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Founding
Founding of Odrysian kingdom
union of Thracian tribes and kingdoms (5th century BC to 1st century AD)
- 460 BCE
- Europe
Founding
union of Thracian tribes and kingdoms (5th century BC to 1st century AD)
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
The Odrysian kingdom (; Ancient Greek: Βασίλειον Ὀδρυσῶν) was an ancient Thracian state that thrived between the early 5th century BC and the early 3rd / late 1st century BC. Located in present-day Bulgaria, southeastern Romania (Northern Dobruja), northern Greece and European Turkey, it was a tribal amalgam dominated by the Odrysians that was the first large political entity to develop in the eastern Balkans. Before the foundation of Seuthopolis in the late 4th century it had no fixed capital.
The Odrysian kingdom was founded by king Teres I, exploiting the collapse of the Persian presence in Europe due to failed invasion of Greece in 480–79. Teres and his son Sitalces pursued a policy of expansion, making the kingdom one of the most powerful of its time. Throughout much of its early history it remained an ally of Athens and even joined the Peloponnesian War on its side. By 400 BC the state showed the first signs of fatigue, although the skilled Cotys I initiated a brief renaissance that lasted until his murder in 360 BC.
Afterwards the kingdom disintegrated: southern and central Thrace were divided among three Odrysian kings, while the northeast came under the dominion of the kingdom of the Getae. The three Odrysian kingdoms were eventually conquered by the rising kingdom of Macedon under Philip II in 340 BC. A much smaller Odrysian state was revived in around 330 BC by Seuthes III, who founded a new capital named Seuthopolis that functioned until the second quarter of the 3rd century BC. After that there is little conclusive evidence for the persistence of an Odrysian state, with the exception of a dubious Odrysian king fighting in the Third Macedonian War named Cotys. The Odrysian kingdom was attacked by the Roman Republic in the late 1st century BC, when the Odrysian heartlands eventually became known as the Sapaean kingdom, a client state of the Roman Republic, which was finally abolished and converted into a Roman province of Thracia in 45-46 AD.
Since the ancient Thracians lacked an indigenous writing tradition, the most important sources for the reconstruction of their history are archaeological remains, coins as well as accounts of ancient Greek historians. Said historians considered the Thracians to be a numerous people and their country, Thrace, to be of barely comprehensible size, so large that Andron of Halicarnassus (4th century BC) thought of it as a continent of its own. While the boundaries of Thrace fluctuated throughout history, Thrace can be divided in a northern and a southern half, which were also culturally different. The border between the two halves has been identified as the Haemus Mountains or the Danube slightly further north. Southern Thrace covered the fertile valley between the Haemus and the Rhodopes, the Strandzha and the shores of the Propontis and the Aegean and Black Seas. The western boundary was marked by the Strymon and the upper Morava. Northern Thrace was defined by the Danube, the Carpathians and the adjacent western tip of the Pontic–Caspian steppe, thus enclosing parts of the territory now comprising modern Romania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine. Thrace also extended into what is now northwestern Turkey both west and east (Bithynia, Mysia) of the Propontis.
Thracians had already settled in the 2nd millennium BCE, and were featured in the epics of Homer. Occasional references to them appear in the following centuries, although it was not until the 5th century when Greek literature developed an interest in discussing non-Greeks more extensively. In the 7th and 6th centuries, much of the Thracian coast was settled by Greek colonists who founded numerous towns, like Thasos, Byzantion or Odessos. The political history of the Thracian tribes of this age is virtually unknown, although it is recorded that in the late 6th century, Athenian settlers interacted with a "king of Thrace" (and possible predecessor of the Odrysian kings?) residing north of the Chersonese peninsula. The absence of imported artefacts confirms that inland Thrace north of the Rhodopes remained largely isolated from the Aegean trade until the late 6th century.
