#kingdom of thrace

[twofielder]

Coin of the Day #14 (5/18/2024)

A little Thrace for Saturday…

Kingdom of Thrace

AE12 - 1.94g

Lysimachos 305-281 BC

Lysimacheia Mint

Obverse Head of Athena right, helmeted

Reverse ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΛΥΣΙΜΑΧΟΥ

Lion head facing front

SNG Cop 1170, Mueller 12

[estbela]

Guess what :]

[archaeologyinbulgaria]

Unseen 3rd Century BC Thracian Temple Discovered by Archaeologists beneath ‘Large Mound’ in Bulgaria’s Plovdiv

The well-preserved ruins of the 3rd century BC Ancient Thracian temple discovered beneath a burial mound in Bulgaria’s Plovdiv. Photo by PodTepeto An Ancient Thracian temple from the 3rd century BC, of a type that has never been seen before, has been unearthed by archaeologists in Bulgaria’s Plovdiv, underneath a massive man-made hill known as “the Large Mound” (“Golyamata Mogila”). The Large…

[greekgiftsshop]

Tetradrachm - Ancient Greek Macedonian Kingdom, Thrace, King Lysimachus Reproduction Coin.

Obverse: diademed head of the deified Alexander right, with horn of Ammon. Reverse: Athena Nikephoros (goddess Athena of Victory) seated left, holding Nike, left arm resting on shield, transverse spear in background; Φ to outer left; to inner left, turreted head of goddess Tyche right (Smyrna mint). Diameter coin 28 mm.

[mapsontheweb]

West Asian empires in the 6th century BC

“TaschenAtlas – Weltgeschichte”, Klett-Perthes Verlag, 2004

via cartesdhistoire

According to Herodotus ("Histories", Book I), Deioces became king of the Medes in 701 BCE in western Iran. He united the six Median tribes and repelled Assyria's influence from his capital, Ecbatana. His grandson Cyaxares destroyed the Assyrian Empire with the help of the Babylonians (612 BCE), and then they divided its remnants. Cyaxares also destroyed the kingdoms of the Mannaeans and Urartu and advanced into Asia Minor, where the Halys River became the border with Lydia (585 BCE). His son Astyages succumbed to the Persians in 550 BCE, and Media became a satrapy.

In western Media, Nabopolassar founded the Chaldean dynasty ruling over the Neo-Babylonian Empire (625-539 BCE). His son Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 BCE) restored Babylonian greatness and built the Temple of Marduk (the biblical Tower of Babel) in his capital, as well as the fortifications known as the "Median Wall," palaces, and the Hanging Gardens (on terraces). In 539 BCE, the Persians seized Babylon.

Achaemenid Persian Cyrus II conquered the Median Empire, Lydia (546 BCE), Babylon (539 BCE), and the Greek cities of western Asia Minor, Bactria, and Sogdia (529 BCE). His son Cambyses II subjugated Egypt and the Greek cities of Cyrenaica (525 BCE). The Persians then adopted the Assyrian concept of an empire uniting all the peoples of the world under one great king ("King of Kings"). Darius I conquered the Indus Valley in 512 BCE and occupied Thrace and Macedonia (513 BCE).

The Assyrians and Chaldeans had already begun to politically and civilly unify much of the Middle East, and the Persians continued this tradition. Thus, Aramaic, already used as a language of communication, was adopted as the language of Persian administration.

Despite its power, the history of the Achaemenids is poorly known because the scribes used parchment or papyrus; apart from rare royal inscriptions, there are few accounts from reluctant subjects or passionate opponents.

[therealrichardpapen]

Can I have some classic lit recs…make me feel like Henry please <3

Oh, this would be my pleasure, my dear friend!

Caligula by Albert Camus (It's a play about Caligula)

Oresteia by Aeschylus

Cicero

Coriolanus and Titus Andronicus by Shakespeare. Coriolanus speaks about men's hubris and how pridefullness brings your downfall, while Titus Andronicus, well, I'll let you discover it by yourself:))

Marcus Aurelius, amazing works regarding stoicism

Seneca, letters to Lucilius, another great stoic

Petrarca's letters to classical authors

Ovid, the roman writer exiled by Augustus to the Black Sea, at Tomis, part of the Kingdom of Thrace (now Constanța, Romania), where he kept writing.

