DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4680#0083
414 XI. APAMEIA.
human needs and human history ; and they sprang up where men
congregated for a fixed market1. Hence we see why the hieron of
Men Karou was not fixed at the hot springs of Karoura, where the
divine power was most clearly manifested, but at a central point
where the whole of the lower Lycos valley (pp. 4 f) could meet more
conveniently, and where the market was held until about 40 years
ago.
§11. Historical Myths. Civilization is developed through com-
merce and interchange of ideas. Hence this market, at the point where
so many roads converge (§ 1), is also the home of most of those myths
which preserve for us some facts about the beginnings of intercourse
beside Phrygia and the Greek world. The Phrygian music, as used
in the worship of the Great Mother, was learned by the Greeks, and
the invention of the flute, the Phrygian instrument par excellence, was
localized at Kelainai, and attributed to its river-god Marsyas. Marsyas,
vain of his skill, challenged the god of Greek music, Apollo: he was
defeated, and flayed by his conqueror in the grotto from which issues
the water of Marsyas : the Greek spirit overpowered the Phrygian.
In the tale of Lityerses, son of Midas, a legend of the Adonis-type,
embodying the idea of the vegetation and life of nature perishing in
the heat of summer2, was developed in a peculiar form which is
coloured by the facts of Kelainian history. Lityerses hospitably
welcomed all strangers, but made them help him in the harvest, and,
if they fell short in amount of work, killed them and hid their bodies
in the sheaves. Hercules, however, the hero (or god) of travel and
growing civilization, when he came to Kelainai, vindicated the privi-
leges of visitors by slaying Lityerses and throwing his body into the
Maeander. Thus the development of intercourse, and the guarantee
for the safety of trading strangers, are worked into the old religious
myth connected with the Lityerses-song, which the Phrygians sang in
the harvest field.
Hyagnis is another figure in Kelainian myth. Nothing is recorded
about him except that he was inventor of the flute and father of
1 The worship of Hercules on the cultus was confined to men, as women
Ara Maxima in the Forum Boarium in did not come to the market. A tithe
the low ground below old Rome, had of their gains belonged to the god under
a similar origin. The cattle of the whose guard they met.
Roman shepherds, their hides, &c., were a With this is united the kindred idea
there bartered for the manufactures of that a human being must be killed and
the Tuscan artisans; and the frequenters hid in the field in order to give life to
of the market were protected by par- the next crop,
ticipation in the rites on the altar. The
human needs and human history ; and they sprang up where men
congregated for a fixed market1. Hence we see why the hieron of
Men Karou was not fixed at the hot springs of Karoura, where the
divine power was most clearly manifested, but at a central point
where the whole of the lower Lycos valley (pp. 4 f) could meet more
conveniently, and where the market was held until about 40 years
ago.
§11. Historical Myths. Civilization is developed through com-
merce and interchange of ideas. Hence this market, at the point where
so many roads converge (§ 1), is also the home of most of those myths
which preserve for us some facts about the beginnings of intercourse
beside Phrygia and the Greek world. The Phrygian music, as used
in the worship of the Great Mother, was learned by the Greeks, and
the invention of the flute, the Phrygian instrument par excellence, was
localized at Kelainai, and attributed to its river-god Marsyas. Marsyas,
vain of his skill, challenged the god of Greek music, Apollo: he was
defeated, and flayed by his conqueror in the grotto from which issues
the water of Marsyas : the Greek spirit overpowered the Phrygian.
In the tale of Lityerses, son of Midas, a legend of the Adonis-type,
embodying the idea of the vegetation and life of nature perishing in
the heat of summer2, was developed in a peculiar form which is
coloured by the facts of Kelainian history. Lityerses hospitably
welcomed all strangers, but made them help him in the harvest, and,
if they fell short in amount of work, killed them and hid their bodies
in the sheaves. Hercules, however, the hero (or god) of travel and
growing civilization, when he came to Kelainai, vindicated the privi-
leges of visitors by slaying Lityerses and throwing his body into the
Maeander. Thus the development of intercourse, and the guarantee
for the safety of trading strangers, are worked into the old religious
myth connected with the Lityerses-song, which the Phrygians sang in
the harvest field.
Hyagnis is another figure in Kelainian myth. Nothing is recorded
about him except that he was inventor of the flute and father of
1 The worship of Hercules on the cultus was confined to men, as women
Ara Maxima in the Forum Boarium in did not come to the market. A tithe
the low ground below old Rome, had of their gains belonged to the god under
a similar origin. The cattle of the whose guard they met.
Roman shepherds, their hides, &c., were a With this is united the kindred idea
there bartered for the manufactures of that a human being must be killed and
the Tuscan artisans; and the frequenters hid in the field in order to give life to
of the market were protected by par- the next crop,
ticipation in the rites on the altar. The