In around 513 BC, an army of the mighty Persian dynasty of the Achaemenids crossed the Bosphorus, after already having subdued the Thracians of Bithynia thirty years earlier. King Darius I's goal was a punitive expedition against the Scythians at the northern shores of the Black Sea. Most eastern Thracian tribes submitted peacefully, except of the Getae, who were defeated. More expeditions under the generals Megabazus and Mardonius as well as king Xerxes I followed, even though they only managed to secure the Aegean coast.
It seems most likely that the Achaemenids did not establish a satrapy (provincial administration) in Thrace, even though the historian Herodotus claimed that the subdued regions had to pay taxes. As a matter of fact, there is no evidence for important administrative centers. Instead, Persian authority was merely exercised through a couple of garrisoned forts, most importantly those of Doriskos and Eion. Hence, the vast majority of Thrace remained unaffected by the Persian presence. After the failed invasion of Greece in 480-79, the Persian foothold in Europe collapsed. By around 450, Persian authority in Europe, including Thrace, had vanished entirely.
Although the Persian presence in Thrace was short-lived, it probably stimulated trade and first state formations among the Thracians. Mintings of Thracian coins started around 500 and may be an indicator for a variety of early tribal kingdoms. It has been suggested that the Odrysian kingdom might have had its origins in this period, even though the name of the Odrysians is notably absent from the numismatic evidence. The Odrysians eventually stepped into the light of history in the aftermath of the Persian failure in Greece, when they were mentioned by Herodotus, but without any further details. The Odrysians had their core territory in the valleys of the Hebros river and its tributaries Tonzos and Arda. Like other Thracian polities, the Odrysian tribal kingdom attempted to fill the vacuum left by the Persian retreat.
The first known Odrysian king was the expansionist Teres I, who is claimed by Thucydides to have been the first Odrysian king altogether. Writing in the late 5th century BC, he wrote that Teres "was the first powerful king of the Odrysae" and that he "was the first founder of the great Odrysian empire, which he extended over a large part of Thrace, although many of the Thracian tribes are still independent." Said independent tribes consisted of Thracians living along parts of the Aegean coast and in parts of the Rhodope mountains and as well as the powerful Triballi around the Haemus.
Teres most likely came to dominate central Thrace soon after 480 BC. Building his realm on a privileged warrior aristocracy, he and his son Sitalces expanded the realm from the Danube in the north to the outskirts of Abdera at the Aegean Sea. He also expanded to eastern Thrace, although he suffered a setback at the hands of the Thynoi. In the north-east, he cemented the position of his realm by allying himself with the kingdom of Scythia under king Ariapeithes, who married Teres' daughter. In conclusion, the Odrysians were the first to supersede the Thracian tribal system and establish a large state in the eastern Balkans.
Around the middle of the 5th century, when Sitalces had not yet succeeded his father, the Odrysians intervened in a Scythian civil war, seemingly on the side of the dethroned king Scylas against Octamasadas, who was a son of Ariapeithes and Teres' sister. When the two armies met at the Danube, however, Sitalces simply agreed to hand over Scylas (who was killed on the spot) for an unnamed brother of his who resided among the Scythians. Another important event may have happened further east, in the Bosporan Kingdom, when a Thracian named Spartokos seized power in around 438. It is not unlikely that he was of Odrysian descent and that his takeover was instigated by the Odrysian royal house, although this must remain speculation.
Archaeological evidence confirms that by the middle of the 5th century BC, a new and powerful elite had emerged that accumulated a wealth of precious artifacts of both local and regional origin. Burial practices were changing after the Persian withdrawal and a new type of elite burial emerged in central Thrace in the form of tombs with ashlar masonry, sometimes with stone sarcophagi. The tomb of Rouets from the late 5th century even contained traces of wall paintings. The earliest of these new elite tombs can be found in the necropolis of Duvanli, with the oldest tombs dating to the mid-5th century. Their inventory is exceptional not only by contemporary Thracian, but even Mediterranean standards. According to the archaeologist Tonkova they contained "splendid sets of head and body ornaments, consisting of numerous hoop or boat-shaped earrings, pendants for earrings, a necklace, a torque, bracelets, finger-rings, chains with pendants and fibulae, and pectorals." Most Thracian elite tombs have been identified as warrior burials as they contained weapons and gold pectorals. Two burials from Svetitsa (second half of the 5th century BC) and Dalakova (early 4th century BC) also contained finely crafted and rather impressive gold funeral masks.
