DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9184#0053
Chap. II.]
Phrygia and Troas.
33
races of Asia Minor were an invading and conquering
aristocracy, a view in which Mr. Ramsay by no means
stands alone, seems best to suit the facts of the case. To
them belong the royal tombs of Asia Minor, notably of
Lycia and Phrygia, with their inscriptions written in
languages certainly of an Aryan character, and to. them
refer the warlike traditions which were handed down to
the Greeks. But that the mass of the people of inner
Asia Minor were connected rather with the Canaanites of
the south than with the Thracians of the north seems
clear. The Phrygian Cybele and Attis, the Trojan
Aphrodite and Paris, are so nearly paralleled by the
Astartc and Adonis of Syria as to indicate an identity
of origin ; whereas the thundering god reminds us at once
of the Zeus of Dodona who dwelt amid storms, and the
Mountain-Zeus of Arcadia. The sacred cities of Asia
Minor, Sardes and Comana and Pessinus and the rest, with
their communities of temple-slaves dedicated to the service
of a great nature-goddess, remind us of nothing Hellenic
or European, but find a complete parallel in Syria.
Yet we must allow that this view is by no means free
from difficulties. Neither Greeks nor Romans distin-
guished between the invaders and the primitive inhabi-
tants. They give us no hint that the worship of Cybele
belonged to a different race from that which produced the
Phrygian kings, but on the contrary connect goddess and
kings in legend. So it seems at any rate certain that in
historical times there was a fusion of earlier and later
inhabitants. The invaders must have adopted from the
natives the worship of Cybele and imparted in return that
of Bronton. And, as is usually the case, the older race as
time went on asserted more strongly its preponderance.
Let us however pass from these somewhat vague specu-
lations, and consider more in detail what is actually known
in regard to the Phrygians, and in this narrower search we
D
Phrygia and Troas.
33
races of Asia Minor were an invading and conquering
aristocracy, a view in which Mr. Ramsay by no means
stands alone, seems best to suit the facts of the case. To
them belong the royal tombs of Asia Minor, notably of
Lycia and Phrygia, with their inscriptions written in
languages certainly of an Aryan character, and to. them
refer the warlike traditions which were handed down to
the Greeks. But that the mass of the people of inner
Asia Minor were connected rather with the Canaanites of
the south than with the Thracians of the north seems
clear. The Phrygian Cybele and Attis, the Trojan
Aphrodite and Paris, are so nearly paralleled by the
Astartc and Adonis of Syria as to indicate an identity
of origin ; whereas the thundering god reminds us at once
of the Zeus of Dodona who dwelt amid storms, and the
Mountain-Zeus of Arcadia. The sacred cities of Asia
Minor, Sardes and Comana and Pessinus and the rest, with
their communities of temple-slaves dedicated to the service
of a great nature-goddess, remind us of nothing Hellenic
or European, but find a complete parallel in Syria.
Yet we must allow that this view is by no means free
from difficulties. Neither Greeks nor Romans distin-
guished between the invaders and the primitive inhabi-
tants. They give us no hint that the worship of Cybele
belonged to a different race from that which produced the
Phrygian kings, but on the contrary connect goddess and
kings in legend. So it seems at any rate certain that in
historical times there was a fusion of earlier and later
inhabitants. The invaders must have adopted from the
natives the worship of Cybele and imparted in return that
of Bronton. And, as is usually the case, the older race as
time went on asserted more strongly its preponderance.
Let us however pass from these somewhat vague specu-
lations, and consider more in detail what is actually known
in regard to the Phrygians, and in this narrower search we
D