PHRYGIA, friri-a, in ancient geography, a country of Asia Minor, occupying the central plateau west of the Halys and the interior desert, but otherwise very ill-defined, since the country varied much at different times and in general was an ethnological rather than a geographical term, as it was applied to the district occupied by the Phryges or Phrygians. The region was broken by sharp valleys, was extremely fertile, especially on its western slope, and was rich in gold as is evidenced by the myth of its King Midas. He was said to be the second king of the country succeeding his father Gordius, a common laborer who founded the kingdom, about 800 ac. The names of Gordius and Midas are frequently repeated in the list of Phrygian kings, and this account of the foundation of the kingdom is scarcely credible. Indeed it seems that a much earlier Phrygian civilization spread over Lydia, Cap padocia and Lycaonia as well as Phrygia, leav ing behind it monuments of its peculiar art and a road system later utilized by the Persians. Intercourse with the Greek cities of Asia Minor seems to date from the 9th century ac., and with the European Greeks, through the colony of Sinope (founded 751) in the 8th century. But 100 years later the Phrygian kingdom was wiped out (680-670 ac.) by the invasion of the Cimmerians, who seem to have held the country till about 620, when the Lydians con quered Phrygia, to hold it until the conquest of Lydia by Persia. Persia's downfall trans ferred Phrygia to Macedonia, and it became a part of Pergamus, and in 90 B.C. was incor porated into the Roman province of Asia. Phrygian slaves were highly prized among the Greeks, probably as early as the 5th century.
Ethnologically the Phrygians seem to have been closely related to the Armenians. Both were of Indo-Germanic stock, as has been proved by recent studies on the Phrygian lan guage, which is to us only from the scanty remains of widely scattered inscriptions and a few glosses; many of the funeral in scriptions are in Greek, save for the curse at the end on him who °disturbs my bones;' which was written in Phrygian. The language, like
Armenian, seems to be Iranian in its affinities. Inscriptions in its peculiar alphabet, the exact value of some signs which are still unknown, are found in Lemnos and in Egypt. Some few of its words agree almost exactly with the Greek, and many loan words from the Phrygian seem to be found even in the Homeric dialect. Most of the sepulchral inscriptions alluded to are found on tombs with peculiar conventional pattern of great boldness and skill in design, the figures being mostly of a heraldic type strangely suggestive of Oriental rugs. The most famous of these tombs are those of the early kings, including Midas, in the hills near San ganus — all apparently were memorials and not actual burial places. The Phrygians seem to have been essentially a rustic people, and their religion was a nature worship, in which the great divinity was Ma or Ammas, the Great Mother, also called Cybele, which seems to have meant °the mountain goddess.° Her seats were Dindymus, Sipylus and Ida, and she was the goddess of vegetation and of all life and gen eration. Her cult passed to Greece in the 5th century, and her black stone image was carried to Rome in 204 B.C. Closely associated with her was Attis, again a divinity of nature's powers of reproduction.
History: Ramsay, 'His torical Geography of Asia Minor' (1890), and Bishoprics of Phrygia) (1895-97) and of St. Paul' (1907) ; on topography and scenery: Ouvre, (Un Mois en Phrygie' (1896) ; on language and inscriptions, Ramsay, in (Jour nal of Hellenic Studies' (1882, 1884), of the Royal Asiatic Society' (1883), and (Zeitschrift ffir vergleichende Sprachforschume (1887); and on archology and myth and re ligion: Perrot and Chipiez, (Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquite) (Vols. III and IV, 1886, 1890), and Roscher, der griechischen and romischen Mythologie,) s. vv. Attis, Kybele, Men, etc. (1884 seq.).