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The Historians' History of the World 02 [Israel, India, Persia, Phoenicia, Minor Nations of Western Asia]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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The sovereigns of Phrygia are said to have come from the agricultural class. Gordius, the first king, was called from following his wagon to rule over Phrygia. His son Midas was the hero of many Greek legends. The story of his receiving the gift of turning everything he touched into gold indicates the possession of enormous wealth. This name occurs in various connections, and it appears that the kings of the ancient Phrygian dynasty bore alternately the names of Gordius and Midas. Their tombs are still visible in the Doghanlu valley and exhibit inscriptions in Greek writing, but in the Phrygian language. The dynasty came to an end in face of an invasion of the Cimmerians, about 675 B.C., and on the expulsion of the latter about a century later the kingdom was annexed by Lydia.
A story told by Herodotus shows that the Egyptians regarded the Phrygians as the oldest people of the world. The Greeks thought that they came from Thrace and were originally called Brigians, but the Phrygians, while owning the relationship to the Brigians of Thrace, declared themselves to be the older people. Modern writers are disposed to attribute an Armenian origin to both races. There are indications which serve to show that the Phrygians once extended their rule over a much wider area than that assigned to their country in our maps of the ancient world; that they held command of the seaboard and were even found beyond the Ægean. But these indications do not amount to proof.
The people of Phrygia once inhabited rock-dwellings which still exist, ranged in rows and one above another. They subsequently built towns,—several were ascribed to the first Gordius and Midas,—and developed an advanced type of civilisation. They are credited with the invention of embroidery, and from the wool of their numerous flocks of sheep they manufactured fine cloths. Cotiæum in Phrygia is one of the towns which claims to be the birthplace of Æsop, and though the Greeks affected to despise the Phrygian music, as is shown by the story of Apollo and Marsyas, it is nevertheless a fact that the Hellenes borrowed the Phrygian flute and shepherd’s pipe as well as a Phrygian form of poetry. In the art of sculpture, though they did not invent a school of their own, the Phrygians must have brought considerable originality into play, for they have impressed a distinctly national stamp on their monuments, though the general style was borrowed from abroad.
THE CAPPADOCIANS
The chief point of interest furnished by this people is to be found in their religious worship. Its principal centres were the two cities of Comana, the one situated on the river Iris, which flows north into the Euxine, and the other in the southern part of the country on the slopes of Anti-Taurus, near the river Sarus. The high priests were generally of royal blood and enjoyed great consideration, even wearing a royal diadem at the great religious festival, and their importance does not seem to have been diminished by the Persian conquest.
The Cappadocians had the reputation of being brave but untrustworthy, characteristics appropriate to a people who worshipped a warrior moon-goddess. For besides the moon-god Men, they adored Ma, or Mene, identified with Enio, or Bellona, as well as with Artemis. Ma was waited on by numerous priests and temple servants, who constituted the main population of the southern Comana, while hosts of maidens, clad in warlike dress and wearing the same weapons as their divine mistress, participated in her wild rites. It is thought that it was the existence of these women which gave rise to the legend of the Amazons, or nation of female warriors, whom the Greeks supposed to have had their home in the mythical town of Themiscyra on the banks of the Thermodon in Pontus.
The chief festival was that known as the “Exodus” of the goddess, and was attended by many pilgrims from far and near. The worshippers gashed their own bodies and took part in the wildest sensual excesses. These, and the personal sacrifices required from the votaries of Ma, reveal the Semitic origin of the race which practised them, and resemble those belonging to the service of the “Phrygian mother.”
The Greek name for the Cappadocians was “Leuco-Syrians,” i.e., white Syrians, and the myth traced their descent from Syros, son of Apollo. The original Semitic population received a foreign admixture in the eighth century B.C., when some of the Cimmerians, who invaded Asia Minor, settled amongst them and became entirely absorbed in the population. The Cataonians, who inhabited a district in the southeast of the country, were said to be a distinct race, but the personal observations of Strabo in the century before Christ could detect no differences between the two peoples. A further evidence of Semitic origin is found in coins of northern Cappadocia, which date from the fourth century B.C. and bear the image of the Syrian god Baal, with legends inscribed in Aramæan.
The southern part of Cappadocia covers the highest plateau of Asia Minor, and its cold climate is a reason why it can never have been very productive, though wine and oil were grown in certain districts. It furnished, however, ample pasturage for sheep and horses, but the chief wealth of the people seems to have consisted in slaves. Silver, iron, and steel were to be obtained in ancient times from the northeastern districts bordering on Armenia, where dwelt the Tibareni, the Chalybes, and other wild tribes of unknown origin. The mineral products of their territory were turned to account by the Greeks, who had established colonies all along the Cappadocian coast.
Our real knowledge of Cappadocian history goes no farther back than the Persian conquest, and the name of Cappadocians is a Persian appellation—Katapatuka. The Persians divided the country into the two provinces of Cappadocia on the Pontus (afterwards called simply Pontus) and Great Cappadocia, stretching from the Taurus range on the south and including the country on the upper reaches of the Halys. Each constituted a separate satrapy whose governors enjoyed practical independence and royal titles.
THE CILICIANS
Between the Taurus Mountains and that ridge which the ancients called Amanus, lies a fertile and isolated plain which formed the principal part of the ancient kingdom of Cilicia. Xenophon describes it as “a large and beautiful plain, well watered, and full of all sorts of trees and vines, abounding in sesame, panic, millet, wheat, and barley,” and “surrounded with a strong and high ridge of hills from sea to sea.” This plain was by no means the whole of the territory occupied by the Cilicians, which stretched far west among the wild Taurus Mountains as far as Coracesium on the borders of Pamphylia, and appears, from the statements of Herodotus, to have reached to the Euphrates and to have also included a large part of Cappadocia.
The Cilicians were a Semitic race and, like the Cappadocians, nearly related to the Syrians. They evidently worshipped the Syrian gods, for the latter are represented on Cilician coins belonging to the Persian epoch, especially the sun-god Baal, seated on a throne and holding grapes and ears of corn in his hand. But we also find representations of Hercules on these coins, and Greek as well as Aramæan inscriptions, showing that this Semitic race passed under the influence of the Hellenes, who had indeed many settlements in the west of Cilicia.