Bacchae by Euripides

Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (a nobel awarded historical fiction about the life in Nero's Rome, written by a Polish writer)

Sappho, but I suggest finding a good translation with footnotes as her works have been barely maintained, and some of her poems are literally one word long.

Beyond good and evil by Nietzsche

Crime and Punishment by Dostoievsky (I won't add more as I recently conducted a full ass campaign here on how and why this book is worth it)

E.M. Cioran, A short history of decay, The demiurge, The troubles with being born. He is a bit of a nihilist. Romanian philosopher that wrote mostly in French

Machiavelli, The prince. This should be a good introduction into Machiavellism

The sacred and profane by M. Eliade is also worth a try

I believe there's no point in mentioning the Iliad and the Odyssey since everybody knows them by now. Hope you'll have fun!

[lionofchaeronea]

Tetradrachm minted 364-363 BCE by the city of Amphipolis, at the mouth of the River Strymon in Thrace. On the obverse, the head of Apollo, wearing a laurel crown; on the reverse, a race torch surrounded by a square bearing the inscription AMΦ-IΠO-ΛIT-EΩN (="of the people of Amphipolis").

Formerly an Athenian colony, Amphipolis was lost to Athens during the Peloponnesian War as a result of the Spartan general Brasidas' brilliant northern campaign; an attempt by the noted demagogue Cleon to recover it ended in his defeat and death (though Brasidas was killed as well). Thereafter the polis remained independent, enjoying great strategic importance for a number of reasons: the nearby forests supplied vital timber for shipbuilding; local silver mines offered vast wealth to whoever controlled them; and the city was in a prime location to facilitate--or interfere with--grain shipments to Athens from the Black Sea region. However, only a few years after this coin was minted, the expansionist Philip II of Macedon conquered Amphipolis and consolidated his hold over Thrace. Amphipolis would remain an important Macedonian stronghold until the kingdom's defeat by Rome in 168 BCE.

Photo credit: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com

[could-they-be-a-pro-wrestler]

EVENT POLL: 30-WOMAN ROYAL RUMBLE FOR FICTIONAL CHARACTERS TIME! (part 5)

[wishesofeternity]

"Arsinoë (II) lived a dramatic and adventurous life, full of extreme highs and lows. In its course, she played a part in the courts of four kings, married three times (twice to a sibling or half sibling), saw two of her sons murdered, fled two kingdoms because her life was in danger, yet ended her days in great wealth and security and ultimately was deified. Born in Egypt (as the daughter of Ptolemy I Soter and Berenike), she departed as a teenage bride for marriage to Lysimachus, ruler of Thrace, parts of Asia Minor, and Macedonia. After her husband died in battle, she tried to protect the claims of her three sons to rule in Macedonia against the attempts of others to seize the kingdom. In support of this effort, she married one of these rivals (her half brother Ptolemy Ceraunus), only to have this marriage alliance end in a bloodbath that compelled her to return to Egypt, where her brother Ptolemy II had succeeded their father as king. Once back, Arsinoë married her brother (the first full brother-sister marriage of a dynasty that would make such marriages an institution). She died in Egypt, having spent her last years playing a prominent role in the kingdom. Throughout much of her life, Arsinoë controlled great wealth and exercised political influence, but domestic stability characterized only her last few years.

Bitter and sometimes violent struggles for the throne marked nearly her entire career [...] Her childhood experience coping with life in a court divided by succession politics colored virtually all the major decisions of her life. She played the roles of both victim and victimizer: Arsinoë likely had a hand in one murder but endured the slaughter of her younger sons. She possessed some political acumen and considerable drive, but boldness and the willingness to take risks were her most salient personality traits, the ones that led to her most dramatic successes and failures. Like most of the members of the Macedonian elite, male and female alike, Arsinoë single-mindedly and sometimes violently pursued kleos (fame, renown) for herself, her sons, and her dynasty."

-Elizabeth D. Carney, "Arsinoë of Egypt and Macedon: A Royal Life"

[oyasumiaow]

nabbed from the feed

Rules: Make a poll of your favorite female characters (no limits - as many or as little as you want) and see which your followers like the most!

[twofielder]

Coin of the Day #27 (5/31/2024)

How about a nice Greek coin to close out May…

Kings of Thrace

AR Drachm - 18mm 3.98g

Lysimachos 301-281 BC

Kolophon Mint

Obverse Head of Herakles right, wearing lionskin

Reverse ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΛΥΣΙΜΑΧΟΥ

Zeus Aëtophoros seated left, lion above crescent right, pentagram below throne

Price L28

[estbela]

Some of my OCs!!!! (Don't think too much about the clothing, it's just there and probs not historically accurate).

