Bulgaria Venedikov

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T h r a c eIvanVenedikovProfessorNational ArchaeologicalInstituteBulgarianAcademyof Sciences,SofiaFormanya long yearThracewas an unknowncountryassociatedwith allkindsof mysteries ndlegends,whichstudents of ancient Greece were unable to explainthroughGreekhistory, ulture,philosophy, ndreligion.This was quite natural,because he complexstudyofThracianantiquity,known as Thracology,was under-taken n Bulgariaonlyafterthe SecondWorld Warandhasjustrecentlydevelopednmanyothercountries.One of the strangestand mostmysteriousigures nthehistoryof Europe,Orpheus, ame romThrace.Any-one can find his own interestsreflectedn this mysticalpersonage: he historian eesthe earliestThracianking,who united Thraceand Macedoniaunderhis rule;thearchaeologistees one of the ancienthigh priestswhobuilt the templeat Libethra;he musician ees the leg-endary ingerwho charmedwithhis voicenotonlymenand beasts,but also the deitiesof the underworld;hephilosopher ees the ancient hinkerwho reformed heThracianreligion.It is thereforeno accident hat Or-pheus should be the firstpersonlinked with the moststrategic potin Thrace, he Hellespont(Dardanelles),wherehe reignedbythewill of none otherthan thegodof wine and fertility, Dionysos.For, accordingo Dio-dorusSiculus,whenthisgod, accompaniedyhisretinueof silens, satyrs,and maenads,wished to cross fromAsia into Europeat the head of his army,he had toobtain the consent of the ruler of these straits, theThracianking Lycurgus.The king triedto deceivethegod. When Dionysospassed nto Europewith the mae-nads, Lycurgusordered his troops to slay the divinesettlers.However,Charops,atherof Oeagrus ndgrand-father of Orpheus,betrayedhe plan to Dionysos.Thegod then returned o Asia in secret, ed out his army,capturedLycurgus, nd torturedandcrucifiedhim. Hethengave the Hellespont o Charops.The earliestmen-tion of Thrace s to be found in these strange egendsaboutOrpheus ndtheThracians.The ThraciankingRhesos s anotherpersonalitywhois mentioned n the Homericepicsand Greeklegends.

Greeklegends place him at varioustimes aroundthmouthof theStrymon Struma),in thePangaion Pangaeus) Mountains,and in the Rhodopes,along thshores of the Aegean, from where he set out to helTroy n thewaragainst heAchaeans.(The TrojanWawas wagedby Mycenaeand the whole Achaeanworfor masteryover the Hellespont,the narrowsea routhat led from the Aegeanto the broadPontos [BlacSea] and the richesof Colchis. That wasthecountryowhichJasonset sail in his ship the Argo, andOrphejoinedhim attheHellespont.)The Achaeans irst set foot on Thracian and onafter the victoryover Troy. Returningwith his shipand pursuedby the gods, OdysseuspassedthroughImaraon the shoresof the Aegean,andturnedasidetthe land of the Ciconians.Here he sparedthe life oMaron,kingof theCiconians ndhighpriestof ApollIn gratitude,Maronrichlyrewardedhim, giving Odyseusandhis companions even talentsof gold, exquitely worked,a silverkrater,and eleven amphoraeowine. Thewinewas so wonderful hateven whenmixewithtwenty imes theamountof water, t stillpreservitsstrength ndflavor.All these tales belong to an epochin which Thrawasnotyeta reality or Greekwriters.Even ater,however,this countrywas to remain ustas mysterious,bcausethe Greeks were not accustomedo people whdifferedso greatlyand sharply rom them in theirwaof thinking.It wasthestrange eligionof theThraciaaboveall, that impressed he ancientGreekhistoriaWhat was told to them about the Trausoi,a Thracitribe of the southernRhodopes,seemed improbabHerodotuswas astonished hatthe Trausoishould wecome death and accompanyhe dead to their restinplacewithsongsandmerrymaking, hilethey amentover the newbornbecauseof the hard life thatawaitthem. What this historianhad to say about the Thrcians who lived north of the BelasitsaMountains,Macedonia, lso seemedstrange o the Greeks.The fo