Teres, who is claimed to have lived 92 years, had died by the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431. His successor was his son Sitalces, whose reign is mostly known thanks to the account of Thucydides. Before the war he is known to have campaigned against the Paeonians in the west, subjugating some of the tribes living along the upper reaches of the Strymon. Now, his influence extended over much of Bulgaria, Greek and Turkish Thrace and also parts of southeastern Romania: from the Strymon and Iskar rivers in the west to the Black Sea and the Propontis in the east as well as the Haemus and the mouth of the Danube (which was ruled by the tributary Getae) in the north. According to Thucydides, the Odrysian state was "very powerful, and in revenue and general prosperity exceeded all the nations of Europe which lie between the Ionian Sea and the Euxine [Black Sea]."
In the south, much of coastal Thrace had passed under the rule of Athens, making them direct neighbours of the Odrysians. The Athenians had already taken some interest in the Thracian interior before 431, but it was in said year when they concluded an alliance with Sitalces against Perdiccas II of Macedon in the west. This pact was cemented by a dynastic marriage, as Sitalces would marry the sister of the Athenian ambassador, Nymphodoros of Abdera. Sitalces' son Sadokos was sent to Athens and was granted the Athenian citizenship. Sitalces, apparently an experienced leader with political acumen, would prove his commitment to the alliance in the next year, when he arrested a Peloponnesian embassy that tried to persuade him to join the Spartan side and handed it over to Athens.
At the turn of the year 428, Sitalces raised a massive, multi-ethnic army to march against Macedon and insurgents on the Chalkidiki peninsula. His army consisted of a variety of Thracians (some, like those of the Rhodopes, were independent, but joined nonetheless), Getae and some Paeonians. While Sitalces managed to subjugate some of the Thracian tribes of the lower Strymon, his invasion of eastern Macedon and the Chalkidiki was less successful, as his opponents avoided open combat and simply hid behind their walls. The Odrysian army had not the means to storm them, plus winter was approaching and food supplies were running out. Furthermore, the Athenian force that was promised to them never arrived, perhaps because Athens feared the might of the unleashed Thracian kingdom. After failed negotiations with Perdiccas II, Sitalces retreated back home. Thus, after only 30 days the Odrysian invasion had come to an end.
Sitalces was succeeded in 424 by his nephew Seuthes I after the former was killed while campaigning against the Triballi, who resided north of the western Haemus. Throughout his reign, the Odrysians did not intervene in coastal Thrace, which had now become a contested battlefield between Athens and Sparta. Athens for its part began to make heavy use of Thracian mercenaries acting as light skirmishers, the peltasts. Due to their success the Greeks soon began to raise peltast units of their own. Still, the Athenians eventually lost the Peleponnesian war and, for a few years at least, much of their influence in the northern Aegean. Seuthes I was eventually succeeded by Amadocus I, also known as Medokos, in around 410 or 405 BC.
By the turn of the 4th century the Odrysian kingdom showed its tendency towards fragmentation. Two rulers are known by 405: Amadocus I and Seuthes II. The historian Diodorus Siculus even called both of them "kings of the Thracians", although this is most likely a misunderstanding: by 405 Seuthes II still considered Amadocus I as his suzerein. Amadocus was the son of a previous king Sitalces, while Seuthes II was the son of a Thracian chieftain named Maisades. Maisades was a descendant of king Teres, making Seuthes II and Amadocus I distant relatives. There was also an autonomous Odrysian prince in the western hinterlands of Byzantium named Teres.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Odrysian kingdom”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.