Wanted to draw how they look like in my head, Dacia & Thrace & the Getae. I'll probably change some stuff later idk not truly happy with how they look

Also this is Thrace but at a time when he was younger since I think when he grows into an adult he probs grows a beard

(Notes under the cut)

they're...siblings in the weird nation way.

Thrace's hair probably darkens even more as he grows up since I see him as having darker hair as an adult dbdhhddj

The Getae & Dacia might have been the same, or might have been very strongly related but I chose the make 2 OCs for them

(And I don't really have OCs for them yet, but I do think all the tribes that made up the dacians & the thracians also had personifications)

Dacia's slight resemblance to Romania was intended haha

Might change Thrace's eye colour idk

dacia would have probably worse some kind of head scarf or had her hair tied up but I wanted to draw her with her hair down

Idk can't think of anything else to say atm

[gemsofgreece]

I know we often talk about all the regions of Greece plus the Islands, but what about Thessaly region? It's so underrated even though it has Olympus, meteora, beautiful places, forests to go. Not only that but wasn't part of king Aiolou in the Odyssey?

This region in my opinion is not talked enough about it's culture and history i am sure even from ancient times it has given a lot to Greek history.

Yay let's give some love to Thessaly! I share your feelings. I like this region a lot. So let's make a post with cool facts about Thessaly.

But before that I would like to comment on why Thessaly appears to be overlooked. I think the reason is that Thessaly is in between two regions that have attracted so much the interest of historians. It is sandwiched between Argos, meaning all of south Greece with Athens and Sparta and all the load of city states, and Macedonia. It gets more or less the same treatment with Epirus. Furthermore, Thessaly's biggest power is also its weakness. Thessaly is what is considered the "breadbasket" of the nation. An essentially provincial agricultural area, vast as nowhere else in Greece, it did not intrigue as much as the other regions with their drama, polities, conquests or artistic and scientific achievements.

Cool facts about Thessaly:

Despite its later obscurity with historians, exactly because of its vast fertile land, Thessaly had some of the earliest advanced settlements in Europe during the Neolithic period, such as Sesklo (6800 BC) and Dimini (4800 BC).

In the Mycenaean Age, Thessaly was known as Aeolia. The dialect spoken was Aeolic Greek. The Homeric epics are written in a mix of Ionic and Aeolic Greek. Aeolic Greek was considered the ideal dialect for poetry and lyricism. Poets and Rhapsodoi would travel to Thessaly to find inspiration.

Thessaly has paramount significance for the Greek mythology. Mount Olympus is located where Thessaly and Macedonia meet, so this is where the Gods lived. Achilles was born and reigned in Thessaly (his kingdom encompassed Phthia and extended beyond the Thessalian borders into Hellas, the westernmost meeting point of Thessaly, Epirus and Central Greece). Centaur Chiron raised many heroes in Mount Pelion, which is the origin place of centaurs. Jason and the Argonauts embarked for their journey from the city of Iolcos (now Volos). And loads more myths are associated with Thessaly.

Thessaly was somewhere between the world of the southern city states and the Kingdom of Macedon. It was usually a kingdom too or dismantled in a few smaller kingdoms ruled by the tagoi, aristocratic warlords. During the early classical period, Thessaly started being influenced by democracy however after observing the rise of Macedon, the Thessalians essentially invited King Philip to incorporate the region into his sphere of influence and Thessaly returned into having one single powerful king.

It is kinda evident that the Thessalians just wanted to live their lives and were absorbed with their own matters, trying to stay away from most drama. That lack of drama earns them their obscurity. Of course there were microdramas between nobility and kingdoms and all that but honestly nothing in comparison to the southern mayhems or the excessive northern ambition. Despite their low profile, Thessalians were wanted in other Greek armies for their cavalry.

During Roman and Byzantine times, the region was constantly targeted by invaders including Slavs, Avars, Huns etc due to its fertile land. This made the Byzantine emperors often remove or transfer away foreign populations from the area and have Greeks from other regions to settle in, to reinforce the Greek element of the region.

