Apameia in Phrygia Ancient Greek Coin Artemis Diana Cult Satyr Marsyas i49727

Item: i49727

Authentic Ancient Coin of:

Greek city of

Bronze 18mm (3.09 grams) Struck 133-48 B.C.

Reference: Sear 5122 var. (different magistrate); B.M.C. 25.85,91-3
var. (different magistrate)

Turreted bust of Artemis right, bow and quiver at

shoulder.

Naked Marsyas advancing right, playing double flute,

Maeander pattern beneath; to right,
AΠΑΜΕ; to left,
magistrate’s name.

Founded by Antiochus I, and named

after the king’s mother, Apama, Apameia was situated

near the sources of the great river Maeander and was an

important road junction for routes in all directions. It

grew to become one of the great cities of Asia Minor,

and participated in the silver cistophoric coinage under

the later Pergamene kings and, after 133 B.C., under the

Romans.

 You

Authenticity.

In
Greek mythology
, a
satyr
is one of a troop of
ithyphallic
male
companions of
Dionysus
with
horse
-like (equine)
features, including a horse-tail, horse-like ears, and
sometimes a horse-like phallus. Early artistic
representations sometimes include horse-like legs, but
in 6th-century BC
black-figure pottery

human legs are the most common. In Roman Mythology there
is a concept similar to satyrs with goat-like features,
the
faun
being half-man,
half-goat. Greek-speaking Romans often used the Greek
term saturos when referring to the Latin
faunus, and eventually syncretized the two. The
female “Satyresses”
were a late invention of poets — that roamed the woods
and mountains. In myths they are often associated with
pipe-playing.

The satyr’s chief was
Silenus
, a minor deity
associated (like
Hermes
and
Priapus
) with
fertility. These characters can be found in the only
complete remaining
satyr play
, Cyclops,
by
Euripides
, and the
fragments of
Sophocles
‘
Ichneutae
(Tracking
Satyrs). The satyr play was a short, lighthearted
tailpiece performed after each trilogy of tragedies in
Athenian
festivals honoring Dionysus
.
There is not enough evidence to determine whether the
satyr play regularly drew on the same myths as those
dramatized in the tragedies that preceded. The
groundbreaking tragic playwright
Aeschylus
is said to
have been especially loved for his satyr plays, but none
of them have survived.

Attic painted vases

depict mature satyrs as being strongly built with flat
noses, large pointed ears, long curly hair, and full
beards
, with
wreaths
of vine or ivy
circling their balding heads. Satyrs often carry the
thyrsus
: the rod of
Dionysus
tipped with a
pine cone.

Satyrs acquired their
goat
-like aspect
through later Roman conflation with
Faunus
, a carefree
Italic
nature spirit of
similar characteristics and identified with the Greek
god
Pan
. Hence satyrs are
most commonly described in Latin literature as having
the upper half of a man and the lower half of a goat,
with a goat’s tail in place of the Greek tradition of
horse-tailed satyrs; therefore, satyrs became nearly
identical with
fauns
. Mature satyrs
are often depicted in Roman art with goat’s
horns
, while juveniles
are often shown with bony nubs on their foreheads.

About Satyrs, Praxiteles gives a new interpretation
on the subject of free and carefree life. Instead of an
elf with pointed ears and repulsive goat hooves, we face
a child of nature, pure, but tame and fearless and
brutal instincts necessary to enable it to defend itself
against threats, and survives even without the help of
modern civilization. Above all, the Satyr with flute has
a small companion for him, shows the deep connection
with nature, the soft whistle of the wind, the sound of
gurgling water of the crystal spring, the birds singing,
or perhaps the singing a melody of a human soul that
feeds higher feelings.

As Dionysiac creatures they are lovers of wine and
women, and they are ready for every physical pleasure.
They roam to the music of pipes (auloi),
cymbals
,
castanets
, and
bagpipes
, and they love
to chase
maenads
or bacchants
(with whom they are obsessed, and whom they often
pursue), or in later art, dance with the
nymphs
, and have a
special form of dance called
sikinnis
. Because of
their love of wine, they are often represented holding
wine cups, and they appear often in the decorations on
wine cups.

Artemis
was one of
the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities.
Some scholars believe that the name, and indeed the
goddess herself, was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers
to her as Artemis Agrotera,
Potnia Theron
<
Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals”. In the
classical period of
Greek mythology
,
Artemis (Greek:
(nominative)
Ἄρτεμις, (genitive)
Ἀρτέμιδος) was
often
described as the daughter of
Zeus
and
Leto
, and the twin
sister of
Apollo
. She was the
Hellenic goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness,
childbirth, virginity and young girls, bringing and
relieving disease in women; she often was depicted as a
huntress carrying a bow and arrows. The
deer
and the
cypress
were sacred to
her. In later Hellenistic times, she even assumed the
ancient role of
Eileithyia
in aiding
childbirth.

