In antiquity,
Phrygia (
Greek F????a) was a kingdom in the west central part of
Anatolia, in what is now modern day
Turkey. The Phrygian people (Phruges or Phryges) in earliest history lived in
Macedonia under the name of Bruges (or
Bryges), which later evolved to Phruges, before that country's adoption of Greek as a national language. A number of peoples there spoke Balkan languages descended from non-Greek or pre-Greek
Indo-European languages, or Greek in some early form of development.
During the floruit of the city-state of Troy a part of the Bruges emigrated to Anatolia as Trojan allies or under the protection of Troy. The Trojan language did not survive; consequently, its exact relationship to the Phrygian language and the affinity of Phrygian society to that of Troy remain open questions. Similarly the date of migration and the relationship of the Phrygians to the Hittite empire are unknown. A conventional date of c. 1200 BC often is used, at the very end of the empire. It is certain that Phrygia was constituted on Hittite land, and yet not at the very center of Hittite power in the big bend of the Halys river, where Ankara now is.
Subsequently the state of Phrygia arose in the 8th century BC with capital at Gordium. During this period the Phrygians extended eastward and encroached upon the kingdom of Urartu, the descendants of the Hurrians, a former rival of the Hittites.
Meanwhile the Phrygian kingdom was overwhelmed by Iranian Cimmerian invaders c. 690 BC, then briefly conquered by its neighbor Lydia, before it passed successively into the Persian Empire of Cyrus, the empire of Alexander and his successors, was taken by the king of Pergamon, and eventually became part of the Roman Empire. The Phrygian language survived until about the 6th century AD. In the Balkans the Bruges had long since assimilated to Greek Macedonia.