Much like in all other eras of its history, Thessaly was somewhere in the middle during the stages of the Greek Independence from the Ottoman Empire. It was incorporated to Greece after Peloponnese and Roumeli (Sterea Hellas) but before Epirus, Macedonia and Thrace.

Thessaly is a diverse land. It has a core of extended farmland dotted with hills and mountains as well as rivers and lakes, surrounded by a ring of big mountain ranges. At its west it expands to the Pindus mountains and their woodlands, at its north lies Mount Olympus and its east finds the Aegean sea and boosts a remarkable coastline. It also has three major islands, generally considered some of the most densely forested in the country and with beaches often featured in Top lists across the world. Sightings of seals and dolphins are common near its coasts.

Due to its geomorphology, the Thessalian plain gets some of the hottest temperatures in the summer and some of the coldest in the winter.

Thessaly is home to the most significant natural wonder of Greece. The rocks of Meteora. Meteora is a group of massive rock formations dating to the Paleogene era when this area was still part of the seabed, before the sea was pushed upwards and away. Meteora have been inhabited by monks ever since the middle Byzantine period. It has 20 Byzantine and post-Byzantine monasteries, out of which six are still in service. Aside from a natural wonder, the region is also a UNESCO world heritage monument.

After the independence, the region prospered due to being the largest farmland in Greece as well as having the third largest port in the country. It is the third most populous region after Sterea Hellas (which has Athens) and the large Macedonia (which has Thessaloniki). As a result, Thessaly is the only region in Greece with two major cities of about the same population, Larissa and Volos, the 5th and 6th largest cities of the country respectively, in close proximity. Larissa boasts an ancient past associated to Achilles and is the metropolis of agricultural and industrial Greece, all while buzzing with nightlife and a lot of student life. The also mythologically rich Volos is the Thessalian port, ensured with prosperity even during the hardship of Ottoman times, and is very notable among Greeks and those few foreigners who know for being surrounded from all sides by beautiful scenery, including very forested mountains, hills, extended shorelines, peninsulas, islands and numerous beautiful villages which combine tradition with a cosmopolitan flair.

The rest of the region is decorated by the rare outstanding mountainous beauty of Trikala, which also encompasses Meteora, and is one of the towns in Greece more focused on improving the quality of life for its citizens, often becoming a point of reference for other places. Karditsa with its traditional feel completes the quartet, offering access to the beautiful Lake Plastira and Agrafa mountains, some of the most unexplored and undisturbed, both naturally and culturally, regions of Greece.

And now some photos from Thessaly under the cut. Enjoy!

Various regions of Larissa

Various regions of Magnesia (Volos)

Various regions in Trikala

Various regions in Karditsa

Various regions from Sporades islands

All photos chosen randomly in Google search just to give you an idea. I do not own any of these.

Hopefully you enjoyed this tribute Anon!

Also, to anyone wondering "wasn't this supposed to be a farmland?", well yeah, it is by Greek standards. The farmland is indeed very big, it's just that if I showed many photos from the plain I would be running short of mountains and coasts. And also, Greeks typically don't take photos of their plains as often so I'd had to make a more strenuous search.

[theoi-crow]

hiya nathan! i was wondering if you had any opinions on how we visualize the gods? i've seen a lot of pagans nowadays say that the gods appear to them looking different than say, their greek statues (for example one of my irl friends says that aphrodite appears to her as a chinese woman, and she reflects my friend's inner beauty and self love as a chinese person).

however there are also a lot people who insist that if this is so, it must be an imposter spirit or a different deity. if they see art that reflects deities drawn differently than greek, for example, they don't like it. and of course don't get me started on transphobic worshipers and such but that's another thing.

i'm not sure what to think, because on the one hand these are greek gods, but gods appear in many different forms to all sorts of different people. they have also been syncretized with many other gods too. what do you think?

(i hope this ask didn't come at a difficult time! take care of yourself and have a great day, your blog is truly a gift from the gods and has been so helpful to me in my journey :))

Hi!

It makes me really happy to know that my blog is helping you because my goal is to help anyone who needs it connect with their gods as effortlessly and cost-free as possible because I believe everyone deserves access to their gods regardless of their financial, physical or spiritual state☺️

I'd like to begin the reply to this ask by paraphrasing a quote from the pre-Socratic philosopher Xenophanes (570 - 478 BCE) which states:

If cattle, horses and lions had hands and could paint, they'd depict the gods in their own image by making the gods look like cattle, horses and lions. Here's the complete quote: (LINK)

In other words:

It's very common for people to perceive the gods in a way that makes it easier for the worshippers to identify with the gods by imagining them in their own likeness.

