Map of the Roman Empire - Thrace
Thrace
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Thrace (Gr. Thracia, Per. Skudra): A non-Greek (`barbarian') country or region north of the Aegean, called Thrace by the Greeks and Skudra by the Persians. Thrace was overrun by Darius I and Xerxes I and added to the Persian empire. Under the Roman Empire Thrace was independent but finally became a province during the reign of Vespasian (69-79 A.D.).
Thrace (Bulgarian: Тракия, Trakiya, Greek: Θράκη, Thráki, Turkish:
Trakya) is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a
geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains
on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the
Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east. The areas it comprises are
southeastern Bulgaria (Northern Thrace), northeastern Greece (Western Thrace),
and the European part of Turkey (Eastern Thrace). The biggest part of Thrace is
part of present-day Bulgaria. In Bulgaria and Turkey, it is also called Rumelia.
The name comes from the Thracians, an ancient Indo-European people inhabiting
Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe.
Ancient History of Thrace. The indigenous population of Thrace was a
people called the Thracians, divided into numerous tribal groups. Thracian
troops were known to accompany neighboring ruler Alexander the Great when he
crossed the Hellespont which abuts Thrace, and took on the Persian Empire of the
day.The Thracians did not describe themselves as such and Thrace and Thracians
are simply the names given them by the Greeks. Divided into separate tribes, the
Thracians did not manage to form a lasting political organization until the
Odrysian state was founded in the 4th century BC. Like Illyrians, Thracian
tribes of the mountainous regions fostered a locally ruled warrior tradition,
while the tribes based in the plains were purportedly more peaceable. Recently
discovered funeral mounds in Bulgaria suggest that Thracian kings did rule
regions of Thrace with distinct Thracian national identity. During this period,
a subculture of celibate ascetics called the Ctistae lived in Thrace, where they
served as philosophers, priests and prophets. - Wikipedia
Thracia, a country of Europe, extending generally between Strymon fl. and Danubius fl. from w. to E. and bet. Hsemus m. and the jEgean, the Euxine and the Propontis from N. to S. Specially, bounded N. by Moesia, S. by the AEgean and the Propontis, W. by Macedonia, E. by the Euxine. Annexed to Macedonia 336 B.C., to Rome 168 B.C. Roumelia. Thracium mare, the portion of the Aegean washing the coast of Thrace. - Classical Gazetteer
Thracia (Θρᾴκη, Ion. Θρῄκη). In earlier times the name of the vast space of country bounded on the north by the Danube, on the south by the Propontis and the Aegaean, on the east by the Pontus Euxinus, and on the west by the river Strymon and the easternmost of the Illyrian tribes. It was divided into two parts by Mount Haemus (the Balkan), running from west to east, and separating the plain of the lower Danube from the rivers which fall into the Aegaean. Its plains are drained by the Hebrus, the largest river in Thrace. At a later time the name Thrace was applied to a more limited extent of country. The district between the Strymon and the Nestus was added to Macedonia by Philip, and was usually called Macedonia Adiecta. Under Augustus the part of the country north of the Haemus was made a separate Roman province under the name of Moesia (see Moesia); but the district between the Strymon and the Nestus had been previously restored to Thrace by the Romans. The Roman province of Thrace was accordingly bounded on the west by the river Nestus; on the north by Mount Haemus, which divided it from Moesia; on the east by the Euxine, and on the south by the Propontis and Aegean.
Thrace, in its widest extent, was peopled in the times of Herodotus and
Thucydides by a vast number of different tribes; but their customs and
characters were marked by great uniformity. Herodotus says that, next to the
Indians, the Thracians were the most numerous of all races, and if united under
one head would have been irresistible. He describes them as a savage, cruel, and
rapacious people, delighting in blood, but brave and warlike. According to his
account, which is confirmed by other writers, the Thracian chiefs sold their
children for exportation to the foreign merchant; they purchased their wives
from their parents; they punctured or tattooed their bodies and those of the
women belonging to them, as a sign of noble birth; they despised agriculture,
and considered it most honourable to live by war and robbery. Deep drinking
prevailed among them extensively (Hor. Carm. i. 27). They worshipped deities
whom the Greeks assimilated to Ares, Dionysus, and Artemis: the great sanctuary
and oracle of their god Dionysus was in one of the loftiest summits of Mount
Rhodopé. The tribes on the southern coast attained to some degree of
civilization, owing to the numerous Greek colonies which were founded in their
vicinity; but the tribes in the interior seem to have retained their savage
habits, with little mitigation, down to the time of the Roman Empire. In earlier
times, however, some of the Thracian tribes must have been distinguished by a
higher degree of civilization than prevailed among them at a later period. The
earliest Greek poets, Orpheus, Linus , Musaeus, and others, are all represented
as coming from Thrace. Eumolpus, likewise, who founded the Eleusinian Mysteries
at Attica, is said to have been a Thracian, and to have fought against Erectheus,
king of Athens. We also find mention of the Thracians in other parts of southern
Greece: thus they are said to have once dwelt both in Phocis and Boeotia. They
were also spread over a part of Asia: the Thynians and Bithynians, and perhaps
also the Mysians, were members of the great Thracian race. Even Xenophon speaks
of Thrace in Asia, which extended along the Asiatic side of the Bosporus, as far
as Heraclea.
The principal Greek colonies along the coast, beginning at the Strymon and going
eastwards, were Amphipolis, at the mouth of the Strymon; Abdera, a little to the
west of the Nestus; Dicaea or Dicaepolis, a settlement of Maronea; Maronea
itself, colonized by the Chians; Strymé, a colony of the Thasians; Mesembria,
founded by the Samothracians; and Aenos, a Lesbian colony at the mouth of the
Hebrus. The Thracian Chersonesus was probably colonized by the Greeks at an
early period, but it did not contain any important Greek settlement till the
migration of the first Miltiades to the country, during the reign of Pisistratus
at Athens. On the Propontis the two chief Greek settlements were those of
Perinthus and Selymbria; and on the Thracian Bosporus was the important town of
Byzantium. There were only a few Greek settlements on the southwestern coast of
the Euxine; the most important were those of Apollonia, Odessus, Callatis, Tomi,
renowned as the place of Ovid's banishment, and Istria, near the southern mouth
of the Danube.
The Thracians are said to have been conquered by Sesostris, king of Egypt, and
subsequently to have been subdued by the Teucrians and Mysians; but the first
really historical fact respecting them is their subjugation by Megabazus, the
general of Darius. After the Persians had been driven out of Europe by the
Greeks, the Thracians recovered their independence; and at the beginning of the
Peloponnesian War, almost all the Thracian tribes were united under the dominion
of Sitalces, king of the Odrysae, whose kingdom extended from Abdera to the
Euxine and the mouth of the Danube. In the third year of the Peloponnesian War
(B.C. 429), Sitalces, who had entered into an alliance with the Athenians,
invaded Macedonia with a vast army of 150,000 men, but was compelled by the
failure of provisions to return home, after remaining in Macedonia thirty days.
Sitalces fell in battle against the Triballi in 424, and was succeeded by his
nephew Seuthes, who during a long reign raised his kingdom to a height of power
and prosperity which it had never previously attained, so that his regular
revenues amounted to the annual sum of 400 talents, in addition to contributions
of gold and silver in the form of presents, to a nearly equal amount. After the
death of Seuthes, which appears to have happened a little before the close of
the Peloponnesian War, we find his powerful kingdom split up into different
parts; and when Xenophon, with the remains of the 10,000 Greeks, arrived on the
opposite coast of Asia, another Senthes applied to him for assistance to
reinstate him in his dominions. Philip, the father of Alexander the Great,
reduced the greater part of Thrace; and after the death of Alexander the country
fell to the share of Lysimachus. It subsequently formed a part of the Macedonian
dominions, but it continued to be governed by its native princes, and was only
nominally subject to the Macedonian monarchs. Even under the Romans Thrace was
for a long time governed by its own chiefs; and we do not know at what period it
was made into a Roman province. - Harry Thurston Peck. Harpers Dictionary
of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers.
THRA´CIA
THRA´CIA Θρᾳκία (Θρῄκη, Hom.; Θρηϊκίη, Hdt. 1.168, or Θρηΐκη, 4.99; Attic, Θρᾴκη:
Eth. Θρῆϊξ, Hom.; Eth. Θρήϊξ, Hdt. 8.116; Eth. Θράκιος, Eth. Θρᾴκιος, Θρᾶξ,
Attic Eth. Θρᾷξ; Trag. Θρῇξ: Thrax, Threx, the latter form being chiefly, if not
exclusively, employed of gladiators), a country at the south-eastern extremity
of Europe, and separated from Asia only by the Propontis and its two narrow
channels, the Bosporus and the Hellespont.
I. NAME.--Besides its ordinary name, the country had, according to Steph. B. sub
voce (s. v.), two older appellations, Πέρκη and Ἀρία; and Gellius (14.6)
mentions Sithon as another. Respecting the origin of these names, various
conjectures have been made both in ancient and in modern times; but as none of
them, with the exception to be presently mentioned, are of much value, it is not
worth while to devote any space to their consideration.1 The exception alluded
to is the etymology adopted by Col. Mure (Hist. of Lang. and Lit. of Anc.
Greece, i. p. 153, note), which is far more probable and satisfactory than any
other that the present writer has seen, and which derives the name Thrace from
the adjective τραχεῖα, “rugged,” by the common transfer of the aspirate. Thus
the name would indicate the geographical character of the various districts to
which it is given; for, as we shall see, it was by no means confined to the
country which is the special subject of the present notice.
II. EXTENT.--In the earliest times, the region called Thrace had no definite
boundaries, but was often regarded as comprising all that part of Europe which
lies to the north of Greece. Macedonia, in the south, is spoken of by Hecataeus
as belonging to it (cf. Mel. 2.2, sub fin., where the Chalcidic peninsula is
described under the title of Thrace); and Scythia, in the north, is included in
it by Steph. B. sub voce (s. v. Σκύθαι: cf. Amm. 27.4.3). This explains the
fable reported by Andron (Tzetz. ad Lycophr. 894), to the effect that Oceanus
had four daughters, Asia, Libya, Europa, and Thracia; thus elevating the
last-named country to the rank of one of the four quarters of the known--or
rather unknown--world. But as the Greeks extended their geographical knowledge,
the designation Thrace became more restricted in its application, and at length
was generally given to that part of Europe which is included within the
following boundaries: the Ister on the N. (Strab. ii. p.129; Plin. Nat. 4.18;
Mel. 2.2); the Euxine and the Bosporus on the E.; the Propontis, the Hellespont,
the Aegean, and the northern part of Macedonia, on the S.; the Strymon, or
subsequently, i. e. in the time of Philip II. and his son Alexander the Great,
the Nestus (Strab. vii. pp. 323, 330; Ptol. 3.11), and the countries occupied by
the Illyrians, on the W., where, however, the boundary was never very settled or
accurately known, (Plin. and Mel. ll. cc.) These were the limits of Thrace until
the Romans subdued the country, when, in the reign of Augustus, it was divided
into two parts, separated by the Haemus; the portion to the south of that
mountain chain retaining the name of Thrace, while the part between the Ister
and the Haemus received the appellation of Moesia, and was constituted a Roman
province. [MOESIA Vol. II. p. 367.] But even after this period both countries
were sometimes included under the old name, which the Latin poets frequently
used in its earliest and widest extent of meaning. (Cf. Heyne, ad Virg. Aen.
11.659; Burman, ad Val. Flacc. 4.280; Muncker, ad Hygin. Fab. 138; Tzschucke, ad
Mel. 2.2. p. 63.) As the little that is known about Moesia is stated in the
article above referred to, the present will, as far as possible, be confined to
Thrace proper, or south of the Haemus, corresponding pretty nearly to the modern
Roumelia, which, however, extends somewhat more to the west than ancient Thrace.
III. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, CLIMATE, PRODUCTIONS, &c.--Many circumstances might
have led us to expect that the ancients would have transmitted to us full
information respecting Thrace: its proximity to Greece; the numerous Greek
colonies established in it; the fact that it was traversed by the highroad
between Europe and Asia; and that the capital of the Eastern Empire was situated
in it,--all these things seem calculated to attract attention to the country in
an unusual degree, and to induce authors of various kinds to employ their pens
in recording its natural and political history. Yet the latest and most profound
historian of Greece is compelled to admit that, apart from two main roads,
“scarcely anything whatever is known of [the interior of] the country.” (Grote,
vol. xii. p. 34, note. For this various reasons may be assigned; but the
principal one is the barbarous character, in all ages, of the occupants of the
land, which has, at least until very recently, precluded the possibility of its
exploration by peaceful travellers.2 Those who have [p. 2.1177]traversed it have
been almost invariably engaged in military enterprises, and too much occupied
with their immediate objects to have either opportunity or inclination, even had
they possessed the necessary qualifications, to observe and describe the natural
features of the country. What adds to the difficulty of the writer on the
classical geography of Thrace is the unfortunate loss of the whole of that
portion of the seventh book of Strabo which was devoted to the subject. Strabo,
in several parts of his work, treats incidentally of Thrace: but this is a poor
substitute for the more systematic account of it which has perished, and of
which little more than a table of contents has been preserved in the meagre
epitome which alone remains of it.
In modern times, several travellers have endeavoured, with various degrees of
success, to explore the country; and some of them have published the results of
their investigations; but it is evident from their very frequent disagreement as
to the sites of the places which they attempt to identify with those mentioned
in ancient writers, that as yet the necessary data have not been obtained; and
the Itineraries, instead of assisting, not seldom add to the difficulty of the
task, and render its accomplishment almost hopeless. Moreover, the extent of
country examined by these travellers was very limited. The mountainous region of
Rhodope, bounded on the west by the Strymon, on the north and east by the Hebrus,
and on the south by the Aegean, is a terra incognita, except the few Grecian
colonies on the coast. Very few travellers have passed along or described the
southern or king's road; while the region in the interior, apart from the
highroad, was absolutely unexplored until the visit of M. Viquesnel in 1847.
(Grote, l.c.）
The results of this traveller's researches have not yet, we believe, appeared in
a complete and connected form. His reports to the French minister by whom he was
commissioned are published in the work already referred to; but most of them are
mere outlines, written on the spot from brief notes. They contain much that is
valuable and interesting; but no one except their author could make full use of
them; and it is to be hoped that he may be able to employ the materials so ably
collected in the composition of a work that would dispel much of the obscurity
that at present rests upon the country. M. Viquesnel was engaged little more
than a year in Thrace, a period evidently insufficient for its complete
exploration; accordingly he seems to have devoted his principal attention to its
geology, especially of the the mountain systems, above all in the district of
Rhodope.
According to Ami Boué‘s chart of the geological structure of the globe, copied
in Johnston's Physical Atlas, the three principal geological formations in
Thrace are: (1) the crystalline schistous, comprehending all the granitoid
rocks; this occupies the W. portion of the country, and a small district on the
Euxine, immediately S. of the Haemus: (2) the tertiary, extending over the basin
of the Hebrus: (3) the primary stratifications, or the transition series,
including the carboniferous formations; this occupies the SE. part of the
country, and a region S. of the Haemus, and W. of the tertiary formation above
mentioned. Near the sources of the Bourghaz, Viquesnel found volcanic rocks (p.
213).
The surface of Thrace is, on the whole, decidedly mountainous, the vast plains
spoken of by Virgil (Aen. 3.13) belonging to Moesia. From the great range of
Haemus, three chains of mountains branch off towards the SE., and with their
various ramifications occupy nearly the entire country. The most westerly of
these begins at the NW. extremity of the boundary line, and soon separates into
two almost parallel ranges, the Pangaeus and Rhodope, which are separated from
each other by the river Nestus; the former filling up the whole space between
that river and the Strymon, the latter the district E. of the Nestus and SW. of
the Hebrus. Both Pangaeus and Rhodope extend down to the coast of the Aegean,
and the latter is continued parallel to it as far E. as the Hebrus. The central
offshoot of the Haemus branches off between the sources of the Hebrus and the
Tonzus, and extends to their junction near Hadrianopolis. The most easterly
chain diverges from the Haemus about 100 miles W. of the Euxine, to the W. shore
of which it is nearly parallel, though it gradually approaches nearer to it from
N. to S.: it extends as far as the Bosporus, and with its lateral offshoots
occupies nearly the whole country between the E. tributaries of the Hebrus and
the Euxine. The central and E. ranges appear to have had no general distinctive
names; at least we are not aware that any occur in ancient writers: the modern
name of the most easterly is the Strandja-Dagh. A continuation of this range
extends along the shore of the Propontis, and is now called the Tekir-Dagh.
The loftiest peaks, among these mountains, belong to Rhodope, and attain an
elevation of about 8500 feet (Viquesnel, p. 325); the summits of the
Strandja-Dagh, are 2600 feet high (Id. p. 314); those of the Tekir-Dagh, 2300
(Id. p. 315); the other mountains are from 2000 to 600 feet in height (Id. pp.
314, 315). The Haemus is not more than 4000 feet high, in that portion of it
which belongs to Thrace. It is obvious from these measurements that the
statements of some of the ancients that the summits of the Thracian mountains
were covered with eternal snow (Θρῃκῶν ὄρεα νιφόεντα, Hom. Il. 14.227), and that
from the highest peak of the Haemus the Adriatic and the Euxine could be seen,
are mere fancies. Strabo (vii. pp. 313, 317) points out the inaccuracy of this
notion. An interesting account is given by Livy (40.21, 22) of the ascent of
Haemus by Philip V., who shared in the popular belief in question. Livy states
plainly enough his conviction that Philip's labour, which was far from slight,
was thrown away; but he and his attendants were prudently silent upon the
subject, not wishing, says Livy, to be laughed at for their pains. Yet Florus,
who alludes to the same circumstance (2.12), but makes Perseus the
mountainclimber, assumes that the king's object was accomplished, and that the
bird's-eye view of his dominions, obtained from the mountain top, assisted him
in forming a plan for the defence of his kingdom, with reference to his
meditated war with Rome. Mela too repeats the erroneous statement (2.2).
The main direction of the rivers of Thrace is from N. to S., as might be
inferred from the foregoing description of its mountain system. The Strymon
forms its W. boundary. In the lower part of its course, it expands to a
considerable width, and was called Lake Cercinitis, into which flowed a smaller
river, the Angites (Hdt. 7.113); next, towards the E., comes the Nestus; then,
in succession, the Travus, which falls into Lake Bistonis, the Schoenus, the
Hebrus, the principal river of Thrace, and lastly the Melas. All these rivers
fall into the Aegean. Several small streams flow into the Hellespont and [p.
2.1178]the Propoutis, of which we may mention Aegospotami, renowned,
notwithstanding its insignificant size, the Arzus, and the Erginus. The rivers
which fall into the Euxine are all small, and few of them are distinguished by
name in the geographers, though doubtless not so unhonoured by the dwellers upon
their banks: among them Pliny (4.18) mentions the Pira and the Orosines. The
Hebrus drains at least one-half, probably nearer two-thirds, of the entire
surface of Thrace; and on its banks, or on those of its tributaries, most of the
level portions of the country are situated, as well as nearly all the inland
towns. Its principal affluents are the Arda (in some maps called the Harpessus),
and the Suemus on the W., the Tonzus, Artiscus, and Agrianes on the E.
The Thracian coast of the Aegean is extremely irregular in its outline, being
broken up by bays which enter far into the land, yet appear to be of
comparatively little depth. Most of them, indeed, are at the mouths of rivers,
and have probably been filled up by alluvial deposits. It was perhaps for this
reason that several of them were called lakes, as if they had been regarded as
belonging to the land rather than to the sea; e. g. Lake Cercinitis, already
mentioned, which seems, indeed, to have been little more than a marsh, and in
Kiepert's map its site is so represented; Lake Bistonis, east of Abdera; and
Stentoris Lacus, at the mouth of the Hebrus. The gulf of Melas, formed by the
northern shore, of the Chersonesus and the opposite coast of what may he called
the mainland, is an exception to this description of the Thracian bays. The
coasts on the Propontis and the Euxine are comparatively unbroken, the only gulf
of any extent being Portus Hellodos, near Anchialus, which is known in modern
times, by the name of the bay of Bonrghaz, as one of the best harbours in the
Euxine, the Thracian shore of which was regarded by the ancients as extremely
dangerous. [SALMYDESSUS]
The principal promontories were, Ismarum, Serrheum, Sarpedonium, and Mastusium,
on the southern coast; Thynias and Haemi Extrema, on the eastern.
For an account of one of the most remarkable parts of Thrace, see CHERSONESUS
Vol. I. p. 608.
Off the southern coast are situated the islands of Thasos, Samothrace, and
Imbros; the first is separated from the mainland by a channel about 5 miles
wide; the other two are considerably more distant from the shore.
The climate of Thrace is always spoken of by the ancients as being extremely
cold and rigorous: thus Athenaeus (viii. p. 351) describes the year at Aenus as
consisting of eight months of cold and four months of winter; but such
statements are not to be taken literally, since many of them are mere poetical
exaggerations, and are applied to Thrace as the representative of the north in
general. The Haemus was regarded as the abode of the north wind, and the
countries beyond it were believed to enjoy a beautifully mild climate. (See
Niebuhr, Ethnog. and Geog. i. p. 16, Eng. trans.; Soph. Antig. 985; Eur. Rh.
440; Theophr. de Cans. 5.17; Verg. G. 3.350 seq.; Ov. Pont. 4.10 41, ib. 7. 8;
Trist. 3.10; &c.). Even after making full allowance for the undoubted effect of
vast forests, undrained marshes, and very partial cultivation, in lowering the
average temperature of a country, it is difficult to believe that a land, the
northern boundary of which (i. e. of Thrace Proper) is in the same parallel of
latitude as Tuscany and the Pyrenees, and the highest mountains of which are
less than 9000 feet above the level of the sea, can have had a very severe
climate. That the winter was often extremely cold, there can be no doubt. The
Hebrus was sometimes frozen over: not to dwell upon the “Hebrus nivali compede
vinctus” of Horace (Hor. Ep. 1.3. 3; cf. Verg. A. 12.331, and the epigram,
attributed by some to Caesar, beginning, “Thrax puer adstricto glacie dum ludit
in Hebro” ), Florus (3.4) relates that, in the campaign of Minucius in southern
Thrace, a number of horsemen in his army were drowned while trying to cross that
river on the ice. Xenophon states that the winter which he passed in Thrace, in
the mountainous district of the Thyni, was so cold that even wine was frozen in
the vessels, and that many Greek soldiers had their noses and ears frostbitten;
the snow also lay deep upon the ground. And that this was not an exceptional
season may be inferred from Xenophon's remarks on the dress of the Thracians,
which seemed to him to have been devised with special reference to the climate,
and to prevent such mishaps as those which befel the Greeks (Anab. 7.4. § § 3,
4). Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 4.51) assigns the early and severe winter of Mount Haemus
among the causes which prevented Poppaeus Sabinus (A.D. 26) from following up
his first success over the rebellious Thracians.3 Pliny (17.3) says that the
vines about Aenus were often injured by frosts, after the Hebrus was brought
nearer to that city; the allusion probably being to the formation of the western
mouth of the river, nearly opposite to Aenus, the floating ice and the cold
water brought down by which would have some effect in lowering the temperature
of the neighbourhood. Mela (2.2, init.) describes Thrace generally as agreeable
neither in climate nor in soil, being, except in the parts near the sea, barren,
cold, and very ill adapted for agriculture and fruit-trees of all kinds, except
the vine, while the fruit even of that required to be protected from the cold by
a covering of the leaves, in order to ripen. This last remark throws some doubt
upon the accuracy of the writer; for the shading of the grapes from the direct
rays of the sun is obviously more likely to prevent than to promote their
arrival at maturity; and hence, as is well known, it is the practice in many
parts of Europe to remove the leaves with a view to this object.
However. this may be, it is certain that Thrace did produce wine, some kinds of
which were famous from very early times. Homer, who bestows upon Thrace the
epithet ἐριβῶλαξ (Il. 20.485), represents Nestor reminding Agamemnon that the
Grecian ships bring to him cargoes of wine from that country every day (Ib.
9.76); and the poet celebrates the excellence of the produce of the Maroneian
vineyards. (Od. 9.197, seq.) Pliny (14.6) states that this wine still maintained
its reputation, and describes it as black, perfumed, and growing rich with age;
a description which agrees with Homer's (l.c.). Paul Lucas says that he found
the Thracian wine excellent. (Voy. dans la Turgqie, i. p. 25; see also, Athen.