Oppositeand cover: Horse, detail of a rhyton.Silver,partly gilt, first half of the4th centuryB.C., Borovo, Rousse district.DistrictMuseum of History,Rousse,Inv. No. II 357


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(Ancient names are within parentheses)

lowing custom was found among them: these peoplewere polygamous, and when a man died, his relativestried to discover which of his wives he had loved themost; they then decked her out in all her finery, took herto the tomb, and there her closest relative sacrificedher to the dead man. Thus she went into the other worldto accompanyher husband.Thracians believed that they could associate with thegods, and sending a messenger to a deity was quite usualamong them. This customwas also recordedof the Getai,

who inhabited both sides of the lower Danube. He-rodotusgave this descriptionof it: "Everyfive years theychoose by lot one among them, whom they send as anemissary to Zalmoxis to tell him of their needs at themoment. They send him thus: several of them, selectedto this end, hold three spears;others seize the messengerby the arms and legs, rock him in the air and cast himonto the spears. If he dies, they believe that the godis favorable to them; if he does not die, they say that heis an evil man, casting the blame on the messenger. After

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This horsemanand the followingfiguresare from a group of harnessplaquesfound at Letnitsa,Lovechdistrict. Silvergilt, 6-5 cm. (23/8-2 in.). 400-350 B.C. District Mu-seum of History,Lovech,Inv.Nos. 589, 581, 505, 587, 590, 583

which theysend another man!"The god Zalmoxis was also strangeto the Greeks. Ac-cording to legend, he had once beenking of theGetai,andtaught them that no one reallydied but all went to aplacewhere men lived eternally, enjoying "every conceivablegood." When Zalmoxis died, he was resurrected threeyears later, and, by returning from the world of thedead, he proved to the Getai through his resurrectionthathe had spoken the truth. Herodotus reporteda morerational explanation of the death of Zalmoxis, whichaccusedhim of having hidden in an underground dwell-ing that had been built beforehand; but he had doubtsabout this explanation, and gave up the attempt to findout if Zalmoxis was man or god. In any case, it is ob-vious that the ideas of the Thracians about the otherworld, in which Zalmoxis had offered them a paradise,were quite differentfrom those of the Greeks, with theirgloomy life of shades beyond the grave. Moreover, He-rodotus asserted that besides Zalmoxis the Thracianshonored only Dionysos, Ares, and Artemis among thegods, yet that when it thundered, the Getai shot arrowsinto the sky, believing that there was no other god buttheirs, Zalmoxis. Thus Herodotus sometimes presentedthe Getai as followers of a primitive monotheism andthe Thraciansasworshipersof many gods.These legends made Thrace seem quite different fromGreece. Indeed, the ancient Greeks knew amazingly lit-tle about Thrace despite their geographical proximity tothat country. For a long time they saw it as the home ofAres, the bloodthirsty god of war, and of the NorthWind, Boreas, who dragged their ships down into thedepths of the sea. Even the sea that washed the easternshores of Thrace was an inhospitable sea, the PontosAxeinos (Axeinos means "unfriendly").The legends about Orpheus, about Rhesos, and aboutMaron, and probably even about Zalmoxis, should bereferred to very great antiquity, to the era of the TrojanWar in the Mycenaean period. Therefore, according tothe Greek legends, the Thracians were alreadyin Thraceatthat time, between 1600 and 1200 B.C. Of course,this

presumption, although confirmed by archaeology, is fafrom solving the great problem of the origin of thThracians, which has recently exercised historians anis being considered in connection with their possibautochthonous tribal development and the great migrtions in the Balkans.Troubled times set in for the whole peninsula at th