I believe the gods can and do take the features of their own devotees because according to Xenophanes, they've been doing this for a really, really long time.

Here's a bit of history to explain what I mean when I say they have been doing this for a long time:

When people talk about Ancient Greece, most people imagine modern Greece and parts of Turkey (because those are the parts of Greece that were mostly affected by the famous Persian and Peloponnesian wars and the ones that housed the iconic Classical Greek period which is where we get most of our writing from or about) but I'd like to show you a map of how massive and diverse the Ancient Greek world actually was during the Classical Period:

As you can see here, the Greek world covered more than modern Greece and parts of Turkey.

It covered:

- Turkey: all of it's edges facing the sea

— Bulgaria: (just the southern parts which used to be a part of the ancient Greek city of Thrace)

- Italy: most of the southern part.

- Sicily: almost all of it, in fact Sicily was so culturally Greek that it took the Sicilians until the 14th CE century to stop speaking Greek: (LINK),

- Africa: The Northern parts close to Egypt

- parts of Spain among others (You're welcome to use this as a side by side comparison to find the modern countries they correspond to.

During the Hellenistic Period, Alexander the Great (who was from the Greek kingdom of Macedonia which was part of the ancient Greek world since it sat between the Greek mainland and Thrace: (LINK) spread Greek culture and colonies towards the East by taking over the entire Persian Empire (including Egypt) and went far enough to reach parts of India:

This merging of cultures caused the birth of Greco-Buddhism (LINK) And the Hellenistic influence on Indian art: (LINK) After Alexander's death his empires broke up but the colonies remained Greek including Egypt with the Macedonian Greek Ptolemaic Dynasty: (LINK)

The influence Greece had on the Ancient Roman world will also be covered in this post because at its peak, The Roman Empire covered most of Europe, the edges of North Africa, and a massive part of the Middle East:

I'm adding the Roman world here because the cultural impact Greece had on Rome caused such an intertwining mix between the two cultures to the point that it can make it very hard for non-scholars to distinguish between what is Greek vs. what is Roman without doing their own research on both cultures to have a clearer separation of both cultures.

For example: not many people realize that Psyche is a purely Roman goddess and was never Greek or apart of the Greek Pantheon even though most people refer to her as being the wife of Eros when she's actually just the wife of The Roman god Cupid. This is one of the best examples of Roman and Greek culture mixing together to the point where it is indistinguishable to non-scholars.

Rome had also indirectly interacted with China through the silk road or common trade partners like India. Although they never interacted directly they were very much aware of each others empires and naturally influenced one another so by extension china was exposed to Greek culture via Rome: (LINK)

All of these empires were incredibly DIVERSE to the point where they would look no different than a modern diverse city would look to us today.

This post is also only talking about people of different ethnicities who lived in the ancient world and worshiped the Greek gods specifically, not people who worked with gods from other pantheons that were referred to by their Greek counterpart by people like Herodotus who would use the Greek pantheon to refer to the Egyptian pantheon: (LINK)

So to reiterate what I wrote at the beginning of this post:

The gods have been looking like their very diverse devotees for thousands upon thousands of years, I personally believe this is because the gods like relating to their devotees and thus will often look like they are related to their devotees in order to share a close bond.

Especially Aphrodite who may want her devotees to see their own beauty which can be more compelling than following modern white beauty standards in order to protect them from hating themselves because of societies racist propaganda and warped beauty standards.

The Christianization of Europe has effectively cut off the ancient Greek religion completely and what we now call Hellenic Polytheism comes from a religion pieced together by archaeological research and guessing work without being completely sure about how it works which effectively makes this an Open Religion, but beware of people who will try to use the same logic against religions and spiritualities that are very much closed because they don't understand what makes an open religion, open.

Disclaimer:

While I believe anyone can imagine the Greek gods to have diverse features because of how diverse the ancient Greek world was and thus their ancient devotees would have imagined them that way, I believe ancient Greek people who once lived in what is now modern Greece like Socrates, Plato and Sappho should only be portrayed as GREEK. This includes specific Greek heroes and mythological characters tied to the modern Greek places like Achilles and Agamemnon because they came from those specific areas.

