NATIVES OF ASIA MINOR WITH WHOM THE GREEKS BECAME CONNECTED.
From the Grecian settlements on the coast of Asia Minor, and on
the adjacent islands, our attention must now be turned to those
non-Hellenic kingdoms and people with whom they there came in contact.
Our information with respect to all of them is unhappily very scanty.
Nor shall we improve our narrative by taking the catalogue, presented
in the Iliad, of allies of Troy, and construing it as if it were a
chapter of geography: if any proof were wanting of the unpromising
results of such a proceeding, we may find it in the confusion which
darkens so much of the work of Strabo,—who perpetually turns aside
from the actual and ascertainable condition of the countries which he
is describing, to conjectures on Homeric antiquity, often announced
as if they were unquestionable facts. Where the Homeric geography
is confirmed by other evidence, we note the fact with satisfaction;
where it stands unsupported or difficult to reconcile with other
statements, we cannot venture to reason upon it as in itself a
substantial testimony. The author of the Iliad, as he has congregated
together a vast body of the different sections of Greeks for the
attack of the consecrated hill of Ilium, so he has also summoned all
the various inhabitants of Asia Minor to coöperate in its defence,
and he has planted portions of the Kilikians and Lykians, whose
historical existence is on the southern coast, in the immediate
vicinity of the Troad. Those only will complain of this who have
accustomed themselves to regard him as an historian or geographer:
if we are content to read him only as the first of poets, we shall
no more quarrel with him for a geographical misplacement, than with
his successor Arktinus for bringing on the battle-field of Ilium the
Amazons or the Æthiopians.
The geography of Asia Minor is even now very imperfectly known,[374]
and the matters ascertained respecting its ancient divisions and
boundaries relate almost entirely either to the later periods of the
Persian empire, or to times after the Macedonian and even after the
Roman conquest. To state them as they stood in the time of Crœsus
king of Lydia, before the arrival of the conquering Cyrus, is a task
in which we find little evidence to sustain us. The great mountain
chain of Taurus, which begins from the Chelidonian promontory on
the southern coast of Lykia, and strikes north-eastward as far
as Armenia, formed the most noted boundary-line during the Roman
times,—but Herodotus does not once mention it; the river Halys is
in his view the most important geographical limit. Northward of
Taurus, on the upper portions of the rivers Halys and Sangarius,
was situated the spacious and lofty central plain of Asia Minor.
To the north, west, and south of this central plain, the region is
chiefly mountainous, as it approaches all the three seas, the Euxine,
the Ægean, and the Pamphylian,—most mountainous in the case of the
latter, permitting no rivers of long course. The mountains Kadmus,
Messôgis, Tmôlus, stretch westward towards the Ægean sea, but leaving
extensive spaces of plain and long valleys, so that the course of
the Mæander, the Kaïster, and the Hermus is of considerable length.
The north-western part includes the mountainous regions of Ida,
Têmnus, and the Mysian Olympus, yet with much admixture of fertile
and productive ground. The elevated tracts near the Euxine appear
to have been the most wooded,—especially Kytôrus: the Parthenius,
the Sangarius, the Halys, and the Iris, are all considerable streams
flowing northward towards that sea. Nevertheless, the plain land
interspersed through these numerous elevations was often of the
greatest fertility; and as a whole, the peninsula of Asia Minor was
considered as highly productive by the ancients, in grain, wine,
fruit, cattle, and in many parts, oil; though the cold central plain
did not carry the olive.[375]
[374] For the general geography of Asia Minor, see Albert
Forbiger, Handbuch der Alt. Geogr. part ii, sect. 61, and an
instructive little treatise, Fünf Inschriften und fünf Städte
in Klein Asien, by Franz and Kiepert, Berlin, 1840, with a map
of Phrygia annexed. The latter is particularly valuable as
showing us how much yet remains to be made out: it is too often
the practice with the compilers of geographical manuals to make
a show of full knowledge, and to disguise the imperfection of
their data. Nor do they always keep in view the necessity of
distinguishing between the territorial names and divisions of one
age and those of another.
[375] Cicero, Pro Lege Maniliâ, c. 6; Strabo, xii, p. 572;
Herodot. v, 32. See the instructive account of the spread and
cultivation of the olive-tree, in Ritter, Erdkunde, West-Asien,
b. iii, Abtheilung iii; Abschn. i, s. 50, pp. 522-537.