Artemis later became identified with
Selene
, a
Titaness
who was a
Greek moon goddess, sometimes depicted with a crescent
moon above her head. She was also identified with the
Roman goddess
Diana
, with the
Etruscan
goddess
Artume
, and with the
Greek or
Carian
goddess
Hecate
.

In
Greek mythology
, the
satyr

Marsyas  is a central figure in two
stories involving music: in one, he picked up the double flute (aulos)
that had been abandoned by
Athena
and played it; in the other, he
challenged Apollo
to a contest of music and lost his hide
and life. In
Antiquity
, literary sources often emphasise the
hubris
of Marsyas and the justice of his
punishment.

In one strand of modern comparative
mythography
, the domination of Marsyas by
Apollo is regarded as an example of myth that recapitulates a supposed
supplanting by the
Olympian pantheon
of an earlier
“Pelasgian”
religion of
chthonic

heroic
ancestors and
nature spirits
. Marsyas was a devoté of the
ancient
Mother Goddess

Rhea
/Cybele,
and his episodes are situated by the mythographers in
Celaenae
(or Kelainai) in
Phrygia
(today, the town of
Dinar
in
Turkey
), at the main source of the
Meander
(the river
Menderes
).

When a genealogy was applied to him, Marsyas was the son of
Olympus
(son of
Heracles
and
Euboea
, daughter of
Thespius
), or of
Oeagrus
, or of Hyagnis. Olympus was,
alternatively, said to be Marsyas’ son or pupil.

Among the Romans, Marsyas was cast as the inventor of
augury
and a proponent of free speech (the
philosophical concept παρρησία, “parrhesia“)
and “speaking truth to power.” The earliest known representation of Marsyas at
Rome stood for at least 300 years in the
Roman Forum
near or in the
comitium
, the space for political activity. He
was depicted as a silen
, carrying a
wineskin
on his left shoulder and raising his
right arm. The statue was regarded as an indicium libertatis, a symbol of
liberty, and was associated with demonstrations of the
plebs
, or common people. It often served as
a sort of kiosk
upon which invective verse was posted.

Marsyas served as a minister for Dionysus or Bacchus, who was
identified by the Romans with
their
Father Liber
, one of three deities in the
Aventine Triad
, along with
Ceres
and Libera (identified with
Persephone
). These gods were regarded as
concerning themselves specially with the welfare of the plebs. The
freedom that the
ecstasies
of
Dionysian worship
represented took on a
political meaning in Rome as the

libertas that distinguished the free from
the enslaved. The
Liberalia
, celebrated March 17 in honor of
Liber, was a time of speaking freely, as the poet and playwright
Gnaeus Naevius
declared: “At the Liberalia
games we enjoy free speech.” Naevius, however, was arrested for his
invectives
against the powerful.

Marsyas was sometimes considered a king and contemporary of
Faunus
, portrayed by
Vergil
as a native Italian ruler at the time of
Aeneas
.
Servius
, in his
commentary
on the
Aeneid
, says that Marsyas sent Faunus
envoys who showed techniques of augury to the Italians. The plebeian

gens of the
Marcii
claimed that they were descended from
Marsyas.
Gaius Marcius Rutilus
, who rose to power from
the plebs
, is credited with having dedicated
the statue that stood in the Roman forum, most likely in 294 BC, when he became
the first plebeian
censor
and added the
cognomen

Censorinus to the family name
. Marcius Rutilus
was also among the first plebeian augurs,
co-opted
into their
college
in 300, and so the mythical teacher of
augury was an apt figure to represent him.

In 213 BC, two years after suffering one of the worst military defeats in its
history at the
Battle of Cannae
, Rome was in the grip of a
reactionary fear that led to excessive
religiosity
. The
senate
, alarmed that its authority was being
undermined by “prophets and sacrificers” in the forum, began a program of
suppression. Among the literature confiscated was an “authentic” prophecy
calling for the institution of
games in the Greek manner for Apollo
, which the
senate
and
elected officials
would control. The prophecy
was attributed to Gnaeus Marcius, reputed to be a descendant of Marsyas. The
games were duly carried out, but the Romans failed to bring the continuing
wars with the Carthaginians
to a victorious
conclusion until they heeded a second prophecy and imported the worship of the
Phrygian Great Mother
, whose song Marsyas was said to
have composed; the song had further relevance in that it was also credited by
the Phrygians with protecting them from invaders. The power relations between
Marsyas and Apollo reflected the continuing
Struggle of the Orders
between the elite and
the common people, expressed in political terms by
optimates
and
populares
. The arrest of Naevius for
exercising free speech also took place during this period.