We, as worshipers, should show respect to the modern Greek culture by refraining from taking away the Greek image of the people who once lived there or the heroes who were tied to their specific regions.

For me, the humans in ancient Greek myths have a Greek ethnicity that is non-negotiable because Greece is a living, breathing country with it's own own history beyond the ancient world and respecting their boundaries as a country and NOT emulating the countries who have robbed them of their culture and identity by stripping the country's temples and taking their statues!

This has left the country suffering a lot of financial problems with the theft of it's artifacts by countries like England, Germany and France (including the US among others) who refuse to give them back their artifacts: (LINK)

So I hope you understand what I mean when I say:

The heroes and ancient Greek people that once lived in modern Greece should have their ethnicities as Greeks unchanged.

The gods, however, have been worshipped in so many places with so many different devotees of various backgrounds so they are not bound to one modern place in the same way because they come from the ancient world which connected them to various countries and continents, because, again, the ancient Greek world was a lot more diverse than racist Classicists and white supremacists would like for you to know.

As for people who claim seeing a god with features they don't agree with is the sign of someone working with a trickster spirit:

These people are not only underestimating the power of the gods but are also using Christian rhetoric to scare you into controlling the way you work with the gods.

Claiming the gods are trickster spirits is no different than when early Christians claimed pagans were being tricked by demons.

Do I believe trickster spirits can pretend to be gods? No, because I know the gods are more powerful than whatever poor spirit decides to try to be them.

Do you need to protect yourself before contacting a god? No, because even ancient toddlers and children did not fear the gods or protect themselves against the gods.

Also, why would you want to work with a god you don't even trust?

Needing to protect yourself against a god might be your subconscious mind telling you that you'll be interacting with a demon (Christian propaganda) so I recommend you try your best to deconstruct from your previous beliefs and religion, before interacting with a Greek god if you're afraid they might be a trickster spirit.

Can something parade as a god and abuse you? Your very own mind because it is influenced by your own history and perception.

Your perception will combine with your inner shadow self, guilt and religious trauma to make the gods seem a lot scarier than they actually are.

Your mind will make it feel like the gods are mad at you especially when you haven't fully deconstructed your previous religion or grew up with abusive authority figures like narcissistic parents because you might accidentally superimpose those beliefs and expectations onto the gods.

The mind is a lot more complicated than we realize so it's important to educate ourselves with psychology to not fall for its psychological pitfalls.

If you're new to working with the Greek gods and grew up Christian, you'll probably experience massive headaches, bouts of guilt, night terrors and a lot of things that make it seem like the gods don't like you but your mind doesn't like change and the pagan gods and pagan traditions are so different than your previous religion that it's not uncommon for your subconscious to reject your own practice and make you believe you're not worthy to work with them or trick you into thinking the gods hate you. It just takes time, research, and a lot of patience.

The gods mimicking your features or looking like they could be a family member is just one of the many ways they're trying to combat your own subconscious psychology rejecting them because:

As much as you really want to connect with your gods, your gods also want to connect with you.

I hope this helps!

[mapsontheweb]

The Hellenistic world

"Atlante storico tascabile", Istituto Geografico De Agostini, Novara,1999

via cartesdhistoire

In 323 BC, Alexander died without heirs, possibly from the plague. His empire, already facing insurrectionary movements, did not outlive him. His generals, the Diadochi, began a protracted struggle for power: Antipater in Macedonia, Lysimachus in Thrace, Ptolemy in Egypt, Antigonus Monophthalmos in Asia Minor and Syria, and Seleucus in Babylon.

The first phase of the war among the Diadochi concluded at Ipsus in Phrygia in 301 BC, with the "battle of the kings." Lysimachus, Seleucus, and Cassander, son of Antipater, defeated Antigonus, who had been consistently victorious until then. Seleucus and Ptolemy, prudent rulers, founded dynasties destined for long endurance, even though they were not immune to the temptation of rebuilding Alexander's empire. The focal point of the conflict became Macedonia, and long wars ensued for its dominion.

The Epigones, successors of the Diadochi, instead supported the status quo. The kings of Egypt and Syria founded new cities, respecting the rights of existing poleis.

Nearly all Hellenistic kings surrounded themselves with scholars, artists, and scientists. Ptolemy I founded the largest library of antiquity in Alexandria, Egypt.