1.31.) Thrace was fertile in corn (Plin. Nat. 17.3), and its wheat is placed by
Pliny high in the scale of excellence as estimated by weight. It has, he says
(18.12), a stalk consisting of several coats (tunticae), [p. 2.1179]to protect
it, as he supposes, from the severity of the climate; by which also he accounts
for the cultivation, in some parts of the country, of the triticum trimestre and
bimestre, so called because those varieties were reaped in the third and second
month respectively after they were sown. Corn was exported from Thrace, and
especially from the Chersonesus to Athens (Theoph. de Plantis, 8.4; Lys. in
Diogit. p. 902), and to Rome (Plin. l.c.). Millet was cultivated in some parts
of Thrace; for Xenophon (Xen. Anab. 7.5.12) states that on the march to
Salmydessus, Seuthes and his allies traversed the country of the “millet-eating
Thracians” (cf. Strab. vii. p.315.) The less important vegetable productions of
Thrace may be briefly mentioned: a species of water-chestnut (tribulus) grew in
the Strymon, the leaves of which were used by the people who lived on its banks
to fatten their horses, while of its nuts they made a very sweet kind of bread.
(Plin. Nat. 21.58, 22.12.) Roses (Rosa centifolia) grew wild on the Pangaeus,
and were successfully transplanted by the natives (Id. 21.10). The mountains, in
general, abounded in wild-thyme and a species of mint (Id. 19.55). A sort of
morel or truffle (iton) was found in Thrace (Id. 19.12; Athen. 2.62), and a
styptic plant (ischaemon), which was said to stop bleeding from even divided
blood-vessels. (Theoph. de Plant. 9.15; Plin. Nat. 25.45.) Several varieties of
ivy grew in the country, and were sacred to Dionysus. (Theoph. de Pltat. 3.16;
Plin. Nat. 16.62.) Herodotus (4.74) states that the Scythians had hemp both wild
and cultivated; and as he proceeds to say that the Thracians made clothing of
it, we may fairly infer that it grew in Thrace also. “The Athenians imported
their timber chiefly from the country about the Strymon, for the Thracian hills
abounded in oak and fir-trees.” (Niebuhr, Lect. Anc. Hist. i. p. 292, Eng.
trans.). M. Viquesnel states that the Strandjadagh is covered with forests of
oak (p. 314), and that in some parts of the district of Rhodope tobacco is now
cultivated (p. 320).
Among the animals of Thrace, white horses are repeatedly mentioned. The famous
steeds of Rhesus were “whiter than snow.” (Hem. Il. 10.437; Eur. Rh. 304.) When
Xerxes reached the banks of the Strymon in his onward march, the magi sacrificed
white horses (Hdt. 7.113), which were probably Thracian, for the same reason,
whatever that was, that the human victims spoken of in the next chapter were the
children of natives. Xenophon states that, during a banquet given by Seuthes, a
Thracian entered, leading a white horse, which he presented to his prince, with
an encomium on its fleetness (Anab. 7.3.26). Virgil speaks of Thracian horses
with white spots (Aen 5.565, 9.49). Horses were no doubt plentiful in Thrace:
Homer (Hom. Il. 14.227) calls the Thracians ἱπποπόλοι; and cavalry always formed
a large part of their armies. Thus Thucydides (2.98) estimates the number of
horsemen in the army with which Sitalces invaded Macedonia at about 50,000. One
of the twelve labours of Hercules was to bring to Mycenae the savage mares of
Diomedes, king of the Bistones in Thrace, who fed them with human flesh. (Ov.
Met. 9.194) Herodotus (7.126) states that lions were found throughout the
country bounded on the W. by the Achelous and on the E. by the Nestus; a
statement which is repeated by Aristotle (H. A. 6.31, 8.28); so that the part of
Thrace between the Strymon and the Nestus must have been infested, at least in
early times, by those formidable animals. Herodotus says that they attacked the
baggage-camels of Xerxes during the march of his army from Acanthus to Therme
(7.125). Cattle, both great and small, were abundant, and seem to have
constituted the chief wealth of a people who, like most barbarians, considered
agriculture a base occupation. (Hdt. 5.6.) The fertile valleys were well adapted
for oxen, and the thyme-covered hills for sheep; and it is clear, from several
passages in Xenophon, that even the wildest Thracian tribes were rich in this
kind of wealth. (Anab. 7.3.48, 7.53.) Aristotle informs us that the Thracians
had a peculiar method of fattening swine (H. A. 8.6). He attributes the
smallness of their asses to the coldness of the climate (lb. 28). Cranes are
often mentioned as belonging to Thrace. (Verg. G. 1.120; Ov. A. A. 3.182; Juv.
13.167.) Aristotle says that an aquatic bird of the pelican kind (πελεκᾶνες)
migrates from the Strymon to the Ister (H. A. 8.11); and that the people in some
marshy districts of Thrace were assisted in catching water-fowl by hawks; which
do not seem to have been trained for the purpose, but, though wild, to have been
induced by a share of the game, to second the proceedings of their human
associates (lb. 9.36). Eels were caught at certain seasons in the Strymon (Ib.
8.2, ad fin.). The tunny fishery was a source of great wealth to Byzantium. (Strab.
vii. p.320.)
Tile principal mineral productions of Thrace were, gold and silver, most of
which came from the mountainous district between the Strymon and the Nestus.
There, at the southern extremity of the Pangaeus, was situated Crenides, founded
by the Thasians, and afterwards called Philippi, in a hill near which, named the
hill of Dionysus (Appian, App. BC 4.106), were the most productive gold mines of
Thrace, to get possession of which was Philip's principal object in annexing the
district in question to his dominions. He is said to have derived from the mines
an annual income of 1000 talents. (Diod. 16.8; cf. Strab. vii. p.323.)4 Strabo
(xiv. p.680) says that the wealth of Cadmus came from the mines of the Pangaeus;
and Pliny refers to the same tradition when he states (7.57) that according to
some authorities, the Pangaeus was the place where Cadmus first discovered
gold-mines, and the art of melting their produce (conflatura). Herodotus (7.112)
mentions silver, as well as gold, mines in the Pangaeus, which in his time were
in the possession of the native tribes called Pieres, Odomanti, and Satrae. He
states also (6.46) that the Thasians had gold mines at Scapte Hyle, near Abdera,
from which they derived an (annual) revenue of about 80 talents; and that a part
of the revenues of Peisistratus came from the Strymon, by which the mines on its
banks are probably meant (1.64). (See also, 9.75; Eur. Rh. 921; Strabo (or
rather his epitomiser), vii. p. 331.) According to Pliny (33.21) gold was found
in the sands of the Hebrus; and this is confirmed by Paul Lucas (l.c.), and by
Viquesnel, who states (p. 204) that in rainy years the affluents of that river
are frequented by gold-finders, who wash the sands which contain gold in grains
(en paillettes). Thucydides was interested in gold mines and works near
Amphipolis, as he himself informs us (4.105). Of the other minerals of Thrace we
may mention the [p. 2.1180]opal (paederos, Plin. Nat. 37.46); the Thaecia gemma,
one variety of which seems to resemble the bloodstone (ib. 68); a stone which
burnt in water (Id. 33.30); and nitre, which was found near Philippi (Id.
31.46). In addition to these, M. Viquesnel mentions fine marble, which is
quarried from the mountains of Lidja (p. 200); excellent iron, manufactured at
Samakor (p. 209); alum, produced at Chaphanê (p. 213); and potter's clay, in the
district of Rhodope, used by the Turks in the fabrication of earthenware (p.
319). He states also that Rhodope abounds in mineral waters (ib.), and that
there are warm springs at Lidja (p. 212).
A few miscellaneous notes will conclude this part of our subject.
The narrow portion of Thrace between the Euxine, Bosporus and Propontis, is sometimes called the Delta (τὸ Δέλτα, Xen. Anab. 7.1. 33, 5.1).
Reference is several times made to violent natural convulsions, which
destroyed various Thracian cities. Thus Strabo (1.59) says that it appeared that
some cities were swallowed up by a flood in Lake Bistonis; and he (vii. p. 319),
Pliny (4.18), and Mela (2.2) speak of the destruction of Bizone, on the Euxine,
by earthquakes.
Livy (40.22) describes the region between Maedica and the Haemus as without
inhabitants (solitudines).
Herodotus (7.109) speaks of a lake near Pistyrus (on the coast N. of Abdera),
about 30 stadia in circumference, abounding in fish, and extremely salt.
Thrace possessed two highroads, “both starting from Byzantium; the one (called
the King's road, from having been in part the march of Xerxes in his invasion of
Greece, Liv. 39.27; Hdt. 7.115), crossing the Hebrus and the Nestus, touching
the northern coast of the Aegean sea at Neapolis, a little south of Philippi,
then crossing the Strymon at Amphipolis, and stretching through Pella across
Inner Macedonia and Illyria to Dyrrhachium. The other road took a more northerly
course, passing along the upper valley of the Hebrus from Adrianople to
Philippopolis, then through Sardica (Sophia) and Naissus (Nisch), to the Danube
near Belgrade, being the highroad now followed from Constantinople to Belgrade.”
(Grote, vol. xii. p. 34, note.) Herodotus (l.c.) remarks, with evident surprise,
that the King's road had not, up to his time, been destroyed by the Thracians, a
circumstance which he seems to attribute to the almost religious respect with
which they regarded the “great king.” It may be safely inferred that people who
were considered to have done something wonderful in abstaining from breaking up
a road, were not great makers or maintainers of highways; and it is clear from
Livy's account of the march of Manlius (38.40, 41) along this very road
(afterwards called by the Romans, Via Egnatia, q. v.), that, although it was the
principal line of communication between Europe and Asia, it was at that time
(B.C. 188) in a very bad condition. From this some conception may be formed of
the deplorable state in which the roads of the interior and mountainous
districts must have been, and in which, indeed, they still remain. (Viquesnel,
p. 312.) The Thracians no doubt were well aware that their independence would
soon be lost, if there were an easy access for disciplined armies to every part
of their country. Such paths as they possessed were sufficient for their own
purposes of depredation, of ambush, and, when overpowered, of flight.
IV. ETHNOLOGY, MANNERS, RELIGION, ETC.--The first point to be determined here
is, whether the Thracians mentioned in the ancient writers as extending over
many parts of Greece, as far south as Attica, were ethnologically identical with
those who in historical times occupied the country which is the subject of the
present article. And before discussing the topic, it will be convenient to lay
before the reader some of the principal passages in the classics which bear upon
it.
It is Strabo who makes the most distinct statements on the point. He says (vii.
p. 321), “Hecataeus the Milesian states that, before the Hellenes, barbarians
inhabited Peloponnesus. But in fact nearly all Greece was originally the abode
of barbarians, as may be inferred from the traditions. Pelops brought a people
with him into the country, to which he gave his name, and Danaus came to the
same region with followers from Egypt, at a time when the Dryopes, Caucones,
Pelasgi, Leleges, and other similar races had settlements within the Isthmus;
and indeed without it too, for the Thracians who accompanied Eumolpus had Attica
and Tereus possessed Daulis in Phocis; the Phoenician companions of Cadmus
occupied Cadmeia, the Aones, Temmices, and Hyantes Boeotia.” Strabo subsequently
(9.401) repeats this statement respecting Boeotia, and adds that the descendants
of Cadmus and his followers, being driven out of Thebes by the Thracians and
Pelasgians, retired into Thessaly. They afterwards returned, and, having joined
the Minyans of Orchomenos, expelled in their turn the Pelasgians and Thracians.
The former went to Athens, where they settled at the foot of Hymettus, and gave
the name of Pelasgicum to a part of the city (cf. Hdt. 6.137): the Thracians, on
the other hand, were driven to Parnassus. Again (ix. p. 410) he says, speaking
of Helicon: “The temple of the Muses, and Hippocrene, and the cave of the
Leibethridan nymphs are there; from which one would conjecture that those who
consecrated Helicon to the Muses were Thracians; for they dedicated Pieris, and
Leibethrum, and Pimpleia to the same goddesses. These Thracians were called
Pierians (Πίερες); but their power having declined, the Macedonians now occupy
these (last named) places.” This account is afterwards (x. p. 471) repeated,
with the addition that “the cultivators of ancient music, Orpheus, Musaeus,
Thamyris, and Eumolpus, were Thracians.”
