Phrygians

The Phrygians were the first to observe the flights of birds, and the Tuscans, neighbours of Italy, perfected the art of inspecting victims.

And the Idaean Dactyls were Phrygians and barbarians.

For the Phrygians call water bedy, as Orpheus too:

For on account of those who so treat their own fatherlands, as some say truly, nothing prevented all the Greeks from having long ago become more dishonoured than the Phrygians or Thracians.

For instance, both the Indian and the Spartan feel pain when wounded or burned, and so do the Phrygian and the Lydian;

And again, if it lay in stones of fine hue and varied veining, then the city of the Teians or the Carystians, or of certain Egyptians and Phrygians, among whom the very mountains are variegated—indeed I hear that the most ancient of the mountains are of that same rock—and yet they are no better off, no more fortunate, than men utterly humble and wretched.

Now while Croesus was occupied with the marriage of his son, a Phrygian of the royal house came to Sardis, in great distress and with unclean hands.

” “O King,” the man answered, “I am the son of Gordias the son of Midas, and my name is Adrastus;

But ever since Psammetichus became king and wished to find out which people were the oldest, they have believed that the Phrygians were older than they, and they than everybody else.

The comic poets mock the Phrygians as timid;

But we find, even in the Commentaries on Human Antiquities, that the human race has gradually grown beyond measure, while the Aborigines, or wanderers, or exiles, or any glory-seekers occupy lands — as the Scythians occupied the Parthian lands, as the Temenidae the Peloponnese, as the Athenians Asia, as the Phrygians Italy and the Phoenicians Africa — while there are also solemn migrations, which …

and we did not permit Phrygians to put such an intolerable reproach on Hellas.

Now my father, when Phrygia’s capital was threatened with destruction by the spear of Hellas, took alarm and conveyed me secretly from the land of Troy to Polymestor’s house, his guest-friend in Thrace, who sows these fruitful plains of Chersonese, curbing by his might a nation delighting in horses.

Just so, when he heard of the Phrygians’ disaster.

Because of you, the Phrygians have been destroyed.

Miserable Phrygians, and all the Achaeans!

Behold the maiden on her way, the destroyer of Ilium’s town and the Phrygians, with garlands twined about her head, and drops of lustral water on her, soon to be sprinkled with her gushing blood the altar of a murderous goddess, when her shapely neck is severed.

And it is right, mother, that Hellenes should rule barbarians, but not barbarians Hellenes, those being slaves, while these are free.

Some mad desire possesses the army of Hellas to sail at once to the land of the barbarians, and put a stop to the rape of wives from Hellas, and they will slay my daughter in Argos as well as you and me, if I disregard the goddess’s commands.

Phorkys, again, and noble Askanios led the Phrygians from the far country of Askania, and both were eager for the fray.

Moreover, send a messenger quickly to the swift-horsed Phrygians, to tell my father and my sorrowing mother;

” When Ariarathes, king of Cappadocia had wantonly obstructed the channel of the river Melas, which discharges itself into the Euphrates, the swell of waters bursting the mounds, the Euphrates rose to such a height, as to occasion excessive damage to the Cappadocians, the Galatians, and the Phrygians.

the Phrygians are thenceforth held to be the first race.

The Scythians overflow the Persians, the Phoenicians belch forth into Africa, the Phrygians bring forth the Romans, the Chaldaean seed is brought up into Egypt;

Besides, Cyrus had given Adusius instructions to join Hystaspas and bring with them armed those Phrygians who had voluntarily taken their side, but to take their horses and arms away from those who had shown fight, and to make all such follow, armed with nothing but slings.

but the Babylonians, in their turn, when they heard of that, laughed much more scornfully still, at the thought of Phrygians and Lydians and Arabians and Cappadocians keeping guard against them, for they considered all these to be more friendly to them than to the Persians.

On the way to Babylon he subdued Greater Phrygia and Cappadocia and reduced the Arabians to submission.