CHAPTER XXX - PHRYGIA AND THE PEOPLES OF ANATOLIA IN THE IRON AGE

Summary

The Hittite Empire collapsed in ruins in about 1200 B.C., at the hands of the invaders, among whom their traditional enemies on the eastern frontier, the Kaska peoples, were surely numbered, and a horde or series of hordes flooded over the land; excavation has revealed a level of destruction by fire in the east, at the Hittite capital of Boĝazköy, at Alaca and at Alisor. Written records of the Hittites, hitherto our most important source of historical information concerning Anatolia, cease abruptly with the reign of Shuppiluliumash II. At Alişar there was a brief occupation by a people who, it is thought, may have been the Luwians and who may have played an important part in the destruction. When the curtain rises again, central Anatolia is ruled (or at least, occupied) by an invading people, a horse-rearing military aristocracy called the Phrygians (as they were known in the West to the Greeks through Homer), or the Mushki and Tabal (as they were known to the Assyrians in the East). According to the traditions preserved among the Macedonians, says Herodotus (111. 73), the Phrygians crossed the straits into Anatolia from Macedonia and Thrace, where they had until then been known as Bryges or Briges. The Greeks in general believed that this event took place before the Trojan War, enshrining it in legend; though Xanthus, a Lydian historian, held it took place after that event, in a joint invasion with the Mysians. According to one such Greek tradition, the royal house of Priam was connected with Phrygia by marriage, since Hecuba was daughter of the River Sangarius. Another tale (Iliad, 111. 184 ff.) tells how Priam, king of Troy, fought as an ally of the Phrygian leaders Otreus and Mygdon when they battled against the Amazones on the River Sangarius.