The difficulty that presents itself in these passages,--and they are in general
agreement with the whole body of Greek literature,--arising from the confounding
under a common name of the precursors of Grecian poetry and art with a race of
men designated as barbarous, is well stated by K. O. Müller (Hist. of Greek
Liter. p. 26, seq.): “It is utterly inconceivable that, in the later historic
times, when the Thracians were contemned as a barbarian race, a notion should
have sprung up that the first civilisation of Greece was due to them;
consequently we cannot doubt that this was a tradition handed down from a very
early period. Now, if we are to understand it to mean that Eumolpus, Orpheus,
Musaeus, and Thamyris were the fellow-countrymen of those Edonians, Odrysians,
and Odomantians, who in the historical age occupied the Thracian territory, and
who spoke a barbarian language, that is, one unintelligible to the Greeks, we
must despair of being able to comprehend these accounts of the ancient Thracian
minstrels, and of assigning them a place in the history of Grecian civilisation;
since it is [p. 2.1181]manifest that at this early period, when there was
scarcely any intercourse between different nations, or knowledge of foreign
tongues, poets who sang in an unintelligible language could not have had more
influence on the mental development of the people than the twittering of birds.”
Müller therefore concludes that the Thracians of the ante-historical era, and
those of subsequent times, belonged to distinct races. “When we come to trace
more precisely the country of these Thracian bards, we find that the traditions
refer to Pieria, the district to the east of the Olympus range, to the north of
Thessaly, and the south of Emathia or Macedonia: in Pieria likewise was
Leibethra, where the Muses are said to have sung the lament over the tomb of
Orpheus: the ancient poets, moreover, always make Pieria, not Thrace, the native
place of the Muses, which last Homer clearly distinguishes from Pieria. (Il.
14.226.) It was not until the Pierians were pressed in their own territory by
the early Macedonian princes that some of them crossed the Strymon into Thrace
Proper, where Herodotus (7.112) mentions the castles of the Pierians at the time
of the expedition of Xerxes. It is, however, quite conceivable that in early
times, either on account of their close vicinity, or because all the north was
comprehended under one name, the Pierians might, in Southern Greece, have been
called Thracians. These Pierians, from the intellectual relations which they
maintained with the Greeks, appear to be a Grecian race; which supposition is
also confirmed by the Greek names of their places, rivers, fountains, &c.,
although it is probable that, situated on the limits of the Greek nation, they
may have borrowed largely from neighbouring tribes. (See Müller's Dorians, vol.
i. pp. 472, 488, 501.)” After referring to the accounts of the Thracians in
Southern Greece, Müller adds: “From what has been said, it appears sufficiently
clear that these Pierians or Thracians, dwelling about Helicon and Parnassus in
the vicinity of Attica, are chiefly signified when a Thracian origin is ascribed
to the mythical bards of Attica.”
Colonel Mure, after referring to the foregoing view, which he designates as
“plausible,” goes on as follows: “But the case admits of another, and perhaps
more satisfactory explanation. It is certain that, in the mythical geography, a
tract of country on the frontiers of Boeotia and Phocis, comprehending Mount
Parnassus and Helicon, bore the name of Thrace. [See the etymology, ante.] In
this region the popular mythology also lays the scene of several of the most
celebrated adventures, the heroes of which are called Thracians.” The author
then applies this explanation to the stories of Tereus and Procne, and of
Lycurgus, “king of Thrace;” and proceeds thus: “Pausanias makes the ‘Thracian’
bard Thamyris virtually a Phocian. He assigns him for mother a nymph of
Parnassus called Argiope. His father, Philammon, is described as a native of the
same region, son of Apollo, by the nymph Chione, and brother of Autolycus, its
celebrated robber chieftain. The divine grandsire is obviously here but a figure
of his own sacred region; the grandmother Chione, as her name bears, of its
snow. Others call the latter heroine Leuconoë The names of these heroines are
all so many varied modes of typifying the same ‘snow-white’ Parnassus. This view
of the ‘Thracian’ character of these sages becomes the more plausible, if it be
remembered that the region of Central Greece, in which the Hellenic Thrace was
situated, is that from which first or chiefly, the seeds of elementary culture
were propagated throughout the nation. Here tradition places the first
introduction of the alphabet. Here were also the principal seats of Apollo and
the Muses. In the heart of the same region was situated the Minyean Orchomenos,
the temple of the Graces, rivalling Thebes herself in the splendour of her
princes and zeal for the promotion of art. Among the early masters of poetry or
music, not vulgarly styled Thracians, the most illustrious, Amphion and Linus,
are Boeotians. Nor was this region of Central Greece less favoured in respect of
its religious institutions. It was not only the favourite seat of Apollo, the
Muses, and the Graces, but the native country of the Dionysiac rites, zeal for
the propagation of which is a characteristic of the Thracian sages.” (Hist. of
Lang. and Lit. of Ant. Greece, i. pp. 150--153; cf. Niebuhr, Lect. on Ethnog.
and Geog. i. p. 287.)
In thus entirely disconnecting these early “Thracians,” from those of later
times, we have the authority of Thucydides (2.29), who, in speaking of Teres,
the father of Sitalces, remarks: “This Teres had no connection whatever with
Tereus, who married Procne, daughter of Pandion of Athens; they did not even
belong to the same Thrace. Tereus dwelt at Daulia, a city of the country now
called Phocis, and which was then occupied by the Thracians.” And he proceeds to
show that it was not likely that Pandion would form an alliance with any one who
lived so far from Athens as the country of the Odrysae.5
The consideration of the ethnological relations of the early Thracians hardly
falls within the scope of this article; but since identity of name has often
caused them to be confounded with the historical inhabitants of Thrace, it may
be desirable briefly to discuss the subject in this place.
The view which seems to the present writer to be best supported by the evidence,
and to explain most satisfactorily the ancient authors, is that which regards
the mythical Thracians as members of the widely extended race to which the name
of Pelasgians is usually given. It is clear from Homer that a close connection
existed between the people of Southern Thrace and the Trojans, who were probably
Pelasgians, and who are at the same time represented by him as agreeing, in
language, religion, and other important respects, with the Greeks. Again, Homer
mentions among the auxiliaries of Priam, the Caucones, who are named along with
the Pelasgians (Il. 10.429), and the Cicones (Il. 2.846). These two names bear
so close a resemblance to each other as to suggest the probability of the
cognate origin of the tribes so designated. Now the Cicones were undoubtedly
Thracians (Odys. 9.39, seqq.); while as to the Caucones, Strabo (xii. p.542)
informs us that they occupied part of the coast of Bithynia, and were regarded
by some as Scythians, by others as Macedonians, by others again as Pelasgians.
It will be remembered that Caucones are mentioned by him (vii. p. 321) among the
earliest inhabitants of Peloponnesus. Another noticeable fact is, that in the
passage of Strabo already quoted (ix. p. 401), he represents the Thracians and
Pelasgians as acting in [p. 2.1182]concert. The same author (xiii. p. 590)
points out the similarity of many Thracian names of places to those existing in
the Trojan territory. Finally, the names of the places mentioned by Strabo (vii.
p.321) as common to Pieria and the southern Thracians, are evidently Greek (see
Müller's Dorians, i. p. 501); and, as we have seen, the name Thrace itself is in
all probability a significant Greek word.
These considerations appear to us to lead to the conclusion already stated,
namely, that the mythical Thracians, as well as those spoken of by Homer, were
Pelasgians; and hence that that race once occupied the northern as well as the
other shores of the Aegean, until, at a comparatively late period, its
continuity was broken by the irruption of the historical Thracians from the
north into the country between the Strymon and the Euxine. The circumstance that
the Greeks designated these barbarians by the name which had been borne by those
whom they supplanted, admits of easy explanation, and history abounds in
instances of a similar kind. But it may be doubted whether the Thracians had any
general designation in their own language: they probably called themselves
Edones, Denseletae, Thyni, Satrae, and so on; but we have no evidence that they
really were all branches of a common stock. Under these circumstances, it was
inevitable that the Greeks should bestow upon them the name of the earlier
possessors of the country; and those Thracians who were brought in contact with
the more civilised race would probably adopt it. (On the foregoing question, see
Niebuhr, Lect. on Anc. Hist. i. pp. 142, 212; Lect. on Ethnog. and Geog. i. p.
287; Wachsmuth, Hist. Ant. i. p. 44, seqq.)
Respecting the historical Thracians we have tolerably full information, but not
of that kind which will enable us to arrive at any very definite conclusions as
to their ethnological relations. That they belonged to an extensively diffused
race, whose early abodes were in the far northern regions, may be regarded as
sufficiently proved by the concurrent testimony of the ancient writers.
Herodotus, in a well-known passage (5.3), says that the Thracian nation is the
greatest in the world, after the Indians, and that its subdivisions, of which
the Getae are one, have many names, according to the countries which they
severally occupy. Strabo too (vii. p. 295) states that the Getae and the Mysi
were Thracians (as to the Mysi, see also i. p. 6), who extended north of the
Danube (vii. p. 296). In confirmation of his assertion that the Getae were
ethnologically akin to the Thracians, he adduces the identity of their language
(vii. p. 303). He adds (vii. p. 305) that the Daci also spoke this language.
From his remark (vii. p. 315) about the Iapodes, it would seem that he regarded
the Illyrians also as nearly allied to, if not actually a branch of, the
Thracians. In another passage (x. p. 471) he says that the Phrygians were
colonists of the Thracians; to which race also the Saraparae, a nation still
farther towards the east, north of Armenia, were reported to belong (xi. p.
531). “The Bithyni, previously called Mysi, were so named, as is admitted by
most authorities, from the Thracian Bithyni and Thyni, who emigrated to that
country (i. e. Asia Minor; cf. Hdt. 7.75). And I conjecture that the Bebryces,
who settled in Mysia before the Bithyni and Mysi, were also Thracians. The
Mysians themselves are said to be colonists of those Thracians who are now
called Mysi. As the Mariandyni are in all respects like the Bithyni, they too
are probably Thracians.” (Strab. xii. pp. 541, 542.) Justin couples the
Thracians with the Illyrians and Dardani (11.1). In the west and south-west it
is impossible to define the Thracian boundary: we have seen that Mela describes
the whole of the Chalcidic peninsula as part of Thrace (cf. Thuc. 2.79); and
there is no doubt that they extended as far south as Olympus, though mixed up
with Macedonians, who were the preponderating race in that quarter. In later
times the intrusive and undoubtedly distinct races which were mingled with the
Thracians near the Danube, were sometimes confounded with them. Thus Floras
(3.4) calls the Scordisci the most savage of all the Thracians.
Of the language of the Thracians scarcely a trace exists. They were too
barbarous to have any literary or artistic memorials, so that the principal
guides of the ethnologist are wanting. Strabo (vii. p.319) states that bria,
which occurs as the termination of several names of Thracian towns, signified
“city” or “town.” This and a few proper names constitute all that remains of
their language.
The following is the account which Herodotus gives of the customs of the
Thracians. They sell their children into foreign slavery. The women while
unmarried enjoy perfect freedom in their intercourse with men; but after
marriage they are strictly guarded. The men pay large sums of money for their
wives to the parents of the latter. To be tattooed is considered an
indispensable mark of noble birth. (Cf. Strab. vii. p.315.) Idleness is most
honourable; the cultivator of the soil is regarded as the meanest of men; to
live by war and plundering is most noble. The only gods they worship are Ares,
Dionysus, and Artemis. But their kings differ in this respect from their
subjects; for they worship Hermes especially, and swear by him alone, from whom
they say that they are descended. When a wealthy man dies, his corpse lies in
state for three days: his friends then make a great feast, at which, after
bewailing the departed, they slaughter victims of every kind: the body is then
buried, having sometimes been previously burnt. A mound is raised above the
grave, upon which athletic games are celebrated (5.6--8; cf. Xen. Hell. 3.2. 5).
Besides these customs, which were common to all the Thracians, Herodotus
mentions some which were peculiar to certain tribes; as, for instance, that
which prevailed among the people to the north of the Crestonians. “Among them,
each man has many wives. When any man dies, a great contest arises among his
widows on the question as to which of them was most beloved by their husband;
and in this their relations take a very active part. She in whose favour the
point is decided, receives the congratulations of both men and women, and is
then slain upon her husband's grave by her nearest male relation. The other
widows regard themselves as extremely unfortunate, for they are considered to be
disgraced.” (lb. 5.) Herodotus here seems to speak of polygamy as confined to a
certain tribe of Thracians; but Strabo (vii. p.297) represents this custom as
general among them. In a note upon this passage, Casaubon quotes from
Heracleides Ponticus to the effect that Thracians often had as many as thirty
wives, whom they employed as servants, a practice still common in many eastern
countries. Xenophon furnishes us with an illustration of the Thracian custom of
purchasing wives. He states that at his first interview with Seuthes, the
Thracian prince proposed to give his daughter in marriage to Xenophon; and if
the Greek himself had a [p. 2.1183]daughter, offered to buy her as a wife. (Anab.
