Frigya
CKM 2018-19 / Aziz Yardımlı

 

 

Frigya




  Phrygia (Kingdom c. 1200-700 BC)


📹 Emilie Haspels & Phrygia (VİDEO)

📹 Emilie Haspels & Phrygia (LINK)

Documentary on Dutch scientist Emilie Haspels (1894-1980) who investigated the Phrygian Valley in Anatolia, Turkey in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. The documentary was made for an exhibition in the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam and the Archaeology Museum of Eskisehir.

 




🗺 Phrygia among the classical regions of Anatolia

Phrygia among the classical regions of Anatolia

 





Phrygian Timeline. (L)

Phrygia

Phrygia (c. 1200-700 BC) (W)


Bust of Atis with the Phrygian cap.
 
   

In classical antiquity, Phrygia (Φρυγία, Phrygía; Turkish: Frigya) was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey, centered on the Sangarios River. After its conquest, it became a region of the great empires of the time.

Stories of the heroic age of Greek mythology tell of several legendary Phrygian kings:

 

According to Homer's Iliad, the Phrygians participated in the Trojan War as close allies of the Trojans, fighting against the Achaeans.

Phrygian power reached its peak in the late 8th century BCE under another, historical, king: Midas, who dominated most of western and central Anatolia and rivaled Assyria and Urartu for power in eastern Anatolia. This later Midas was, however, also the last independent king of Phrygia before Cimmerians sacked the Phrygian capital, Gordium, around 695 BCE. Phrygia then became subject to Lydia, and then successively to Persia, Alexander and his Hellenistic successors, Pergamon, the Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire. Phrygians gradually became assimilated into other cultures by the Early Middle Ages; {!} after the Turkish conquest of Anatolia, the name "Phrygia" passed out of usage as a territorial designation.


Geography

 
   

Phrygia describes an area on the western end of the high Anatolian plateau, an arid region quite unlike the forested lands to the north and west. Phrygia begins in the northwest where an area of dry steppe is watered by the Sakarya and Porsuk river system and is home to the settlements of Dorylaeum near modern Eskişehir, and the Phrygian capital Gordion. The climate is harsh with hot summers and cold winters; olives will not easily grow here and the land is mostly used for livestock grazing and the production of barley.

South of Dorylaeum, there an important Phrygian settlement, Midas City (Yazılıkaya, Eskişehir), is situated in an area of hills and columns of volcanic tuff. To the south again, central Phrygia includes the cities of Afyonkarahisar (ancient Akroinon) with its marble quarries at nearby Docimium (İscehisar), and the town of Synnada. At the western end of Phrygia stood the towns of Aizanoi (modern Çavdarhisar) and Acmonia. From here to the southwest lies the hilly area of Phrygia that contrasts to the bare plains of the region's heartland.

Southwestern Phrygia is watered by the Maeander (Büyük Menderes River) and its tributary the Lycus, and contains the towns of Laodicea on the Lycus and Hierapolis.


Origins

Legendary ancient migrations

According to ancient tradition among Greek historians, the Phrygians anciently migrated to Anatolia from the Balkans. Herodotus says that the Phrygians were called Bryges when they lived in Europe. He and other Greek writers also recorded legends about King Midas that associated him with or put his origin in Macedonia; Herodotus, for example, says a wild rose garden in Macedonia was named after Midas.

Some classical writers also connected the Phrygians with the Mygdones, the name of two groups of people, one of which lived in northern Macedonia and another in Mysia. Likewise, the Phrygians have been identified with the Bebryces, a people said to have warred with Mysia before the Trojan War and who had a king named Mygdon at roughly the same time as the Phrygians were said to have had a king named Mygdon.

The classical historian Strabo groups Phrygians, Mygdones, Mysians, Bebryces and Bithynians together as peoples that migrated to Anatolia from the Balkans. This image of Phrygians as part of a related group of northwest Anatolian cultures seems the most likely explanation for the confusion over whether Phrygians, Bebryces and Anatolian Mygdones were or were not the same people.


Phrygian language

Phrygian continued to be spoken until the 6th century CE, though its distinctive alphabet was lost earlier than those of most Anatolian cultures. One of the Homeric Hymns describes the Phrygian language as not mutually intelligible with that of Troy, and inscriptions found at Gordium make clear that Phrygians spoke an Indo-European language with at least some vocabulary similar to Greek. Phrygian clearly did not belong to the family of Anatolian languages spoken in most of the adjacent countries, such as Hittite. The apparent similarity of the Phrygian language to Greek and its dissimilarity with the Anatolian languages spoken by most of their neighbors is also taken as support for a European origin of the Phrygians.


Recent migration hypotheses

 

Some scholars dismiss the claim of a Phrygian migration as a mere legend, likely arising from the coincidental similarity of their name to the Bryges, and have theorized that migration into Phrygia could have occurred more recently than classical sources suggest. They have sought to fit the Phrygian arrival into a narrative explaining the downfall of the Hittite Empire and the end of the high Bronze Age in Anatolia, however, most scholars reject such a recent Phrygian migration.

According to this "recent migration" theory, the Phrygians invaded just before or after the collapse of the Hittite Empire at the beginning of the 12th century BCE, filling the political vacuum in central-western Anatolia, and may have been counted among the "Sea Peoples" that Egyptian records credit with bringing about the Hittite collapse. The so-called Handmade Knobbed Ware found in Western Anatolia during this period has been tentatively identified as an import connected to this invasion.


Relation to their Hittite predecessors


Anatolia and northern Syria, c. 1180 BC to the 6th century BC.
 
   

Most scholars accept as factual the Iliad's account that the Phrygians were established on the Sakarya River before the Trojan War, and thus must have been there during the later stages of the Hittite Empire, and probably earlier, and consequently dismiss proposals of recent immigration to Phrygia. These scholars seek instead to trace the Phrygians' origins among the many nations of western Anatolia who were subject to the Hittites. This interpretation also gets support from Greek legends about the founding of Phrygia's main city Gordium by Gordias and of Ancyra by Midas, which suggest that Gordium and Ancyra were believed to date from the distant past before the Trojan War.

No one has conclusively identified which of the many subjects of the Hittites might have represented early Phrygians. According to a classical tradition, popularized by Josephus, Phrygia can be equated with the country called Togarmah by the ancient Hebrews, which has in turn been identified as the Tegarama of Hittite texts and Til-Garimmu of Assyrian records. Josephus called Togarmah "the Thrugrammeans, who, as the Greeks resolved, were named Phrygians". However, the Greek source cited by Josephus is unknown, and it is unclear if there was any basis for the identification other than name similarity.