end of the Bronze Age. In Greece the Dorian migratioput an end to the Achaean kingdoms. A legend prserved by the Greek historians tells us that this was aeven harder age for the northern part of the BalkaPeninsula, where the Phrygians migrated from Macdonia, around the mouths of the Vardar and Strumrivers, passing through the Dardanelles to settle in thlands of the Hittites, whose kingdom they destroyed. Ithe same period the Carians migrated from the landalong the lower Danube. In antiquity many names amentioned that are common to Thrace and Asia Minoa fact that ancient authors explain by the migration opart of the population of the Balkan Peninsula. Thufor instance, the Mysians inhabited the lands along thDanube, but were also to be found in northwesternAsMinor; the Dardanians inhabited the upper reaches othe Vardar, and also gave their name to the inhabitanof Troy in the Iliad; the Mygdonians are mentioned iMacedonia and also in northwestern Asia. References tthe passing of the Thracians known as the Bithynianfrom the valley of the Strumato the lands south of thBosphorus are still more persistent. Finally, there is mention of a later migration of the Trerians and the Cimmeriansthrough Thrace.After all these migrations, some certain, others morconjectural, calm set in once more in both Greece anThrace. There is no information in this epoch eithaboutGreeceor Thrace. However, somewhat later,whethe Greeks settled along the Thracian coast and colonized it, we learn of individual names, also legendarJust as Maroneia bore the name of the legendary Marowhom Odysseus visited, so, according to Strabo, Mesembria (modern Nessebur) was earliercalled Menebr


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Fighting ears

("the city of Mena") because its founder was calledMena, while bria means "city" in Thracian; thus thecityof Selya,on the northernshore of the Propontis (Seaof Marmara), was called Selymbria, while Ainos wasonce called Poltymbria. It is debatable how far thesestatements can be believed, although they are repeatedin the works of several authorsgoing back to Herodotus,and some of them are supported by inscriptions. In anycase, if we acceptthem as true, they give us a little infor-mation about the people who lived in the period afterthe ruin of the Achaean kingdoms and after the migra-tions. Trustworthy information about Thrace begins toappear much later, when, thanks to colonization, theGreeks began to come into direct contactwith the Thra-cians. From that time on we are well informed aboutThracian society, Thracian political history, and theThracianwayof life.

Although Herodotus noted that the Thracians werethe most numerous people after the Indians, the Greekcolonists were able to settle along the Thracian coast be-cause they found the Thracians divided up into manytribes. (The numerous small tribes of southwesternThrace had joined earlier in a tribal state, although itsterritorywas small.) The king headed the tribe, and thetribal aristocracywas grouped around him. For a longtime the king was also the high priest, and, in the daysof Orpheus and Maron, possessed both religious andpolitical power. At first the Thracianshad no cities. Lifewas lived in the villages and in the fortified residencesof the chieftains. The population was organized in vil-lage communities, which were chiefly engaged in stock-breeding and to a limited extent in farming, and forcenturies led rather isolated lives in certain regions ofThrace.

The polygamous Thracianfamily was the basis of thecommunity.A man had manywives, who were describedby Greek authors as living a hard life. Women did thework in Thrace, both at home and in the fields. Theyreared children and, moreover, according to almost allGreek and Roman writers, were the servants of their

menfolk. A man usually bought his wife from her par-ents. Before marriageyoung women had free intercoursewith the men of their choice, but after marriage theywere strictly guarded. According to Herodotus, Thra-cian men considered it shameful to till the land, andtheir noblest occupation was to go to war. They werealso tattooed, a custom that clearly distinguished thearistocracyfrom the peasantry. Parents often sold theirchildren as slaves. Herodotus gave the same informationin greater detail about the Lydians and the Carians, in-habitants of Asia Minor. It is hard to say how far thenegative traits of this way of life, so different from thatof the Greeks, were overemphasized in the Greeksources. Nonetheless, in many respects Thracian societyresembled that of the tribes and peoples of Asia Minor,ratherthan that of the Greeks, particularlyin its distinc-tive features.

