an opportunity to journey back in time.