Scholars of the Hittites believe Tegarama was in eastern Anatolia – some locate it at Gurun – far to the east of Phrygia. Some scholars have identified Phrygia with the Assuwa league, and noted that the Iliad mentions a Phrygian (Queen Hecuba's brother) named Asios. Another possible early name of Phrygia could be Hapalla, the name of the easternmost province that emerged from the splintering of the Bronze Age western Anatolian empire Arzawa. However, scholars are unsure if Hapalla corresponds to Phrygia or to Pisidia, further south.

Relation to the later Armenians

Herodotus also claims that Phrygian colonists founded the Armenian nation. This is likely a reference to a third group of people called Mygdones living in northern Mesopotamia who were apparently allied to the Armenians; Xenophon describes them in his Anabasis in a joint army with the Armenians. However, little is known about these eastern Mygdones, and no evidence of the Phrygian language in that region has been found.


History

Around the time of the Trojan war

According to the Iliad, the homeland of the Phrygians was on the Sangarius River, which would remain the centre of Phrygia throughout its history. Phrygia was famous for its wine and had “brave and expert” horsemen.

According to the Iliad, before the Trojan War, a young king Priam of Troy had taken an army to Phrygia to support it in a war against the Amazons. Homer calls the Phrygians "the people of Otreus and godlike Mygdon." According to Euripides, Quintus Smyrnaeus and others, this Mygdon's son, Coroebus, fought and died in the Trojan War; he had sued for the hand of the Trojan princess Cassandra in marriage. The name Otreus could be an eponym for Otroea, a place on Lake Ascania in the vicinity of the later Nicaea, and the name Mygdon is clearly an eponym for the Mygdones, a people said by Strabo to live in northwest Asia Minor, and who appear to have sometimes been considered distinct from the Phrygians. However, Pausanias believed that Mygdon's tomb was located at Stectorium in the southern Phrygian highlands, near modern Sandikli.

According to the Bibliotheca, the Greek hero Heracles slew a king Mygdon of the Bebryces in a battle in northwest Anatolia that if historical would have taken place about a generation before the Trojan War. According to the story, while traveling from Minoa to the Amazons, Heracles stopped in Mysia and supported the Mysians in a battle with the Bebryces. According to some interpretations, Bebryces is an alternate name for Phrygians and this Mygdon is the same person mentioned in the Iliad.

King Priam married the Phrygian princess Hecabe (or Hecuba) and maintained a close alliance with the Phrygians, who repaid him by fighting “ardently” in the Trojan War against the Greeks.

Hecabe was a daughter of the Phrygian king Dymas, son of Eioneus, son of Proteus. According to the Iliad, Hecabe's younger brother Asius also fought at Troy (see above); and Quintus Smyrnaeus mentions two grandsons of Dymas that fell at the hands of Neoptolemus at the end of the Trojan War: "Two sons he slew of Meges rich in gold, Scion of Dymas – sons of high renown, cunning to hurl the dart, to drive the steed in war, and deftly cast the lance afar, born at one birth beside Sangarius' banks of Periboea to him, Celtus one, and Eubius the other." Teleutas, father of the maiden Tecmessa, is mentioned as another mythical Phrygian king.

There are indications in the Iliad that the heart of the Phrygian country was further north and downriver than it would be in later history. The Phrygian contingent arrives to aid Troy coming from Lake Ascania in northwest Anatolia, and is led by Phorcys and Ascanius, both sons of Aretaon.

In one of the so-called Homeric Hymns, Phrygia is said to be "rich in fortresses" and ruled by "famous Otreus."

 

Peak and destruction of the Phrygian kingdom

During the 8th century BCE, the Phrygian kingdom with its capital at Gordium in the upper Sakarya River valley expanded into an empire dominating most of central and western Anatolia and encroaching upon the larger Assyrian Empire to its southeast and the kingdom of Urartu to the northeast.

According to the classical historians Strabo, Eusebius and Julius Africanus, the king of Phrygia during this time was another Midas. This historical Midas is believed to be the same person named as Mita in Assyrian texts from the period and identified as king of the Mushki. Scholars figure that Assyrians called Phrygians "Mushki" because the Phrygians and Mushki, an eastern Anatolian people, were at that time campaigning in a joint army. This Midas is thought to have reigned Phrygia at the peak of its power from about 720 BCE to about 695 BCE (according to Eusebius) or 676 BCE (according to Julius Africanus). An Assyrian inscription mentioning "Mita", dated to 709 BCE, during the reign of Sargon of Assyria, suggests Phrygia and Assyria had struck a truce by that time. This Midas appears to have had good relations and close trade ties with the Greeks, and reputedly married an Aeolian Greek princess.

A system of writing in the Phrygian language developed and flourished in Gordium during this period, using a Phoenician-derived alphabet similar to the Greek one. A distinctive Phrygian pottery called Polished Ware appears during this period.

However, the Phrygian Kingdom was then overwhelmed by Cimmerian invaders, and Gordium was sacked and destroyed. According to Strabo and others, Midas committed suicide by drinking bulls' blood.

A series of digs have opened Gordium as one of Turkey's most revealing archeological sites. Excavations confirm a violent destruction of Gordium around 675 BCE. A tomb from the period, popularly identified as the "Tomb of Midas", revealed a wooden structure deeply buried under a vast tumulus, containing grave goods, a coffin, furniture, and food offerings (Archaeological Museum, Ankara).

 

As a Lydian province

After their destruction of Gordium, the Cimmerians remained in western Anatolia and warred with Lydia, which eventually expelled them by around 620 BCE, and then expanded to incorporate Phrygia, which became the Lydian empire's eastern frontier. The Gordium site reveals a considerable building program during the 6th century BCE, under the domination of Lydian kings including the proverbially rich King Croesus. Meanwhile, Phrygia's former eastern subjects fell to Assyria and later to the Medes.

There may be an echo of strife with Lydia and perhaps a veiled reference to royal hostages, in the legend of the twice-unlucky Phrygian prince Adrastus, who accidentally killed his brother and exiled himself to Lydia, where King Croesus welcomed him. Once again, Adrastus accidentally killed Croesus' son and then committed suicide.

 

As Persian province(s)

Some time in the 540s BCE, Phrygia passed to the Achaemenid (Great Persian) Empire when Cyrus the Great conquered Lydia.

After Darius the Great became Persian Emperor in 521 BCE, he remade the ancient trade route into the Persian "Royal Road" and instituted administrative reforms that included setting up satrapies. The Phrygian satrapy (province) lay west of the Halys River (now Kızıl River) and east of Mysia and Lydia. Its capital was established at Dascylium, modern Ergili.

In the course of the 5th century, the region was divided in two administrative satrapies: Hellespontine Phrygia and Greater Phrygia.