Along the western shores of this peninsula, where the various bands
of Greek emigrants settled, we hear of Pelasgians, Teukrians,
Mysians, Bithynians, Phrygians, Lydians or Mæonians, Karians,
Lelegians. Farther eastward are Lykians, Pisidians, Kilikians,
Phrygians, Kapadokians, Paphlagonians, Mariandynians, etc. Speaking
generally, we may say that the Phrygians, Teukrians, and Mysians
appear in the north-western portion, between the river Hermus and the
Propontis,—the Karians and Lelegians south of the river Mæander,—and
the Lydians in the central region between the two. Pelasgians are
found here and there, seemingly both in the valley of the Hermus
and in that of the Kaïster: even in the time of Herodotus, there
were Pelasgian settlements at Plakia and Skylakê on the Propontis,
westward of Kyzikus: and O. Müller would even trace the Tyrrhenian
Pelasgians to Tyrrha, an inland town of Lydia, from whence he
imagines, though without much probability, the name Tyrrhenian to be
derived.
One important fact to remark, in respect to the native population
of Asia Minor at the first opening of this history, is, that they
were not aggregated into great kingdoms or confederations, nor
even into any large or populous cities,—but distributed into many
inconsiderable tribes, so as to present no overwhelming resistance,
and threaten no formidable danger, to the successive bodies of Greek
emigrants. The only exception to this is, the Lydian monarchy of
Sardis, the real strength of which begins with Gygês and the dynasty
of the Mermnadæ, about 700 B. C. Though the increasing force of this
kingdom ultimately extinguished the independence of the Greeks in
Asia, it seems to have noway impeded their development, as it stood
when they first arrived, and for a long time afterwards. Nor were
either Karians or Mysians united under any one king, so as to possess
facilities for aggression or conquest.
As far as can be made out from our scanty data, it appears that
all the nations of Asia Minor west of the river Halys, were, in a
large sense, of kindred race with each other, as well as with the
Thracians on the European side of the Bosphorus and Hellespont.
East of the Halys dwelt the people of Syro-Arabian or Semitic
race,—Assyrians, Syrians, and Kappadokians,—as well as Kilikians,
Pamphylians, and Solymi, along its upper course and farther southward
to the Pamphylian sea. Westward of the Halys, the languages were not
Semitic, but belonging to a totally different family,[376]—cognate,
yet distinct one from another, perhaps not mutually intelligible.
The Karians, Lydians, and Mysians recognized a certain degree of
brotherhood with each other, attested by common religious sacrifices
in the temple of Zeus Karios, at Mylasa.[377] But it is by no means
certain that each of these nations mutually comprehended each other’s
speech; and Herodotus, from whom we derive the knowledge of these
common sacrifices, acquaints us at the same time that the Kaunians
in the south-western corner of the peninsula had no share in them,
though speaking the same language as the Karians; he does not,
however, seem to consider identity or difference of language as a
test of national affinity.
[376] Herodot. i, 72; Heeren, Ideen über den Verkehr der Alten
Welt, part i, abth. i, pp. 142-145. It may be remarked, however,
that the Armenians, eastward of the Halys, are treated by
Herodotus as colonists from the Phrygians (vii, 73): Stephanus
Byz. says the same, v. Ἀρμενία, adding also, καὶ τῇ φωνῇ πολλὰ
φρυγίζουσι. The more careful researches of modern linguists after
much groundless assertion on the part of those who preceded them,
have shown that the Armenian language belongs in its structure to
the Indo-Germanic family, and is essentially distinct from the
Semitic: see Ritter, Erdkunde, West-Asien, b. iii, abth. iii;
Abschn. i, 5, 36, pp. 577-582. Herodotus rarely takes notice of
the language spoken, nor does he on this occasion, when speaking
of the river Halys as a boundary.
[377] Herodot. i, 170-171.
Along the coast of the Euxine, from the Thracian Bosphorus eastward
to the river Halys, dwelt Bithynians or Thynians, Mariandynians
and Paphlagonians,—all recognized branches of the widely-extended
Thracian race. The Bithynians especially, in the north-western
portion of this territory, and reaching from the Euxine to the
Propontis, are often spoken of as Asiatic Thracians,—while on
the other hand various tribes among the Thracians of Europe, are
denominated Thyni, or Thynians,[378]—so little difference was
there in the population on the two sides of the Bosphorus, alike
brave, predatory, and sanguinary. The Bithynians of Asia are also
sometimes called Bebrykians, under which denomination they extend as
far southward as the gulf of Kios in the Propontis.[379] They here
come in contact with Mygdonians, Mysians, and Phrygians. Along the
southern coast of the Propontis, between the rivers Rhyndakus and
Æsêpus, in immediate neighborhood with the powerful Greek colony
of Kyzikus, appear the Doliones; next, Pelasgians at Plakia and
Skylakê; then again, along the coast of the Hellespont near Abydus
and Lampsakus, and occupying a portion of the Troad, we find mention
made of other Bebrykians.[380] In the interior of the Troad, or the
region of Ida, are Teukrians and Mysians: the latter seem to extend
southward down to Pergamus and the region of Mount Sipylus, and
eastward to the mountainous region called the Mysian Olympus, south
of the lake Askanius, near which they join with the Phrygians.[381]
[378] Strabo, vii, pp. 295-303; xii, pp. 542, 564, 565, 572;
Herodot. i, 28; vii, 74-75; Xenophon. Hellenic. i, 3, 2;
Anabasis, vii, 2, 22-32. Mannert, Geographie der Gr. und Römer,
b. viii, ch. ii, p. 403.