Another descendant of Marcius Rutilus,
L. Marcius Censorinus
, issued coins depicting
the statue of Marsyas, at a time when the
augural college
was the subject of political
controversy during the
Sullan civil wars of the 80s BC
^[32]
On the coin, Marsyas wears a
Phrygian cap
or

pilleus, an emblem of liberty. This Marcius
Censorinus was killed by
Sulla
and his head displayed outside
Praeneste
. Sulla’s legislative program
attempted to curtail power invested in the people, particularly restricting the
powers of the plebeian tribunes
, and to restore the dominance
of the senate and the privileges of
patricians
.

Marsyas was also claimed as the
eponym
of the
Marsi
, one of the ancient peoples of Italy. The
Social War of 91–88 BC
, in which the
Italian peoples
fought to advance their status
as citizens under Roman rule, is sometimes called the Marsic War from the
leadership of the Marsi. The Roman
coloniae

Paestum
and
Alba Fucens
, along with other Italian cities,
set up their own statues of Marsyas as assertions of their political status.

During the
Principate
, Marsyas became a subversive symbol
in opposition to
Augustus
, whose propaganda systematically
associated him with the silens’ torturer Apollo. Augustus’s daughter
Julia
held nocturnal assemblies at the statue,
and crowned it to defy her father. The poet

Ovid, who was ultimately exiled by Augustus, twice tells the story of
Marsyas’s flaying by Apollo, in his epic
Metamorphoses
and in the
Fasti
, the calendrical poem left unfinished
at his death. Although the immediate cause of Ovid’s exile remains one of
literary history’s great mysteries, Ovid himself says that a “poem and
transgression” were contributing factors; his poetry tests the boundaries of
permissible free speech during Rome’s transition from
republic
to
imperial monarchy
.

Pliny
indicates that in the 1st century AD, the
painting Marsyas religatus (“Marsyas Bound”), by
Zeuxis of Heraclea
, could be viewed at the
Temple of Concordia
in Rome. The goddess
Concordia
, like the Greek
Harmonia
, was a
personification
of both
musical harmony as it was understood in antiquity
,
and of social order
, as expressed by
Cicero
‘s phrase concordia ordinum. The
apparent incongruity of exhibiting the tortured silen in a temple devoted to
harmony has been interpreted in modern scholarship as a warning against
criticizing authority.

Apamea or Apameia  –

previously, Kibotos , hê

Kibôtos or Cibotus – was an ancient city in

Phrygia

,

Anatolia

, founded by

Antiochus I Soter

(from whose mother, Apama, it

received its name), near, but on lower ground than,

Celaenae

(Kelainai).

//

 Geography

It overlooks the

Ghab

valley and the site is now partly occupied by

the city of

(sometimes locally known also as

Geyikler, “the gazelles,” perhaps from a tradition

of the Persian hunting-park, seen by

Xenophon

at Celaenae), which by 1911 was connected

with

İzmir

by railway; there are considerable remains,

including a theater and a great number of important

Graeco-Roman

inscriptions.

Strabo

(p. 577) says, that the town lies at the

source (ekbolais) of the

Marsyas

, and the river flows through the middle of

the city, having its origin in the city, and being

carried down to the suburbs with a violent and

precipitous current it joins the

Maeander

after the latter is joined by the

Orgas

(called the Catarrhactes by

Herodotus

, vii. 26).

 History

The original inhabitants were residents of Celaenae

who were compelled by Antiochus I Soter to move farther

down the river, where they founded the city of Apamea (Strabo,

xii. 577).

Antiochus the Great

transplanted many

Jews

there. (Josephus, Ant. xii. 3, § 4). It

became a seat of

Seleucid

power, and a center of Graeco-Roman and

Graeco-Hebrew

civilization and commerce. There

Antiochus the Great

collected the army with which he

met the

Romans

at

Magnesia

, and two years later the

Treaty of Apamea

between Rome and the Seleucid realm

was signed there. After Antiochus’ departure for the

East, Apamea lapsed to the

Pergamene

kingdom and thence to Rome in 133 BCE, but

it was resold to

Mithridates V of Pontus

, who held it till 120 BCE.

