Greek city of Istros in Thrace
Cast wheel money 13mm (1.29 grams) Struck circa 500 B.C.
Reference: SNG BMC 221.
Wheel of four spokes around central dot.
IΣT.

 A Milesian colony, its large output of silver coiange in the first half of the 4th Century suggests
that it was a palce of commercial importance.

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Ancient Histria or Istros (Ιστριη, Thracian river god , Danube ), was a Greek colony or polis (πολις, city) on the Black Sea coast, established by Milesian settlers to trade with the native Getae . It became the first Greek town on the present day Romanian territory. Scymnus of Chios (ca 110 BC), the Greek geographer and poet, dated it to 630 BC. Eusebius of Caesarea , some centuries later, dated its founding to 657 – 656 BC, at the time of the 33rd Olympic Games . The earliest documented currency on Romanian territory was an 8-gram silver drachma , issued in Histria in the year 480 BC.

Archaeological evidence seems to confirm that all trade with the interior followed the foundation of Histria. Traders reached the interior via Histria and the Danube valley, demonstrated by finds of Attic black-figure pottery , coins, ornamental objects, an Ionian lebes and many fragments of amphoras . Amphoras have been found in great quantity at Histria, some imported but some local. Local pottery was produced following establishment of the colony and certainly before mid-6th century. During the archaic and classical periods, when Histria flourished, it was situated near fertile arable land. It served as a port of trade soon after its establishment, with fishing and agriculture as additional sources of income. By 100 AD, however, fishing was almost the sole remaining source of Istrian revenue.

Around 30 AD, Histria became a Roman town. During the Roman period from the 1st to 3rd centuries AD, temples were built for the Roman gods, besides a public bath and houses for the wealthy. Altogether, it was in continuous existence for some 14 centuries, starting with the Greek period up to the Roman-Byzantine period. The Halmyris bay where was the city founded was closed by sand deposits and access to the Black Sea gradually was cut. Trade continued until the 6th century AD. The invasion of the Avars and the Slavs in the 7th century AD almost entirely destroyed the fortress, and the Istrians dispersed; the name and the city disappeared.

 Geographic setting

Ancient Histria was situated on a peninsula, about 5 kilometres (3 mi) east of the modern Romanian commune of Istria , on the Dobruja coast. The ancient seashore has since been transformed into the western shore of Sinoe Lake , as the Danube's silt deposits formed a shoal which closed off the ancient coastline. The current Sinoe Lake was at the time the open northern bay, while another bay on the southern shore served as the port. The acropolis with sanctuaries was established on the highest point of the coastal plain. The settlement itself, erected in the 6th century, was 1/2 mile (800 meters) to the west of the acropolis. The settlement had stone paved streets and was protected by strong wall. Water was collected along 12.5 mile (20 km) long aqueducts.

 Archaeology

The ruins of the settlement were first identified in 1868 by French archaeologist Ernest Desjardins. Archaeological excavations were started by Vasile Pârvan in 1914, and continued after his death in 1927 by teams of archaeologists led successively by Scarlat and Marcelle Lambrino (1928–1943), Emil Condurachi (1949–1970), Dionisie Pippidi, Petre Alexandrescu and Alexandru Suceveanu. The Histria Museum, founded in 1982, exhibits some of these finds. The excavation project and site also features prominently in the film The Ister .

Thrace (demonym Thracian / ənθreɪʃⁱˈ/; 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 Turkey, it is also called Rumelia . The name comes from the Thracians , an ancient Indo-European people inhabiting Southeastern Europe.

The historical boundaries of Thrace have varied. Noteworthy is the fact that, at an early date, the ancient Greeks employed the term "Thrace" to refer to all of the territory which lay north of Thessaly inhabited by the Thracians , a region which "had no definite boundaries" and to which other regions (like Macedonia and even Scythia ) were added. In one ancient Greek source, the very Earth is divided into "Asia, Libya, Europa and Thracia". As the knowledge of world geography of the Greeks broadened, the term came to be more restricted in its application: Thrace designated the lands bordered by the Danube on the north, by the Euxine Sea (Black Sea) on the east, by northern Macedonia in the south and by the Illyrian lands (i.e. Illyria ) to the west. This largely coincided with the Thracian Odrysian kingdom , whose borders varied in time. During this time, specifically after the Macedonian conquest, the region's old border with Macedonia was shifted from the Struma River to the Mesta River . This usage lasted until the Roman conquest. Henceforth, (classical) Thrace referred only to the tract of land largely covering the same extent of space as the modern geographical region. In its early period, the Roman province of Thrace was of this extent, but after the administrative reforms of the late 3rd century, Thracia's much reduced territory became the six small provinces which constituted the Diocese of Thrace . The medieval Byzantine theme of Thrace contained only what today is Eastern Thrace .

The largest cities of Thrace are: İstanbul (European side), Plovdiv , Burgas , Stara Zagora , Haskovo , Edirne , Çorlu and Tekirdag .

