Thrace (ancient world)
Thrace, in the ancient world, was the homeland of the Thracians, an Indo-European-speaking people known for their warrior culture. It originally encompassed a broader region across the northern Balkans, extending to the Danube, but was later defined more narrowly to include southeastern Bulgaria and parts of European Turkey, generally bounded by the river Nestus. Notable for its advanced civilization, particularly in southeastern Thrace, the region featured impressive megalithic tombs dating from the 12th to the 6th centuries BC. During its history, Thrace saw extensive Greek colonization along its coastal areas, which led to the establishment of independent city-states, while its inland tribes often resisted Greek influence.
The Odrysian kingdom, particularly under kings such as Teres I and his son Sitalces, achieved considerable power and territorial control in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. However, Thrace underwent various conquests, including annexation by Persia and later colonization and conquest by Macedonian rulers. After the Roman conquest in the 1st century AD, Thrace became a Roman province, with its economy relying heavily on agriculture and mining. Throughout its history, Thrace was marked by its dynamic interactions with neighboring civilizations, including the Greeks, Romans, and various nomadic tribes, shaping its rich cultural and political landscape.
Subject Terms
Thrace (ancient world)
Thrakia
The country of the Thracians, who spoke an Indo-European language and possessed a warlike reputation. At one time peoples and principalities of wholly or partly Thracian stock (including the Getae) extended over most of the northern Balkans as far as the Danube, but in later times Thrace was defined as a more limited territory comprising southeastern Bulgaria and European Turkey, with its western border generally thought of as the river Nestus. Imposing megalithic tombs dating from between the twelfth and sixth centuries BC point to southeastern Thrace as a center of advanced civilization. The southern coastal plain was a major center of horse-breeding.
From the eighth century onward these coastlands, including the Thracian Chersonese (Gallipoli peninsula), were extensively colonized by Greeks, whose settlements became independent city-states. However, the Thracians in the hinterland resisted Greek influence. Herodotus described the huge population of the country, and its `potential power, unrealizable owing to disunity.’ Nevertheless, in the fifth and fourth centuries BC the tribe of the Odrysae, centered on a densely inhabited region along the rivers Tonzus (Tunca) and Hebrus (Maritza), controlled an empire of considerable size. It was developed by King Teres I. In 513 Darius I of Persia, in the course of his expedition into Europe, annexed a large part of Thrace and converted it into a Persian satrapy. After the evacuation of the area by his successor Xerxes I following the Persian Wars (480/479), Teres conquered its eastern region, between Salmydessus (Midye) and the Bosphorus, dying at the age of ninety-two.
The most powerful of the Odrysian kings, however, was his son Sitalces, who ruled at Cypsela (Ipsala) on the Hebrus, reorganized the entire state—describing himself as `King of the Thracians’—and increasingly sought to encroach upon the Aegean coastal cities, to the alarm of the Athenians, who nevertheless concluded a treaty with him (431) in order to bring pressure on Macedonia; though his campaigns against the Macedonians, from 429, did not bring any lasting territorial gain. His son Seuthes I, who succeeded him in 424, was credited by Thucydides with unprecedented financial prosperity. A subsequent Odrysian monarch, Cotys I (c 382–358), made war on Athens; but, according to Plutarch, he expressed a desire to share his bed with Athena.
After his death the kingdom split into three parts, so that although his son Cersobleptes made peace with the Athenians (357), Philip II of Macedonia was able to annex the whole of Thrace (342) and plant Greek and Macedonian colonies. Nevertheless, Lysimachus, one of the successors of Alexander the Great, had to reconquer the country, creating a new capital Lysimachia (308), although he met determined resistance from Seuthes III, who founded the city of Seuthopolis. In 279 Celtic (Gallic) invaders swept through the interior, but toward the end of the century their kingdom was destroyed by the Thracians, whose tribal states, however, were overthrown by Philip V of Macedonia (201–200); and Philip V also occupied the Greek coastal cities. But he was compelled to evacuate these conquests when he had been defeated by the Romans (197), and the invasion of Thrace in the following year by the Seleucid king Antiochus III came to nothing when he, too, succumbed to Roman arms.
After Rome's subsequent destruction of the Macedonian kingdom (168), Thrace west of the Hebrus was incorporated into the puppet zones of Macedonia, and the Odrysian king Cotys II became an ally of the Romans. In 149 a Macedonian pretender, Andriscus, launched his revolt from Thracian territory, which was traversed, however, in 130 by Rome's Via Egnatia, extending between the Adriatic and Byzantium (İstanbul). The tribe of the Bessi (extending eastward from Mount Rhodope) came into conflict with Marcus Licinius Lucullus in 72 and Gaius Octavius (the father of Augustus) in 60, but were later described by Cicero as loyal. Rhescuporis, king of the Sapaei (in the part of the country annexed to Macedonia) sided with Pompey the Great against the victorious Julius Caesar (49–48) and with Brutus and Cassius against the equally successful Antony and Octavian (43–42), but nevertheless survived, and assumed the royal title. His son Cotys became the father-in-law of another Cotys, prince of the Astae (ruling at Bizye [Vize], whose son Rhoemetalces I (c 11 BC–AD 12) ruled a united kingdom of Thrace.
After Rhoemetalces' death the Romans divided his territories into a western and eastern state, and when the last king of the latter, Rhoemetalces III, was murdered in AD 46 the entire country was converted by Claudius into the Roman province of Thrace, with its capital at Perinthus-Heraclea (Marmaraereǧlisi). The country was economically dependent on mining and agriculture. A colony was founded at Apri or Aprus in Caenice (southeastern Thrace), to which others were added by the Flavian dynasty (81–96) at Develtus or Deultum (Develt, at the head of the Gulf of Burgas) and Flaviopolis (perhaps also known as Aphrodisias). Trajan (98–117) and Hadrian (117–38) developed urbanization in various parts of the country. A provincial Thracian assembly is first attested under Antoninus Pius (138–61). Its seat was at Philippopolis (Trimontium, Plovdiv), which Philip the Arab promoted to colonial rank (248) at a time when the region was subject to barbarian invasions.