spirits of the springs and streams, the Sileni of Greek mythology.  The resemblances detected by the new-comers between the orgies of Thrace and those of Asia quickly led to confusion between the different dogmas and divinities.  The Phrygians adopted Ma, and made her their queen, the Cybele who dwells in the hills, and takes her title from the mountain-tops which she inhabits—­Dindymene on Mount Dindymus, Sipylene on Mount Sipylus.  She is always the earth, but the earth untilled, and is seated in the midst of lions, or borne through her domain in a car drawn by lions, accompanied by a troop of Corybantes with dishevelled locks.  Sauazios, identified with the Asianic Atys, became her lover and her priest, and Men, transformed by popular etymology into Manes, the good and beautiful, was looked upon as the giver of good luck, who protects men after death as well as in life.  This religion, evolved from so many diverse elements, possessed a character of sombre poetry and sensual fanaticism which appealed strongly to the Greek imagination:  they quickly adopted even its most barbarous mysteries, those celebrated in honour of the goddess and Atys, or of Sauazios.  They tell us but little of the inner significance of the symbols and doctrines taught by its votaries, but have frequently described its outward manifestations.  These consisted of aimless wanderings through the forests, in which the priest, incarnate representative of his god, led after him the ministers of the temple, who were identified with the Sauades and nymphs of the heavenly host.  Men heard them passing in the night, heralded by the piercing notes of the flute provoking to frenzy, and by the clash of brazen cymbals, accompanied by the din of uproarious ecstasy:  these sounds were broken at intervals by the bellowing of bulls and the roll of drums, like the rambling of subterranean thunder.

[Illustration:  101.jpg MIDAS OF PHRYGIA]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a specimen in the Cabinet des
     Medailles.  It is a bronze coin from Prymnessos in Phrygia,
     belonging to the imperial epoch.

A Midas followed a Gordios, and a Gordios a Midas, in alternate succession, and under their rule the Phrygian empire enjoyed a period of prosperous obscurity.  Lydia led an uneventful existence beside them, under dynasties which have received merely passing notice at the hands of the Greek chroniclers.  They credit it at the outset with the almost fabulous royal line of the Atyadae, in one of whose reigns the Tyrseni are said to have migrated into Italy.  Towards the twelfth century the Atyadae were supplanted by a family of Heraclido, who traced their descent to a certain Agron, whose personality is only a degree less mythical than his ancestry; he was descended from Heracles through Alcseus, Belus, and Ninus.  Whether these last two names point to intercourse with one or other of the courts on the banks of the Euphrates, it is difficult to say.  Twenty-one