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Thrace

 
Dictionary: Thrace   (thrās) pronunciation

A region and ancient country of the southeast Balkan Peninsula north of the Aegean Sea. In ancient times it extended as far north as the Danube River. The region was colonized by Greeks in the seventh century B.C. and later passed under the control of Rome, Byzantium, and Ottoman Turkey. Northern Thrace was annexed by Bulgaria in 1885, and eastern Thrace passed to Turkey in 1923.

 

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Ancient and modern region, southeastern Balkan Peninsula. Its borders have varied at different periods. In ancient Greek times it was bounded by the Danube River, the Aegean Sea, and the Black Sea. Modern Thrace corresponds to southern Bulgaria, the Greek province of Thrace, and European Turkey, including the Gallipoli peninsula. The Thracians were Indo-Europeans who settled in the region in the 2nd millennium BC; their culture was noted for its poetry and music, and their soldiers were known as superior fighters. Later colonized by Greeks in the 7th century BC, it became subject to Persia in the 6th century BC and to Macedon in the 4th century BC. Reduced to a Roman province in the 1st century AD, its northern part was annexed to Moesia. It later became part of the Byzantine empire, and in 1453 part of the Ottoman empire. The northern part was annexed by Bulgaria in 1885; the eastern part passed to Turkey in 1923. The region harvests corn, rice, grapes, oysters, and eels; the chief cash crop is Turkish tobacco.

For more information on Thrace, visit Britannica.com.

The boundaries of Thrace were not clearly defined until Roman times, but it was the most northern area of Greece, bounded by the river Ister in the north, the Black Sea and Bosporus in the east, the Propontis, Hellespont, and north Macedonia in the south, and Illyria in the west. The Romans divided it into two parts separated by Mount Haemus and called the northern part Moesia. The Thracians were considered by the Greeks to be a primitive people, and until classical times they lived in villages; urban civilization was developed only under the Romans. The coast was extensively colonized by other Greek states, but their influence did not spread inland. Philip II of Macedon imposed tribute and founded Philippopolis in his own honour, and Thrace became a Macedonian protectorate. The Romans incorporated the part west of the river Hebrus into the province of Macedonia.

 
Thrace (thrās), region, 3,310 sq mi (8,575 sq km), SE Europe, occupying the southeastern tip of the Balkan Peninsula and comprising NE Greece, S Bulgaria, and European Turkey. Its boundaries have varied in different periods. It is washed by the Black Sea in the northeast and by the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean Sea in the south.

Land and Economy

The Rhodope Mts. separate Greek from Bulgarian Thrace, and the Maritsa River (called the Évros in Greece) separates Greek from Turkish Thrace. The chief cities are Istanbul, Edirne (formerly Adrianople), and Gallipoli (all in Turkey); Istanbul (Constantinople) is generally considered a separate entity. With the exception of the mountainous Bulgarian section, Thrace is mainly agricultural, producing tobacco, corn, rice, wheat, silk, cotton, olive oil, and fruit. Natural gas has been discovered in the region.

History

Ancient and Medieval History

At the dawn of history the ancient Thracians-a group of tribes speaking an Indo-European language-extended as far west as the Adriatic Sea, but they were pushed eastward (c.1300 B.C.) by the Illyrians, and in the 5th cent. B.C. they lost their land west of the Struma (Strimón) River to Macedon. In the north, however, Thrace at that period still extended to the Danube. Unlike the Macedonians, the Thracians did not absorb Greek culture, and their tribes formed separate petty kingdoms.

The Thracian Bronze Age was similar to that of Mycenaean Greece, and the Thracians had developed high forms of music and poetry, but their savage warfare led the Greeks to consider them barbarians. Many Greek colonies-e.g., Byzantium on the Hellespont and Tomi (modern Constanţa) on the Black Sea-were founded in Thrace by c.600 B.C. The Greeks exploited Thracian gold and silver mines, and they recruited Thracians for their infantry. Thrace was reduced to vassalage by Persia from c.512 B.C. to 479 B.C., and Persian customs were introduced.

Thrace was united as a kingdom under the chieftain Sitalces, who aided Athens during the Peloponnesian War, but after his death (428 B.C.) the state again broke up. By 342 B.C. all Thrace was held by Philip II of Macedon, and after 323 B.C. most of the country was in the hands of Lysimachus. It fell apart once more after Lysimachus' death (281 B.C.), and it was conquered by the Romans late in the 1st cent. B.C. Emperor Claudius created (A.D. 46) the province of Thrace, comprising the territory south of the Balkans; the remainder was incorporated into Moesia. The chief centers of Roman Thrace were Sardica (modern Sofia), Philippopolis (Plovdiv), and Adrianople (Edirne).

The region benefited greatly from Roman rule, but from the barbarian invasions of the 3d cent. A.D. until modern times it was almost continuously a battleground. The northern section passed (7th cent.) to the Bulgarians; the southern section remained in the Byzantine Empire, but it was largely conquered (13th cent.) by the second Bulgarian empire after a brief period under the Latin Empire of Constantinople. In 1361 the Ottoman Turks took Adrianople, and in 1453, after the fall of Constantinople, all of Thrace fell to the Turks.