7.2.38; cf. Mela, 2.2.)
The want of union among the Thracians is mentioned by Herodotus (5.3) as the
only cause of their weakness. Their tribes, like the Highland clans, seem to
have been constantly engaged in petty Warfare with one another, and to have been
incapable of co-operating even against foreign foes, except for very brief
periods, and rarely with any higher object than plunder. Until a late period (Flor.
4.12.17) they appear to have been destitute of discipline, and this, of course,
rendered their bravery of comparatively little avail. Thus we learn from
Thucydides (2.96, 98) that, although Sitalces was the most powerful Thracian
king that had ever reigned--(he seems indeed to have been subsequently regarded
as a kind of national hero; Xen. Anab. 6.1. 6),--yet a large part of the army
with which he invaded Macedonia consisted of mere volunteers, formidable chiefly
for their numbers, and attracted to his standard by his offers of pay, or by
their hope of plunder. Any one, in fact, who held out these inducements, could
easily raise an army in Thrace. Thus Clearchus no sooner received supplies of
money from Cyrus the Younger, than he collected a force in the Chersonesus,
which, although in great part undoubtedly Thracian, was employed by him in
making war upon other Thracians, until he was required to join Cyrus in Asia
Minor (Ib. 1.1.9, 2.9, &c.). So when Seuthes undertook the expedition against
his so-called revolted subjects, his army was soon tripled by volunteers, who
hastened from other parts of Thrace to serve him, as soon as they heard of his
enterprise (lb. 7.4.21). Such soldiers could not, of course, be depended upon
for one moment after a reverse. A considerable number of Thracian mercenaries in
the army of Cyrus took the earliest opportunity to desert to Artaxerxes after
the battle of Cunaxa (lb. 2.2.7).
Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 4.46) informs us that the principal cause of the insurrection
(A.D. 26) of the Thracians who dwelt in the elevated mountain districts
(probably of Rhodope), was their dislike of the conscription, which, it would
appear, the Romans had introduced into Thrace. This was a yoke to which they
could not submit; they were not accustomed to obey even their own rulers, except
when it pleased them; and when they sent troops to the assistance of their
princes, they used to appoint their own commanders, and to war against the
neighbouring tribes only. (Cf. Liv. 42.51; Xen. Anab. 7.4. 24, 7.29, seq.)
Thracian troops were chiefly light-armed infantry and irregular horse. (Xen.
Anab. 1.2. 9, 7.6.27, Memor. 3.9.2; Curt. 3.9.) The bravest of the foot-soldiers
in the army of Sitalces were the free mountaineers of Rhodope, who were armed
with short swords (μαχαιροφόροι; Thuc. 2.98). The equipment of the Asiatic
Thracians is described by Herodotus (7.75), and as this description agrees with
what Xenophon states respecting Seuthes' forces (Anab. 7.4.4), it is no doubt
substantially true of the Thracians generally. They wore caps covering their
ears, made of fox-skins, cloaks, and party-coloured mantles (ζειραί,? ==
plaids); their boots, which came high up the leg, were made of deer-skin; their
arms were shields, javelins, and daggers (cf. Thuc. 7.27). The Thracians in the
army of Philip V. were armed with very long rhomphaeae, a word which some
translate javelins, others swords. (Liv. 31.39; Plut. Paul. Aemil. 17.) Thracian
soldiers fought with impetuosity and with no lack of bravery; but they, like all
barbarian and undisciplined troops were incapable of sustained efforts. Livy
(42.59) describes them as rushing to the attack like wild beasts long confined
in cages: they hamstrung the horses of their adversaries, or stabbed them in the
belly. When the victory was gained on this occasion (the first encounter in the
war between the Romans and Perseus), they returned to their camp, singing loud
songs of triumph, and carrying the heads of the slain on the tops of their
weapons (lb. 60). When defeated, they fled with rapidity, throwing their shields
upon their backs, to protect them from the missiles of the pursuers. (Xen. Anab.
7.4. 17）
About the time of the Peloponnesian War, Thrace began to be to the countries
around the Aegean what Switzerland has long, to its disgrace, been to the
despotic powers of modern Europe, a land where men might be procured to fight
for any one who could hold out sufficient inducements in the shape of pay or
plunder. (Thuc. 7.27, et alibi; Xen. Anab. i. pass.; Just. 11.1 & 9.) The chief
causes of this, apart from the character of its people, appear to have been the
want of any central government, and the difficult nature of the country, which
rendered its savage independence tolerably secure; so that there was nothing to
restrain those who might wish to seek their fortune in foreign warfare. Daring
the period of Macedonian supremacy, and after its close, under the Roman power,
Thracians are often mentioned as auxiliaries in Macedonian and Roman armies; but
few of these, it is probable, were volunteers. (Liv. 31.39, 42.29, 51, et al.;
Caes. B.C. 3.4; Veil. Pat. 2.112; Tac. Hist. 1.68, &c.) Cicero (de Prov. Cons.
4) seems to imply that Thracians were sometimes hired to assassinate like the
modern Italian bravos; these were perhaps gladiators, of whom great numbers were
Thracians. Caligula gave the command of his German bodyguard to Thracians.
(Suet. Calig. 55.)
Another point in which the Thracians remind us of the natives of India, is
mentioned by Thucydides (2.97) in these words: “The tribute of the barbarians
and of the Greek cities received by Seuthes, the successor of Sitalces, might be
reckoned at 400 talents of silver, reckoning gold and silver together. The
presents in gold and silver amounted to as much more. And these presents were
made not only to the king, but also to the most influential and distinguished of
the Odrysae. For these people, like those of Thrace generally, differ in this
respect from the Persians, that they would rather receive than give; and among
them it is more shameful not to give when you are asked, than to be refused when
you ask. It is true that abuses arise from this custom; for nothing can be done
without presents.” (Cf. Liv. 42.19, 45.42; Tac. Germ. 15.) Xenophon (Xen. Anab.
7.3) gives some amusing illustrations of this practice among the Thracians.
Mention is often made of the singing and dancing of the Thracians, especially of
a martial kind. Xenophon (Xen. Anab. 6.1.5, seq.) gives an account of a dance
and combat performed by some Thracians, to celebrate the conclusion of a peace
between the remnant of the 10,000 Greeks and the Paphlagonians: they danced
fully armed to the music of the flute, jumping up nimbly to a considerable
height, and fencing with their swords: at last, one man struck another, to all
appearance mortally and he fell as if [p. 2.1184]dead, though in reality not in
the least injured, His antagonist then stripped off his armour, and went out
singing the praises of Sitalces, while the other man was carried out like a
corpse by his comrades (cf. Ib. 7.3.32, seq.; Tac. Ann. 4.47).
Their music was rude and noisy. Strabo (x. p.471) compares it to that of the
Phrygians, whom, indeed, he regards as descended from the Thracians. Xenophon,
in the passage last referred to, says that they played on horns and on trumpets
made of raw ox-hide. Their worship of Dionysus and Cotytto was celebrated on
mountain tops with loud instruments of music, shouting, and noises like the
bellowing of cattle. (Strab. x. p.470.)
Their barbarity and ferocity became proverbial. Herodotus (8.116) tells a story
of a king of the Bisaltae, who punished his six sons for disobeying him by
putting out their eyes. Seuthes, with his own hand, transfixed some of the Thyni
who had been taken prisoners (Xen. Anab. 7.4. 6). Rhascuporis invited his nephew
to a banquet, plied him with wine, then loaded him with fetters, and afterwards
put him to death. (Tac. Ann. 2.64, seqq.) Thucydides (7.27, seq.) gives an
instance of the ferocity of the Thracians in their massacre of the inhabitants
of Mycalessus.
A truly barbarian trait in the character of the Thracians was their
faithlessness, even to one another. This is especially shown in their disregard
of their obligations towards the hostages whom they gave as securities for their
observance of their engagements with others. Seuthes had received from the Thyni
a number of old men as hostages; yet the Thyni, seeing a favourable opportunity,
as they supposed, for renewing hostilities, at once seized it, apparently
without a thought of the but too probable consequences of such conduct to their
helpless countrymen. (Xen. Anab. 7.4. 21; cf. Liv. 40.22). Some of the tribes
inhabiting the Thracian coast of the Euxine were systematic wreckers SALMYDESSUS
Robbery, as we have seen, was considered honourable by them; and plunder was
their chief inducement to engage in war. (Strab. vii. p.318; Cic. Pis. 34; Liv.
26.25, 38.40, seq.) Strabo (iii. pp. 164, 165), Mela (2.2), and Tacitus (Tac.
Ann. 4.51) bear witness to the bravery of the Thracian women.
The deity most worshipped by the Thracians was Dionysus, whom they, as well as
the Phrygians, called Sabazius. (Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 9.) The mythical stories
respecting Orpheus and Lycurgus are closely connected with the worship of this
god, who had an oracle on Rhodope, in the country of the Satrae, but under the
direction of the Bessi [SATRAE]. Herodotus (7.111) states that the mode of
delivering the answers of this oracle resembled that which prevailed at Delphi.
He compares also the worship of Artemis (whose Thracian name was Bendis or
Cotytto), as he had seen it celebrated by Thracian and Paeonian women, with some
of the ceremonies at Delos (4.33). These resemblances may be accounted for on
the supposition that the Thracian rites were derived from the original Pelasgian
population, remnants of which may have maintained themselves amid the mountain
fastnesses; as Niebuhr holds (Ethnog. and Geog. i. p. 287) was the case with the
Paeonians, who are mentioned by Herodotus in the passage last referred to. (On
the Thracian divinities, see Strabo, x. pp. 470, 471; Soph. Antig. 955, seq.;
Plin. Nat. 16.62; and the articles BENDIS, COTYS, and RHEA, in the Dict. Biog.
and Myth.）
It has sometimes been asserted that the Thracians were accustomed to sacrifice
human victims to their divinities; but this appears to be either an incorrect
generalisation, or a confounding of them with other races; for we find no
reference to such a custom in any of the ancient accounts of their manners.
Herodotus, it is true, states (9.119) that when the Persian Oeobazus fell into
the hands of the Apsinthii, after the taking of Sestus by the Athenians, they
sacrificed him to their local god, Pleistorus; but from the next words (τρόπῳ τῷ
σφετέρῳ) it is clear that he regarded the practice as characteristic of the
Apsinthii, and not as one common to all Thracians: nor is it conceivable that he
would have omitted to mention so striking a circumstance, in his general
description of Thracian manners, which has been already quoted (5.3, seqq); for
tile practice of slaying the favourite wife on the tomb of her deceased husband
cannot with any propriety be called a sacrifice.
Whether indulgence in wine was regarded as a part of the homage due to Dionysus,
or simply as a means of sensual gratification, certain it is that it was
prevalent in Thrace, and frequently attended with violent and sanguinary
quarrels: “Natis in usum laetitiae scyphis pugnare Thracum est,” says Horace,
and evidence is not wanting in support of the accusation. Ammianus (27.4.9)
describes the Odrysae as so fond of bloodshed that in their banquets, after
eating and drinking to satiety, they used to fall to blows with one another.
Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 4.48) relates that the Thracians serving with Poppaeus
Sabinus against their fellow-countrymen, indulged to such a degree in feasting
and drinking that they kept no guard at night, so that their camp was stormed by
their exasperated brethren, who slew great numbers of them. Xenophon tells us
that at his first interview with Seuthes, they drank horns of wine to each
other's health, according to the Thracian custom (Anab. 7.2.23). At the banquet
which Seuthes afterwards gave to Xenophon and some other important persons the
drinking seems to have been deep. Xenophon admits that he had indulged freely;
and he was evidently astonished that when Seuthes rose from the table, he
manifested no signs of intoxication. (Ib. 3.26, seqq.) The Thracians are said to
have had a custom, which prevailed in England as late as the last century, of
compelling all the guests to drink the same quantity. (Callim. ap. Athen.
10.442.) The Odrysian auxiliaries of Dercyllidas poured great quantities of wine
upon the graves of their slain comrades. (Xen. Hell. 3.2. 5) It would appear
from Mela (2.2), that some of the Thracians were unacquainted with wine, but
practised another mode of producing intoxication: while feasting, they threw
into the fires around which they were seated certain seeds, the fumes of which
caused a cheerful kind of drunkenness. It is possible that these may have been
the seeds of hemp, which, as we have seen, probably grew in Thrace, and
contains, as is well known, a narcotic principle.