After the

Mithridatic Wars

it became and remained a great

center for trade, largely carried on by resident

Italians

and by Jews. By order of Flaccus, a large

amount of Jewish money – nearly 45

kilograms

of gold – intended for the Temple in

Jerusalem was confiscated in Apamea in the year 62 BCE (Cicero,

Pro Flacco, ch. xxviii.). In 84 BCE

Sulla

made it the seat of a

, and it long claimed primacy among

Phrygian cities. When Strabo wrote, Apamea was a place

of great trade in the Roman

province of Asia

, next in importance to

Ephesus

. Its commerce was owing to its position on

the great road to

Cappadocia

, and it was also the center of other

roads. When Cicero was

proconsul

of

Cilicia

, 51 BCE, Apamea was within his jurisdiction

(ad Fam. xiii. 67), but the dioecesis, or

conventus, of Apamea was afterwards attached to Asia.

Pliny the Elder

enumerates six towns which belonged

to the conventus of Apamea, and he observes that there

were nine others of little note. The city minted its own

coins in antiquity. The name Cibotus appears on some

coins of Apamea, and it has been conjectured that it was

so called from the wealth that was collected in this

great emporium; for kibôtos in Greek is a chest or

coffer. Pliny (v. 29) says that it was first Celaenae,

then Cibotus, and then Apamea; which cannot be quite

correct, because Celaenae was a different place from

Apamea, though near it. But there may have been a place

on the site of Apamea, which was called Cibotus.

The country about Apamea has been shaken by

earthquakes, one of which is recorded as having happened

in the time of

Claudius

(Tacit.

Ann. xii. 58); and on this occasion the payment

of taxes to the Romans was remitted for five years.

Nicolaus of Damascus

(Athen. p. 332) records

a violent earthquake at Apamea at a previous date,

during the

Mithridatic Wars

: lakes appeared where none were

before, and rivers and springs; and many which existed

before disappeared. Strabo (p. 579) speaks of this great

catastrophe, and of other convulsions at an earlier

period.

Apamea continued to be a prosperous town under the

Roman Empire

. Its decline dates from the local

disorganization of the empire in the

3rd century

; and though a

bishopric

, it was not an important military or

commercial center in

Byzantine

times. The

Turks

took it first in 1070, and from the 13th

century onwards it was always in

Muslim

hands. For a long period it was one of the

greatest cities of

Asia Minor

, commanding the Maeander road; but when

the trade routes were diverted to

Constantinople

it rapidly declined, and its ruin was

completed by an earthquake.

 Apamea

in Jewish tradition

Apamea is mentioned in the

Talmud

. The passages relating to witchcraft in

Apamea (Ber. 62a) and to a dream in Apamea (Niddah, 30b)

probably refer to the Apamea in Phrygia which was looked

upon as a fabulously distant habitation. Similarly the

much-discussed passage, Yeb. 115b, which treats of the

journey of the exilarch Isaac, should also be

interpreted to mean a journey from

Corduene

to Apamea in Phrygia; for if

Apamea in Mesene

were meant (Brüll’s Jahrb.

x. 145) it is quite impossible that the

Babylonians

should have had any difficulty in

identifying the body of such a distinguished personage.

 Christian

Apamea

Apamea is enumerated by

Hierocles

among the

episcopal cities

of

Pisidia

, to which division it had been transferred.

The bishops of Apamea sat in the

Council of Nicaea

(325). Arundell contends that

Apamea, at an early period in the history of

Christianity

, had a church, and he confirms this

opinion by the fact of there being the ruins of a

Christian church there. It is probable enough that

Christianity was early established here, and even that

Saint Paul

visited the place, for he went throughout

Phrygia. But the mere circumstance of the remains of a

church at Apamea proves nothing as to the time when

Christianity was established there.

In antiquity, Phrygia (
Greek
:
Φρυγία,
Ancient Greek: [pʰryɡía])
Turkish
:
Frigya) was
a kingdom in the west central part of
Anatolia
, in what is
now modern-day
Turkey
, centered around
the
Sakarya River
.

The
Phrygians
are most
famous for their legendary kings of the
heroic age
of
Greek mythology
:
Gordias
whose
Gordian Knot
would
later be untied by
Alexander the Great
,
Midas
who turned
whatever he touched to gold, and
Mygdon
who warred with
the
Amazons
. According to
Homer
‘s
Iliad
, the Phrygians
were close allies of the
Trojans
and
participants in the
Trojan War
against the
Achaeans
. Phrygian
power reached its peak in the late 8th century BC under
another, historical
King Midas
, who
dominated most of western and central Anatolia and
rivaled
Assyria
and
Urartu
for power in
eastern Anatolia. This later
Midas
was however also
the last independent king of Phrygia before its capital
Gordium
was sacked by
Cimmerians
around 695
BC. Phrygia then became subject to
Lydia
, and then
successively to
Persia
,
Alexander
and his
Hellenistic
successors,
Pergamon
,
Rome
and
Byzantium
. Phrygians
were gradually assimilated into other cultures by the
early medieval era, and the name Phrygia passed out of
usage as a territorial designation after the
Turkish
conquest of
Anatolia.