[379] Dionys. Periegêt. 805: Apollodôrus, i, 9, 20. Theokritus
puts the Bebrykians on the coast of the Euxine—Id. xxii, 29;
Syncell. p. 340, Bonn. The story in Appian, Bell. Mithridat.
init. is a singular specimen of Grecian fancy, and anxiety to
connect the antiquities of a nation with the Trojan war: the
Greeks whom he followed assigned the origin of the Bithynians to
Thracian followers of Rhêsus, who fled from Troy after the latter
had been killed by Diomêdes: Dolonkus, eponym of the Thracians
in the Chersonesus, is called brother of Bithynus (Steph. Byz.
Δόλογκος—Βιθυνία).
The name Μαριαν-δυνοὶ, like Βι-θυνοὶ, may probably be an
extension or compound of the primitive Θυνοὶ; perhaps, also,
Βέβρυκες stands in the same relation to Βριγὲς, or Φρυγές.
Hellanikus wrote Θύμβριον, Δύμβριον (Steph. Byz. in v.).
Kios is Mysian in Herodotus, v, 122: according to Skylax, the
coast from the gulf of Astakus to that of Kios is Mysia (c. 93).
[380] Charon of Lampsakus, Fr. 7, ed. Didot. Χάρων δὲ φησὶ
καὶ τὴν Λαμψακηνῶν χώραν προτέραν Βεβρυκίαν καλεῖσθαι ἀπὸ τῶν
κατοικησάντων αὐτὴν Βεβρύκων· τὸ δὲ γένος αὐτῶν ἠφάνισται διὰ
τοὺς γενομένους πολέμους. Strabo, xiii, p. 556; Conon, Narr. 12;
Dionys. Hal. i, 54.
[381] Hekatæus, Frag. 204, ed. Didot; Apollodôr. i, 9, 18;
Strabo, xii, pp. 564-575.
As far as any positive opinion can be formed respecting nations
of whom we know so little, it would appear that the Mysians and
Phrygians are a sort of connecting link between Lydians and Karians
on one side, and Thracians (European as well as Asiatic) on the
other,—a remote ethnical affinity pervading the whole. Ancient
migrations are spoken of in both directions across the Hellespont and
the Thracian Bosphorus. It was the opinion of some that Phrygians,
Mysians, and Thracians had emigrated into Asia from Europe, and
the Lydian historian Xanthus referred the arrival of the Phrygians
to an epoch subsequent to the Trojan war.[382] On the other hand,
Herodotus speaks of a vast body of Teukrians and Mysians, who,
before the Trojan war, had crossed the strait from Asia into Europe,
expelled many of the European Thracians from their seats, crossed the
Strymôn and the Macedonian rivers, and penetrated as far southward
as the river Peneus in Thessaly,—as far westward as the Ionic
gulf. This Teukro-Mysian migration, he tells us, brought about two
consequences: first, the establishment near the river Strymôn of the
Pæonians, who called themselves Teukrian colonists;[383] next, the
crossing into Asia of many of the dispossessed Thracian tribes from
the neighborhood of the Strymôn, into the north-western region of
Asia Minor, by which the Bithynian or Asiatic Thracian people was
formed. The Phrygians also are supposed by some to have originally
occupied an European soil on the borders of Macedonia, near the
snow-clad Mount Bermion, at which time they were called Briges,—an
appellative name in the Lydian language equivalent to freemen,
or Franks:[384] while the Mysians are said to have come from the
north-eastern portions of European Thrace south of the Danube, known
under the Roman empire by the name of Mœsia.[385] But with respect
to the Mysians there was also another story, according to which they
were described as colonists emanating from the Lydians; put forth
according to that system of devoting by solemn vow a tenth of the
inhabitants, chosen by lot, to seek settlements elsewhere, which
recurs not unfrequently among the stories of early emigrations,
as the consequence of distress and famine. And this last opinion
was supported by the character of the Mysian language, half Lydian
and half Phrygian, of which both the Lydian historian Xanthus, and
Menekratês of Elæa,[386]—by whom the opinion was announced,—must have
been very competent judges.
[382] Xanth. Fragm. 5, ed. Didot.