The Thracians against whom Seuthes led his forces lived in villages (lb. § 43),
the houses being fenced round with large stakes, within the inclosure formed by
which their sheep were secured (lb. 4.14; cf. Tac. Ann. 4.49).
Pliny (7.41) states that the Thracians had a custom of marking their happy or
unhappy days, by placing a white or a black stone in a vessel at the close of
each day. On any one's death, the vessel [p. 2.1185]belonging to him was
emptied, the stones were separately counted, and his life pronounced to have
been happy or the reverse, as the white or the black were more numerous.
V. HISTORY.--Thrace is one of those countries whose people, not being
sufficiently civilised to establish a national government or to possess a
national literature, cannot have histories of their own. We become acquainted
with the Thracians at second hand, as it were, through the narrations of
foreigners, who necessarily make them subordinate to their own countrymen; and
therefore it is only in connection with foreign states that their history has
been recorded. Hence it is fragmentary, and, consequently, often obscure; nor
would its importance, indeed, repay the labour that might be employed in
elucidating it, even if we possessed the requisite materials. Destitute of
union, the Thracians, notwithstanding their numbers, their wide diffusion, their
powers of endurance, and their contempt of death, exerted no perceptible
influence upon the general course of history; but were reduced, in spite of
their wild love of independence, to assist, as humble allies or subjects, in the
aggrandisement of the more civilised or politic races with which they came in
contact. These were the Greeks, the Persians, the Macedonians, and the Romans,
with the successors of the last in the Eastern Empire. We shall now briefly
state the leading points of their history, as connected with that of the nations
just mentioned; referring the reader for details, especially as to the little
that known of their purely internal affairs, to the articles in this work which
relate to the BESSI, ODRYSAE, and other prominent Thracian tribes.
We pass over the alleged conquest of Thrace by Sesostris (Herod, 2.103; Diod. i,
53), and that said to have been effected by the Teucri and Mysi before the
Trojan War (Hdt. 7.20; cf. Eur. Rh. 406, seq.), and come at once to the strictly
historical periods.
The first connection of the Greeks with Thrace was through colonies planted upon
its various coasts, the original object of which seems generally to have been of
a commercial kind. Only an approximation to the date of most of these can be
made, since the majority were established long before the commencement of
authentic history. Byzantium and Selymbria, colonies of Megara, belong to the
seventh century B.C., the year 675 B.C. being assigned for the foundation of the
former. In 651 B.C. an unsuccessful attempt is said to have been made by
settlers from Clazomenae to establish themselves at Abdera (Solin. 10.10); but
that city was not actually founded till 560 B.C., and then by emigrants from
Teos. (Hdt. 1.168.) Mesembria, on the Euxine, Was a colony of the Byzantians and
Chalcedonians, who abandoned their cities on the approach of the Phoenician
fleet, B.C. 493. (Id. 6.33). When Dicaea, Maronea, and Aenus, all on the south
coast, were established, is not known; which is the case also with Cardia and
Sestus in the Chersonesus. That these settlements were generally exposed to the
hostility of their Thracian neighbours, there can be no doubt, though corded as
in the instance of Amphipolis. The Athenians sent no less than 10,000 men (B.C.
465) to found a colony there; and they succeeded in driving off the Edonians who
occupied the country; but having advanced into the interior, they were defeated
at Drabescus by the natives, and compelled to abandon the country. About thirty
years afterwards, however, the Athenians returned, and this time overcame all
resistance. Sometimes the relation between the Greeks and the Thracians was of a
more friendly description. Thus, in the time of Peisistratus, the Dolonci, who
dwelt in the Chersonesus, invited Miltiades (the elder) to rule over them, as
they were unable to cope with their neighbours the Apsinthii; and this led to
the Athenians obtaining a firm footing in that most important and valuable
district. (Hdt. 6.34, seq.) By these various means, the Greeks had obtained
possession of nearly the whole coast of Thrace, a considerable period before the
commencement of the great contest between themselves and the Persian empire. Of
the interior they appear to have known scarcely anything whatever; and although
in some cases the surrounding barbarians may have been brought into subjection
(Byzantium is said to have reduced the Bithynian Thracians to the condition of
tributary perioeci), yet this was rarely the case. On the contrary, it is clear
from Thucydides (2.97), that the Greeks sometimes paid tribute to the native
kings. The Greeks, even when dwelling among hostile strangers, showed their
tendency to separation rather than to union; and hence their settlements on the
Thracian coast never gained the strength which union would have conferred upon
them. Each city had a government, and to a great extent a history of its own;
and we must therefore refer the reader is for information respecting those
states to the separate articles in this work devoted to them.
The first Persian expedition to Thrace was that of Darius, who crossed the
Bosporus with his army about B.C. 513 (or 508, as some authorities hold). As the
principal object of Darius was to chastise the Scythians for their invasion of
Asia in the reign of Cyaxares, he took the shortest route through Thrace; where
he met with no opposition. The Greeks whom he found there were required to
follow in his train to the Danube: among them was the younger Miltiades, the
destined hero of Marathon, who then ruled over the Chersonesus, as his uncle had
formerly done, and who had married the daughter of a Thracian king. (Hdt.
6.39.)6 On returning from the north, Darius directed his march to the
Hellespont, and before crossing from Sestus into Asia, erected a fort at
Doriscus, near the mouth of the Hebrus. (Hdt. 4.89-93, 143, 144, 7.59.)
Megabazus was left with 80,000 men to subdue the whole of Thrace, a task which
he began by besieging Perinthus, which, though previously weakened by the
attacks of the Paeonians, made a brave but fruitless resistance. After this,
Megabazus reduced the country into subjection, though perhaps only the districts
near the sea. (Hdt. 5.1, 2, 10.) That his conquests extended as far as the
Strymon appears from Darius's grant of a district upon that river to Histiaeus,
who founded there the town of Mvrcinus. (Hdt. 5.11.) Megabazus soon returned to
Asia; and it seems probable that he took with him the greater part of his army;
for if the Persians had maintained [p. 2.1186]a powerful force in Thrace, the
Paeonians could hardly have succeeded in making their escape from Phrygia back
to the Strymon (Id. 5.98), nor could the revolted Ionians (B.C. 498) have taken
Byzantium and all the other cities in that country. (Id. 5.103.) It is to this
period that we must refer the invasion of the Scythians, who are said to have
advanced as far as the Chersonesus, thus occasioning the temporary flight of
Miltiades, who, they were aware, had assisted Darius in his attack upon their
country. (Id. 6.40.)
After the suppression of the Ionian revolt (B.C. 493), the Phoenician fleet
sailed to the Hellespont, and again brought the country under the Persian
dominion, Cardia being the only city which they were unable to take. (Id. 6.33.)
Miltiades made his escape from the Chersonesus to Athens, on hearing of the
approach of the hostile fleet. (Ib. 41.)
Next year Mardonius led an army across the Hellespont, and advanced as far as
Macedonia; but his fleet having been wrecked off Mount Athos, and his land
forces having suffered considerably in a war with the Thracians, who then
occupied the country W. of the Strymon, he retraced his steps, and transported
his shattered army into Asia (Id. 6.43, seqq.).
It was not till B.C. 480 that the vast army under the command of Xerxes crossed
the Hellespont by the famous bridges which spanned the strait from Abydos to
Sestus. Of his march through Thrace, Herodotus gives an interesting account
(7.108--115); but, as he met with no opposition, we need not dwell upon these
circumstances.
After the disastrous battle of Salamis, Xerxes, with an escort of 60,000 men,
hastened back by the same road which he had so recently trod in all the
overweening confidence of despotic power: in Thrace, his miserable troops,
suffered greatly from hunger and consequent disease, but do not appear to have
been openly attacked. (Hdt. 8.115, seqq.)
Next year (B.C. 479) was fought the battle of Plataeae in which Thracians formed
part of the motley host arrayed against Greek freedom (Id. 9.32). Artabazus led
the 40,000 men, who alone remained of the Persian army, by forced marches
through Thessaly, Macedonia, and Thrace. He struck through the interior of the
latter country, probably for fear of the Greek cities on the coast; but he
encountered enemies as much to be dreaded, and lost a great part of his army by
hunger, fatigue, and the attacks of the Thracians, before he reached Byzantium.
It was now the turn of the victorious Greeks to assail their foes in their own
territories. Thrace, with the exception of Doriscus, was soon cleared of the
Persians. After the battle of Mycale, their fleet sailed to the Hellespont,
where the Athenians laid siege to Sestus, which was taken early in the following
year (B.C. 478) [SESTUS]. Eion, at the mouth of the Strymon, made a desperate
resistance; but at length (B.C. 476) fell into the hands of Cimon and the
Athenians, after its Persian governor had put to death all his family, and
finally himself. (Hdt. 7.107; cf. Thuc. 1.98). Byzantium had been taken by
Pausanias the year before. Thus the Persians were driven out of Europe, and the
Greek settlements in Thrace resumed their internal freedom of action, though
most of them, it is probable, were under the supremacy of Athens, as the chosen
head of the great Greek confederacy.
During the administration of Pericles, 1000 Athenian citizens were settled in
the Thracian Chersonesus, which was always the chief stronghold of Athens in
that quarter. Under the auspices of the same statesman, in B.C. 437, the
Athenians succeeded in founding Amphipolis, the contests for the possession of
which occupy a very prominent place in the subsequent history of Greece. [AMPHIPOLIS
Vol. I. p. 126.]
About this time flourished the most powerful Thracian kingdom that ever existed,
that of the Odrysae, for the history of which see ODRYSAE Vol. II, pp. 463--465.
At the commencement of the Peloponnesian War (B.C. 431), the Athenians entered
into an alliance with Sitalces, the king of the Odrysae (Thuc. 2.29), who, they
hoped, would enable them to subdue all opposition to their supremacy in the
Chalcidic peninsula. In consequence of this alliance, Sitalces led (B.C. 429) a
vast host into Macedonia, the ruler of which supported the enemies of Athens: he
encountered no opposition, yet was compelled by want of supplies to return to
Thrace, about a month after he had left it (Ib. 95--101). But although Sitalces
was an ally of Athens, this did not prevent Brasidas from having great numbers
of light-armed Thracians in his armies, while commanding the Spartan forces in
the neighbourhood of Amphipolis (B.C. 422).
It would occupy too much space to relate minutely the various turns of fortune
which occurred in Thrace during the Peloponnesian War. The principal struggle in
this quarter was for the command of the Bosporus and Hellespont, so important,
especially to the Athenians, on account of the corn trade with the Euxine, from
which Athens drew a large part of her supplies. Hence many of the most important
naval battles were fought in the Hellespont; and the possession of Byzantium and
Sestus was the prize of many a victory. The battle of Aegospotami, which
terminated the long contest for supremacy, took place to the S. of Sestus, B.C.
405. By the peace concluded next year, Athens gave up all her foreign
possessions; and those in the east of Thrace fell into the hands of the Spartans
and Persians. [See BYZANTIUM, SESTUS, &c.]
When the remnant of the 10,000 Greeks returned (B.C. 400) to Europe, they were
engaged by Seuthes, an Odrysian prince, to assist him in recovering the
dominions which had belonged to his father, in the south eastern part of Thrace.
(Xen. Anab. vii. pass.) Having thus been reinstated in his principality, he
showed his gratitude to the Greeks, by sending auxiliaries to Dercyllidas, who
commanded the Spartan forces against the Persians, with whom they were now (B.C.
399) at war (Xen. Hell. 3.2). Next year Dercyllidas crossed over into the
Chersonesus, and erected a wall across its northern extremity, as a protection
to the Greek inhabitants, who were exposed to constant attacks from their
barbarous neighbours (Ib. 2. § § 8--10). The same general successfully defended
Sestus from the combined forces of Conon and Pharnabazus (B.C. 394: Ib. 4.8.5,
seqq.). But in B.C. 390 Thrasybulus restored Athenian influence in Thrace, by
forming an alliance with two native princes, and by establishing democracy at
Byzantium (Ib. § 25, seqq.); and his success was confirmed by the victory of
Iphicrates over Anaxibius the next year (ib. § 34). The peace of Antalcidas,
however, released all the Greek states from their connection with Athens, and
virtually gave the supremacy to Sparta (B.C. 387).