Modern History

In 1878, N Thrace was made into the province of Eastern Rumelia; after the annexation (1885) of Eastern Rumelia by Bulgaria (which had gained independence in 1878), the political meaning of the term Thrace became restricted to its southernmost part, which was still in Turkish hands. The terms Eastern Thrace and Western Thrace were used for the territories east and west of the Maritsa River. In the first of the Balkan Wars (1912-13) Turkey ceded to Bulgaria all Western Thrace and the inland half of Eastern Thrace, including Adrianople, but after its defeat in the Second Balkan War (1913), Bulgaria retroceded all Thrace east of the Maritsa to Turkey.

After World War I, Bulgaria ceded the southern part of its share of Thrace to Greece by the Treaty of Neuilly (1919), thus losing its only outlet to the Aegean. By the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) Greece also obtained most of Eastern Thrace except the zone of the Straits and Constantinople; the treaty, however, was superseded by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), which restored to Turkey all Thrace E of the Maritsa. As a result of subsequent population movements, the ethnic composition of the various parts of Thrace now corresponds largely to the national divisions. The Greek-Bulgarian frontier of 1919 and the Turkish-Greek frontier of 1923 were left unchanged after World War II, during which Bulgaria had occupied (1941-44) Greek Thrace.


Wikipedia: Thrace
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The modern boundaries of Thrace in Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey.
The physical-geographical boundaries of Thrace: the Balkan Mountains, the Rhodope Mountains and the Bosphorus.
Classical Thrace and environs, from Alexander G. Findlay's Classical Atlas to Illustrate Ancient Geography, New York, 1849.
The Byzantine thema of Thrace.
Thraciae veteris typvs.

Thrace (Greek: Θράκη, Thráki, Bulgarian: Тракия, Trakiya, Turkish: Trakya) is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded on the north by the Balkan Mountains, on the south by the Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea and on the east by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara.[1][2] The region comprises areas in southeastern Bulgaria (Northern Thrace), northeastern Greece (Western Thrace), and the whole of the European part of Turkey (Eastern Thrace). In Turkey, it is also called Rumeli. The name comes from the Thracians, an ancient Indo-European people inhabiting Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe.

Contents

Geography

Borders

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 Greece (of Thessaly) inhabited by the Thracians[3], a region which "had no definite boundaries" and to which other regions (like Macedonia and even Scythia) were added.[4] In one ancient Greek source, the very Earth is divided into "Asia, Libya, Europa and Thracia"[5]. 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.[6] 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.[7][8] 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 of the six small provinces which constituted the Diocese of Thrace. The medieval Byzantine theme of Thrace contained only what today is Eastern Thrace.

Cities of Thrace

Bulgaria:

  • Ahtopol (Greek: Αγαθούπολη /Agathopolis; Turkish: Ahtabolu)
  • Ardino (Turkish: Eğridere)
  • Asenovgrad (Greek: Στενήμαχος / Stenimachos)
  • Aytos (Greek: Αετός / Aetos (= eagle); Turkish: Aydos)
  • Batak
  • Burgas (Turkish: Burgaz, Greek: Πύργος Pyrgos (= tower))
  • Chirpan
  • Devin
  • Dimitrovgrad
  • Dospat
  • Elhovo (Turkish: Kavaklı)
  • Harmanli
  • Haskovo (Turkish: Hasköy)
  • Hisarya
  • Ivaylovgrad (Greek: Αρτάκη / Artake; Turkish: Ortaköy)
  • Kardzhali (Turkish: Kırcaali)
  • Karlovo (Turkish: Karlıova)
  • Karnobat (Turkish: Karinabat)
  • Kazanlak (Turkish: Kazanlık)
  • Kotel
  • Krichim
  • Krumovgrad (Turkish: Koşukavak)
  • Madan
  • Nova Zagora (Greek: Νέα Ζαγορά / Nea Zagora)
  • Vratza
  • Panagyurishte (Greek: Παναγιούριστα / Panagiourista; Turkish: Otlukköy)
  • Pazardzhik (Turkish: Pazarcık)
  • Peshtera (Greek: Περιστέρα / Peristera (= pigeon))
  • Plovdiv (Turkish: Filibe, Greek: Φιλιππούπολη Philippoupoli (= city of Phillip))
  • Pomorie (Greek: Ανχίαλος / Anchialos)
  • Radnevo
  • Sarnitsa
  • Sliven (Greek: Σήλυμνος / Selymnos; Turkish: İslimye)
  • Smolyan (Turkish: Ahiçelebi veya Paşmaklı)
  • Sofia (ancient Serdica) (Turkish: Sofya)
  • Sozopol (Greek: Σωζόπολη / Sozopoli (= city of Sozon); Turkish: Süzebolu)
  • Stara Zagora (Greek: Παλαιά Ζαγορά / Palaea Zagora; Turkish: Eski Zağra)
  • Topolovgrad (Turkish: Kavaklı, Greek: Καβακλή / Kavakli)
  • Tsarevo (Greek: Βασιλικό / Vassiliko (= royal))
  • Tylis (Greek: Τύλις / Tylis)
  • Zlatograd (Turkish: Darıdere)
  • Pistiros (Greek: Πίστειρος / Pistiros)
  • Seuthopolis (ancient city) (Greek: Σευθούπολις / Sefthoupolis)
  • Yambol (Greek: Υάμπολις / Yampolis; Turkish: Yanbolu)

