Though the settlement of the Phrygians is just beyond historical vision, the leading features of the movement can be inferred from Greek literature, and a certain amount of detail gathered from the monuments which they have left behind.[88] The chief migration of the Phrygians—the ninth wave of our simile—may be judged, from certain facts which Professor Ramsay has pointed out, to have taken place about the beginning of the ninth century B.C. They came in irresistible bands of mail-clad warriors from Macedonia and Thrace, crossing into Asia Minor by the Hellespont, and eventually establishing their monarchy and state on the sources of the Sangarius.[89] Being all men and conquerors, their coming introduced new ideas of the dominance of the male element in religion and in society.[90] The pre-existing central ideal of the people of Asia Minor had been based on the importance of motherhood, reflected in religion by the worship of the Mother-goddess, and in society by a matriarchal system and absence of true marriage. Now the Phrygians introduced a new Father-god and a god of thunder, and a reminiscence of the struggle between the old and new ideals may be traced in the pages of Homer; but ultimately they were amalgamated in various ways in different parts of the country.[91] Profound as were the changes in religious and social ideals which the Phrygians introduced, these influences could hardly stir the popular imagination so deeply or so rapidly as their deeds of arms. Defended from all harm by their impenetrable armour, they carried all before them, so that they appeared in Greek tradition as a race of heroes, whose kings were the associates of the gods, whose language was before all,[92] and the speech of the goddess herself.[93] ‘Their country was the land of great fortified cities.’[94] In this popular acclaim we suspect that the Phrygians received credit for works and to some extent for the prestige of the Hatti whose realm they had inherited.[95] Their kingdom without doubt held chief sway over the north-west and centre of Asia Minor during the ninth and eighth centuries B.C. In the west, indeed, it was only at the end of that period challenged by the independence and growing strength of Lydia; and on the other hand it must have embraced, as we have shown, the regions both of Pteria[96] and of Tyana, where it touched the Assyrian frontier in the age of Sargon; but on the whole we fail to find any wide range of Phrygian works, of walled cities or of vast monuments, that could entitle the Phrygians to the whole credit of these memories.