Origins

Inscriptions found at
Gordium
make clear that
Phrygians spoke an
Indo-European
language
with at least some vocabulary similar to
Greek
, and clearly not
belonging to the family of
Anatolian languages

spoken by most of Phrygia’s neighbors.
According to one of the so-called
Homeric Hymns
, the
Phrygian language
was
not mutually intelligible with Trojan.

According to ancient tradition among Greek
historians, the Phrygians anciently migrated to
Anatolia
from the
Balkans
.
Herodotus
says the
Phrygians were called
Bryges
when they lived
in Europe. He and other Greek writers also recorded
legends about King
Midas
that associated
him with or put his origin in
Macedonia
;
Herodotus
for example
says a wild rose garden in Macedonia was named after
Midas
. The Phrygians
were also connected by some classical writers to the
Mygdones
, the name of
two groups of people, one of which lived in northern
Macedonia and another in
Mysia
. Likewise the
Phrygians
have been
identified with the
Bebryces
, a people said
to have warred with
Mysia
before the
Trojan War
and who had
a king named
Mygdon
at roughly the
same time as the Phrygians were said to have had a king
named Mygdon. The classical historian
Strabo
groups
Phrygians,
Mygdones
,
Mysians
,
Bebryces
and
Bithynians
together as
peoples that migrated to Anatolia from the
Balkans
. This image of
Phrygians as part of a related group of northwest
Anatolian cultures seems the most likely explanation for
the confusion over whether
Phrygians
,
Bebryces
and Anatolian
Mygdones
were or were
not the same people.

The apparent similarity of the
Phrygian language
to
Greek and its dissimilarity with the
Anatolian languages

spoken by most of their neighbors is also taken as
support for a European origin of the Phrygians.

However, most scholars reject such a recent Phrygian
migration and accept as factual the
Iliad
‘s account that
the Phrygians were established on the
Sakarya River
before
the
Trojan War
, and thus
must have been there during the later stages of the
Hittite Empire
, and
likely earlier. These scholars seek instead to trace the
Phrygians’ origins among the many nations of western
Anatolia who were subject to the
Hittites
. This
interpretation also gets support from Greek legends
about the founding of Phrygia’s main city
Gordium
by
Gordias
and of
Ancyra
by
Midas
, which suggest
that Gordium and Ancyra were believed to be date from
the distant past before the
Trojan War
. Some
scholars dismiss the claim of a Phrygian migration as a
mere legend, likely arising from the coincidental
similarity of their name to the
Bryges
.

No one has conclusively identified which of the many
subjects of the
Hittites
might have
represented early Phrygians. According to a classical
tradition, popularized by the Jewish-Roman historian
Flavius Josephus
, the
Phrygians can be equated with the country called
Togarmah
by the ancient
Hebrews, which has in turn been identified as the
Tegarama of Hittite texts and Til-Garimmu of Assyrian
records.
Josephus
called
Togarmah
“the
Thrugrammeans, who, as the Greeks resolved, were named
Phrygians”. However, the Greek source cited by
Josephus
is unknown,
and it is unclear if there was any basis for the
identification other than name similarity. Scholars of
the
Hittites
believe
Tegarama was in eastern Anatolia – some locate it at
Gurun
– far to the east
of Phrygia. Some scholars have identified Phrygia with
the
Assuwa
league, and
noted that the
Iliad
mentions a
Phrygian (Queen
Hecuba
‘s brother) named
Asios
. Another possible
early name of Phrygia could be Hapalla, the name of the
easternmost province that emerged from the splintering
of the Bronze Age western Anatolian empire
Arzawa
. However,
scholars are unsure if Hapalla corresponds to Phrygia or
to
Pisidia
, further south.

A further claim made by
Herodotus
is that
Phrygian colonists founded the
Armenian
nation. This
is likely a reference to a third group of people called
Mygdones
living in
northern
Mesopotamia
who were
apparently allied to the Armenians;
Xenophon
describes them
in his
Anabasis
in a joint
army with the
Armenians
. However,
little is known about these eastern
Mygdones
and no
evidence of
Phrygian language
in
that region has been found.

History

Around the time of the Trojan war

The
Iliad
describes the
homeland of the Phrygians on the
Sangarius River
, which
would remain the center of Phrygia throughout its
history. According to the
Iliad
, Phrygia was
famous for its wine and had “brave and expert” horsemen.

