If Phrygia was powerful enough in the ninth century to hold the west
Anatolian lands in fee, did it also dominate enough of the eastern
peninsula to be ranked the imperial heir of the Cappadocian Hatti? The
answer to this question (if any at all can be returned on very slight
evidence) will depend on the view taken about the possible identity of
the Phrygian power with that obscure but real power of the Mushki, of
which we have already heard. The identity in question is so generally
accepted nowadays that it has become a commonplace of historians to
speak of the "Mushki-Phrygians." Very possibly they are right. But, by
way of caution, it must be remarked that the identification depends
ultimately on another, namely, that of Mita, King of the Mushki, against
whom Ashurbanipal would fight more than a century later, with Midas,
last King of Phrygia, who is mentioned by Herodotus and celebrated in
Greek myth. To assume this identity is very attractive. Mita of Mushki
and Midas of Phrygia coincide well enough in date; both ruled in Asia
Minor; both were apparently leading powers there; both fought with the
Gimirrai or Cimmerians. But there are also certain difficulties of which
too little account has perhaps been taken. While Mita seems to have been
a common name in Asia as far inland as Mesopotamia at a much earlier
period than this, the name Midas, on the other hand, came much later
into Phrygia from the west, if there is anything in the Greek tradition
that the Phryges or Briges had immigrated from south-east Europe. And
supported as this tradition is not only by the occurrence of similar
names and similar folk-tales in Macedonia and in Phrygia, but also by
the western appearance of the later Phrygian art and script, we can
hardly refuse it credit. Accordingly, if we find the origin of the
Phrygians in the Macedonian Briges, we must allow that Midas, as a
Phrygian name, came from Europe very much later than the first
appearance of kings called Mita in Asia, and we are compelled to doubt
whether the latter name is necessarily the same as Midas. When allusions