Thrace Thrace Vertebrate Category="Ancient Roman provinces"Category="History of Bulgaria"Category="History of Greece"Category="Thracians"Thrace (Greek Θρᾴκη Thrákē, Bulgarian Тракия Trakija, Turkish Trakya) is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe spread over southern Bulgaria, northeastern Greece, and European Turkey. Thrace borders on three seas: the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara.

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History

The indigenous population of Thrace was an Indo-European people called Thracians. 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.

The Thracians fell early under the cultural influence of the ancient Greeks, preserving till a much later time, however, their language and culture. It also appears from mythological accounts that the Thracians influenced Greek culture from a very early period, with some Thracians even appearing as culture-bearers in some myths. But as non-Greek speakers, they were viewed by the Greeks as barbarians. The first Greek colonies in Thrace were founded in the 6th century BC.

Thrace south of the Danube (except for the land of the Bessi) was ruled for nearly half a century by the Persians under Darius the Great who conducted an expedition into the region from 513 BC to 512 BC.

The region was conquered by Philip II of Macedon in the 4th century BC and was ruled by the kingdom of Macedon for a century and a half.

In 279 BC, Celts advanced into Macedonia, Greece and Thrace. They were soon forced out of Macedonia and Greece, but they remained in Thrace until the end of the century. From Thrace, three Celtic tribes advanced into Anatolia and formed a new kingdom called Galatia.

Following the Third Macedonian War, Thracia came to acknowledge Roman authority. The client state of Thracia was comprised of several different tribes.

After Roimitalkes III of the Thracian Kingdom of Sapes was murdered in AD 46, the Roman client state was abolished and direct Roman rule began; however, Romanization was not attempted in the Roman province of Thracia. It is considered that most of the Thracians were Hellenized in these times.

The successor of the Roman Empire in the Balkans, the Byzantine Empire, retained control over Thrace until the beginning of the 9th century when most of the region was incorporated into Bulgaria. Byzantium regained Thrace in 972 only to lose it again to the Bulgarians at the end of the 12th century. Throughout the 13th century and the first half of the 14th century, the region oscillated between Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire. In 1352, the Ottoman Turks conducted their first incursion into the region subduing it completely within a matter of two decades and ruling over it for five centuries.

In 1878, most of Thrace was incorporated into the semi-autonomous Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia, which united with Bulgaria in 1885. The rest of Thrace was divided between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey at the beginning of the 20th century, following the Balkan Wars, World War I and the Greco-Turkish War.

Cities of Thrace

Bulgarian

Greek

Turkish

Edirne ("Adrianople") refounded by Hadrian, site of numerous battles, notably in 378 and 1205
Kırklareli
Tekirdağ
İstanbul (European side)
Çanakkale (Dardanelles)

Famous Thracians

Some of these individuals were ethnically Thracian, while others only geographically Thracian.

In Greek legend, Orpheus was the chief representative of the art of song and playing the Lyre, and of great importance in the religious history of Greece.
Democritus was a Greek philosopher and mathematician from Abdera, Thrace (c. 460 BC- 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 Thracian physician of the fifth century BC who is considered the founder of Sports medicine. He is believed to have been one of Hippocrates' tutors.
Spartacus was a Thracian enslaved by the Romans who led a large Slave uprising in what is now Italy in 73 BC-71 BC. His army of escaped gladiators and slaves defeated several Roman legions in what is known as the Third Servile War.
Maximinus Thrax, Roman Emperor (AD 235-238), was born in Thrace or Moesia to a Gothic father and an Alanic mother.

Sources

Hoddinott, R.F., The Thracians, 1981.