The Thracians did indeed inhabit a vast territory.Some of them made their way onto the islands of theAegean Sea, while others inhabited present-daysouthernand eastern Macedonia, and also Pieria, a region ofThessaly. North of the Danube the population up to theCarpathians was Thracian, or akin to the Thracians,while there were Thracians living in the lands as farnortheast as the Dnieper. Finally, to the southeast, inAsia Minor, Bithynia was also a Thracian region. Thisis why Greek colonization along the Thracian coast andin Asia Minor resulted not only in a breaking of tiesbetween Asia Minor and Thrace, but also in detachingthe Thracians of Asia Minor from those of Europe.More than fifty names of various tribes were knownin Europe, among them the Thynians in the StrandjaMountains; the Odrysians in the valley of the Maritsa,where Edirne (Hadrianopolis) now stands, and in theeasternRhodopes; the Bessoi in the southern regions ofthe Rhodopes; the Edonians, Bisaltians, and Maidoialong the Struma. There is less information about thetribes north of the Balkan range, where the Getai hadsettled on both banks of the Danube; while the Mysianslived between them and the Triballoi, who settled in the

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Woman with a three-headedsnake

valley of the Moravain northwestern Thrace.The important events in the lives of the Thraciantribes from the end of the seventh to the last decades ofthe fifth centuries B.C. were causedby the advance of thesouthern peoples to the north. The Greeks first begancolonizing the Thracian coast in the second half of theseventh centuryB.C. The shores of Aegean Thrace wereoccupied chiefly by colonists from Naxos and Chalcidice,after they had taken the islands of Thasos and Samo-thrace; while the Greek metropolises of Asia Minorwere more active in colonizing the coast of the Propontisand the Pontos. Miletus was the most active of thecities of Asia Minor. In the light of the information wehave regarding this colonization, it appears that theGreeks rarely settled in Thrace by peaceful means, thecolonies they founded being several times destroyedandrebuilt.

Cities appearedalong the Aegean coast: Amphipolis,Maroneia, Abdera, Ainos, and the little towns on theThracian Chersonese (Gallipoli Peninsula). Along thePropontis were Perinthus, Selymbria, and Byzantium,and along the Pontos, Apollonia Pontica (Sozopol),Messembria,Odessos (Varna), Dionysopolis (Balchik),Kallatis (Mangalia), Histria (Istria), and many othersmaller colonies, of which there were more than thirty,thatplayed a more insignificantrole.Colonization was still expanding when another mis-fortune befell Thrace. The Persians, who had graduallyconquered the kingdoms of the Lydians, Carians, andPhrygians in Asia Minor, struck at the Greek cities inthis area and in 512 B.C. crossed over into Europe. Thecampaign that Darius undertook against the Scythianswas aimed at placing Persian troops at their rear. Thehuge army of Darius crossed eastern Thrace and theDanube and advanced toward Scythia. Here, after thedefeat of the Persians, the Thracians followed at theirheels, reachingas far as the Thracian Chersonese. Some-what later, while Darius was still on the Persian throne,the Persiansmade for Aegean Thrace. They reached theMaritsa River, at the mouth of which they had earlier

built Doriskos, a large fort; they then crossed the riveand captured the lands as far as the Mesta. From herein the reign of Xerxes, they headed for the Strumacrossed the river, conquered the Thracians of that region, and, taking all the conquered tribes with themthey invaded Greecethrough southernMacedonia. Thusin the course of more than thirty years, the southerregions of Thrace were occupied by the Persians, whoplaced their military administration in the cities oDoriskos and Ainos, where it remained until 476 B.C.After their defeat the Persians withdrew to Asia, buthe Greek colonists remained along the Thracian coasWe do not know whether it was before the withdrawaof the Persians or immediately after it that, in the reigof Teres, the Odrysianswent to the regions inhabited bthe Thynians and neighboring small tribes and conquered them. The Getai along the lower Danube alsjoined his kingdom after this, but no one knows howthey and the Bessoi, the western neighbors of the Odrysians, came to be included in the Odrysiankingdom. Wedo know that Teres improved his relations with the Scythian ruler Ariapites by giving Ariapites one of hidaughtersfor a wife.Athens, which headed the Greek world after thGreco-PersianWars, appears to have been favorable tthe founding of the Odrysian kingdom, in which shsaw a strong ally should the Persians again try to crosinto Europe. The kingdom lay along the shores of thPropontis and the Black Sea up to the lower Danube. Ithe last years of the reign of Teres, many of the Greecities between the mouths of the Mesta and the Maritswhich had paid tribute to the Athenian Naval Leaguas allies of the Athenians, reduced or absolutely stoppepayment of their tribute. It is thought that this occurrebecausethey now depended on Teres, to whom they hato pay a tax. For this reason, and so not to antagonizTeres, Athens consented to these payments being reduced or stopped.Sitalkes, the son of Teres, extended the lands of thOdrysian kingdom to the west, as far as the uppe


