In the mythic age before the Trojan war, during a time of an interregnum, Gordius (or Gordias), a Phrygian farmer, became king, fulfilling an oracular prophecy.
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Gordias refounded a capital at Gordium in west central Anatolia, situated on the old trackway through the heart of Anatolia that became Darius's Persian "Royal Road" from Pessinus to Ancyra, and not far from the River Sangarius.
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During the 8th century BC 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.
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However, most scholars reject such a recent Phrygian migration and 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 likely earlier.
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The Iliad describes the homeland of the Phrygians on the Sangarius River, which would remain the center of Phrygia throughout its history.
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In one version of his story, Midas travels from Thrace accompanied by a band of his people to Asia Minor to wash away the taint of his unwelcome "golden touch" in the river Pactolus.
Amorium, an ancient city in Phrygia, near modern Emirdağ, Turkey
Odette/Odile (Swan Lake), Clara and Sugar Plum Fairy (The Nutcracker), Pas de deux and Giselle (Giselle), Princess Florina and Aurora (The Sleeping Beauty), Phrygia (Spartacus), Seventh and Eleventh Waltzes (Les Sylphides).
During his reign he embarked on a vast program of expansion, first conquering the peoples to the north in Asia Minor as far as Nairi and exacting tribute from Phrygia, then invading Aram (modern Syria) conquering the Aramaeans and neo Hittites between the Khabur and the Euphrates Rivers.
An unusual number of meteor showers caused concern in Rome, and an inspection was made of the Sibylline Books, which discovered verses saying that if a foreigner were to make war on Italy, he could be defeated if the Magna Idaea, the Mother Goddess, associated with Mount Ida in Phrygia, were brought to Rome.
After their exodus from the Pontic steppe the Cimmerians probably assaulted Urartu about 714 BC, but in 705, after being repulsed by Sargon II of Assyria, they turned towards Anatolia and in 696–695 conquered Phrygia.
Marcus Aurelius Cleander (fl. 2nd century), Roman freedman from Phrygia, favourite and praetorian prefect of Emperor Commodus
The Phrygian cap was typically worn by the inhabitants of Phrygia, in the Anatolian peninsula, and is commonly mistaken for being a Pileus.
The allusion to St. Paul the Apostle, which a gap in the text renders indecipherable, may originally have told how the traveller followed on his way back to his country the stages of St. Paul's third missionary journey, namely: Issus, Tarsus, Derbe, Iconium, Antioch in Pisidia and Apamea Cibotus, which would bring him into the heart of Phrygia.
The Phrygian Korybantes were often confused by Greeks with other ecstatic male confraternities, such as the Idaean Dactyls or the Cretan Kouretes, spirit-youths (kouroi) who acted as guardians of the infant Zeus.
The name, given by the UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee in 1960, derives from this description; Midas, King of Phrygia, was represented in Greek satyric drama with the ears of an ass.
Pharnabazus I (fl. 455–430 BCE), satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia
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Pharnabazus II (fl. 422–387 BCE), grandson of the above, satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia
In the extended complement of sibyls of the Gothic and Renaissance imagination, the Phrygian Sibyl was the priestess presiding over an Apollonian oracle at Phrygia, a historical kingdom in the west central part of the Anatolian highlands.
He was born in Laodicea on the Lycus in Phrygia (modern Turkey), however, he spent a great part of his life in Smyrna (modern İzmir, Turkey).
Persia: The Persian army of Darius III is made up of a variety of troops, from poorly equipped masses of infantry and archers, to quality cavalry and elite units like the Immortals, as well as mercenaries from Greece and Phrygia.
In 710 BC, the seven Greek kings of Ia (Cyprus) had accepted Assyrian sovereignty; in 709, Midas, king of Phrygia, beset by the nomadic Cimmerians, submitted to Assyrian rule and in 708 BC, Kummuhu (Commagene) became an Assyrian province.
A possibly different Solymus is mentioned by Ovid as a Phrygian companion of Aeneas and eponym of Sulmona.
This continued from the time of Justinian into the middle Byzantine period, as shown from a 10th-century excavation in Sebaste in Phrygia, which uncovered a marble templon whose epistyle is covered with busts of saints.
Due to his success, Vucetich has been given the nickname "Rey Midas", or "King Midas", by the Mexican media, referring to Midas, king of Phrygia, who according to Greek Mythology was given the ability to turn anything he touched into gold by Dionysus.
C.H.E. Haspels, The Highlands of Phrygia: Sites and Monuments, 1971, ISBN 0691038635.
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William Mitchell Ramsay, "The Rock Necropoleis of Phrygia", Journal of Hellenic Studies 3, 1882.