 

Under Alexander and his successors

The Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great passed through Gordium in 333 BCE and severed the Gordian Knot in the temple of Sabazios ("Zeus"). According to a legend, possibly promulgated by Alexander's publicists, whoever untied the knot would be master of Asia. With Gordium sited on the Persian Royal Road that led through the heart of Anatolia, the prophecy had some geographical plausibility. With Alexander, Phrygia became part of the wider Hellenistic world. Upon Alexander's death in 323, the Battle of Ipsus took place in 301 BCE.

 

Celts and Attalids

In the chaotic period after Alexander's death, northern Phrygia was overrun by Celts, eventually to become the province of Galatia. The former capital of Gordium was captured and destroyed by the Gauls soon afterwards and disappeared from history.

In 188 BCE, the southern remnant of Phrygia came under the control of the Attalids of Pergamon. However, the Phrygian language survived, although now written in the Greek alphabet.

 

Under Rome and Byzantium


In 133 BCE, the remnants of Phrygia passed to Rome. For purposes of provincial administration, the Romans maintained a divided Phrygia, attaching the northeastern part to the province of Galatia and the western portion to the province of Asia. During the reforms of Diocletian, Phrygia was divided anew into two provinces: "Phrygia I", or Phrygia Salutaris, and Phrygia II, or Pacatiana, both under the Diocese of Asia. Salutaris with Synnada as its capital comprised the eastern portion of the region and Pacatiana with Laodicea on the Lycus as capital of the western portion. The provinces survived up to the end of the 7th century, when they were replaced by the Theme system. In the Late Roman "Byzantine" period, most of Phrygia belonged to the Anatolic theme. It was overrun by the Turks in the aftermath of the Battle of Manzikert (1071). The Turks had taken complete control in the 13th century, but the ancient name of Phrygia remained in use until the last remnant of the Roman Empire was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1453.


 



Bryges

Bryges (W)

 
   

Bryges or Briges (Βρύγοι or Βρίγες) is the historical name given to a people of the ancient Balkans. They are generally considered to have been related to the Phrygians, who during classical antiquity lived in western Anatolia. Both names, Bryges and Phrygians, are assumed to be variants of the same root. Based on archaeological evidence, some scholars such as Nicholas Hammond and Eugene N. Borza argue that the Bryges/Phrygians were members of the Lusatian culture that migrated into the southern Balkans during the Late Bronze Age.

 

History

The earliest mentions of the Bryges are contained in the historical writings of Herodotus, who relates them to Phrygians, stating that according to the Macedonians, the Bryges “changed their name” to Phryges after migrating into Anatolia, a movement which is thought to have happened between 1200 BC and 800 BC perhaps due to the Bronze Age collapse, particularly the fall of the Hittite Empire and the power vacuum that was created. In the Balkans, the Bryges occupied central Albania and northern Epirus, as well as Macedonia, mainly west of the Axios river, but also Mygdonia, which was conquered by the kingdom of Macedon in the early 5th century BC. They seem to have lived peacefully next to the inhabitants of Macedonia. However, Eugammon in his Telegony, drawing upon earlier epic traditions, mentions that Odysseus commanded the Epirotian Thesprotians against the Bryges. Small groups of Bryges, after the migration to Anatolia and the expansion of the kingdom of Macedon, were still left in northern Pelagonia and around Epidamnus.

Herodotus also mentions that in 492 BC, some Thracian Brygoi or Brygians (Greek: Βρύγοι Θρήικες) fell upon the Persian camp by night, wounding Mardonius himself, though he went on with the campaign until he subdued them. These Brygoi were later mentioned in Plutarch's Parallel Lives, in the Battle of Philippi, as camp servants of Brutus. However, modern scholars state that a historical link between them and the original Bryges cannot be established.

 








  Midas

Midas

Midas (W)


In the Nathaniel Hawthorne version of the Midas myth, Midas' daughter turns to a golden statue when he touches her (illustration by Walter Crane for the 1893 edition).
 
   

Midas (Μίδας) is the name of at least three members of the royal house of Phrygia.

The most famous King Midas is popularly remembered in Greek mythology for his ability to turn everything he touched into gold. This came to be called the golden touch, or the Midas touch. The Phrygian city Midaeum was presumably named after this Midas, and this is probably also the Midas that according to Pausanias founded Ancyra. According to Aristotle, legend held that Midas died of starvation as a result of his "vain prayer" for the gold touch. The legends told about this Midas and his father Gordias, credited with founding the Phrygian capital city Gordium and tying the Gordian Knot, indicate that they were believed to have lived sometime in the 2nd millennium BC, well before the Trojan War. However, Homer does not mention Midas or Gordias, while instead mentioning two other Phrygian kings, Mygdon and Otreus.

Another King Midas ruled Phrygia in the late 8th century BC, up until the sacking of Gordium by the Cimmerians, when he is said to have committed suicide. Most historians believe this Midas is the same person as the Mita, called king of the Mushki in Assyrian texts, who warred with Assyria and its Anatolian provinces during the same period.

A third Midas is said by Herodotus to have been a member of the royal house of Phrygia and the grandfather of an Adrastus who fled Phrygia after accidentally killing his brother and took asylum in Lydia during the reign of Croesus. Phrygia was by that time a Lydian subject. Herodotus says that Croesus regarded the Phrygian royal house as "friends" but does not mention whether the Phrygian royal house still ruled as (vassal) kings of Phrygia.


Legends

There are many, and often contradictory, legends about the most ancient King Midas. In one, Midas was king of Pessinus, a city of Phrygia, who as a child was adopted by King Gordias and Cybele, the goddess whose consort he was, and who (by some accounts) was the goddess-mother of Midas himself. Some accounts place the youth of Midas in Macedonian Bermion (See Bryges). In Thracian Mygdonia, Herodotus referred to a wild rose garden at the foot of Mount Bermion as "the garden of Midas son of Gordias, where roses grow of themselves, each bearing sixty blossoms and of surpassing fragrance". Herodotus says elsewhere that Phrygians anciently lived in Europe where they were known as Bryges, and the existence of the garden implies that Herodotus believed that Midas lived prior to a Phrygian migration to Anatolia.

According to some accounts, Midas had a son, Lityerses, the demonic reaper of men, but in some variations of the myth he instead had a daughter, Zoë or "life". According to other accounts he had a son named Anchurus.

Arrian gives an alternative story of the descent and life of Midas. According to him, Midas was the son of Gordios, a poor peasant, and a Telmissian maiden of the prophetic race. When Midas grew up to be a handsome and valiant man, the Phrygians were harassed by civil discord, and consulting the oracle, they were told that a wagon would bring them a king, who would put an end to their discord. While they were still deliberating, Midas arrived with his father and mother, and stopped near the assembly, wagon and all. They, comparing the oracular response with this occurrence, decided that this was the person whom the god told them the wagon would bring. They therefore appointed Midas king and he, putting an end to their discord, dedicated his father’s wagon in the citadel as a thank-offering to Zeus the king. In addition to this the following saying was current concerning the wagon, that whosoever could loosen the cord of the yoke of this wagon, was destined to gain the rule of Asia. This someone was to be Alexander the Great. In other versions of the legend, it was Midas' father Gordias who arrived humbly in the cart and made the Gordian Knot.

