Phrygians () — a Homeric kingdom of the Odyssey, c. 1200 BC

Phrygians — The vine-land of the Sangarios — kin to Troy, whose warlord Aias felled over Patroklos' corpse.

Phrygia, the highland "land of vines" on the Sangarios, sent chariot-fighters to Troy under the brothers Phorkys and Askanios, sons of Aretaon — kin to Priam's queen Hekabe. Phorkys fell to Aias of Salamis over the body of Patroklos; his brother Askanios led the remnant home.

Leader at Troy: Phorkys.

Ruler in the Odyssey's present: Phorkys.

Role in the Trojan War: Trojan ally from the Asian highlands — chariot-fighting Phrygians of the Sangarios, kin to Troy through Queen Hekabe, led by the brothers Phorkys and Askanios. Their warlord Phorkys was slain by Aias son of Telamon in the struggle over Patroklos' corpse.

The homecoming: Their warlord Phorkys fell to Aias at Troy; his brother Askanios led the remnant home.

Phrygia is a highland realm of the far interior of Asia — the "land of vines" that runs along the streams of the eddying Sangarios and about the still waters of the Ascanian lake, a country of horsemen and chariot-fighters. It kept no place in the Achaian catalogue of ships, for the Phrygians came to Troy overland, an Asian ally summoned by Hektor to guard "the Trojans' wives and infant little ones." Old Priam himself remembers this land from his youth: erewhile, he tells Helen upon the wall, he fared to Phrygia and stood as ally among the hosts of Otreus and godlike Mygdon, encamped along the Sangarios "on the day that the Amazons came, the peers of men." The bond is older and closer than alliance — Priam's own queen Hekabe is a daughter of Dymas, who dwelt in Phrygia on the streams of Sangarios. When the Phrygians march for Troy, they march for their sister's city. Their contingent is led by two brothers, sons of Aretaon: Phorkys and godlike Askanios. The Catalogue names them together and marks their temper — "these were eager to fight in the battle-throng." In the fighting they hold their place in the Asian wing, brigaded with their neighbours: Dolon the spy, questioned by night, sets them in the line beside the haughty Mysians and "the Maionians lords of chariots" — the realm we cross-link as MAE, kin-neighbours of the Sangarios highlands who fought at the Phrygians' shoulder. Askanios proves the endurance of the levy: deep into the war he is named again, come "out of deep-soiled Askanie, on the morn before" — a fresh draft of Ascanians brought up to relieve the weary Trojan line, roused by Zeus to fight like the blast of violent winds. But the nostos of this realm is written in its warlord's death. It comes over the corpse of Patroklos, in the blind press of dust and darkness that Zeus poured about the slain squire of Achilles. As the Trojans strove to drag the body to Ilios, Aias son of Telamon — the towering champion of Salamis (SAL), first of the Danaans in presence and in deeds after Achilles himself — turned upon them like a wild boar and scattered the battalions; and in that ruin he cut down Phorkys, glorious son of Aretaon, over the fallen Hippothoos (Iliad 17.312). So the elder brother, the warleader of Phrygia, did not come home. It was Askanios who led the remnant of the vine-land host back toward the Ascanian lake — the surviving son of Aretaon carrying home the name of a house that gave Troy its blood and its horsemen and, in the end, its dead. Thus Phrygia is bound to three realms in the tale of the returns. To Troy (TRO) it is bound by kinship and by cause — Hekabe's kin, dying for the city of Priam. To Dardania (DAR), the elder Trojan house of the same royal line down from Dardanos, it is bound as a fellow-defender of the Troad. And to Salamis (SAL) it is bound by the spear of Aias, who slew its lord: the axis of grief on which this realm's whole fate turns. At the dramatic present, in the tenth year of the returns, the vines of the Sangarios are gathered by hands that no longer answer to Phorkys; the house of Aretaon endures in Askanios, minus its elder son, while far to the west the man who killed him, Aias of Salamis, has himself long since perished — so that even the Phrygians' grief has been answered by a Greek grave.

“And Phorkys and godlike Askanios led the Phrygians from far Askania, and these were eager to fight in the battle-throng.” — Iliad 2.862