[383] Herodot. vii, 20-75.
[384] Strabo, vii, p. 295; xii, p. 550; Herodot. vii, 73; Hesych.
v. Βρίγα.
[385] Strabo, vii, p. 295; xii, pp. 542, 564, 571, where he
cites the geographer Artemidôrus. In the passage of the Iliad
(xiii, 5), the Μυσοὶ ἀγχέμαχοι appear to be conceived by the
poet in European Thrace; but Apollodôrus does not seem to have
so construed the passage. Niebuhr (Kleine Schriften, p. 370)
expresses himself more confidently than the evidence warrants.
[386] Strabo, xii, p. 572; Herodot. vii, 74.
From such tales of early migration both ways across the Hellespont
and the Bosphorus, all that we can with any certainty infer is, a
certain measure of affinity among the population of Thrace and Asia
Minor,—especially visible in the case of the Phrygians and Mysians.
The name and legends of the Phrygian hero Midas are connected
with different towns throughout the extensive region of Asiatic
Phrygia,—Kelænæ, Pessinûs, Ankyra,[387] Gordium,—as well as with the
neighborhood of Mount Bermion in Macedonia: the adventure whereby
Midas got possession of Silenus, mixing wine with the spring of which
he drank, was localized at the latter place as well as at the town of
Thymbrion, nearly at the eastern extremity of Asiatic Phrygia.[388]
The name Mygdonia, and the eponymous hero Mygdôn, belong not less
to the European territory near the river Axius,—afterwards a part
of Macedonia,—than to the Asiatic coast of the eastern Propontis,
between Kios and the river Rhyndakus.[389] Otreus and Mygdôn are the
commanders of the Phrygians in the Iliad; and the river Odrysês,
which flowed through the territory of the Asiatic Mygdonians, into
the Rhyndakus, affords another example of homonymy with the Odrysian
Thracians[390] in Europe. And as these coincidences of names and
legends conduct us to the idea of analogy and affinity between
Thracians and Phrygians, so we find Archilochus, the earliest poet
remaining to us who mentions them as contemporaries, coupling the two
in the same simile.[391] To this early Parian Iambist, the population
on the two sides of the Hellespont appears to have presented
similarity of feature and customs.
[387] Diodor. iii, 59; Arrian, ii, 3, 1; Quint. Curt. iii, 1, 12;
Athenæ. x, p. 415. We may also notice the town of Κοτυάειον near
Μιδάειον in Phrygia, as connected with the name of the Thracian
goddess _Kotys_ (Strabo, x, p. 470; xii, p. 576).
[388] Herodot. viii, 138; Theopompus, Frag. 74, 75, 76, Didot (he
introduced a long dialogue between Midas and Silenus,—Dionys.
Halik. Vett. Script. Censur. p. 70: Theon. Progymnas. c. 2);
Strabo, xiv, p. 680; Xenophon, Anabas. i, 2, 13.
[389] Strabo, xii, pp. 575-576; Steph. Byz. Μυγδονíα; Thucyd. ii,
99. The territory Mygdonia and the Mygdonians, in the distant
region of Mesopotamia, eastward of the river Chaboras (Plutarch,
Lucullus, 32; Polyb. v, 51; Xenophon, Anab. iv, 3, 4), is
difficult to understand, since it is surprising to find a branch
of these more westerly Asiatics in the midst of the Syro-Arabian
population. Strabo (xv, p. 747) supposes it to date only from the
times of the Macedonian conquest of Asia, which is disproved by
the mention of the name in Xenophon; though this reading in the
text of Xenophon is by some called in question. See Forbiger,
Handbuch der Alten Geographie, part ii, sect. 98, p. 628.
[390] Iliad, iii, 188; Strabo, xii, p. 551. The town of Otrœa, of
which Otreus seems to be the eponymus, was situated in Phrygia,
just on the borders of Bithynia (Strabo, xii, p. 566).
[391] Archiloch. Fragm. 28 Schneid., 26 Gaisf.—
... ὥσπερ αὐλῷ βρῦτον ἢ Θρῆϊξ ἀνὴρ
Ἢ Φρὺξ ἔβρυζε, etc.
The passage is too corrupt to support any inference, except the
near approximation in the poet’s mind of Thracians and Phrygians.
