Episcop. (Medele)]; (5) Attudda (Assar); (6) Trapezopolis (Bolo S. from Serai Keui), (7) Colossae (near Chonas); (8) Ceretapa Diocaesarea (Kayadibi), (9) Themisonium (Karayuk Bazar); (10) Tacina (Yar-1shl1), (11) Sanaus (Sari Kavak, in Daz Kiri); (12) Dionysopolis (Orta Keui), (13) Anastasiopolis, originally a village of the Hyrgaleis (Utch Kuyular); (14) Attanassus (Eski Aidan); (15) Lunda (Eski Seid), (16) Peltae (Karayashlar); (17) Eumenea (Ishekli); (18) Siblia (Homa); (19) Pepuza (Duman or Suretli); (20) Bna (Bourgas); (21) Sebaste (Sivasl1); (22) Eluza or Aludda (Hadjimlar); (23) Acmoma (Ahat Keui); (24) Alia (Kirka); (25) Siocharax (Otourak), (26) Dioclea (Dola); (27) Aristium (Karaj Euren, in Sitchanli Ova); (28) Cidyessus (Geukche Eyuk); (29) Apia (Abia); (30) Cotyaeum Kutaiah); (31) Aezani (Tchavdir Hissar); (32) Tiberiopolis (Amed); (33) Cadoi (Gediz); (34) Ancyra (Kilisse Keui); (35) Synaus (Simav); (36) Flaviopolis Temenothyrae (Ushak); (37) Trajanopolis Grimenothyrae (Giaour Euren, near Orta Keui); (38) Blaundus (Suleimanli).
II. Salutaris.—(1) Eucarpia (Emir Assar); (2) Hieropolis (Kotch Hissar); (3) Otrous (Tchor Hissar); (4) Stectorium (Mentesh); (5) Bruzus (Kara Sandykly)[1]; (6) Beudus (Aghzi Kara); (7) Augustopolis, formerly Anabura (Surmeneh); (8) Sibidunda (Baljik Hissar); (9) Lysias (Oinan); (10) Synnada (Tchifut Cassaba); (11) Prymnessus (Seulun); (12) Ipsus, afterwards Julia (near Sakly); (13) Polybotus (Bolawadun); (14) Docimium (Istcha Kara Hissar); (15) Metropolis (Kumbet), including Conni (B. Tchorgia) and Ambasus (Ambanaz); (16) Merus (Doghan Arslan); (17) Nacolea (Seidi Ghazi); (18) Dorylaeum (Eski Sheher); (19) Midaeum (Kara Euuk); (20) Lycaones (Kalejik); (21) Aulocra (in Dombai Ova); (22) Amadassus (unknown, perhaps corrupt it should include Kinnaborion near Geneli); (23) Praepenissus (Altyntash). In later times the important fortress (and bishopric) of Acroenus was founded on the site of the present Afiom Kara Hissar.
Besides these, certain cities beyond the bounds of the Byzantine Phrygias belonged under the Roman empire to the province of Asra and are usually considered Phrygian: (1) in Byzantine Pisidia, Philomelium (Ak Shehr), Hadrianopolis; (2) in Byzantine Galatia, Amorium (Assar near Hamza Hadji), Orcistus (Alikel or Alekian), Tricomia or Trocmada or Trocnada (Kaimaz); (3) in Byzantine Lycia, Cibyra (Horzum).
Phrygia contains several well-marked geographical districts. (1) Parorius, the long, level, elevated valley stretching north-west to south-east between the Sultan Dagh and the Emir Dagh from Holmi (about Tchai) to Tyriaeum (Ilghin); its waters collect within the valley, in three lakes, which probably supply the great fountains in the Axylon and through them the Sangarius. (2) Axylon, the vast treeless plains on the upper Sangarius; there burst forth at various points great perennial springs, the Sakaria fountains (Strabo p. 543), Ilije Bashi, Bunar Bashi, Geuk Bunar, Uzuk Bashi, &c, which feed the Sangarius. Great part of the Axylon was assigned to Galatia. (3) The rest of Phrygra is mountainous (except the great plateau, Banaz Ova), consisting of hill-country intersected by rivers, each of which flows through a fertile valley of varying breadth The northern half is drained by rivers which run to the Black Sea; of these the eastern ones, Porsuk Su (Tembris or Tembrogius), Seidi Su (Parthenius), Bardakchi Tchai (Xerabates), and Bay at Tchai (Alandrus), join the Sangarius, while the western,[2] Taushanly Tchai (Rhyndacus) and Simav Tchai (Macestus), meet and flow into the Propontis. The Hermus drains a small district included in the Byzantine Phrygia, but in earlier times assigned to Lvdra and Mysia. Great part of southern and western Phrygia is drained by the Maeander with its tributaries, Sandykly Tchai (Glaucus), Banaz Tchar, Kopli Su (Hippurlus), and Tchuruk Su (Lycus), moreover, some upland plains on the south, especially the Dombai Ova (Aulocra), communicate by underground channels with the Maeander. Finall, the Karayuk Ova in the extreme south-west drains through the Kazanes, a tributary of the Indus, to the Lycran Sea. Phrygia Parorlus and all the river-valleys are exceedingly fertile, and agriculture was the chief occupation of the ancient inhabitants; according to the myth, Gordius was called from the plough to the throne. The high-lying plains and parts of the vast Axylon furnish good pasturage, which formerly nourished countless flocks of sheep. The Romans also obtained fine horses from Phrygra. Grapes, which still grow abundantly in various parts, were much cultivated in ancient times. Other fruits are rare, except in a few small districts. Figs cannot be grown in the country, and the ancient references to Phrygian figs are either erroneous or due to a loose use of the term Phrygia.[3] Trees are exceedingly scarce in the country; and the pine-woods on the western tributaries of the Sangarius and the valonia oaks in parts of the Banaz Ova and a few other districts form exceptions. The underground wealth is not known to be great. Iron was worked in the district of Cibyra, and the marble of Synnada, or more correctly of Docimium, was largely used by the Romans. Copper and quicksilver were mined in the Zizima district, north of Iconium. The scene is generally monotonous; even the mountainous districts rarely glow striking features or boldness of character; where the landscape has beauty it is of a subdued melancholy character. The water-supply is rarely abundant, and agriculture is more or less dependent on an uncertain rainfall. The circumstances of the country are well calculated to impress the inhabitants with a sense of the overwhelming power