Phrygian inventions by Pliny the Elder

Abstract

The paper reviews all the inventions Pliny the Elder attributes to the Phrygians (copper working, four-wheeled vehicle, harnessing pairs of horses, transverse flute, double oboe, Phrygian musical mode, and embroidering with a needle) and tries to identify possible sources of these reports and the reasons why these particular discoveries were deemed “Phrygian” in the classical tradition. The analysis is focused on the literary tradition out of which Pliny made a compilation, and not on what we would now call the “real” historical origins of the abovementioned inventions. Each discovery is placed within the context of this tradition, but without isolating it from the immediate context of Pliny's catalogue. The topics related to the Phrygian people within the frames of the ancient tradition can conventionally be divided into three groups: “mythological”, “sacred” and “realistic”, and the inventions or inventors Pliny mentions can, in fact, be subsumed under these three categories. Even though at first glance there seems to be no logical pattern to the “Phrygian discoveries” as listed by Pliny, this approach helps demonstrate that the scarce information on Phrygian inventors offered by Pliny the Elder only seems random, but in fact the Roman author gives a synthesis of all the aspects of the rich literary tradition about this people.