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Horsemanbrandishinga spear

reaches of the Struma. From here, after signing an al-liance with Athens, he attackedMacedonia, but, receiv-ing no aid from Athens, he was forced to put an endto his campaign.The Odrysian kingdom achieved great prosperity,andfrom a mention by Thucydides it is apparentthat in thereign of Seuthes I, who followed Sitalkes on the throne,the annual revenue reached the sum of 400 talents, paidin gold and silver, at a time when taxes were the highest.Thucydides added that as much again was received in theform of gifts, not counting among them colored andplain fabrics and other articles. For, according to thesame author,gifts were offered not only to the king, butalso to the governors and the Odrysiannobles. In generalthis was a Thracian custom, but in contrast to the Per-sians,the Odrysiansmade full use of it.It appears that in the reign of Seuthes, who came tothe throne in 424 B.C., a change took place for the firsttime in the policy of friendship with Athens. Informa-tion of doubtful reliability indicates that Seuthes I madewar on the Athenian colonies in the Thracian Cherson-ese. On the other hand, it is also known that in the reignof Seuthes the Greek cities along the Aegean coast con-tinued to pay taxes to the Odrysianking. In the last yearsof the reign of Seuthes, the Odrysian kingdom began todecline rapidly.The reigns of the three kings Teres, Sitalkes, andSeuthes I were a comparativelycalm period of progress.In this period, besides the kings who ruled the Odry-sian kingdom, sons and grandsons of Teres were ap-pointed as governors of various parts of the kingdom.One of them was Sparadokos,the elder brotherof Sital-kes. Another grandson of Teres, a certain Maisades,ruled the Thynians and the neighboring tribes betweenthe Maritsa, the Black Sea, and the Propontis. At thattime the Odrysian kingdom began to disintegrate. TheGreek historian Xenophon, arriving at the Propontisat the head of his army upon his return from the cam-paign against the Persians in 400 B.C., was summonedby Seuthes II, the son of Maisades, to try to regain the

land formerly ruled by his father. With the aid ofXenophon's army, Seuthes II dealt with the Thyniansand the other rebellious tribes and reestablished hisrule. (Seuthes explained that he had grown up in thepalace of Medokos; therefore it can be deduced that therebellion of the Thynians occurredin the reign of Medo-kos and after the death of Seuthes I.) Thus it soonbecame necessary for Athens, and particularly forThrasyboulos, who, while in charge of the Athenianfleet, was sent to the Thracian Chersonese in 389 B.C.on the way to Byzantium, to reconcile Medokos andSeuthes II.

In 383 B.C. an energetic ruler, Kotys I, probably theson of Seuthes II, seems to have restored the unity ofthe Odrysiankingdom. In the course of his reign, whichlasted until 359 B.C., he tried to seize the ThracianChersonese, and had some measure of success; but wasunable to accomplish his plan, being killed by two in-habitants of Ainos. The death of Kotys, about whomancient authors tell many anecdotes, describing him as avery artful and at the same time as an irascible and hys-terical man, did not put an end to the war with Athensfor the Thracian Chersonese. Kotys had availed himselfof the services of the mercenary armies of two Greekgenerals, Iphikratesand Charidemos,whom he had mar-ried to his daughters. One of them, Charidemos, con-tinued his operations under Kersobleptes, who followedKotys on the throne. However, the disagreements withAmadokos, the heir of Medokos, led once more to thedisintegration of the Odrysiankingdom at a most criticalmoment, when an extremely enterprising ruler, Philip II,came to the throne in Macedonia. He at once seizedAmphipolis, crossed the Struma, and settled at the spotknown as Crenides. Here the inhabitants of Thasos hadjust founded a colony, which Philip reorganized as aMacedonian city, calling it Philippi. Philip II took ad-vantage of the strife that had broken out in the kingdomof the Odrysians and advanced eastward, first into thelands of the independent Thracian tribes, and then intothe lands of the Odrysians. In the middle of the fourth

