Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in south-east Europe spread over north-eastern Greece, southern Bulgaria, and European Turkey. Thrace borders on three seas the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara.
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 orgnization until the Odris State was founded in the 4th century BC.
The Thracians fell early under the cultural influence of the ancient Greeks, preserving, however, their language and culture. As non-Greek speakers, they were viewed by them as barbarians .
The first Greek colonies in Thrace were founded in the 6th century BC. After it was conquered conquered by the ancient Macedonians in the 4th century, the region was successfully ruled by the Romans, Byzantium, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Turks.
In 1878 most of Thrace was incorporated into the semi-autonomous Ottoman provice of Eastern Rumelia, which united with Bulgaria in 1886. The rest of Thrace was divided between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey at the beginning of the 20th century, following the Balkan Wars and World War I.
Cities of Thrace
Bulgarian
Greek
- Alexandroupolis
- Komotini
- Xanthi
Turkish
Famous Thracians
Orpheus, in Greek legend, was the chief representative of the art of song and playing the lyre, and of great importance in the religious history of Greece.
Spartacus was a Thracian enslaved by the Romans, who led a large slave uprising in what is now Italy in (73 - 71 B.C.). His army of escaped gladiators and slaves defeated several Roman legions in what is known as the Third Servile War.
Maximinus Thrax, Roman emperor (235-238), born in Thrace to a Gothic father and an Alanic mother.