To settle with any accuracy the extent and condition of these Asiatic
nations during the early days of Grecian settlement among them is
impracticable; the problem was not to be solved even by the ancient
geographers, with their superior means of knowledge. The early
indigenous distribution of the Phrygian population is unknown to us,
and the division into the Greater and Lesser Phrygia belongs to a
period at least subsequent to the Persian conquest, like most of the
recognized divisions of Asia Minor; it cannot, therefore, be applied
with reference to the period earlier than Crœsus. It appears that the
name Phrygians, like that of Thracians, was a generic designation,
and comprehended tribes or separate communities who had also specific
names of their own. We trace Phrygians at wide distances: on the
western bank of the river Halys,—at Kelænæ, in the interior of Asia
Minor, towards the rise of the river Mæander,—and on the coast of
the Propontis near Kios;—in both of these latter localities there is
a salt lake called Askanius, which is the name both of the leader
of the Phrygian allies of Troy, and of the country from whence they
are said to come, in the Iliad.[392] They thus occupy a territory
bounded on the south by the Pisidian mountains, on the west by
the Lydians (indicated by a terminal pillar set up by Crœsus at
Kydrara),[393]—on the east by the river Halys, on the other side of
which were Kappadokians or Syrians, on the north by Paphlagonians
and Mariandynians. But it seems, besides this, that they must have
extended farther to the west, so as to occupy a great portion of the
region of Mount Ida and the Troad. For Apollodôrus considered that
both the Doliones and the Bebrykians were included in the great
Phrygian name;[394] and even in the ancient poem called “Phorônis,”
which can hardly be placed later than 600 B. C., the Daktyls of
Mount Ida, the great discoverers of metallurgy, are expressly named
Phrygian.[395] The custom of the Attic tragic poets to call the
inhabitants of the Troad Phrygians, does not necessarily imply any
translation of inhabitants, but an employment of the general name, as
better known to the audience whom they addressed, in preference to
the less notorious specific name,—just as the inhabitants of Bithynia
might be described either as Bithynians or as Asiatic Thracians.
[392] Iliad, ii, 873; xiii, 792; Arrian, i, 29; Herodot. vii, 30.
The boundary of the Phrygians southward towards the Pisidians,
and westward as well as north-westward towards the Lydians and
Mysians, could never be distinctly traced (Strabo. xii, pp.
564, 576, 628): the volcanic region called Katakekaumenê is
referred in Xenophon’s time to Mysia (Anabas. i, 2, 10): compare
the remarks of Kiepert in the treatise above referred to, Fünf
Inschriften und fünf Städte, p. 27.
[393] Herodot. i, 72; vii, 30.
[394] Strabo, xiv, p. 678: compare xiii, p. 586. The legend makes
Doliôn son of Silênus, who is so much connected with the Phrygian
Midas (Alexand. Ætolus ap. Strabo, xiv, p. 681).
[395] Phorônis, Fragm. 5, ed. Düntzer, p. 57—
... ἔνθα γόητες
Ἰδαῖοι Φρυγὲς ἄνδρες, ὀρέστεροι, οἴκαδ᾽ ἔναιον, etc.
If, as the language of Herodotus and Ephorus[396] would seem to
imply, we suppose the Phrygians to be at a considerable distance from
the coast and dwelling only in the interior, it will be difficult
to explain to ourselves how or where the early Greek colonists
came to be so much influenced by them; whereas the supposition
that the tribes occupying the Troad and the region of Ida were
Phrygians elucidates this point. And the fact is incontestable,
that both Phrygians and Lydians did not only modify the religious
manifestations of the Asiatic Greeks, and through them of the Grecian
world generally,—but also rendered important aid towards the first
creation of the Grecian musical scale. Of this the denominations of
the scale afford a proof.
[396] Ephorus ap. Strabo, xiv, 678; Herodot. v, 49.
Three primitive musical modes were employed by the Greek poets, in
the earliest times of which later authors could find any account,—the
Lydian, which was the most acute,—the Dorian, which was the most
grave,—and the Phrygian, intermediate between the two; the highest
note of the Lydian being one tone higher, that of the Dorian one tone
lower, than the highest note of the Phrygian scale.[397] Such were
the three modes or scales, each including only a tetrachord, upon
which the earliest Greek masters worked: many other scales, both
higher and lower, were subsequently added. It thus appears that the
earliest Greek music was, in large proportion, borrowed from Phrygia
and Lydia: and when we consider that, in the eighth and seventh
centuries before the Christian era, music and poetry conjoined—often
also with dancing or rhythmical gesticulation—was the only
intellectual manifestation known among the Greeks,—and moreover that,
in the belief of all the ancient writers, every musical mode had its
own peculiar emotional influences, powerfully modified the temper of
hearers, and was intimately connected with the national worship,—we
shall see that this transmission of the musical modes implies much
both of communication and interchange between the Asiatic Greeks
and the indigenous population of the continent. Now the fact of
communication between the Ionic and Æolic Greeks, and their eastern
neighbors, the Lydians, is easy to comprehend generally, though we
have no details as to the way in which it took place; but we do not
distinctly see where it was that the Greeks came so much into contact
with the Phrygians except in the region of Ida, the Troad, and the
southern coast of the Propontis. To this region belonged those early
Phrygian musicians (under the heroic names of Olympus, Hyagnis,
Marsyas), from whom the Greeks borrowed.[398] And we may remark
that the analogy between Thracians and Phrygians seems partially to
hold in respect both to music and religion, since the old mythe in
the Iliad, wherein the Thracian bard Thamyris, rashly contending
in song with the Muses, is conquered, blinded, and stripped of his
art, seems to be the prototype of the very similar story respecting
the contention of Apollo with the Phrygian Marsyas,[399]—the cithara
against the flute; while the Phrygian Midas is farther characterized
as the religious disciple of Thracian Orpheus.
