Reginald Walter Macan, Herodotus, The Seventh, Eighth, & Ninth Books with Introduction and Commentary

---

---

Φρύγες: the position of this celebrated folk in the Asia Minor of Hdt. is not seriously in doubt; the position of Φρυγίη between Kappadokia to the east, and Lydia west, is marked cc. 26, 30 f. supra; similarly on the ‘Royal Road,’ 5. 49, 52. Hdt. does not specify the difference between the Phrygian and Paphlagonian equipment: was it in the matter of boots?

---

ώς Μακεδόνες λέγουσι: not much perhaps can be made of this ‘Makedonian’ authority, except negatively (cp. Introd. § 10); but Makedonians may have claimed to have driven out the Phrygians. In Asia Minor the Phrygians may have been regarded in some quarters as ‘autochthonous,’ and perhaps made the claim themselves (cp. 2. 2), but Hdt. and Xanthus knew better: ὁ μὲν γὰρ Ξάνθος ὁ Λυδὸς μετὰ τὰ Τρωϊκὰ φησὶν ἐλθεῖν τοὺς Φρύγας ἐκ τῆς Εὐρώπης καὶ τῶν ἀριστερῶν τοῦ Πόντου (Strabo 680 =Fr. 5). (The date must be explained away: if the Phrygians come from Europe they came ‘before the Trojan war’; if they came ‘after the Trojan war,’ they were only shifting from one place to another in Asia, but might still be ultimately European.) Hdt. 8, 138 finds Midas at home in Makedonia, which squares perfectly with his view of ‘the Phrygian migration.’ The older commentators and historians, however, (Blakesley, Rawlinson, Stein), partly under the influence of ‘the oriental mirage’ have followed Giseke, ThrakischPelasg. Stàmme, and reversed the direction of the migration so far as they recognized it at all. Baehr (with his great respect for Hdt.) struck a middle course; the ‘Phrygians’ were at home in Asia, but Europeans may have come and coalesced with native Phrygians. That there were ‘Thracians’ in Asia (cp. c. 75 infra) has always been admitted, and that Hdt. is right in representing the Phrygians as Thracians, or at least as immigrants from Thrace, is now the better established view, supported (i.) by the earlier tradition; (ii.) by geographical considerations (e.g. relation of Europe and Asia. wedge-like appeaiance of historic Phrygia); (iii.) by archaeological evidence (similarity of Phiygian and later Trojan pottery, ‘Thracian tumuli’ in the Troad and Phrygia), and to some extent (iv.) by linguistic; cp. Kretschmer, Einleitung c. vii. Hdt. himself has, however, in regard to the inhabitants of the Troad, reversed the historic process of migration in NW. Asia Minor, cp. c. 20 supra; for the Myso-Teukrian invasion of Europe in that passage must be substituted a Phrygo-Mysian invasion of Asia Minor and the Troad. The Mysian invasion of Europe is indeed hardly consistent with the Phrygian invasion of Asia; Hdt. is best reconciled with himself by the hypothesis above stated.

---

Ἀρμένιοι ... ἐόντες Φρυγῶν ἄποικοι. Rawlinson, under the influence of the oriental mirage (“the stream of Indo-European colonization (sic) having set westwards”), prefers to derive the Phrygians from the Armenians. So too Stein. No special stress need be laid on the term ἄποικοι (which is too much for Baehr) beyond the idea that the two nations are related, and that the Phrygian is the elder, more primary, and historically more important. Eudoxos (ap. Steph. B. sub v. Ἀρμενία) supports the Herodotean opinion: Ἀρμένιοι δὲ τὸ μὲν γένος ἐκ Φρυγίας καὶ τῇ φωνῆ̣ πολλὰ φρυγίζουσι. “This statement agrees so well with the linguistic facts, that there is not the slightest reason to doubt it” (Kretschmer, op. c. p. 209), going even so far as to endorse the connexion between the Armenians and Thessaly, discovered by Alexander's Thessalian vassals (Strabo 503. 530). If the Armenians were of European and Phrygian origin, the question would still remain whether they were sent forth by the ‘Phrygians’ before or after the settlement in Asia— whether they were in fact a swarm, or colony from historic Pbrygia, or from prehistoric Thrace? The language of Hdt. and Eudoxos seems to favour the former alternative; the historic situation and probabilities point rather to the latter. Some have referred the ‘Aryan’ character of Armenia to Iranian, not to European, antecedents (cp Baumgartner ap. Pauly-Wissowa 2. 1182), and the meeting of Phrygians and Armenians might be the meeting of two long separated columns of ‘Aryans.’ But the assumption of ethnological purity, corresponding to language, in a region which has always been a ‘buffer-state,’ is perhaps rash. In regard to the name, there is a difficulty arising from the fact that the ‘Armenians’ themselves have never used it. It is some other's name for them. Haikh is the native name of land, people, and eponymous ancestor.

---

Ἀρτόχμης Δαρείου ἔχων θυγατέρα: nothing more is known of husband or of wife. He may have been an Achaimenid. On the first part of the name Arta- cp. c. 65 supra.