According to the
Iliad
, before the
Trojan War
, a young
king
Priam
of
Troy
had taken an army
to Phrygia to support it in a war against the
Amazons
. Homer calls
the Phrygians “the people of
Otreus
and godlike
Mygdon
.^[12]
According to
Euripides
,
Quintus Smyrnaeus
and
others, this Mygdon’s son,
Coroebus
, fought and
died in the
Trojan War
; he had sued
for the hand of the Trojan princess
Cassandra
in marriage.

According to the
Bibliotheca
, the
Greek hero
Heracles
slew a king
Mygdon of the
Bebryces
in a battle in
northwest Anatolia that if historical would have taken
place about a generation before the
Trojan War
. According
to the story, while traveling from
Minoa
to the
Amazons
, Heracles
stopped in
Mysia
and supported the
Mysians
in a battle
with the
Bebryces
. According to
most interpretations,
Bebryces
is an
alternate name for Phrygians and this Mygdon is the same
person mentioned in the
Iliad
.

King
Priam
married a
Phrygian princess,
Hecuba
, and maintained
a close alliance with the Phrygians, who repaid him by
fighting “ardently” in the
Trojan War
against the
Greeks.

There are indications in the Iliad that the heart of
the Phrygian country was further north and downriver
than it would be in later history. The Phrygian
contingent arrives to aid
Troy
coming from
Lake Ascania
in
northwest Anatolia, and is led by
Phorcys
and
Ascanius
, an apparent
eponym. The
Iliad
calls the
Phrygians “the people of
Otreus
and godlike
Mygdon”: the name Otreus could be an eponym for
Otrea
, a place on the
Ascanian Lake in the vicinity of the later
Nicaea
, and the name
Mygdon is clearly an eponym for the
Mygdones
, a people said
by
Strabo
to live in
northwest Asia Minor, and who appear to have sometimes
been considered distinct from the
Phrygians
.^[15]
However,
Pausanias
believed that
Mygdon’s tomb was located at
Stectorium
in the
southern Phrygian highlands, near modern
Sandikli
.

In one of the so-called
Homeric Hymns
, Phrygia
is said to be “rich in fortresses” and ruled by “famous
Otreus
“.

Peak and destruction of the Phrygian kingdom

Detail from a reconstruction of a Phrygian
building at Pararli, Turkey, 7th–6th
Centuries BC; Museum of Anatolian
Civilizations,
Ankara
. A
griffin, sphinx and two centaurs are shown.

During the 8th century BC the Phrygian kingdom with
its capital at
Gordium
in the upper
Sakarya River
valley
expanded into an empire dominating most of central and
western Anatolia and encroaching upon the larger
Assyrian Empire
to its
southeast and the kingdom of
Urartu
to the
northeast.

According to the classical historians
Strabo
,^[18]
Eusebius
and
Julius Africanus
, the
king of Phrygia during this time was another
Midas
. This historical
Midas
is believed to be
the same person named as Mita in Assyrian texts from the
period and identified as king of the
Mushki
. Scholars figure
that Assyrians called Phrygians “Mushki” because the
Phrygians and
Mushki
, an eastern
Anatolian people, were at that time campaigning in a
joint army.^[19]
This Midas is thought to have reigned Phrygia at the
peak of its power from about 720 BC to about 695 BC
(according to
Eusebius
) or 676 BC
(according to
Julius Africanus
). An
Assyrian inscription mentioning “Mita”, dated to 709 BC,
during the reign of
Sargon of Assyria
,
suggests Phrygia and
Assyria
had struck a
truce by that time. This
Midas
appears to have
had good relations and close trade ties with the Greeks,
and reputedly married an Aeolian Greek princess.

A system of writing in the
Phrygian language

developed and flourished in Gordium during this period,
using a Phoenician-derived alphabet similar to the Greek
one. A distinctive Phrygian pottery called Polished Ware
appears during this period.

However, the Phrygian Kingdom was then overwhelmed by
Cimmerian
invaders, and
Gordium
was sacked and
destroyed. According to Strabo and others,
Midas
committed suicide
by drinking bulls’ blood.

Tomb at
Midas
City
(6th century BC), near
Eskişehir

A series of digs have opened
Gordium
as one of
Turkey’s most revealing archeological sites. Excavations
confirm a violent destruction of
Gordium
around 675 BC.
A tomb from the period, popularly identified as the
“Tomb of Midas,” revealed a wooden structure deeply
buried under a vast tumulus, containing grave goods, a
coffin, furniture, and food offerings (Archaeological
Museum, Ankara).

