Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/226

 21(1 HISTORY OF GREECE. extensive region of Asiatic Phrygia, Kelasnae, Pessinus, An- kyra, 1 Gordium, as well as with the neighborhood of Mount Bermion in Macedonia : the adventure whereby Midas got pos- session of Silenus, mixing wine with the spring of which he drank, was localized at the latter place as well as at the town of Thymbrion, nearly at the eastern extremity of Asiatic Phrygia. 2 The name Mygdonia, and the eponymous hero Mygdun, belong not less to the European territory near the river Axius, after- wards a part of Macedonia, than to the Asiatic coast of the eastern Propontis, between Kios and the river Rhyndakus. :) Otreus and Mygdon are the commanders of the Phrygians in the Iliad ; and the river Odryses, which flowed through the terri- tory of the Asiatic Mygdonians, into the Rhyndakus, affords an- other example of homonymy with the Odrysian Thracians 4 in Europe. And as these coincidences of names and legends con- duct us to the idea of analogy and affinity between Thracians and Phrygians, so we find Archilochus, the earliest poet remaining to us who mentions them as contemporaries, coupling the two in the same simile. 5 To this eai'ly Parian lambist, the population on 1 Diodor. iii, 59; Arrian, ii, 3, 1 ; Quint. Curt, iii, 1, 12; Athcnac. x, p. 415. We may also notice the town of Korvaeiov near Mtdaeiov in Phry^hi, as connected with the name of the Tliracian goddess Kotys (Strabo, x, p. 470; xii, p. 576). 2 Herodot. viii, 138; Theopompus, Frag. 74, 75, 76. Didot (he introduced a long dialogue between Midas and Silenus, Dion ys. Halik. Vctt. Script. Censur, p. 70: Thcon. Progymnas. c. 2); Strabo, xiv, p. 680; Xenophon, Anabas. i, 2, 13. 3 Strabo, xii, pp. 575-576: Steph. Byz. MvyJoi-m ; Thucyd. ii, 99. The territory Mygdonia and the Mygdonians, in the distant region of Mesopota- mia, eastward of the river Chaboras (Plutarch, Lucullus, 32; Polyb. v, 51 ; Xenophon, Anab. iv, 3, 4), is difficult to understand, since it is surprising to find a branch of these more westerly Asiatics in the midst of the Syro- Arabian population. Strabo (xv, p. 747) supposes it to date only from the times of the Macedonian conquest of Asia, which is disproved by the men- tion of the name in Xenophon ; though this reading in the text of Xenophon is by some called in question. See Forbigcr, Handbuch dcr Alton Geogra- phie, part ii, sect. 98, p. 628. 4 Iliad, iii, 188 ; Strabo, xii, p. 551. The town of Otrcca, of which Otrear seems to be the eponymus, was situated in Phrygia, just on the borders of Bithynia (Strabo, xii, p. 566). 4 Archiloch. Fragm. 28 Schncid., 2G Gaisf. uffTrep av^-iJ Ppvrov t] Gpiji uvr)p "H nt>| Iftpvfr, etc.