Phrygia was a state in the western part of Anatolia, and it reached its peak in the 8th century BCE before being conquered by the Cimmerians, after which it successively became part of several ancient empires, including those of Persia and Rome. It was the home of the legend of King Midas, who turned anything he touched into gold, and also of the famous Gordian Knot, which Alexander the Great is supposed to have cut to show he would conquer Asia. Phrygia survived in the Byzantine Empire until its fall to the Ottomans in the 15th century, after which the name was no longer used.

As always with these reviews, it is the pictures that tell much of the story, and from the ones of this set it is easy to see that the quality of production is pretty poor. The detail is not at all sharp or clear, and is often lacking entirely. In particular, the faces are very vague, and the hands often lack any suggestion of fingers, while many of them make no attempt to suggest they are grasping whatever they are supposed to be holding. As is common with this producer, the backs of the figures are much flatter than the front, so you will have to trust us when we say the above photos are of their better side! Some of the items that should be curved, such as limbs, have way too many corners on them. They also seem quite inconsistent, with more variation in height than you usually get in a set, and some objects like weapons are very poorly defined, to the point that we could not decide what the first figure in the second row holds (some sort of pick?). Most of them have a very thick line where the moulds meet, and as can be seen there is a fair amount of flash, while some like two of the poses in our bottom row have a mass of extra plastic between the legs (they wear long cloaks, but this does not justify so much extra plastic). For no apparent reason, the first man in the last row has no base. On the box photo he is propped up against something, and from his pose he is clearly not supposed to be lying down, either on his face or his back, yet he does not stand by himself.

Despite the poor detail, we can see that a variety of costumes are being worn here. Most seem to be long tunics with either leggings or trousers, and the headgear is equally varied; some may even be helmets, but some are clearly the famous Phrygian cap. The box gives no date for these men, but in any case evidence is scarce on their appearance, though we see nothing here that seems particularly inappropriate. The weapons include several styles of axe; one (last man in top row) is mounted on the world’s shortest handle. The others have spears, and there are three unarmed poses, but it is hard to say if any of this is correct, particularly given the crude way they have been rendered. Shields too are very varied, coming in many shapes including the traditional peltast crescent form, and again it is hard to say if any are wrong.

The poses are extremely static. No one is walking, let along running, and the only activity is that a few are waving their weapon in the air. You won’t be surprised to hear that the poses are also very flat, so several are holding their shield behind them for some reason, and not one weapon is actually pointing forward of the man. We have no clue what the three unarmed men are doing, so this is a really bland and uninspiring collection of poses with almost no life to them at all, and since every figure comes as a single piece there is no scope for improving them either.

The box claims it contains 24+ figures, and we found one extra copy of one of the poses, which may be random, so assume you will get two of each pose and you might find a surprise extra or two. However, to have got that far you must have purchased this set, and it is really hard to think why you would do so. The quality of the sculpting and the poses fail to recommend this set, and as general ancients there are much better alternatives elsewhere. There is nothing here that really inspires you to do anything with these models, though they do at least recognise yet another of the many smaller states in the ancient Mediterranean World.