As a Lydian province

After their destruction of
Gordium
, the Cimmerians
remained in western Anatolia and warred with
Lydia
, which eventually
expelled them by around 620 BC, and then expanded to
incorporate Phrygia, which became the Lydian empire’s
eastern frontier. The
Gordium
site reveals a
considerable building program during the 6th century BC,
under the domination of Lydian kings including the
proverbially rich King
Croesus
. Meanwhile,
Phrygia’s former eastern subjects fell to
Assyria
and later to
the
Medes
.

There may be an echo of strife with Lydia and perhaps
a veiled reference to royal hostages, in the legend of
the twice-unlucky Phrygian prince
Adrastus
, who
accidentally killed his brother and exiled himself to
Lydia
, where King
Croesus
welcomed him.
Once again,
Adrastus
accidentally
killed
Croesus
‘ son and then
committed suicide.

As
a Persian province

Some time in the 540s BC, Phrygia passed to the
Persian Empire
when
Cyrus
conquered
Lydia
. After Darius
became Persian Emperor in 521 BC, he remade the ancient
trade route into the Persian “Royal Road” and instituted
administrative reforms that included setting up
satrapies. The Phrygian satrapy lay west of the
Halys River
(now
Kızıl River
) and east
of
Mysia
and
Lydia
. Its capital was
established at
Dascylium
, modern
Ergili
.

Under Alexander and his successors

Alexander the Great

passed through
Gordium
in 333 BC,
famously severing the
Gordian Knot
in the
temple of Sabazios (“Zeus“).
According to a legend, possibly promulgated by
Alexander’s publicists, whoever untied the knot would be
master of Asia. With
Gordium
sited on the
Persian Royal Road
that
led through the heart of Anatolia, the prophecy had some
geographical plausibility. With Alexander, Phrygia
became part of the wider
Hellenistic
world.

In the chaotic period after Alexander’s death,
northern Phrygia was overrun by
Celts
, eventually to
become the province of
Galatia
. The former
capital of
Gordium
was captured
and destroyed by the Gauls soon afterwards and
disappeared from history. In 188 BC, the southern
remnant of Phrygia came under the control of the
Attalids
of
Pergamon
. However,
Phrygian language survived, now written in the
Greek alphabet
.

Under Rome and Byzantium

The two Phrygian provinces within the
Diocese of Asia, c. 400 AD

In 133 BC, the remnants of Phrygia passed to
Rome
. For purposes of
provincial administration the Romans maintained a
divided Phrygia, attaching the northeastern part to the
province of
Galatia
and the western
portion to the province of
Asia
. During the
reforms of
Diocletian
, Phrygia was
divided anew into two provinces: “Phrygia I” or Phrygia
Salutaris, and Phrygia II or Pacatiana, both under the
Diocese of Asia
.
Salutaris with
Synnada
as its capital
comprised the eastern portion of the region and
Pacatiana with
Laodicea on the Lycus

as capital the western portion. The provinces survived
up to the end of the 7th century, when they were
replaced by the
Theme system
. In the
Byzantine
period, most
of Phrygia belonged to the
Anatolic theme
. It was
overrun by the Turks in the aftermath of the
Battle of Manzikert

(1071). The Byzantines were finally evicted from there
in the 13th century, but the name of Phrygia
remained in use until the collapse of the Byzantine
Empire in 1453. The last mentions of the Phrygian
language date to the 5th century and it was likely
extinct by the 7th century.

Culture

The Phrygian
goddess

Cybele
with
her attributes

It was the “Great Mother”,
Cybele
, as the Greeks
and Romans knew her, who was originally worshiped in the
mountains
of Phrygia,
where she was known as “Mountain Mother”. In her typical
Phrygian form, she wears a long belted dress, a polos
(a high cylindrical headdress), and a veil covering the
whole body. The later version of Cybele was established
by a pupil of
Phidias
, the
sculptor

Agoracritus
, and became
the image most widely adopted by Cybele’s expanding
following, both in the
Aegean
world and at
Rome
. It shows her
humanized though still enthroned, her hand resting on an
attendant lion and the other holding the
tympanon
, a
circular frame drum, similar to a
tambourine
.

The Phrygians also venerated
Sabazios
, the sky and
father-god
depicted on horseback. Although the Greeks associated
Sabazios with
Zeus
, representations
of him, even at Roman times, show him as a horseman god.
His conflicts with the indigenous Mother Goddess, whose
creature was the
Lunar Bull
, may be
surmised in the way that Sabazios’ horse places a hoof
on the head of a bull, in a
Roman relief
at the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
.