[397] See the learned and valuable Dissertation of Boeckh, De
Metris Pindari, iii, 8, pp. 235-239.
[398] Plutarch, De Musicâ, c. 5, 7, p. 1132; Aristoxenus ap.
Athenæ. xiv, p. 624; Alkman, Frag. 104, ed. Bergk.
Aristoxenus seems to have considered the Phrygian Olympus as
the great inventive genius who gave the start to Grecian music
(Plutarch, _ib._ pp. 1135-1141): his music was employed almost
entirely for hymns to the gods, religious worship, the Mêtrôa,
or ceremonies, in honor of the Great Mother (p. 1140). Compare
Clemen. Alexand. Strom. i, p. 306.
Μαρσύας may perhaps have its etymology in the Karian or Lydian
language. Σούας was in Karian equivalent to τάφος (see Steph.
Byz. v. Σουαγέλα): Μᾶ was one of the various names of Rhea
(Steph. Byz. v. Μάσταυρα). The word would have been written
Μαρσούας by an Æolic Greek.
Marsyas is represented by Telestês the dithyrambist as a satyr,
son of a nymph,—νυμφαγενεῖ χειροκτύπῳ φηρὶ Μαρσύᾳ κλέος (Telestês
ap. Athenæ xiv. p 617).
[399] Xenoph. Anab. i, 2, 8; Homer, Iliad, ii, 595; Strabo,
xii, p. 578: the latter connects Olympus with Kelænæ as well as
Marsyas. Justin, xi, 7: “Mida, qui ab Orpheo sacrorum solemnibus
initiatus, Phrygiam religionibus implevit.”
The coins of Midaeion, Kadi, and Prymnêssus, in the more
northerly portion of Phrygia, bear the impress of the Phrygian
hero Midas (Eckhel, Doctrina Nummorum Vet. iii, pp. 143-168).
In my previous chapter relating to the legend of Troy,[400] mention
has been already made of the early fusion of the Æolic Greeks with
the indigenous population of the Troad; and it is from hence probably
that the Phrygian music with the flute as its instrument,—employed
in the orgiastic rites and worship of the Great Mother in Mount Ida,
in the Mysian Olympus, and other mountain regions of the country,
and even in the Greek city of Lampsakus,[401]—passed to the Greek
composers. Its introduction is coeval with the earliest facts
respecting Grecian music, and must have taken place during the first
century of the recorded Olympiads. In the Homeric poems we find no
allusion to it, but it may probably have contributed to stimulate
that development of lyric and elegiac composition which grew up among
the post-Homeric Æolians and Ionians, to the gradual displacement
of the old epic. Another instance of the fusion of Phrygians with
Greeks is to be found in the religious ceremonies of Kyzikus, Kius,
and Prusa, on the southern and south-eastern coasts of the Propontis;
at the first of the three places, the worship of the Great Mother
of the gods was celebrated with much solemnity on the hill of
Dindymon, bearing the same name as that mountain in the interior,
near Pessinus, from whence Cybelê derived her principal surname
of Dindymênê.[402] The analogy between the Kretan and Phrygian
religious practices has been often noticed, and confusion occurs not
unfrequently between Mount Ida in Krête and the mountain of the same
name in the Troad; while the Teukrians of Gergis in the Troad,—who
were not yet Hellenized even at the time of the Persian invasion, and
who were affirmed by the elegiac poet Kallinus to have emigrated from
Krêtê,—if they were not really Phrygians,—differed so little from
them as to be called such by the poets.
[400] Part i, ch. xv, p. 453.
[401] The fragment of Hippônax mentioning an eunuch of Lampsakus,
rich and well-fed, reveals to us the Asiatic worship in that
place (Fragm. 26, ed. Bergk):—
Θύνναν τε καὶ μυττωτὸν ἡμέρας πάσας
Δαινύμενος, ὥσπερ Λαμψακηνὸς εὐνοῦχος, etc.
[402] Strabo, xii, pp. 564-575; Herodot. iv, 76.