Herodotus said that a "Midas son of Gordias" made an offering to the Oracle of Delphi of a royal throne "from which he made judgments" that were "well worth seeing", and that this Midas was the only foreigner to make an offering to Delphi before Gyges of Lydia. The historical Midas of the 8th century BC and Gyges are believed to have been contemporaries, so it seems most likely that Herodotus believed that the throne was donated by the earlier, legendary King Midas. However, some historians believe that this throne was donated by the later, historical King Midas.


Myths

Golden Touch

 
   

One day, as Ovid relates in Metamorphoses XI, Dionysus found that his old schoolmaster and foster father, the satyr Silenus, was missing. The old satyr had been drinking wine and wandered away drunk, to be found by some Phrygian peasants who carried him to their king, Midas (alternatively, Silenus passed out in Midas' rose garden). Midas recognized him and treated him hospitably, entertaining him for ten days and nights with politeness, while Silenus delighted Midas and his friends with stories and songs. On the eleventh day, he brought Silenus back to Dionysus in Lydia. Dionysus offered Midas his choice of whatever reward he wished for. Midas asked that whatever he might touch should be changed into gold.

Midas rejoiced in his new power, which he hastened to put to the test. He touched an oak twig and a stone; both turned to gold. Overjoyed, as soon as he got home, he touched every rose in the rose garden, and all became gold. He ordered the servants to set a feast on the table. Upon discovering how even the food and drink turned into gold in his hands, he regretted his wish and cursed it. Claudian states in his In Rufinum: "So Midas, king of Lydia, swelled at first with pride when he found he could transform everything he touched to gold; but when he beheld his food grow rigid and his drink harden into golden ice then he understood that this gift was a bane and in his loathing for gold, cursed his prayer."

 

“Midas's Feast in Honor of Bacchus and Silenus” by Gillis van Valckenborch.
 
   

In a version told by Nathaniel Hawthorne in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys (1852), Midas' daughter came to him, upset about the roses that had lost their fragrance and become hard, and when he reached out to comfort her, found that when he touched his daughter, she turned to gold as well. Now, Midas hated the gift he had coveted. He prayed to Dionysus, begging to be delivered from starvation. Dionysus heard his prayer, and consented; telling Midas to wash in the river Pactolus. Then, whatever he put into the water would be reversed of the touch.

Midas did so, and when he touched the waters, the power flowed into the river, and the river sands turned into gold. This explained why the river Pactolus was so rich in gold and electrum, and the wealth of the dynasty of Alyattes of Lydia claiming Midas as its forefather no doubt the impetus for this origin myth. Gold was perhaps not the only metallic source of Midas' riches: "King Midas, a Phrygian, son of Cybele, first discovered black and white lead".

 
“Judgment of Midas,” Peter Paul Rubens, 1634.
 
   

Ears of a Donkey

Midas, now hating wealth and splendor, moved to the country and became a worshipper of Pan, the god of the fields and satyrs. Roman mythographers asserted that his tutor in music was Orpheus.

Once, Pan had the audacity to compare his music with that of Apollo, and challenged Apollo to a trial of skill (also see Marsyas). Tmolus, the mountain-god, was chosen as umpire. Pan blew on his pipes and, with his rustic melody, gave great satisfaction to himself and his faithful follower, Midas, who happened to be present. Then Apollo struck the strings of his lyre. Tmolus at once awarded the victory to Apollo, and all but one agreed with the judgment. Midas dissented, and questioned the justice of the award. Apollo would not suffer such a depraved pair of ears any longer, and said “Must have ears of an ass!”, which caused Midas's ears to become those of a donkey. The myth is illustrated by two paintings, "Apollo and Marsyas" by Palma il Giovane (1544-1628), one depicting the scene before, and one after, the punishment. Midas was mortified at this mishap. He attempted to hide his misfortune under an ample turban or headdress, but his barber of course knew the secret, so was told not to mention it. However, the barber could not keep the secret. He went out into the meadow, dug a hole in the ground, whispered the story into it, then covered the hole up. A thick bed of reeds later sprang up in the meadow, and began whispering the story, saying "King Midas has an ass' ears". Some sources said that Midas killed himself by drinking the blood of an ox.


Historicity

 

King Midas by Andrea Vaccaro.
With a mixture of anguish and security, King Midas suspects what has just happened to him, but he still does not perceive the consequences.
 
   

The King Midas who ruled Phrygia in the late 8th century BC is known from Greek and Assyrian sources. According to the former, he married a Greek princess, Damodice daughter of Agamemnon of Cyme, and traded extensively with the Greeks. Damodice is credited with inventing coined money by Julius Pollux after she married Midas. Some historians believe this Midas donated the throne that Herodotus says was offered to the Oracle of Delphi by “Midas son of Gordias” (see above). Assyrian tablets from the reign of Sargon II record attacks by a "Mita", king of the Mushki, against Assyria's eastern Anatolian provinces. Some historians believe Assyrian texts called this Midas king of the "Mushki" because he had subjected the eastern Anatolian people of that name and incorporated them into his army. Greek sources including Strabo say that Midas committed suicide by drinking bulls’ blood during an attack by the Cimmerians, which Eusebius dated to around 695 BC and Julius Africanus to around 676 BC. Archeology has confirmed that Gordium was destroyed and burned around that time.

 


“The judgment of Midas,” Pietro Bianchi, c. 1720.

“The judgment of Midas,” Paul Rubens.

Apollo punishes Midas for his false judgement by condemning him to sport an asss-ears, Joseph Paelinck.

“The judgment of Midas,” Abraham Janssens.

“The punishment of Midas,” Hendrik de Clerck.

 








  Cybele

Cybele

Cybele


1st century BC marble statue of Cybele from Formia, Lazio
 
   
Cybele (Phrygian: Matar Kubileya/Kubeleya "Kubileya/Kubeleya Mother," perhaps "Mountain Mother," Lydian Kuvava; Greek: Κυβέλη Kybele, Κυβήβη Kybebe, Κύβελις Kybelis) is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük, where statues of plump women, sometimes sitting, have been found in excavations. She is Phrygia’s only known goddess, and was probably its national deity. Her Phrygian cult was adopted and adapted by Greek colonists of Asia Minor and spread to mainland Greece and its more distant western colonies around the 6th century BC.

 


Cybele drawn in her chariot by lions towards a votive sacrifice (right). Above are the Sun God and heavenly objects. Plaque from Ai Khanoum, Bactria (Afghanistan), 2nd century BC. Gilded silver, φ 25 cm.
 
