of the Sangarius valley, but at least one of the monuments in it seems to belong to the older period of Cappadocian supremacy, and to prove that the city already existed in that earlier time. The Phrygian kingdom and art therefore took the place of an older civilization. It is probable that the tradition of battles between the Phrygians and the Amazons on the banks of the Sangarius preserves the memory of a struggle between the two races and the victory of the Phryges.
Of the monuments that exist around this city two classes may be confidently referred to the period of Phrygian greatness. That which is inscribed with the name of “Midas the King” is the most remarkable example of one class, in which a large perpendicular surface of rock is covered with a geometrical pattern of squares, crosses and meanders, surmounted by a pediment supported in the centre by a pilaster in low relief. In some cases a floral pattern occupies part of the surface, and in one case the two sides of the pediment are filled by two sphinxes of archaic type.[1] In some of these monuments a doorway is carved in the lower part; the door is usually closed, but in one case, viz. the sphinx monument just alluded to, the valves of the door are thrown wide open and give access to a little chamber, on the back of which is sculptured in relief a rude image of the Mother-goddess Cybele, having on each side of her a lion which rests its forepaws on her shoulder and places its head against hers. Sometimes a grave has been found hidden behind the carved front; in other cases no grave can be detected, but it is probable that they are all sepulchral.[2] The imitation of woodwork is obvious on several monuments of this kind. The second class is marked by the heraldic type of two animals, usually lions rampant, facing one another, but divided by a pillar or some other device. This type is occasionally found conjoined with the preceding; and various details common to both classes show that there was no great difference in time between them. The heraldic type is used on the monuments which appear to be the older, and the geometrical pattern is often employed on the inscribed monuments, which are obviously later than the earliest uninscribed. Monuments of this class are carved on the front of a sepulchral chamber, the entrance to which is a small doorway placed high and inaccessible in the rocks. There are also many rock monuments of the Roman time.
Early Phrygian art stands in close relationship with the art of Cappadocia. The monuments of the type of the Midas tomb are obviously imitated from patterns which were employed in cloth and carpets and probably also in the tilework on the inside of chambers varying slightly according to the material. Such patterns were used in Cappadocia, and the priest in the rock sculpture at Ibriz wears an embroidered robe strikingly similar in style to the pattern on the Midas tomb; but the idea of using the pattern as the Phrygians did seems peculiar to themselves. The heraldic type of the second class is found also in the art of Assyria, and was undoubtedly adopted by the Phrygians from earlier art; but it is used so frequently in Phrygia as to be specially characteristic of that country.[3] While Phrygian art is distinctly non-Oriental in spirit, its resemblance to archaic Greek art is a fact of the greatest importance. It is not merely that certain types are employed both in Phrygia and in Greece, but several favourite types in early Greek art can be traced in Phrygia, employed in similar spirit and for similar purposes. The heraldic type of the two lions is the device over the principal gateway of Mycenae, and stamps this, the oldest great monument on Greek soil, with a distinctly Phrygian character. Mycenae was the city of the Pelopidae, whom Greek tradition unhesitatingly declares to be Phrygian immigrants. A study of the topography of the Argive plain suggests the conclusion that Mycenae, Midea and Tiryns form a group of cities founded by an immigrant people in opposition to Argos, the natural capital of the plain and the stronghold of the native race. Midea appears to be the city of Midas, and the name is one more link in the chain that binds Mycenae to Phrygia. This connexion, whatever may have been its character, belongs to the remote period when the Phrygians inhabited the Aegean coasts. In the 8th and probably in the 9th century B.C. communication with Phrygia seems to have been maintained especially by the Greeks of Cyme, Phocaea and Smyrna. About the end of the 8th century Midas, king of Phrygia, married Damodice, daughter of Agamemnon, the last king of Cyme. Gyges, the first Mermnad king of Lydia (687–653), had a Phrygian mother. The worship of Cybele spread over Phocaea to the west as far as Massilia: rock monuments in the Phrygian style and votive reliefs of an Anatolian type are found near Yhocaea. Smyrna was devoted to the Phrygian Meter Sipylene. It is then natural that the Homeric poems refer to Phrygia in the terms above described, and make Priam's wife a Phrygian woman. After the foundation of the Greek colony at Sinope in 751 there can be no doubt that it formed the link of connexion between Greece and Phrygia. Phrygian and Cappadocian traders brought their goods, no doubt on camels, to Sinope, and the Greek sailors, the ἀειναῦται of Miletus, carried home the works of Oriental and Phrygian artisans. The Greek alphabet was carried to Phrygia and Pteria, either from Sinope or more probably direct east from Cyme, in the latter part of the 8th century. The immense importance of Sinope in early times is abundantly attested, and we need not doubt that very intimate relations existed at this port between the Ionic colonists and the natives. The effects of this commerce on the development of Greece were very great. It affected Ionia in the first place, and the mainland of Greece indirectly; the art of Ionia at this period is almost unknown, but it was probably closely allied to that of Phrygia.[4] A striking fact in this connexion is the use of a very simple kind of Ionic capital in one early Phrygian monument, suggesting that the “proto-Ionic” column came to Greece over Phrygia. It is obvious that the revolution which took place in the relations between Phrygians and Greeks must be due to some great movement of races which disturbed the old paths of communication. Abel is probably correct in placing the inroads of the barbarous European tribes, Bithynians, Thyni, Mariandyni, &c., into Asia Minor about the beginning of the 9th century B.C. The Phrygian element on the coast was weakened and in many places annihilated; that in the interior was strengthened; and we may suppose that the kingdom of the Sangarius valley now sprang into greatness. The kingdom of Lydia appears to have become important about the end of the 8th century, and to have completely barred the path between Phrygia and Cyme or Smyrna. Ionian maritime enterprise opened a new way over Sinope.[5]
The downfall of the Phrygian monarchy can be dated with comparative accuracy. Between 680 and 670 the Cimmerians in their destructive progress over Asia Minor overran Phrygia; the king Midas in despair put an end to his own life; and from henceforth the history of Phrygia is a story of slavery, degradation and decay, which contrasts strangely with the earlier legends. The catastrophe seems to have deeply impressed the Greek mind, and the memory of it was preserved. The date of the Cimmerian invasion is fixed by the concurrent testimony of the contemporary poets Archilochus and Callinus, of the late chronologists Eusebius, &c., and of the inscriptions of the Assyrian king Esar-haddon. The Cimmerians were finally expelled from Asia Minor by Alyattes before his war with the Medes under Cyaxares (590–585 B.C.). The Cimmerians, therefore, were ravaging Asia Minor, and presumably held possession of Phrygia, the only country where they achieved
- ↑ Published in Journ. Hell. Stud. (1884).
- ↑ The monuments of Phrygia fall into two groups, which probably mark the sites of two cities about 16 m. distant from each other, Metropolis and Conni. One group lies round the villages of Yazili-Kaya, Kumbet, Yapuldak and Bakshish; the other beside Liyen, Bei Keui, Demirli and Ayazin.
- ↑ The heraldic type continues on gravestones down to the latest period of paganism. Carpets with geometrical patterns of the Midas-tomb style are occasionally found at the present time in the houses of the peasantry of the district.
- ↑ See Furtwangler, Goldfund von Vettersfelde, Winckelm. Progr. (1884); Hogarth, &c., The Archaic Artemisia (British Museum, 1908). The closest analogies of old Phrygian art are to be found in the earliest Greek bronze work in Olympia, Italy and the northern lands.
- ↑ Hipponax, fr. 36 [49], proves that a trade-route from Phrygia down the Maeander to Miletus was used in the 6th century.