Nothing of any importance happened in Thrace after this event till the accession
of Philip II. to the throne of Macedonia (B.C. 359). This able but unscrupulous
[p. 2.1187]scrupulous monarch at once began his career of aggrandisement towards
the east. He contrived to get possession of Amphipolis (B.C. 358), and thus
obtained a secure footing from which he might extend his dominions in Thrace as
opportunity offered. At this time there were three native Thracian princes,
probably brothers, who seem to have ruled over most of the country. According to
Justin (8.3), Berisades and Amadocus, two of them, chose Philip as judge of
their disputes; of which position he treacherously availed himself to seize upon
their dominions. Though this statement is not supported, we believe, by any
other ancient author, yet it is probably true; for such conduct is highly
characteristic of the Macedonian monarch; and the almost entire disappearance
from history of these Thracian princes soon after Philip's accession, would thus
be accounted for. Cersobleptes, the third brother, who seems to have had the E.
portion of Thrace, maintained a long struggle against his ambitious neighbour.
In B.C. 357 he ceded the Chersonesus to the Athenians, who sent a colony to
occupy it four years afterwards. [See CERSOBLEPTES, Dict. Biog. Vol. I. p. 674:
SESTUS] Philip at various times marched into Thrace, and repeatedly defeated
Cersobleptes, whom he at length (B.C. 343) completely subdued and rendered
tributary. Next year he established colonies in the eastern part of Thrace, and
acts of hostility occurred between him and Diopeithes, the Athenian commander in
that quarter. Philip was occupied the next three years in Thrace, and laid siege
to Perinthus and Byzantium, which were in alliance with Athens, whose forces,
commanded by Phocion, compelled Philip to abandon the sieges; and he soon
afterwards left Thrace, to advance towards the south against the confederate
Greeks. On his departure Phocion recovered several of the cities in which
Macedonian garrisons had been placed.
Notwithstanding these checks, Philip had brought under his command a great part
of Thrace, especially on the south coast: he had, above all, completely
incorporated with his kingdom the district between the Strymon and the Nestus,
and from the mines of the Pangaeus, which he seized in B.C. 356, he obtained
abundant supplies of the precious metals.
Philip was assassinated B.C. 336: next year his successor, Alexander the Great,
marched across the Haemus to attack the Triballi; but his chief attention was
bestowed upon the preparations for the Asiatic expedition, which he entered upon
next year, crossing the Hellespont from Sestus.
On the death of Alexander (B.C. 323), Thrace was allotted to Lysimachus, who was
soon involved in hostilities with Seuthes, a king of the Odrysae. The reader is
referred to the account of Lysimachus [Dict. Biog. Vol. II. pp. 867--870] for
details respecting his government of Thrace: the result of his various wars was
that his sway was firmly established over all the countries south of the Danube,
as far as the confines of Macedonia; the Greek cities on the Euxine were
garrisoned by his troops; and though many of the native tribes, in the more
inaccessible districts, no doubt retained their freedom, yet he had completely
defeated all their attacks upon his power. In B.C. 309 he founded Lysimachia,
near the northern extremity of the Chersonesus and made it his capital. Having
engaged in a war with Seleucus, the ruler of Syria, he advanced to meet his
antagonist in Asia, and was defeated and slain at Corupedion (B.C. 281), upon
which Seleucus passed over into Europe and took possession of Thrace. Next year,
however, he was assassinated by Ptolemy Ceraunus, who was thereupon acknowledged
king; but shortly: afterwards a vast horde of Celts invaded the country, and
Ptolemy was slain in a battle with them. Anarchy now prevailed for some years in
the country: the Celts again advanced to the south in B.C. 279, and under
Brennus penetrated as far as Delphi, on their repulse from which they retreated
northwards, and some of them settled on the coast of Thrace.
For nearly fifty years after this time little mention is made of Thrace in
history; it appears to have been annexed to Macedonia; but the rulers of that
kingdom were too insecure, even in their central dominions, to be able to
exercise much control over such a country as Thrace, inhabited now by races
differing so widely as the Thracians, the Greeks, and the Celts, and offering so
many temptations to the assertion of independence. [See ANTIGONUS GONATAS,
DEMETRIUS II., and PYRRHUS, in Dict. Biog.]
About B.C. 247, the fleet of Ptolemy Euergetes captured Lysimachia and other
important cities on the coast; and they remained for nearly half a century under
the kings of Egypt. (Plb. 5.34, 58.)
In B.C. 220, Philip V. ascended the throne of Macedonia. Under him the
Macedonian power regained something of its old prestige; and had it not been
brought in collision with Rome, it might have become as extensive as in former
times. But Philip unfortunately directed his ambitious views in the first
instance towards the West, and thus soon encountered the jealous Republic. It
was not till B.C. 211 that Philip commenced his enterprises against Thrace: he
then led an army into the country of the Maedi, who were in the habit of making
incursions into Macedonia. Their lands were laid waste, and their capital,
Iamphorina, compelled to surrender. Having made peace with the Romans (B.C.
205), he invaded Thrace, and took Lysimachia. In B.C. 200, he again attacked
that country, both by sea and land; and it is evident that he did not anticipate
much resistance, since he took with him only 2000 infantry and 200 cavalry. Yet
with this insignificant force, aided by the fleet, he made himself master of the
whole of the south coast, and of the Chersonesus. He then laid siege to Abydos,
and after a desperate resistance took it (Liv. 31.16). This seems to have
hastened the declaration of war on the part of the Romans; a war which lasted
till B.C. 196, when Philip was reduced to procure peace by surrendering all his
conquests, and withdrawing his garrisons from the Greek cities (Liv. 33.30), L.
Stertinius was sent to see that these terms were complied with (ib. 35). But
scarcely had the cities been evacuated by the Macedonian garrisons, when
Antiochus the Great crossed the Hellespont, and took possession of the
Chersonesus, which he claimed as a conquest of Seleucus (ib. 38). He refused to
comply with the demand of the Romans, that he should withdraw his army from
Europe; but left his son Seleucus to complete the restoration of Lysimachia, and
to extend his influence, which seems to have been done by placing garrisons in
Maroneia and Aenus.
In the war which ensued between the Romans and Antiochus (B.C. 190), Philip
rendered the former good service, by providing everything necessary for their
march through Thrace, and securing them from molestation by the native tribes (Liv.
37.7). Antiochus was defeated by Scipio at Magnesia, and [p. 2.1188]sued for
peace, which was at length granted to him (B.C. 188) on condition of his
abandoning all his dominions west of the Taurus (Liv. 38.38). The Romans gave
the Chersonesus and its dependencies to their ally Eumenes (ib. 39). As
indicative of the internal condition of Thrace, even along the great southern
road, the account which Livy (ib. 40, seq.) gives of the march of the consul
Manlius' army through the country on its return from Asia Minor, is highly
interesting. The army was loaded with booty, conveyed in a long train of
baggagewaggons, which presented an irresistible temptation to the predatory
tribes through whose territories its route lay. They accordingly attacked the
army in a defile, and were not beaten off until they had succeeded in their
object of sharing in the plunder of Asia.
The possession of the Chersonesus by Eumenes soon led to disagreements with
Philip, who was charged by Eumenes (B.C. 185) with having seized upon Maroneia
and Aenus, places which he coveted for himself. (Liv. 39.24, 27). The Romans
insisted upon the withdrawal of the Macedonian garrisons (B.C. 184), and Philip,
sorely against his will, was obliged to obey. He wreaked his anger upon the
defenceless citizens of Maroneia, by conniving at, if not actually commanding,
the massacre of a great number of them (ib. 33, 34). In the course of the
disputes about these cities, it was stated that at the end of the war with
Philip, the Roman commissioner, Q. Fabius Labeo, had fixed upon the king's road,
which is described as nowhere approaching the sea, as the S. boundary of
Philip's possessions in Thrace; but that Philip had afterwards formed a new
road, considerably to the S., and had thus included the cities and lands of the
Maronitae in his territories (ib. 27).
In the same year, Philip undertook an expedition into the interior of Thrace,
where he was fettered by no engagements with the Romans. He defeated the
Thracians in a battle, and took their leader Amadocus prisoner. Before returning
to Macedonia he sent envoys to the barbarians on the Danube to invite them to
make an incursion into Italy (ib. 35). Again in B.C. 183, Philip marched against
the Odrysae, Dentheletae and Bessi, took Philippopolis, which its inhabitants
had abandoned at his approach, and placed a garrison in it, which the Odrysae,
however, soon afterwards drove out (ib. 53). In B.C. 182, Philip removed nearly
all the inhabitants of the coast of Macedonia into the interior, and supplied
their places by Thracians and other barbarians, on whom he thought he could more
safely depend in the war with the Romans, which he now saw was inevitable (Liv.
40.3). He had done something of the same kind a few years before (Id. 39.24).
Philip's ascent of the Haemus, already referred to, took place in B.C. 181: on
the summit he erected altars to Jupiter and the Sun. On his way back his army
plundered the Dentheletae; and in Maedica he took a town called Petra. (Liv.
40.21, seq.)
Philip died in B.C. 179, and his successor Perseus continued the preparations
which his father had made for renewing the war with Rome, which did not begin,
however, till B.C. 171. The Romans had formed an alliance the year before with a
number of independent Thracian tribes, who had sent ambassadors to Rome for the
purpose, and who were likely to be formidable foes to Perseus. The Romans took
care to send valuable presents to the principal Thracians, their ambassadors
having no doubt impressed upon the senate the necessity for compliance with this
national custom. (Liv. 42.19.)
The advantage of this alliance was soon seen. Cotys, king of the Odrysae, was an
ally of Perseus, and marched with him to meet the Romans in Thessaly, but with
only 1000 horse and 1000 foot, a force which shows how greatly the power of the
Odrysian monarchy had declined since the reign of Sitalces (ib. 51). Cotys
commanded all the Thracians in Perseus's army in the first engagement with the
Roman cavalry, which was defeated (ib. 57, seq.). When Perseus retreated into
Macedonia a report was brought that the Thracian allies of Rome had invaded the
dominions of Cotys, whom Perseus was therefore obliged to dismiss for their
protection (ib. 67), and he does not seem to have personally taken any further
part in the war, though he probably sent part of his forces to assist Perseus
(44.42). His son Bitis fell into the hands of the Romans, after the battle of
Pydna (B.C. 168), which put an end to the Macedonian kingdom. Cotys sent
ambassadors to Rome to endeavour to ransom his son, and to excuse himself for
having sided with Perseus. The senate rejected his offers of money, but
liberated his son, and gave a considerable sum to each of the Thracian
ambassadors. The reason it assigned for this generosity was the old friendship
which had existed between Rome and Cotys and his ancestors. The Romans were
evidently unwilling to engage in a war with the Thracian people at this time;
and were anxious to secure friends among them for the sake of the peace of
Macedonia, which, though not yet nominally made a province, was completely in
their power. They sent (B.C. 167) three commissioners to conduct Bitis and the
other Thracians home; and at the same time, no doubt, to make observations on
the state of that country. (Liv. 45.42).
After the fall of Perseus, the senate divided his dominion's into four districts
(regiones), the first of which included the territory between the Strymon and
the Nestus, and all the Macedonian possessions east of the latter, except Aenus,
Maroneia, and Abdera: Bisaltica and Sintice, west of the Strymon, also belonged
to this district, the capital of which was Amphipolis. (Ib. 29.) It is important
to recollect that the Thrace spoken of by the Latin historians subsequently to
this time does not include the territories here specified, which thenceforth
constituted an integral part of Macedonia.
From the year B.C. 148, when the Romans undertook the direct government of that
country, they were brought into contact with the various barbarous nations on
its frontiers, and were continually at war with one or another of them. For some
years, however, their chief occupation was with the Scordisci, a people of
Celtic origin which had settled south of the Danube, and often made devastating
incursions into the more civilised regions of the south. They are sometimes
called Thracians (e. g. by Florus, 3.4; cf. Amm. 27.4.4), which is the less
surprising when we remember that great numbers of Celts had settled in Southern
Thrace, and would soon be confounded under a common name with the other
occupants of the country. The history of all this period, up to the time of
Augustus, is very obscure, owing to the loss of so great a part of Livy's work;
enough, however, appears in other writers to show that Thrace was left almost
entirely to its native rulers, the Romans rarely interfering with it except when
provoked by the predatory incursions [p. 2.1189]of its people into Macedonia:
they then sometimes made retaliatory expeditions into Thrace; but seem generally
to have made their way back as soon as the immediate object was accomplished.
The relation existing between the Romans and the Thracians, for more than a
century after the conquest of Macedonia, thus bears a close resemblance to that
which has long existed between our own countrymen and the Caffres.