of nature and of their complete dependence on it. Their mythology so far as we know it, has a melancholy and mystic tone, and their religion partakes of the same character. The two chief deities were Cybele, the Mother, the reproductive and nourishing power of Earth, and Sabazius, the Son, the life of nature, dying and reviving every year (see Great Mother of the Gods). The annual vicissitudes of the life of Sabazius, the Greek Dionysus, were accompanied by the mimic rites of his worshippers, who mourned with his sufferings and rejoiced with his joy. They enacted the story of his birth and life and death; the Earth, the Mother, is fertilized only by an act of violence by her own child; the representative of the god was probably slain each year by a cruel death, just as the god himself died. The rites were characterized by a frenzy of devotion, unrestrained enthusiasm, wild orgiastic dances and wanderings in the forests, and were accompanied by the music of the flute, cymbal, and tambourine.[4] At an early time this worship was affected by Oriental influence, coming over Syria from Babylonia. Sabazius was identified with Adonis or Attis (Atys), Cybele with the Syrian goddess; and man of the eoarsest rites of the Phrygian worship, the mutilation of the priests, the prostitution at the shrine,[5] came from the countries of the south-east. But one point of Semitic religion never penetrated west of the Halys: the pig was always unclean and abhorred among the Semites, whereas it was the animal regularly used in purification by the Phrygians, Lydians, Lycians and Greeks. The Phrygian religion exercised a very strong influence on Greece. In the archaic period the Dionysiac rites and orgies spread from Thrace into Greece, in spite of opposition which has left many traces in tradition, and the worship of Demeter at Eleusis was modified by Cretan influence ultimately traceable to Asia Minor. Pindar erected a shrine of the Mother of the gods beside his house, and the Athenians were directed by the Delphic oracle to atone for the execution of a priest of Cybele during the Peloponnesian War by building the Metroon. In these and other cases the Phrygian character was more or less Hellenized; but wave after wave of religious influence from Asia Minor introduced into Greece the unmodified “barbarian” ritual of Phrygia. The rites spread first among the common people and those engaged in foreign trade. The comic poets satirized them, and Plato and Demostienes inveighed against them; but they continued to spread, with all their fervid enthusiasm, their superstition and their obscene practices, wide among the people, whose religious cravings were not satisfied with the purely external religions of Hellenism. The orgies or mysteries were open to all, freemen or slaves, who had duly performed the preliminary purification, and secured to the participants salvation and remission of sins. Under Mysteries (q.v.) a distinction of character has been pointed out between the true Hellenic mysteries, such as the Eleusinian and the Phrygian; but there certainly existed much similar it between the two rituals. In the first centuries after Christ only the Phrygian and the Egyptian rites retained much real hold on the Graeco-Roman world. Phrygia itself, however, was very early converted to Christianity. Christian inscriptions in the country begin in the 2nd and are abundant in the 3rd century. There is every appearance that the great mass of the people were Christians before 300, and Eusebius (H.E. v. 16) is pro ably correct in his statement that in the time of Diocletian there was a Phrygian city in which every living soul was Christian. The great Phrygian saint of the 2nd century was named Avircius Marcellus (Abercius); the mass of legends and miracles in the late biography of him long brought his very existence into dispute, but a fragment of his gravestone, discovered in 1883, and now preserved in the Lateran Museum in Rome, has proved that he was a real person, and makes it probable that the wide-reaching conversion of the people attributed to him did actually take place. The strange enthusiastic character of the old Phrygian religion was not wholly lost when the country became Christian, but is clearly traced in the various heresies that arose in central Anatolia. Especially the wild ecstatic character and the prophecies of the Montanists recall the old type of religion. Montanus (see Montanism) was born on the borders of Phrygia and Mysia (probably south-east from Philadelphia), and was vehemently opposed by Albercius.
Of the old Phrygian language very little is known; a few words are preserved in Hesychius and other writers. Plato mentions that the Phrygian words for “dog,” “fire,” &c., were the same as the Greek; and to these we may add from inscriptions the words for “mother,” “king,” &c. A few inscriptions of the ancient period are known, and a larger number of the Roman period have been published in the Oesterreichische Jahreshefte (1905).
Owing to the scantiness of published material about Phrygia frequent reference has been made in this article to unpublished
- ↑ Nos. 1–5 were called the Phrygian “Pentapolis.”
- ↑ This district was according to the Greek view part of Mysia.
- ↑ In Strabo, p. 577, ἐλαιόφυτον must be wrong; ἀμπελόφυτον is true to fact, and is probably the right reading. Olives cannot now grow on these uplands, which are over 3000 ft. above sea-level.
- ↑ The influence which was exerted on Greek music and lyric poetry by the Phrygian music was great; see Marsyas; Olympus.
- ↑ There is no direct evidence that this was practised in the worship of Cybele, but analogy and indirect arguments make it pretty certain.