   

In Greece, Cybele met with a mixed reception. She was partially assimilated to aspects of the Earth-goddess Gaia, her possibly Minoan equivalent Rhea, and the harvest–mother goddess Demeter. Some city-states, notably Athens, evoked her as a protector, but her most celebrated Greek rites and processions show her as an essentially foreign, exotic mystery-goddess who arrives in a lion-drawn chariot to the accompaniment of wild music, wine, and a disorderly, ecstatic following. Uniquely in Greek religion, she had a eunuch mendicant priesthood. Many of her Greek cults included rites to a divine Phrygian castrate shepherd-consort Attis, who was probably a Greek invention. In Greece, Cybele is associated with mountains, town and city walls, fertile nature, and wild animals, especially lions.


In Rome, Cybele was known as Magna Mater (“Great Mother”).
The Roman state adopted and developed a particular form of her cult after the Sibylline oracle recommended her conscription as a key religious ally in Rome's second war against Carthage. Roman mythographers reinvented her as a Trojan goddess, and thus an ancestral goddess of the Roman people by way of the Trojan prince Aeneas. With Rome's eventual hegemony over the Mediterranean world, Romanized forms of Cybele's cults spread throughout the Roman Empire. The meaning and morality of her cults and priesthoods were topics of debate and dispute in Greek and Roman literature, and remain so in modern scholarship.



“The Introduction of the Cult of Cybele at Rome,” Andrea Mantegna.

 



“Cybele and the Seasons in a Garland of Fruit,” Hedrick van Balen and Jan Brueghel the Elder (doubtful attribution).

“The Goddess Cybele Offering Her Produce To The Earth,” Mariano Salvador Maella, Museo del Prado, Madrid.

 








SİTE İÇİ ARAMA       
  Cimmerians

Cimmerians

Cimmerians (W)


Distribution of "Thraco-Cimmerian" finds. From map in Археология Украинской ССР vol. 2, Kiev (1986).
 
   

The Cimmerians (also Kimmerians; Greek: Κιμμέριοι, Kimmérioi) were a nomadic Indo-European people, who appeared about 1000 BC and are mentioned later in 8th century BC in Assyrian records. While the Cimmerians were often described by contemporaries as culturally “Scythian,” they evidently differed ethnically from the Scythians proper, who also displaced and replaced the Cimmerians.

Probably originating in the Pontic steppe, the Cimmerians subsequently migrated both into Western Europe and to the south, by way of the Caucasus.

Some of them likely comprised a force that, c. 714 BC, invaded Urartu, a state subject to the Neo-Assyrian Empire. This foray was defeated by Assyrian forces under Sargon II in 705, after which the same, southern branch of Cimmerians turned west towards Anatolia and conquered Phrygia in 696/5. They reached the height of their power in 652 after taking Sardis, the capital of Lydia; however an invasion of Assyrian-controlled Anshan was thwarted. Soon after 619, Alyattes of Lydia defeated them. There are no further mentions of them in historical sources, but it is likely that they settled in Cappadocia.

Cimmerian PEOPLE (B)


Cimmerian, member of an ancient people living north of the Caucasus and the Sea of Azov, driven by the Scythians out of southern Russia, over the Caucasus, and into Anatolia toward the end of the 8th century BC. Ancient writers sometimes confused them with the Scythians. Most scholars now believe that the Cimmerians assaulted Urartu (Armenia) about 714 BC, but in 705, after being repulsed by Sargon II of Assyria, they turned aside into Anatolia and in 696-695 conquered Phrygia. In 652, after taking Sardis, the capital of Lydia, they reached the summit of their power. Their decline soon began, and their final defeat may be dated from 637 or 626, when they were routed by Alyattes of Lydia. Thereafter, they were no longer mentioned in historical sources but probably settled in Cappadocia, as its Armenian name, Gamir, suggests.

The origin of the Cimmerians is obscure. Linguistically they are usually regarded as Thracian or as Iranian, or at least to have had an Iranian ruling class. They probably did live in the area north of the Black Sea, but attempts to define their original homeland more precisely by archaeological means, or even to fix the date of their expulsion from their country by the Scythians, have not so far been completely successful. One theory identifies them with what is known to archaeologists as the “Catacomb” culture. This culture was ousted from southern Russia by the “Srubna” culture advancing from beyond the Volga just as the Cimmerians were ousted by the invading Scythians, but that upheaval took place in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, and a gap of several centuries separates it from the appearance of historic Cimmerians in Asia. Some authorities identify them with “Thraco-Cimmerian” remains of the 8th–7th century BC found in the southwestern Ukraine and in central Europe; these may perhaps be looked upon as traces of the western branch of the Cimmerians, who, under fresh Scythian pressure, eventually invaded the Hungarian plain and survived there until about 500 BC.

 








  Gordion

Gordium

Gordium (W)

Gordium (Γόρδιον, Górdion; Turkish: Gordion or Gordiyon) was the capital city of ancient Phrygia. It was located at the site of modern Yassıhüyük. about 70–80 km southwest of Ankara (capital of Turkey), in the immediate vicinity of Polatlı district. The site was excavated by Gustav Körte and Alfred Körte in 1900 and then by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, under the direction of Rodney S. Young, between 1950 and 1973. Excavations have continued at the site under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania Museum with an international team.

Gordium lies where the ancient road between Lydia and Assyria/Babylonia crossed the Sangarius river.


History

In the 12th century BCE, Gordium was settled by Brygians who had migrated from southeastern Europe. During the 9th and 8th centuries BCE, the city grew into the capital of a kingdom that controlled much of Asia Minor west of the river Halys. The kings of Phrygia built large tombs near Gordium called tumuli, which consist of artificial mounds constructed over burial chambers. There are about one hundred of them, covering both cremations and inhumations. In the 8th century, the lower city and the area to the north of the citadel was surrounded by a circuit wall with regularly spaced towers.

The most famous king of Phrygia was Midas. Contemporary Assyrian sources dating between c. 718 and 709 BCE call him Mit-ta-a. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, King Midas was the first foreigner to make an offering at the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, dedicating the throne from which he gave judgment. During his reign, according to Strabo, the nomadic Cimmerians invaded Asia Minor, and in 710/709 BCE, Midas was forced to ask for help from the Assyrian king Sargon II. In Strabo's account, King Midas committed suicide by drinking bull's blood when the Cimmerians overran the city.