Most of the Bulgarian and Greek population are Christians, while most of the Turkish inhabitants of Thrace are Muslims.

Thrace in ancient Greek mythology

Ancient Greek mythology provides them with a mythical ancestor, named Thrax , son of the war-god Ares, who was said to reside in Thrace. The Thracians appear in Homer 's Iliad as Trojan allies, led by Acamas and Peiros . Later in the Iliad, Rhesus , another Thracian king, makes an appearance. Cisseus , father-in-law to the Trojan elder Antenor , is also given as a Thracian king. Homeric Thrace was vaguely defined, and stretched from the River Axios in the west to the Hellespont and Black Sea in the east. The Catalogue of Ships mentions three separate contingents from Thrace: Thracians led by Acamas and Peiros, from Aenus ; Cicones led by Euphemus , from southern Thrace, near Ismaros ; and from the city of Sestus , on the Thracian (northern) side of the Hellespont, which formed part of the contingent led by Asius . Greek mythology is replete with Thracian kings, including Diomedes , Tereus , Lycurgus , Phineus , Tegyrius , Eumolpus , Polymnestor , Poltys , and Oeagrus (father of Orpheus ). In addition to the tribe that Homer calls Thracians, ancient Thrace was home to numerous other tribes, such as the Edones , Bisaltae , Cicones , and Bistones .

Thrace is also mentioned in Ovid's Metamorphoses in the episode of Philomela , Procne, and Tereus . Tereus, the King of Thrace, lusts after his sister-in-law, Philomela. He kidnaps her, holds her captive, rapes her, and cuts out her tongue. Philomela manages to get free, however. She and her sister, Procne, plot to get revenge, by killing Itys (son of Tereus and Procne) and serving him to his father for dinner. At the end of the myth, all three turn into birds—Procne, a swallow; Philomela, a nightingale; and Tereus, a hoopoe .

 History

Ancient history

Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak  

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.^[5]

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.

Medieval history

By the mid 5th century, as the Roman Empire began to crumble, Thracia fell from the authority of Rome and into the hands of Germanic tribal rulers. With the fall of Rome, Thracia turned into a battleground territory for the better part of the next 1,000 years. The eastern successor of the Roman Empire in the Balkans, the Byzantine Empire , retained control over Thrace until the 8th century when the northern half of the entire region was incorporated into the First Bulgarian Empire . Byzantium regained Thrace in the late 10th century and administered it as a theme , until the Bulgarians regained control of the northern half at the end of the 12th century. Throughout the 13th century and the first half of the 14th century, the region was changing in the hands of the Bulgarian and the Byzantine Empire(excl. Constantinopole). In 1265 the area suffered a Mongol raid from the Golden Horde , led by Nogai Khan . In 1352, the Ottoman Turks conducted their first incursion into the region subduing it completely within a matter of two decades and occupying it for five centuries.

Modern history

With the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Northern Thrace was incorporated into the semi-autonomous Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia , which united with Bulgaria in 1885. The rest of Thrace was divided among Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey at the beginning of the 20th century, following the Balkan Wars , World War I and the Greco-Turkish War . Today Thracian is a strong regional identity in Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and other neighbouring countries.

Famous Thracians and people from Thrace

• Mehmed II Ottoman Sultan, born at Edirne in Thrace; he was the Sultan who conquered Constantinople, marking the end of the Middle Ages.
• Bayezid II Ottoman Sultan
• Spartacus was a Thracian auxiliary soldier in the Roman army who deserted but was captured and then enslaved by the Romans. He led a large slave uprising in what is now Italy in 73–71 BC. His army of escaped gladiators and slaves defeated several Roman legions in what is known as the Third Servile War .
• Belisaurius , one of the most successful Generals of the Roman Empire , was born in the borderlands between Thrace and Illyria .
• In Ancient Greek mythology , Orpheus was the chief representative of the art of song and playing the lyre .
• Democritus was a Greek philosopher and mathematician from Abdera, Thrace (c. 460–370 BC.) His main contribution is the atomic theory , the belief that all matter is made up of various imperishable indivisible elements which he called atoms .
• Herodicus was a Greek physician of the fifth century BC who is considered the founder of sports medicine . He is believed to have been one of Hippocrates' tutors.
• Protagoras was a Greek philosopher from Abdera, Thrace (c. 490–420 BC.) An expert in rhetorics and subjects connected to virtue and political life, often regarded as the first sophist . He is known primarily for three claims (1) that man is the measure of all things, often interpreted as a sort of moral relativism , (2) that he could make the "worse (or weaker) argument appear the better (or stronger)" (see Sophism ) and (3) that one could not tell if the gods existed or not (see Agnosticism ).

• A number of Roman emperors of the 3rd-5th century were of Thraco-Roman backgrounds (Maximinus Thrax, Licinius , Galerius , Aureolus , Leo the Thracian , etc.). These emperors were elevated via a military career, from the condition of common soldiers in one of the Roman legions to the foremost positions of political power .