History of art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria, and Lycia / from the French of Georges Perrot ... and Charles Chipiez.

  • Georges Perrot
Date:
1892
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria, and Lycia / from the French of Georges Perrot ... and Charles Chipiez. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    3 If affinity exists between Armenians and Phrygians, it may, perhaps, be otherwise explained. The two nations would have come of a parent stock, a main branch of the Aryan family—a branch which parted in far-off days, and formed two distinct rami- fications. Of these, the one moved north of the Euxine and settled in the south-east of Europe, whence long afterwards they fell back upon Asia Minor ; whilst the other entered the peninsula at the opposite end, through the passes of Caucasus, and the high levels binding it with the tableland of Iran. After centuries of separation, the two groups met again on the river Halys, which rises in Armenia, and whose lower course forms the line of delimi- tation between Cappadocia and Phrygia. Further to discuss the question is outside our purpose. Neither the Thracians nor the Armenians ever had an individual art, so that in no part of this history will their name be recorded. If we have adduced traditions bearing upon the origin and ethnical affinities of the Phrygians, this was because they determine the question of race, and serve to establish their Aryan origin, further demonstrated by words of their language incised on stone hard by Seid al-Ghazi.1 Their idiom might almost be considered a Greek second group, Phrygians, Mysians, Bithynians, established themselves on the north- west of Asia Minor ; then moving still further west, the bulk of the nation crossed the straits, and spread in the vast region that lies between the Ægean and the Danube. This is a theory opposed to almost all ancient texts, the universal belief of antiquity, and Duncker borrowed it from Otto Abel, who has not one good reason to show for it (“ Phryges,” Real Encyclopedic de Pauly et Makedonien, p. 57). The few authori- ties he cites date from the Lower Empire, e.g. centuries after the events they purpose to relate. 1 None of the scholars who have gone into the question have any doubt on the subject. See first Lassen’s dissertation, already referred to (p. 2, note 2), entitled Ueber die Lykischen Inschriften und die alten Sprachen Klein-Asiens. In the second part ( Ueber die alten Kleinasiatischen Sprachen uperhaupt) a large share is given to the study of the Phrygian language. The author, whilst giving the expositions of Jablonski, Adelung, Heeren, and De Lagarde, adds many observations of his own. The reader is referred to De Lagarde for a fuller account : Einige Bemerkungen ueber érânische Sprachen ausserkalb Erân's (Gesamm. Abhand., 8vo, 1866, Leipzig). Chap. iii. pp. 283-291, deals with the glossary of Phrygian words preserved to us in ancient writers ; but unlike Lassen, he makes no attempt to explain the inscrip- tions. Among the many correspondences these papers contain we will single out the following :—Hesychius (s.v.) formally states that Bayaîos was the Phrygian name of Zeus. Despite its Greek ending, due to lexicographers, it is not difficult to recognize the bagha, which in old Persian, and Zered as well, signifies deity. The word, with scarcely any modification, occurs in many other Indo-European languages. Bog, in Slavic idioms, has the meaning of deity.
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