Tumulus MM (for "Midas Mound"), the Great Tumulus, is the largest burial mound at Gordium, standing over 50 meters high today, with a diameter of about 300 meters. The tumulus was excavated in 1957 by Young's team, revealing the remains of the royal occupant, resting on purple and golden textiles in an open log coffin, surrounded by a vast array of magnificent objects. The burial goods included pottery and bronze vessels containing organic residues, bronze fibulae (ancient safety pins), leather belts with bronze attachments, and an extraordinary collection of carved and inlaid wooden furniture, exceptional for its state of preservation. The Tumulus MM funeral ceremony has been reconstructed, and scientists have determined that the guests at the banquet ate lamb or goat stew and drank a mixed fermented beverage. It is now generally assumed to be the tomb of Midas' father Gordias, and was probably the first monumental project of Midas after his accession.


Date of the destruction

There is ample evidence of widespread burning of the city mound of Gordium, in a level referred to by Young as the destruction level. Archaeologists at first interpreted the destruction level as the remains of a Cimmerian attack, c. 700 BCE. The traces were later reinterpreted as dating to c. 800 BCE, largely on the basis of dendrochronology and radiocarbon analysis, and with reference to the types of objects found in the burned level. If this reinterpretation is correct, then the otherwise-unrecorded destruction would seem to have been caused by a conflagration unrelated to a Cimmerian attack. The earlier date, though, is contested, primarily on the basis of the types and styles of objects excavated in the destruction level, the latest of which are dated to c. 700 BCE by some scholars. The radiocarbon date seems to have a range wide enough to accommodate both proposed archaeological dates. Although the date of the destruction continues to be debated, a date of c. 800 BCE is now most-commonly accepted.


Gordian Knot

According to ancient tradition, in 333 BCE Alexander the Great cut (or otherwise unfastened) the Gordian Knot: this intricate knot joined the yoke to the pole of a Phrygian wagon that stood on the acropolis of the city. The wagon was associated with Midas or Gordias (or both), and was connected with the dynasty's rise to power. A local prophecy had decreed that whoever could loosen the knot was destined to become the ruler of Asia.


 



 

Alexander the Great Cuts the Gordian Knot (detail). Donato Creti, 1710, Fresco, Palazzo Pepoli Campogrande, Bologna. (LINK)





  Ankyra/Ankara

Ancyra/Ankara

Ancyra/Ankara (W)

Etymology and names

 

The orthography of the name Ankara has varied over the ages. It has been identified with the Hittite cult center Ankuwaš, although this remains a matter of debate. In classical antiquity and during the medieval period, the city was known as Ánkyra (Ἄγκυρα, litanchor”) in Greek and Ancyra in Latin; the Galatian Celtic name was probably a similar variant. Following its annexation by the Seljuk Turks in 1073, the city became known in many European languages as Angora; it was also known in Ottoman Turkish as Engürü. The form "Angora" is preserved in the names of breeds of many different kinds of animals, and in the names of several locations in the US (see Angora).

 


History

The region's history can be traced back to the Bronze Age Hattic civilization, which was succeeded in the 2nd millennium BC by the Hittites, in the 10th century BC by the Phrygians, and later by the Lydians, Persians, Greeks, Galatians, Romans, Byzantines, and Turks (the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm, the Ottoman Empire and finally republican Turkey).

Ancient history

The oldest settlements in and around the city center of Ankara belonged to the Hattic civilization which existed during the Bronze Age and was gradually absorbed c. 2000–1700 BC by the Indo-European Hittites. The city grew significantly in size and importance under the Phrygians starting around 1000 BC, and experienced a large expansion following the mass migration from Gordion, (the capital of Phrygia), after an earthquake which severely damaged that city around that time. In Phrygian tradition, King Midas was venerated as the founder of Ancyra, but Pausanias mentions that the city was actually far older, which accords with present archaeological knowledge.

Phrygian rule was succeeded first by Lydian and later by Persian rule, though the strongly Phrygian character of the peasantry remained, as evidenced by the gravestones of the much later Roman period. Persian sovereignty lasted until the Persians' defeat at the hands of Alexander the Great who conquered the city in 333 BC. Alexander came from Gordion to Ankara and stayed in the city for a short period. After his death at Babylon in 323 BC and the subsequent division of his empire among his generals, Ankara and its environs fell into the share of Antigonus.

Another important expansion took place under the Greeks of Pontos who came there around 300 BC and developed the city as a trading center for the commerce of goods between the Black Sea ports and Crimea to the north; Assyria, Cyprus, and Lebanon to the south; and Georgia, Armenia and Persia to the east. By that time the city also took its name Ἄγκυρα (Ánkyra, meaning anchor in Greek) which, in slightly modified form, provides the modern name of Ankara.


Celtic history

In 278 BC, the city, along with the rest of central Anatolia, was occupied by a Celtic group, the Galatians, who were the first to make Ankara one of their main tribal centers, the headquarters of the Tectosages tribe. Other centers were Pessinos, today's Balhisar, for the Trocmi tribe, and Tavium, to the east of Ankara, for the Tolstibogii tribe. The city was then known as Ancyra. The Celtic element was probably relatively small in numbers; a warrior aristocracy which ruled over Phrygian-speaking peasants. However, the Celtic language continued to be spoken in Galatia for many centuries. At the end of the 4th century, St. Jerome, a native of Dalmatia, observed that the language spoken around Ankara was very similar to that being spoken in the northwest of the Roman world near Trier.


Roman history

The city was subsequently passed under the control of the Roman Empire. In 25 BC, Emperor Augustus raised it to the status of a polis and made it the capital city of the Roman province of Galatia. Ankara is famous for the Monumentum Ancyranum (Temple of Augustus and Rome) which contains the official record of the Acts of Augustus, known as the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, an inscription cut in marble on the walls of this temple. The ruins of Ancyra still furnish today valuable bas-reliefs, inscriptions and other architectural fragments. Two other Galatian tribal centers, Tavium near Yozgat, and Pessinus (Balhisar) to the west, near Sivrihisar, continued to be reasonably important settlements in the Roman period, but it was Ancyra that grew into a grand metropolis.

An estimated 200,000 people lived in Ancyra in good times during the Roman Empire, a far greater number than was to be the case from after the fall of the Roman Empire until the early 20th century. A small river, the Ankara Çayı, ran through the center of the Roman town. It has now been covered and diverted, but it formed the northern boundary of the old town during the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman periods. Çankaya, the rim of the majestic hill to the south of the present city center, stood well outside the Roman city, but may have been a summer resort. In the 19th century, the remains of at least one Roman villa or large house were still standing not far from where the Çankaya Presidential Residence stands today. To the west, the Roman city extended until the area of the Gençlik Park and Railway Station, while on the southern side of the hill, it may have extended downwards as far as the site presently occupied by Hacettepe University. It was thus a sizeable city by any standards and much larger than the Roman towns of Gaul or Britannia.