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Horseman attackedby a bear

centuryB.C., Amadokos was forced to recognize the ruleof the Macedonians, and, after him, Kersobleptes wasdefeated.The Triballoi, who took advantageof the fighting be-tween the Odrysians and the Macedonians, expandedto the east between the Danube and the Balkan Range,

seizing the lands of the Odrysians and conquering allof southern Thrace almost as far as the Balkan Range.One of the kings of the Getai, a certain Kotylas, gavehis daughteras a peace hostage to be Philip's wife. How-ever, it was Philip's son, Alexander the Great, who dealtwith the Triballoi, who had remained free. After thereign of Alexander, when the kingdom of Macedonia,which had been extended to an extraordinary degree,was divided up, and fell apart, Thrace remained underthe rule of his general Lysimachus, and a period in thedevelopment of the country came to an end.We have a large amount of information on thisperiod, but it sheds light only on some of the eventsin Thrace, those concerning the country's southern re-gions in which the Greeks had great political andeconomic interests. For the Greek authors, events thatdirectlyor indirectly affected the Greeks and their colon-ies in Thrace were of interest; that is why the internalrelations in Thrace were not fully elucidated. It is hardto say what the relations were between the individualThracian tribes within the Odrysian kingdom, and howthey changed during the period of its power, and whenthe kingdom declined.It would appear that the Odrysian kings were in thehabit of placing their own trustedchieftains at the headsof the individual Thraciantribes,while the Macedonianstried to depend on the lesser dynasts. Because of this,rulers on both sides of the Balkan Range formed alli-ances in the time of Lysimachus.Seuthes III, who ruledthe Valley of Roses, formed one of them, while Dromi-chaites, ruler of the Getai, headed another. There weremajor clashes between the alliances and Lysimachus inwhich neither he nor the Thraciansgot the upper hand.Lysimachus's further struggles to master Macedonia,

and after that Asia Minor, where he died, reduced thpowers of resistance of all the peoples of the BalkaPeninsula and opened the gates to the invasions of thCelts from central Europe.After invading Macedonia and Thessaly, the Celtheaded for Thrace, where a considerable number othem settled and founded a kingdom. While some werbusy plundering and looting Thrace, without sparinthe Greek colonies, another group crossed the wholof Thrace and settled in Asia Minor, where Galatia wafounded on the former territory of Phrygia. In Thracthe kingdom of the Celts lasted from only 279 to 216B.C., when it was finally swept away by a rebellion othe Thracians, who received help from MacedoniaHowever, liberation from Celtic rule did not lead tunion, but to the complete splitting up of Thrace.

Just when the Celtic rule was overthrown in Thracea new conqueror appeared in the westernmost regionof the Balkan Peninsula, slowly advancing from thshores of Albania to the interior. In 168 B.C. thRomans were already masters of both Macedonia anGreece, and were gradually imposing their rule on thGreek colonies in Thrace and on Thrace herself. Thefound the Odrysian kingdom weakened and ruinedand, in the course of the first century B.C., Rome exploited this situation in order to impose her rule on thneighboring tribes. Actually, however, this entire periowas spent mainly in fighting with Macedonia and afterward, when the kingdom had become a Roman provincein fighting between the Bessoi and the Odrysians. Athe end of this period, around 56 to 54 B.C., the Getaorganized a powerful military and political alliance under Burebista. It was short-lived, however, and Romsubjected the northwestern regions of Thrace. Thprovince of Moesia was formed there, while the southeastern parts of the country became a Roman protectoate ruled by the Odrysian kings. The complicated internecine strife that Rome created in Thrace paved thway for the gradual and imperceptible turning of thOdrysian kingdom into a new province- Thracia.