The Phrygians are celebrated by Herodotus for the abundance both
of their flocks and their agricultural produce:[403] the excellent
wool for which Milêtus was always renowned came in part from
the upper valley of the river Mæander, which they inhabited.
He contrasts them in this respect with the Lydians, among whom
the attributes and capacities of persons dwelling in cities are
chiefly brought to our view: much gold and silver, retail trade,
indigenous games, unchastity of young women, yet combined with
thrift and industry.[404] Phrygian cheese and salt-provisions,
Lydian unguents,[405] carpets and colored shoes, acquired notoriety.
Both Phrygians and Lydians are noticed by Greek authors subsequent
to the establishment of the Persian empire as a people timid,
submissive, industrious, and useful as slaves,—an attribute not
ascribed to the Mysians,[406] who are usually described as brave
and hardy mountaineers, difficult to hold in subjection: nor even
true respecting the Lydians, during the earlier times anterior
to the complete overthrow of Crœsus by Cyrus; for they were then
esteemed for their warlike prowess. Nor was the different character
of these two Asiatic people yet effaced even in the second century
after the Christian era. For the same Mysians, who in the time of
Herodotus and Xenophon gave so much trouble to the Persian satraps,
are described by the rhetor Aristeidês as seizing and plundering his
property at Laneion near Hadriani,—while on the contrary he mentions
the Phrygians as habitually coming from the interior towards the
coast-regions to do the work of the olive-gathering.[407] During
the times of Grecian autonomy and ascendency, in the fifth century
B. C., the conception of a Phrygian or a Lydian was associated in
the Greek mind with ideas of contempt and servitude,[408] to which
unquestionably these Asiatics became fashioned, since it was habitual
with them under the Roman empire to sell their own children into
slavery,[409]—a practice certainly very rare among the Greeks, even
when they too had become confounded among the mass of subjects of
imperial Rome. But we may fairly assume that this association of
contempt with the name of a Phrygian or a Lydian did not prevail
during the early period of Grecian Asiatic settlement, or even in
the time of Alkman, Mimnermus, or Sappho, down to 600 B. C. We first
trace evidence of it in a fragment of Hippônax, and it began with the
subjection of Asia Minor generally, first under Crœsus[410] and then
under Cyrus, and with the sentiment of comparative pride which grew
up afterwards in the minds of European Greeks. The native Phrygian
tribes along the Propontis, with whom the Greek colonists came in
contact,—Bebrykians, Doliones, Mygdonians, etc,—seem to have been
agricultural, cattle-breeding and horse-breeding, yet more vehement
and warlike than the Phrygians of the interior, as far at least as
can be made out by their legends. The brutal but gigantic Amykus
son of Poseidôn, chief of the Bebrykians, with whom Pollux contends
in boxing, and his brother Mygdôn to whom Hêraklês is opposed, are
samples of a people whom the Greek poets considered ferocious,
and not submissive;[411] while the celebrity of the horses of
Erichthonius, Laomedôn, and Asius of Arisbê, in the Iliad, shows that
horse-breeding was a distinguishing attribute of the region of Ida,
not less in the mind of Homer than in that of Virgil.[412]
[403] Herodot. v, 49. πολυπροβατώτατοι καὶ πολυκαρπότατοι.
[404] Herodot. i, 93-94.
[405] ~Τάριχος~ Φρύγιον (Eupolis, Marik. Fr. 23, p. 506,
Meineke),—~τυρὸς~, Athenæ. xii, 516,—~ἰσχάδες~, Alexis ap.
Athenæ. iii, 75: _some_ Phrygians, however, had never seen a
fig-tree (Cicero pro Flacco, c. 17).
Carpets of Sardis (Athenæ. v, 197); φοινικίδες Σαρδιανικαὶ
(Plato, Comicus ap. Athenæ. ii, 48); Ἀεὶ φιλόμυρον πᾶν τὸ Σάρδεων
γένος (Alexis ap. Athenæ. xv, p. 691, and again _ib._ p. 690);
Πόδας δὲ Ποίκιλος μάσθλης ἐκάλυπτε Λύδιον καλὸν ἔργον (Sappho,
Fragm. 54, ed. Schneidewin; Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 1174).
[406] Xenophon, Anabas. i, 6, 7; iii, 2, 23; Memorab. iii, 5, 26.
ἀκοντισταὶ Μυσοὶ; Æschyl. Pers. 40. ἁβροδίαιτοι Λύδοι.