Ancyra's importance rested on the fact that it was the junction point where the roads in northern Anatolia running north–south and east–west intersected, giving it major strategic importance for Rome's eastern frontier. The great imperial road running east passed through Ankara and a succession of emperors and their armies came this way. They were not the only ones to use the Roman highway network, which was equally convenient for invaders. In the second half of the 3rd century, Ancyra was invaded in rapid succession by the Goths coming from the west (who rode far into the heart of Cappadocia, taking slaves and pillaging) and later by the Arabs. For about a decade, the town was one of the western outposts of one of Palmyrean empress Zenobia in the Syrian Desert, who took advantage of a period of weakness and disorder in the Roman Empire to set up a short-lived state of her own.

The town was reincorporated into the Roman Empire under Emperor Aurelian in 272. The tetrarchy, a system of multiple (up to four) emperors introduced by Diocletian (284–305), seems to have engaged in a substantial programme of rebuilding and of road construction from Ankara westwards to Germe and Dorylaeum (now Eskişehir).

In its heyday, Roman Ankara was a large market and trading center but it also functioned as a major administrative capital, where a high official ruled from the city's Praetorium, a large administrative palace or office. During the 3rd century, life in Ancyra, as in other Anatolian towns, seems to have become somewhat militarized in response to the invasions and instability of the town.


Ancyra (Angora), from Perrot's Explor. archeol. de la Galatie, etc. Illustration from History of Rome by Victor Duruy (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co, 1884). (LINK)

 


Monumentum Ancyranum

Monumentum Ancyranum (W)



Temple of Rome and Augustus at Ancyra. (Restoration by Guillaume, Ecole des Beaux-Arts.) Illustration from History of Rome by Victor Duruy (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co, 1884). (LINK)
 
   

(B) Monumentum Ancyranum, inscription engraved soon after AD 14 on the walls of the temple of Rome and Augustus at Ancyra (modern Ankara, Tur.), capital of the Roman province of Galatia, giving the Latin text and official Greek paraphrase of the official account of the reign of the Roman emperor Augustus (27 BC–AD 14). This official account is known as the “Res gestae devi Augusti.” The res gestae (“achievements”) were composed by Augustus himself, who directed in his will that they should be engraved in bronze on two pillars in front of his mausoleum in Rome. The original columns are missing, but copies were probably erected before many temples across the empire. Besides the one in Ancyra, fragments also exist at Apollonia in Pisidia and at nearby Antioch, both of which were also in Galatia.

The inscription recounts his early career, magistracies, and other honours; the public benefactions he had made from his private means; and his warlike and diplomatic achievements. It culminates with his claim to have restored to Rome the republic, a form of government that actually ended with his accession in 27 BC. A summary of his benefactions was added after his death. This valuable inscription gives a picture of how Augustus wished to be remembered — presenting him as a traditional Roman aristocrat, who, working in accordance with popular consensus, saved the republic from violent attacks, enriched the state by his munificence, and never resorted to unconstitutional or illegal means. The early chapters of Tacitus’s Annals give an alternative interpretation.


Ruins of Ancyra Galatia. Illustration from With the World's People by John Clark Ridpath (Clark E Ridpath, 1912). (LINK)

Remains of the Temple of Rome and Augustus at Ancyra. Illustration from History of Rome by Victor Duruy (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co, 1884). (LINK)

Ancyra (Angora), from Perrot's Explor. archeol. de la Galatie, etc. Illustration from History of Rome by Victor Duruy (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co, 1884). (LINK)

 


A recent view of the “Temple of Augustus and Rome” in Ankara.

(W) The Monumentum Ancyranum (Latin 'Monument of Ancyra') or Temple of Augustus and Rome in Ancyra is an Augusteum in Ankara (ancient Ancyra), Turkey. The text of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti (“Deeds of the Divine Augustus”) is inscribed on its walls, and is the most complete copy of that text. The temple is adjacent to the Hadji Bairam Mosque in the Ulus quarter.

 



 








  Dorylaeum

Dorylaeum

Dorylaeum (W)

Dorylaeum or Dorylaion (Greek: Δορύλαιον), called Şarhöyük in Turkish language, was an ancient city in Anatolia. It is now an archaeological site located near the city of Eskişehir, Turkey.

Its original location was about 10 km southwest of Eskişehir, at a place now known as Karaca Hisar; about the end of the fourth century B.C. it was moved to a location north of modern Eskişehir.


History


The city existed under the Phrygians but may have been much older.

It was a Roman trading post. It also was probably a key city of the route the Apostle Paul took on his Second Missionary Voyage in 50 AD. It became a bishopric when part of the Late Roman province of Phrygia Salutaris.

In the third century AD, it was threatened by Gothic raids. The Roman army that was based in Asia minor was spread thin, and the navy had moved west from the Northern city of Sinope, therefore the provincials were left exposed. These Goths came from the trans-danubian region on the black sea. When the city was under threat, the people used dedicatory statues to build their wall quicker, indicating their rush to protect themselves against the invaders.

After the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 it was taken by the Seljuk Turks.

Dorylaeum was the site of two battles during the crusades. In 1097, during the First Crusade, the crusaders defeated the Seljuks there, in their first major victory. During the Second Crusade it was the site of a major defeat, which effectively ended the German contribution to the crusade.

Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus fortified Dorylaeum in 1175, but according to some authorities the Turks recaptured it in 1176 after the Battle of Myriokephalon. However, the contemporary Byzantine historian Niketas Choniates relates that Manuel did not destroy the fortifications of Dorylaeum, as he had agreed to do as part of the treaty he negotiated with the Seljuk Turkish sultan Kilij Arslan II immediately after Myriokephalon. The sultan's response to this development was not a direct attack on Dorylaeum but the dispatch of a large army to ravage the rich Meander valley to the south.

Dorylaeum was described by the Muslim author al-Harawi (died 1215) as a place of medicinal hot springs on the frontier at the end of Christian territory.

 



Battle of Dorylaeum (1097)

Battle of Dorylaeum (1097) (W)


The Battle of Dorylaeum took place during the First Crusade on July 1, 1097, between the crusaders and the Seljuk Turks, near the city of Dorylaeum in Anatolia. It was won by the crusaders.

Background


Crusaders defeat the Turks at Dorylaeum in 1097, as shown in a 14th-century illumination.
 
   

The crusaders had left Nicaea on June 26, with a deep distrust of the Byzantines, who had taken the city without their knowledge after a long siege. In order to simplify the problem of supplies, the Crusader army had split into two groups; the weaker led by Bohemond of Taranto, his nephew Tancred, Robert Curthose, Robert of Flanders, and the Byzantine general Tatikios in the vanguard, and Godfrey of Bouillon, his brother Baldwin of Boulogne, Raymond IV of Toulouse, Stephen II, and Hugh of Vermandois in the rear.