Greece:

  • Alexandroupoli (Bulgarian: Дедеагач / Dedeagach; Turkish: Dedeağaç)
  • Abdera
  • Didymoteicho (Bulgarian: Димотика / Dimotika; Turkish: Dimetoka)
  • Komotini (Turkish: Gümülcine, Bulgarian: Гюмюрджина / Gyumyurdzhina)
  • Lavara ((Turkish: Saltıköy)
  • Pythio (Turkish: Kuleliburgaz)
  • Maronia
  • Nea Orestiada (Turkish: Kumçiftliği)
  • Samothrace (Turkish: Semadirek or Semendirek; Bulgarian: Самотраки / Samotraki)
  • Sapes (Turkish: Şapçı; Bulgarian: Шапчи)
  • Xanthi (Bulgarian: Ксанти / Ksanti or Скеча / Skecha; Turkish: İskeçe)

Turkey:

  • Çerkezköy
  • Çorlu (Greek: Τυρολόη / Tyroloi; Bulgarian: Чорлу / Chorlu)
  • Demirköy (Bulgarian: Малък Самоков / Malak Samokov)
  • Edirne (Greek: Αδριανούπολις / Adrianoupolis; Bulgarian: Одрин / Odrin) refounded by Hadrian
  • Uzunköprü (Greek: Μακρά Γέφυρα / Makra Gefyra (= long bridge); Bulgarian: Узункьопрю / Uzunkyopryu)
  • Gelibolu (Greek: Καλλίπολις / Κallipolis (= beautiful city); Bulgarian: Галиполи / Galipoli)
  • Keşan (Greek: Κεσσάνη / Kessani; Bulgarian: Кешан / Keshan)
  • Lüleburgaz (Greek: Αρκαδιόπολις / Arkadiopolis (= city of Arcadian); Bulgarian: Люлебургас / Lyuleburgas)
  • Kırklareli (Bulgarian: Лозенград / Lozengrad; Greek: Σαράντα Εκκλησιές , Saranta Ekklisyes(= Forty churches))
  • Tekirdağ (Greek: Ραιδεστός / Raedestos; Bulgarian: Родосто / Rodosto)
  • Istanbul (European side) (Greek: Κωνσταντινούπολις / Konstantinoupolis (= city of Constantine) or Βυζάντιον / Vizantion, the ancient Greek name, named after the founder of the city Vyzantas; Bulgarian: Цариград / Tsarigrad or Константинопол / Konstantinopol or Византион / Vizantion)
  • Sestos

Demographics and Religion

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, another Thracian king makes an appearance, named Rhesus. 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.

History

Ancient history

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 name Thracians and Thrace seems to be an exonym given by the Greeks.[9]

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, the mountainous regions were home to various warlike and ferocious Thracian tribes, while the plains peoples were apparently more peaceable.

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 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 1265 the area suffered a Mongol raid from 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

Proposal to cede Eastern Thrace to Greece during World War I. This photocopy came from a larger, color map.

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 between 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

  • 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. 460–370 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).
  • 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.
  • Maximinus Thrax, Roman emperor (AD 235–238), was born in Thrace or Moesia to a Gothic father and an Alanic mother.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Glen Warren Bowersock, Peter Robert Lamont Brown, Oleg Grabar, Late antiquity, Princeton Univ. Press, 1999, p.726 [1]
  2. ^ Thomas Swinburne Carr, The history and geography of Greece, p.56 [2]]
  3. ^ Thomas Swinburne Carr, The history and geography of Greece, p.56 [3]]
  4. ^ Sir William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman geography, London, 1857, p. 1176 [4]
  5. ^ Sir William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman geography, London, 1857, p. 1176 [5]
  6. ^ Sir William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman geography, London, 1857, p. 1176 [6]
  7. ^ Johann Joachim Eschenburg, Nathan Welby Fiske, Manual of classical literature, p. 20. [7]
  8. ^ Alexander Adam, A summary of geography and history, both ancient and modern, p.344 (full view)
  9. ^ The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 3, Part 2: The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and Other States of the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries BC by John Boardman, I. E. S. Edwards, E. Sollberger, and N. G. L. Hammond ,ISBN-10: 0521227178,1992,page 597: "We have no way of knowing what the Thracians called themselves and if indeed they had a common name...Thus the name of Thracians and that of their country were given by the Greeks to a group of tribes occupying the territory..."

References

  • Hoddinott, R.F., The Thracians, 1981.
  • Ilieva, Sonya, Thracology, 2001

External links


 
 

 

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Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
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Classical Literature Companion. The Concise Oxford Companion to Classical Literature. Copyright © 1993, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
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