[407] Aristeid. Orat. xxvi, p. 346. The λόφος Ἄτυος was very near
to this place Laneion, which shows the identity of the religious
names throughout Lydia and Mysia (Or. xxv, p. 318). About the
Phrygians, Aristeidês, Orat. xlvi, p. 308, Τῶν δὲ πλουσίων ἕνεκα
εἰς τὴν ὑπερορίαν ἀπαίρουσιν, ὥσπερ οἱ Φρυγὲς τῶν ἐλαῶν ἕνεκα τῆς
συλλογῆς.
The declamatory prolixities of Aristeidês offer little reward
to the reader, except these occasional valuable evidences of
existing custom.
[408] Hermippus ap. Athenæ. i, p. 27. Ἀνδράποδ᾽ ἐκ Φρυγίας,
etc., the saying ascribed to Sokratês in Ælian, V. H. x, 14;
Euripid. Alcest. 691; Strabo, vii, p. 304; Polyb. iv. 38. The
Thracians sold their children into slavery,—(Herod. v, 6) as the
Circassians do at present (Clarke’s Travels, vol. i, p. 378).
Δειλότερος λάγω Φρυγὸς was a Greek proverb (Strabo, i, p. 36:
compare Cicero pro Flacco, c. 27).
[409] Philostrat. Vit. Apollon. viii, 7, 12, p. 346. The
slave-merchants seem to have visited Thessaly, and to have bought
slaves at Pagasæ; these were either Penests sold by their masters
out of the country, or perhaps non-Greeks procured from the
borderers in the interior (Aristoph. Plutus, 521; Hermippus ap.
Athenæ. i, p. 27. Αἱ Παγασαὶ δούλους καὶ στιγματίας παρέχουσι).
[410] Phrygian slaves seem to have been numerous at Milêtus in
the time of Hippônax, Frag. 36, ed. Bergk:—
Καὶ τοὺς σολοίκους, ἢν λάβωτι, περνᾶσιν,
Φρυγὰς μὲν ἐς Μίλητον ἀλφιτεύσοντας.
[411] Theocrit. Idyll. xxii, 47-133; Apollon. Rhod. i, 937-954;
ii, 5-140; Valer. Flacc. iv, 100; Apollodôr. ii, 5, 9.
[412] Iliad, ii, 138; xii, 97; xx, 219: Virgil, Georgic, iii,
270:—
“Illas ducit amor (equas) trans Gargara, transque sonantem
Ascanium,” etc.
Klausen (Æneas und die Penaten, vol. i, pp. 52-56, 102-107) has
put together with great erudition all the legendary indications
respecting these regions.
According to the legend of the Phrygian town of Gordium on the river
Sangarius, the primitive Phrygian king Gordius was originally a
poor husbandman, upon the yoke of whose team, as he one day tilled
his field, an eagle perched and posted himself. Astonished at this
portent, he consulted the Telmissean augurs to know what it meant,
and a maiden of the prophetic breed acquainted him that the kingdom
was destined to his family. He espoused her, and the offspring of
the marriage was Midas. Seditions afterwards breaking out among
the Phrygians, they were directed by an oracle, as the only means
of tranquillity, to choose for themselves as king the man whom
they should first see approaching in a wagon. Gordius and Midas
happened to be then coming into the town in their wagon, and the
crown was conferred upon them: their wagon was consecrated in the
citadel of Gordium to Zeus Basileus, and became celebrated from the
insoluble knot whereby the yoke was attached, and the severance of it
afterwards by the sword of Alexander the Great. Whosoever could untie
the knot, to him the kingdom of Asia was portended, and Alexander was
the first whose sword both fulfilled the condition and realized the
prophecy.[413]
[413] Arrian, ii, 3; Justin, xi, 7.
According to another tale, Midas was son of the Great Mother
herself (Plutarch, Cæsar, 9; Hygin. fab. 191).
Of these legendary Phrygian names and anecdotes we can make no use
for historical purposes. We know nothing of any Phrygian kings,
during the historical times,—but Herodotus tells us of a certain
Midas son of Gordius, king of Phrygia, who was the first foreign
sovereign that ever sent offerings to the Delphian temple, anterior
to Gygês of Lydia. This Midas dedicated to the Delphian god the
throne on which he was in the habit of sitting to administer justice.
Chronologers have referred the incident to a Phrygian king Midas
placed by Eusebius in the 10th Olympiad,—a supposition which there
are no means of verifying.[414] There may have been a real Midas
king of Gordium; but that there was ever any great united Phrygian
monarchy, we have not the least ground for supposing. The name
Gordius son of Midas again appears in the legend of Crœsus and Solon
told by Herodotus, as part of the genealogy of the ill-fated prince
Adrastus: here too it seems to represent a legendary rather than a
real person.[415]
[414] Herodot. i, 14, with Wesseling’s note.
[415] Herodot. i, 34.
Of the Lydians, I shall speak in the following chapter.