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Nereid (sea nymph)ridinga hippocampOpposite: Goat, detailof a rhytonfromPanagyurishte(seecolor plate 12)

From the first century A.D. the fate of the numerousThracian people was decided. The Roman Empire builtcities in the provinces it had founded, cities in whichthe crafts flourished, in which there was a rich citizenclass, possessing considerable estates, and in whichthere were paved roads and temples. In most cases theRoman rulers organized life in those centers thatformerly had had a more or less urban character. Weknow, for instance, that as early as the oldest Thraciankings certain settlements had developed to the size ofcities. Demosthenes mentioned several of them, such asKabyle (near Yambol), Masteyra (near the village ofMladenovo, Haskovo district), and Drongilion. In addi-tion, we also know Helis was the name of the city thatwas the residence of the Getai rulers. The most import-ant Thracian city of the Hellenistic period discoveredand excavated so far is Seuthopolis, near Kazanluk, onthe Toundzha River. The conquest of Thrace by theMacedonian kings resulted in the building of manycities in the country, such as Philippi, in the southernregions, and Philippopolis, which in their language theThracians called Poulpoudeva (modern Plovdiv), theThracianname being a translationof the Greek name andmeaning "Philip's City." There was also Beroe (nowStara Zagora). It is probable that many more settle-ments like Serdica (modern Sofia) appearedstill earlier,and that the Romans found in them an already fairlywell developed city life. In any case, the building ofroads and the turning of the cities into important trade,administrative, military, and cultural centers led to theurbanizationof a considerablepart of the peasant popu-lation of Thrace. The officers, the army, and the mili-taryofficialsbrought from other countries, or from Italyherself, the veterans who colonized Moesia and Thracia,the officials, merchants, and craftsmen who werebrought there played a large part in creating this urbanlife.

As everywhere else, the rapid transformation of lifein the provinces created stability for the Roman ruleand respect for its government. The Roman legionaries

who manned the frontiers, the First Italic, the FifthMacedonian, and the Seventh Claudian legions, as wellas the numerous auxiliary troops organized in varioussquadrons and cohorts, provided a strong defense forThrace and a peaceful life, which it had not known inearlier times. There were, of course, many invasions,but the Roman Empire was strong enough to over-come them and turn them into brief and temporarymis-fortunes. It was power that provided all the necessaryconditions for the prosperity of the two provinces,which reached its zenith in the period from the middleof the second to the middle of the third centuries A.D.By that time Moesia was no longer a frontier region.Divided into two parts, Upper and Lower Moesia, ithad become an inner region of the Roman Empire afterthe conquest of Dacia by the Emperor Trajan. TheSeveran period (the turn of the second and third cen-turies A.D.) was one of the greatest prosperity forRomanThrace.

The Roman way of life transplanted in Thrace didmuch for the gradual Romanization of its people; how-ever, Greek was still the official language in the greaterpart of the country. Greek had a long history in Thrace,since as early as the time of the Macedonians, and evenearlier, it had come to the fore as an internationallanguage. The few official inscriptions of the Thraciankings were written in Greek. The oldest of them isthe inscription settling matters between the followersof Seuthes III, who ruled at Seuthopolis, and the rulerof Kabyle. Far more inscriptions of the last Thraciankings have come down to us, however, and they, too,are written in Greek, even at a time when Thrace wasalreadya Roman protectorate.The coins of the Thraciankings also had Greekinscriptions.In the fourth century A.D. Thrace fell under therule of the emperorsof the EasternRoman Empire, thecapital of which, Byzantium (Constantinople), was ac-tually one of the cities of Thrace. When the RomanEmpire disintegrated, a new period began, a period nottouched upon in our exhibition.

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