During the years B.C. 110, 109, the Consul M. Minucius Rufus was engaged in
hostilities with the Scordisci and Triballi; and, according to Florus (l.c.),
laid waste the whole valley of the Hebrus (cf. Eutr. 4.27). In B.C. 104,
Calpurnius Piso penetrated into the district of Rhodope (Flor. l.c.). In B.C.
92, the Maedi defeated the praetor, C. Sentius, and then ravaged Macedonia (Cic.
Pis. 34; Liv. Epit. 70). After the breaking out of the Mithridatic War (B.C.
88), mention is made in several successive years of the incursions of the
Thracians into the Roman provinces, and it is probable that they were acting in
concert with Mithridates, whose general Taxiles, in B.C. 86, led a vast army
through Thrace, and Macedonia to the assistance of Archelaus. (Liv. Epit. 74,
76, 81, 82). On the final defeat of Archelaus, Sulla directed his march towards
Asia through, Thrace B.C. 84, and, either to punish the people for their
connection with Mithridates, or because they opposed his passage, made war upon
them with complete success (Id. 83). C. Scribonius Curio defeated the Dardani,
and penetrated to the Danube, being the first Roman who had ventured into that
part of Europe (B.C. 75; Liv. Epit. 92; Eutr. 6.2). Curio was succeeded as
governor of Macedonia by M. Lucullus (B.C. 73), who defeated the Bessi in a
pitched battle on Mount Haemus, took their capital, and ravaged the whole
country between the Haemus and the Danube (Liv. Epit. 97; Eutr. 6.10). The Bessi
were again conquered in B.C. 60 by Octavius, the father of Augustus (Suet. Aug.
3; cf. lb. 94; Freinsh. Suppl. 135.2). In the years B.C. 58, 57, Piso, so well
known. to us from Cicero's celebrated speech against him, was governor of
Macedonia; and, if we may believe Cicero, acted in the most cruel and faithless
manner towards the Bessi and other peaceable Thracian tribes. (Pis. 34, de Prov.
Cons. 2, seq.). From the latter passage it appears that although Thrace was not
under the government of Rome, yet the Romans claimed the right of way through it
to the Hellespont; for Cicero calls the Egnatian Way “via illa nostra militaris.”
In the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, several Thracian princes furnished
the latter with auxiliary forces. Why they interfered in the contest, and why
they preferred Pompey to Caesar, are matters of conjecture only. Pompey had been
chiefly engaged all his life in the East, Caesar in the West; and that is
probably sufficient to account for the greater influence of Pompey in Thrace. (Caes.
B.C. 3.4; Flor. 4.2; D. C. 41.51, 63, 47.25).
At the time of Caesar's death two brothers, Rhascuporis and Rascus [Dict. Biog.
Vol. III. p. 647] ruled over the greater part of Thrace; and when the war broke
out between the triumvirs and the republican party, Rhascuporis sided with the
latter, while Rascus aided the former. By this plan they hoped to be safe,
whichever party might be victorious; and it is said that their expectations were
realised.
When the power of Rome was at length wielded by Augustus. without a rival, the
relation of Thrace to the Roman state seems to have become in many respects like
that which the native princes of India long bore to the British. The Thracian
kings were generally allowed to exercise, without restraint, their authority
over their own subjects, and when needful it was supported by the arms of Rome.
But all disputes among the native rulers were referred to the decision of the
emperors, who disposed of the country as its acknowledged lords. These subject
princes were expected to defend Thrace from external and internal foes; to
assist the Romans in the field; to allow them to enlist troops, and in other
ways to exercise the rights of sovereignty. For illustrations of these
statements we must refer the reader to Tacitus, especially to the following
passages: Ann. 2.64--67, 3.38, 39, 4.5, 46--51. The few Thracian coins which are
extant afford a proof of the dependent character of the Thracian kings; they
bear on the obverse the effigy of the reigning emperor, on the reverse that of
the native prince. [See Dict. Biog. Vol. III. p. 653.]
The interference of the Romans in the government of Thrace was not submitted to
by the nation at large without several severe struggles. The most formidable of
these occurred about B.C. 14, the fullest account of which is given by Dio
Cassius (lib. liv.). The leader in this insurrection was Vologaesus, a Bessian
priest of Bacchus, who availed himself of his sacerdotal character to inflame
the religious feelings of his countrymen. Having thus assembled a large army, he
attacked, defeated, and slew Rhascuporis, a king under Roman protection; his
uncle, Rhoemetalces, was next assailed and compelled to flee: the insurgents
pursued him as far as the Chersonesus, where they devastated the country and
captured the fortified places. On receiving information of these proceedings,
Augustus ordered L. Piso, the governor of Pamphylia, to transport his army into
Thrace, where, after a three years' war and several reverses, he at length
succeeded in subduing the Bessi, who had adopted Roman arms. and discipline.
They soon afterwards made a second attempt to regain their independence; but
were now easily crushed. (Vell. 2.98; Tac. Ann. 6.10; Sen. Ep. 83; Flor. 4.12;
Liv. Epit. 137.)
After this war, the Romans gradually absorbed all the powers of government in
the country. Germanicus visited it in A.D. 18, and introduced reforms in its
administration (Tac. Ann. 2.54). A system of conscription seems to have been
imposed upon the Thracians about A.D. 26 (Ib. 4.46). The last native prince of
whom we find any mention is Rhoemetalces II., who, in A.D. 38, was made by
Caligula ruler over the whole country; and at length, in the reign of Vespasian
(A.D. 69--79), Thrace was reduced into the form of a province. (Suet. Vesp. 8;
Eutr. 7.19; cf. Tac. Hist. 1.11.) The date of this event has been disputed on
the authority of the Eusebian Chronicle, which states that it took place in A.D.
47, in the reign of Claudius; but the statement of Suetonius is express on the
point. It is possible that Rhoemetalces II. may have died about the year last
mentioned; and if Claudius refused to appoint a successor to him, this would be
regarded as equivalent to incorporating the country in the Roman empire,
although its formal constitution as a, province was delayed; as we know was
commonly the case. It is remarkable that Moesia was made a province upwards of
50 years before Thrace Proper, its first propraetor being mentioned in A.D. 15.
(Tac. Ann. 1.79; cf. Ib. 2.66; Plin. Nat. 3.26. s. 29.) [p. 2.1190]
Thrace now shared in the general fortunes of the Roman world, on the division of
which into the Eastern and Western Empires, it was attached to the former, being
governed by the Vicarius Thraciarum, who was subordinate to the Praefectus
Praetorio Orientis. Its situation rendered it extremely liable to the inroads of
barbarians, and its history, so far as it is known, is little else than a record
of war and devastation. The Goths made their first appearance there in A.D. 255;
the emperor Probus, about A.D. 280, established in it 100,000 Bastarnae. In A.D.
314, and again in 323, the emperor Licinius was defeated at Hadrianople by
Constantine, who, in A.D. 334, settled a multitude of Sarmatians in Thrace,
which, in 376, received another accession to its heterogeneous population,
Valens having given permission to the Goths to reside in it. This gave rise to
innumerable wars, the details of which are recorded by Ammianus (lib. xxxi.). In
395 the devoted country was overrun by Alaric, and in 447 by the more dreadful
Attila. Through all these misfortunes, however, Thrace remained in connection
with the Eastern Empire, the capital of which was within its boundaries, until
the year 1353, when the Turks, who had crossed over into Europe in 1341,
obtained possession of the Thracian fortresses. Their leader Amurath conquered
the whole country, except Constantinople, and made Hadrianople his capital. At
length, in 1453, Constantinople itself was taken, and the Turks have ever since
been the undisputed lords of Thrace.
VI. TOPOGRAPHY.--Under this head we shall merely collect such names as will
serve to direct the reader to articles in this work, where fuller information is
given.
Pliny (4.18; cf. Mela, 2.2; Amm. 27.4) enumerates the following as the principal
Thracian tribes: Denseletae, Maedi, Bisaltae, Digeri, Bessi, Elethi, Diobessi,
Carbilesi, Brysae, Sapaei, Odomanti, Odrysae, Cabyleti, Pyrogeri, Drugeri,
Caenici, Hypsalti, Beni, Corpilli, Bottiaei, Edoni, Selletae, Priantae, Dolonci,
Thyni, Coeletae. To these we may add, the Apsinthii, Bistones, Cicones, Satrae,
Dii, and Trausi.
Of the towns mentioned by Pliny (l.c.), these belonged to Thrace Proper: 1. On
the coast (i.) of the Aegean: Oesyma, Neapolis, Datum, Abdera, Tirida, Dicaea,
Maronea, Zone, and Aenus; to these must be added Amphipolis, Pistyrus, Cosinthus,
and Mesembria; (ii.) of the Chersonesus: Cardia, Lysimachia, Pachyta, Callipolis,
Sestus, Elaeus, Coelos, Tiristasis, and Panormus; besides these there were
Alopeconnesus and Agora; (iii.) of the Propontis: Bisanthe, Perinthus, and
Selymbria; (iv.) of the Bosporus: Byzantium; (v.) of the Euxine: Mesembria,
Anchialus, Apollonia, Thynias, Salmydessus, and Phinopolis. 2. In the interior:
Philippopolis, Philippi, Scotusa, Topiris, Doriscus, Cypsela, Apros, and
Develton. This is a very scanty list; but many of the principal inland towns
were founded after Pliny's time: their names also were often changed. The
following are some of the chief towns in the interior: Hadrianopolis,
Plotinopolis, Trajanopolis, Tempyra, Nicopolis, Beroea, Iamporina, and Petra.
Besides the rivers mentioned in the course of this article, the following occur:
the Bathynias, Pydaras or Atyras, Bargus, Cossinites, Compsatus, and Xerogypsus.
As to the political divisions of. Thrace, Pliny (l.c.) states that it was
divided into fifty strategiae; but he describes Moesia as part of Thrace.
According to Ptolemy (3.11.8, seq.), its districts were Maedica, Dentheletica,
Sardica, Bessica, Drosica, Bennica, Usdicesica, Selletica, Samaica, Coeletica,
Sapaica, Corpiliaca, Caenica, and Astica.
Ammianus (l.c.) states that in the 4th century Thrace was divided into six
provinces, but of these only four belonged to Thrace south of the Haemus: (i.)
Thrace Proper (speciali nomine), including the W. part of the country; principal
cities, Philippopolis and Beroea: (ii.) Haemimontus, i. e. the NE. district;
chief towns, Hadrianopolis and Anchialus: (iii.) Europa, comprehending the SE.
district; cities, Apri and Perinthus (Constantinople, being the capital of the
whole Eastern Empire, was not regarded as belonging to any province): (iv.)
Rhodopa, comprising the SW. region; principal cities, Maximianopolis, Maroneia,
and Aenus.
The principal modern writers in whose works information will be found respecting
Thrace, have been mentioned in the course of this article. Among the other
authors whom the reader may consult, we may name the following: Dapper,
Beschryving der Eilanden in de Archipel, Amst. 1688, of which Latin and French
translations were published at Amsterdam in 1703. Paul Lucas, Voyage dans la
Turquie, l'Asie, &c. 2 vols. Amst. 1720. Choiseul, Voyage Pittoresque dans
l'Empire Ottoman: of this work the first volume was published at Paris in 1782,
the first part of the second not till 1809; the author died in 1817. A new
edition, with. many corrections and additions, was published in 4 vols. 8vo. at
Paris in 1842. This work is devoted chiefly to the antiquities of the country;
of which the plates contained in the illustrative Atlas which accompanies the
book give many representations. Ami Boué‘s, La Turquie d'Europe, 4 vols. 8vo.
Paris, 1840, is the most complete work yet written on the subject; its author, a
man of great scientific acquirements, made two journeys in Turkey, in 1836, when
he was accompanied by M. Viquesnel, and in 1838. The first volume contains an
elaborate account of the physical geography, geology, vegetation, fauna, and
meteorology of the country; but takes little or no notice of its classical
geography. A map is prefixed to it, which was a vast improvement on all that had
preceded it; but it is now in its turn superseded by that of Kiepert, who has
employed in its construction the materials afforded by M. Viquesnel's reports
already referred to. (Comp. Gatterer, De Herodoti ac Thucydidis Thracia,
contained in the Commentationes Soc. Reg. Gottin. vol. iv. pp. 87--112, vol. v.
pp. 57--88. [J.R]
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman
Geography (1854) William Smith, LLD, Ed.