by Lulzim Osmanaj. Translation Petrit Latifi

Abstract

This paper re-examines the ethnic attribution of the Brigët (Brygians) in ancient sources, focusing on Strabo’s Geography as a key testimony for their placement within the Illyrian-Epirote world. While modern scholarship has often associated the Brygians with the Phrygians of Anatolia on the basis of Herodotus’ migration narrative, ancient ethnographic methodology relied primarily on geographical proximity and tribal association rather than explicit ethnic labels. Strabo situates the Brygians alongside clearly Illyrian tribes—such as the Taulants, Parthines, and Byliones—in the region between Epidamnus, Apollonia, and the Ceraunian Mountains. This spatial grouping implicitly classifies the Brygians as part of the same cultural and ethnic sphere. Rather than contradicting this affiliation, Herodotus’ testimony may indicate a later or partial migration from a Balkan Illyrian context toward Anatolia. The evidence suggests that, in the perception of classical authors, the Brygians belonged to the Illyrian-Epirote complex of the Western Balkans.

The Brigët/Brygët as an Illyrian tribe in ancient sources

In ancient Greco-Roman sources, the ethnic classification of the tribes of the Western Balkans is often made through geography and tribal neighborhoods, rather than through direct ethnic definitions. A significant case is that of the Brigët (Brygët), who in modern literature have sometimes been linked to the Phrygians of Anatolia, and sometimes seen as a Balkan population with a distinct identity.

An important passage in Strabo, in his Geography, places the Brigët clearly within the Illyrian context, including them in the same space and ethnogeographic structure with undisputed Illyrian tribes.
Strabo, describing Epirus and its northern border areas, emphasizes that the Amphiloci are Epirotes and that the tribes that extend above them to the Illyrian mountains, such as the Molossians, Athamanes, Timphei, Orestes, Paroraei and Atintanes, some closer to Macedonia and some closer to the Ionian Gulf (Strabo, Geogr. VII.7.1), are also Epirotes.

He further explains that the Illyrian tribes that are located near the southern part of this mountainous region and along the Ionian Gulf are mixed with these peoples. It is in this context that Strabo writes that above Epidamnus and Apollonia, as far as the Ceraunian Mountains, dwell the Bylions, Taulants, Parthines and Brigs (Strabo, Geogr. VII.7.).

This order is essential for understanding the identity of the Brigs. Epidamnus (Dyrrachium) and Apollonia are cities that ancient sources clearly place in Illyria, while the Taulants, Parthines and Bylions are widely recognized as Illyrian tribes in the classical historiographical tradition (Appian, Illyrica 1; Pliny, Naturalis Historia III.144).

By listing the Brigs together with these tribes, without any distinction or special note, Strabo includes them within the same ethnic and geographical reality. In the methodology of ancient authors, such inclusion constitutes an implicit ethnic classification: tribes that share the same space, neighborhood and way of life are treated as part of the same cultural world.

The later confusion about the Brigs is mainly related to the evidence of Herodotus, who claims that the Phrygians of Anatolia were called Brygians as long as they lived in Europe, before moving to Asia (Herodotus, Hist. VII.73). This evidence has led some modern scholars to equate the Balkan Brygians with the later Phrygians.

However, this connection does not exclude the Illyrian affiliation of the Brygians in the Balkan phase. On the contrary, it suggests that the Brygians were a tribe of the Western Balkans, which at a certain historical moment partially moved towards Anatolia. Strabo, unlike Herodotus, does not speak of migrations towards the East in this passage, but of a contemporary reality of it, where the Brygians live in southern Illyria, near the Illyrian and Epirote tribes.

Therefore, on the basis of Strabo’s evidence, the Brygians must be understood as part of the Illyrian-Epirote complex of the Western Balkans. Their location between Epidamnus, Apollonia and the Keraunian Mountains, as well as the inclusion of their inclusion in the same grouping as the Taulants and the Parthines makes it reasonable to conclude that, in the perception of ancient authors, the Brygians were Illyrians or at least a tribe closely related and mixed with the Illyrian populations.

Any interpretation that detaches the Brygians from this context and sees them exclusively as Phrygians or as a non-Illyrian element contradicts the geographical and ethnographic evidence provided by Strabo.

References

Appian. Illyrica.
Herodotus. Historiae.
Pliny the Elder. Naturalis Historia.
Strabo. Geographica, book VII.