On June 29, they learnt that the Turks were planning an ambush near Dorylaeum (Bohemond noticed that his army was being shadowed by Turkish scouts). The Turkish force, consisting of Kilij Arslan I and his ally Hasan of Cappadocia, along with help from the Danishmendids, led by the Turkish prince Gazi Gümüshtigin, the Persians, and the Caucasian Albanians. Contemporary figures place this number between 25,000-30,000, more recent estimates are between 6,000 and 8,000 men. Back then numbers were mentioned absurdly high in order to give it a heroic twist, 150,000 men according to Raymond of Aguilers, which was not possible due lack of logistic support, men and since Turks fought a hit and run guerrilla-tactic indicating a small army. Fulcher of Chartres gives the exaggerated number of 360,000.

In addition to large numbers of noncombatants, Bohemond's force probably numbered about 10,000, the majority on foot. Military figures of the time often imply perhaps several men-at-arms per knight (i.e., a stated force of 500 knights is assumed to contain perhaps 1,500 men-at-arms in addition), so it seems reasonable that Bohemond had with him approximately 8,000 men-at-arms and 2,000 cavalry.

On the evening of June 30, after a three-day march, Bohemond's army made camp in a meadow on the north bank of the river Thymbres, near the ruined town of Dorylaeum (Many scholars believe that this is the site of the modern city of Eskişehir).

 


Aftermath

The crusaders did indeed become rich, at least for a short time, after capturing Kilij Arslan’s treasury. The Turks fled and Arslan turned to other concerns in his eastern territory. Arslan punitively took the male Greek children from the region extending from Dorylaeum to Iconium, sending many as slaves to Persia. On the other hand, the crusaders were allowed to march virtually unopposed through Anatolia on their way to Antioch. It took almost three months to cross Anatolia in the heat of the summer, and in October they began the siege of Antioch.

With the Crusader army moved onwards towards Antioch, the Emperor Alexios I achieved part of his original intent in inviting the Crusaders in the first place: the recovery of Seljuk-held imperial territories in Asia Minor. John Doukas re-established Byzantine {!} rule in Chios, Rhodes, Smyrna, Ephesus, Sardis, and Philadelphia in 1097–1099. This success is ascribed by Alexios' daughter Anna to his policy and diplomacy, but by the Latin historians of the crusade to his treachery and falseness.

 



Battle of Dorylaeum (1147)

Battle of Dorylaeum (1147) (W)

The second Battle of Dorylaeum took place near Dorylaeum in October 1147, during the Second Crusade. It was not a single clash but consisted of a series of encounters over a number of days. The German crusader forces of Conrad IIIwere defeated by the Seljuk Turks led by Sultan Mesud I.

Background

Following escalating friction between the Byzantine Empire {!} and the German crusader army, including armed clashes, the Germans were ferried from the environs of Constantinople to the Asiatic shores of the Bosphorus. With inadequate supplies, the crusaders moved into the interior of Anatolia, intending to take the overland route to the Holy Land.


Aftermath and estimation of crusader losses

On regaining lands under firm Byzantine control Turkish attacks ceased. The failure of the crusaders was partly blamed on Byzantine treachery by the contemporary chronicler William of Tyre, the Greek guides and local population were accused of being in league with the Seljuks. However, convincing evidence or motivation for this scenario is lacking.

German losses are difficult to estimate, William of Tyre stating that only a remnant of the army was left. Of the 113 named men in the army, 22 are recorded to have died on the crusade, 42 to have survived and 49 unaccounted for. Though these would have been of the knightly and noble class, and therefore more likely to survive being better armoured and provisioned than the infantry, the idea of the German army being completely destroyed near Dorylaeum is untenable. The Germans subsequently joined forces with the French crusaders, led by Louis VII of France, at Nicaea, before proceeding along the coastal route around western Anatolia. The joint forces came under renewed Seljuk attack, and Conrad and the elite of his force took ship at Ephesus. Conrad returned by sea to Constantinople, where he was reconciled with the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos. The remainder of the German crusaders, in company with the French, moved on to Attalia, some were then shipped to Antioch. Of those who attempted the overland route to Antioch there is no accurate record of the number of survivors. Manuel I later provided ships to take Conrad and his entourage to Palestine. The Second Crusade eventually failed in its attempt to take the city of Damascus.


Conquer and prosper (LINK)

Needless to say, the tension between crusaders’ dedication to the “victory of the holy Cross” and the pursuit of “booty” could have unpleasant and even fatal consequences for those on the receiving end. The most notorious example of this, perhaps, occurred in the Fourth Crusade of 1202-04 and once again involved the republic of Venice.

The citizens of Venice agreed to build – at great cost – a massive fleet to transport the armies of the Fourth Crusade to Egypt, where they planned to conquer the wealthy city of Alexandria. In the end, however, the crusading fleet diverted to the Christian cities of Zara (modern Zadar) and Constantinople. Both of these were treated savagely, and Constantinople was pillaged, to the disgrace of Christendom but the lavish profit of Venice. Visitors to St Mark’s basilica can still see four magnificent gilded bronze statues of horses which were taken from Constantinople at that time.

Venice was hardly a lone villain. Throughout the 13th century, bitter complaints were levelled at the international ‘military orders’ of religious warriors – Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic knights – who were sworn to live lives of austere, pious hardship, devoting all their efforts to the crusade. It was very often muttered that, far from being poor knights of Christ, the members of these orders enjoyed lives of great wealth and comfort, thanks to their broad-ranging tax exemptions and the lavish donations they received from their supporters.

In a sense, this was quite true. The Teutonic knights profited handsomely from their deployment around the Baltic, where they fought a perpetual crusade to clear pagans from the land and claim it for themselves and other Christian settlers. The Templars, meanwhile, were brought down in 1307–12, in part because of the sheer envy that their vast wealth aroused in the mind of the French king Philip IV.

It is important to reiterate that not everyone who went on crusade during the Middle Ages came home rich. Many lost everything, including their lives. At the same time, few crusaders were motivated solely by one factor. Humans are complicated, and crusading bound together passionately held Christian faith with a real belief in the need to defeat Christ’s enemies and atone for earthly sins.

Yet in the cocktail of reasons for crusading often lay a base but timeless human instinct: the desire to get rich quick.

 




📹 First Crusade (1) Battle of Dorylaeum 1097 AD (VİDEO)

First Crusade (1)
Battle of Dorylaeum 1097 AD (LINK)

First installment of the First Crusade mini-series, featuring Siege of Nicaea and Battle of Dorylaeum.

 



📹 The Second Crusade / Disaster at Dorylaeum, 1147 (VİDEO)

📹 The Second Crusade / Disaster at Dorylaeum, 1147 (LINK)

The second Battle of Dorylaeum took place near Dorylaeum in October 1147, during the Second Crusade. It was not a single clash but consisted of a series of encounters over a number of days. The German crusader forces of Conrad III were defeated by the Seljuk Turks led by Sultan Mesud I.

 








 


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