Phrygian costumes

Phrygia developed an advanced
Bronze Age
culture. The
earliest traditions of
Greek music
derived
from Phrygia, transmitted through the Greek colonies in
Anatolia, and included the
Phrygian mode
, which
was considered to be the warlike mode in ancient Greek
music. Phrygian
Midas
, the king of the
“golden touch”, was tutored in music by
Orpheus
himself,
according to the myth. Another musical invention that
came from Phrygia was the
aulos
, a reed
instrument with two pipes.
Marsyas
, the
satyr
who first formed
the instrument using the hollowed
antler
of a
stag
, was a Phrygian
follower of Cybele. He unwisely competed in music with
the
Olympian

Apollo
and inevitably
lost, whereupon Apollo flayed Marsyas alive and
provocatively hung his skin on Cybele’s own sacred tree,
a
pine
.

Phrygia retained a separate cultural identity.
Classical Greek iconography identifies the
Trojan

Paris
as non-Greek by
his Phrygian cap, which was worn by
Mithras
and survived
into modern imagery as the “Liberty
cap” of the American and
French revolutionaries
.
The Phrygians spoke an
Indo-European language
.
(See
Phrygian language
.)
Although the Phrygians adopted the
alphabet
originated by
the
Phoenicians
, only a few
dozen inscriptions in the Phrygian language have been
found, primarily funereal, and so much of what is
thought to be known of Phrygia is second-hand
information from Greek sources.

Mythic
past

The name of the earliest known mythical king was
Nannacus (aka Annacus). This king resided at Iconium,
the most eastern city of the kingdom of Phrygia at that
time; and after his death, at the age of 300 years, a
great flood overwhelmed the country, as had been
foretold by an ancient oracle. The next king mentioned
in extant classical sources was called Manis or Masdes.
According to Plutarch, because of his splendid exploits,
great things were called “manic” in Phrygia. Thereafter
the kingdom of Phrygia seems to have become fragmented
among various kings. One of the kings was
Tantalus
who ruled over
the north western region of Phrygia around
Mount Sipylus
. Tantalus
was endlessly punished in
Tartarus
, because he
allegedly killed his son
Pelops
and
sacrificially offered him to the Olympians, a reference
to the suppression of
human sacrifice
.
Tantalus was also falsely accused of stealing from the
lotteries he had invented. In the mythic age before the
Trojan war
, during a
time of an
interregnum
,
Gordius
(or Gordias), a
Phrygian farmer, became king, fulfilling an oracular
prophecy
. The kingless
Phrygians had turned for guidance to the oracle of
Sabazios (“Zeus” to the Greeks) at
Telmissus
, in the part
of Phrygia that later became part of
Galatia
. They had been
instructed by the oracle to acclaim as their king the
first man who rode up to the god’s temple in a cart.
That man was Gordias (Gordios, Gordius), a farmer, who
dedicated the ox-cart in question, tied to its shaft
with the “Gordian
Knot“. Gordias refounded a capital at Gordium
in west central Anatolia, situated on the old trackway
through the heart of Anatolia that became
Darius
‘s Persian “Royal
Road” from
Pessinus
to
Ancyra
, and not far
from the
River Sangarius
.

The Phrygians are associated in Greek mythology with
the
Dactyls
, minor gods
credited with the invention of iron smelting, who in
most versions of the legend lived at
Mount Ida
in Phrygia.

Gordias
‘s son (adopted
in some versions) was
Midas
. A large body of
myths and legends surround this first king Midas.
connecting him with a mythological tale concerning
Attis
.^[24]
This shadowy figure resided at Pessinus and attempted to
marry his daughter to the young Attis in spite of the
opposition of his lover Agdestis and his mother, the
goddess
Cybele
. When Agdestis
and/or Cybele appear and cast madness upon the members
of the wedding feast. Midas is said to have died in the
ensuing chaos.

The famous king Midas is said to have associated
himself with
Silenus
and other
satyrs and with
Dionysus
, who granted
him the famous “golden touch”.

Man in Phrygian costume,
Hellenistic

period (3rd–1st century BC),
Cyprus

In one version of his story, Midas travels from
Thrace accompanied by a band of his people to Asia Minor
to wash away the taint of his unwelcome “golden touch”
in the river
Pactolus
. Leaving the
gold in the river’s sands, Midas found himself in
Phrygia, where he was adopted by the childless king
Gordias and taken under the protection of Cybele. Acting
as the visible representative of Cybele, and under her
authority, it would seem, a Phrygian king could
designate his successor.

The Phrygian
Sibyl
was the priestess
presiding over the
Apollonian oracle
at
Phrygia.

According to
Herodotus
, Herodotus),
the Egyptian pharaoh
Psammetichus II
had two
children raised in isolation in order to find the
original language. The children were reported to have
uttered bekos which is Phrygian for “bread”, so
Psammetichus admitted that the Phrygians were a nation
older than the Egyptians.