Phrygia

PHRYGIA, the name of a large district of Asia Minor in ancient times, derived from a people whom the Greeks called cDpiryfs, i.e., "freemen." Taken at its widest extent, Phrygia comprised the whole north-west and centre of Asia Minor as far as the river Halys and the southern mountain-edge of the penin sula, and had sea fronts on the Black sea and the Aegean. But most ancient authors confined the name to an inland district stretching roughly from long. 29° to 32° or 33°., and from lat. 38° to 4o° ; and the real core of Phrygia at all times lay in the comparatively small plateau between the river Sangarius and the upper course of the Maeander.

Phrygia in its narrower sense is a table-land 3,000-5,000 ft., dotted with isolated mountains that rise to 8,000ft., and inter sected by several river-systems, in particular that of the Sangarius in the north-east, of the upper Hermus in the west, and of the upper Maeander in the south. Its deep-cut valleys are well suited to the cultivation of cereals and of the vine, but in general the rainfall of the country is too scanty and irregular for the growth of crops or of forest, and the dry, bare uplands are best adapted to rough grazing. The mineral wealth of Phrygia is inconsiderable. Iron was formerly worked in the district of Cibyra, mercury, cinnabar and copper in the neighbourhood of Iconium; but the most notable product was the marble of Docimium, a white stone streaked with veins of violet.

The principal line of communications across Phrygia was a route which rose steeply out of the Hermus valley and traversed the entire length of the plateau in a somewhat irregular line, proceeding at first in a north-easterly direction to Dorylaeum, thence eastward past Gordium and Ancyra to the old Hittite capital at Boghaz-Keui. This road eventually formed part of the "Royal road," by which the Achaemenid kings of Persia con nected Sardes and the Aegean seaboard with their capital at Susa.

It appears at all times to have served a military and adminis trative rather than a commercial purpose. The southern edge of Phrygia was crossed by another trunk road which ascended the valley of the Lycus (a tributary of the Maeander) to Apameia Celaenae, and thence led to Iconium and across Mt. Taurus into Syria. This route was much used by the Seleucid kings of Syria and by the Romans, and was probably at every period the chief line for commercial traffic to the Aegean sea. The scenery

of Phrygia is generally monotonous. Even the mountainous dis tricts rarely show striking features or boldness of character.

The Phrygian Immigration.

It may be taken for granted that the population of Phrygia always contained a large element of that indigenous "Asianic" stock, whose survival to the present day has been noted by modern travellers. The persistence of this element in ancient times is indicated by the continued prev alence of native Asianic cults in Phrygia. (See p. 853.) But the Phrygians properly so-called were an immigrant folk. Ac cording to Greek tradition they entered Asia Minor from Thrace or Macedonia; and this tradition is confirmed by the fact that their language was certainly Indo-European.

For the date of the Phrygian immigration the best evidence is found in Homer, who represents the Phrygians as rendering aid to King Priam at the siege of Troy, in return for assistance which he had given to them in their wars against the Amazons (=the Hittites?) on the banks of the Sangarius. This story indicates that the Phrygians had entered Asia Minor some time before 1200 B.C. A date not later than I Soo B.C. has been inferred from the furniture of certain burial-mounds in north-western Asia Minor, which resemble the contents of Macedonian tumuli of the early second or late third millennium.

It would appear from Homer that the incoming Phrygians made their principal settlement in the Sangarius valley. Their chief surviving monuments are also found in this valley (at Gordium), and on the adjacent plateau to the south-west of the Sangarius. But it is probable that about I000 B.C. all the northern and central parts of Asia Minor had come under Phrygian occu pation. The extension of Phrygian power to the western seaboard of Asia Minor may be inferred from a somewhat enigmatic Greek tradition, that in the 9th century B.C. they exercised a "thalas socracy" or "lordship of the seas" in Aegean waters, and from the abundance of Phrygian remains on Mt. Sipylus in the lower Hermus valley. The description of Sinope as a "Phrygian" town indicates a Phrygian settlement along the Black sea. Another Greek tradition, that the Armenians were an offshoot of the Phrygian stock, is supported by the resemblance between the Phrygian and the Armenian tongues.