In 277 BC, the Galatians, of Celtic descent, settled in Asia Minor. Some provinces declared independence, including the kingdom of Pergamon, a city renowned for being built on terraces, distinguished by the splendor of its culture and art, exemplified by a library of 400,000 volumes.

The kingdom of Bactria, situated in the northern region of present-day Afghanistan, was also significant, representing the eastern extent of Hellenistic influence and serving as a crossroads between the cultures of the Mediterranean region and those of China and India.

Antiochus III, the greatest of the Seleucids, expanded the empire's territories. However, the invasion of Greece in 192 BC triggered a war with Rome. Following the war, the king was compelled to accept peace, marking the beginning of the inexorable decline of his empire.

[jeannereames]

Hi Dr Reames!

Would you say that Macedon shared the same "political culture" with its Thracian and Illyrian neighbours, like how most Greeks shared the polis structure and the concept of citizenship?

I don't really know anything about Macedonian history before Philip II's time, but you've often brought up how the Macedonians shared some elements of elite culture (e.g. mound burials) with their Thracian neighbours, as well religious beliefs and practices.

I've only ever heard these people generically described as "a collection of tribes (that confederated into a kingdom)", which also seems to be the common description for nearby "Greek" polities like Thessaly and Epiros. So did these societies have a lot in common, structurally speaking, with Macedon? Or were they just completely different types of polities altogether?

First, in the interest of some good bibliography on the Thracians:

Z. H. Archibald, The Odrysian Kingdom of Thrace. Orpheus Unmasked. Oxford UP, 1998. (Too expensive outside libraries, but highly recommended if you can get it by interlibrary loan. Part of the exorbitant cost [almost $400, but used for less] owes to images, as it’s archaeology heavy. Archibald is also an expert on trade and economy in north Greece and the Black Sea region, and has edited several collections on the topic.

Alexander Fol, Valeria Fol. Thracians. Coronet Books, 2005. Also expensive, if not as bad, and meant for the general public. Fol’s 1977 Thrace and the Thracians, with Ivan Marazov, was a classic. Fol and Marazov are fathers of modern Thracian studies.

R. F. Hodinott, The Thracians. Thames and Hudson, 1981. Somewhat dated now but has pictures and can be found used for a decent price if you search around. But, yeah…dated.

For Illyria, John Wilkes’ The Illyrians, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996, is a good place to start, but there’s even less about them in book form (or articles).

—————

Now, to the question.

BOTH the Thracians and Illyrians were made up of politically independent tribes bound by language and religion who, sometimes, also united behind a strong ruler (the Odrysians in Thrace for several generations, and Bardylis briefly in Illyria). One can probably make parallels to Germanic tribes, but it’s easier for me to point to American indigenous nations. The Odrysians might be compared to the Iroquois federation. The Illyrians to the Great Lakes people, united for a while behind Tecumseh, but not entirely, and disunified again after. These aren’t perfect, but you get the idea. For that matter, the Greeks themselves weren’t a nation, but a group of poleis bonded by language, culture, and religion. They fought as often as they cooperated. The Persian invasion forced cooperation, which then dissolved into the Peloponnesian War.

Beyond linguistic and religious parallels, sometimes we also have GEOGRAPHIC ones. So, let me divide the north into lowlands and highlands. It’s much more visible on the ground than from a map, but Epiros, Upper Macedonia, and Illyria are all more alike, landscape-wise, than Lower Macedonia and the Thracian valleys. South of all that, and different yet again, lay Thessaly, like a bridge between Southern Greece and these northern regions.

If language (and religion) are markers of shared culture, culture can also be shaped by ethnically distinct neighbors. Thracians and Macedonians weren’t ethnically related, yet certainly shared cultural features. Without falling into colonialist geographical/environmental determinism, geography does affect how early cultures develop because of what resources are available, difficulties of travel, weather, lay of the land itself, etc.

For instance, the Pindus Range, while not especially high, is rocky and made a formidable barrier to easy east-west travel. Until recently, sailing was always more efficient in Greece than travel by land (especially over mountain ranges).* Ergo, city-states/towns on the western coast tended to be western-facing for trade, and city-states/towns on the eastern side were, predictably, eastern-facing. This is why both Epiros and Ainai (Elimeia) did more trade with Corinth than Athens, and one reason Alexandros of Epiros went west to Italy while Alexander of Macedon looked east to Persia. It’s also why Corinth, Sparta, etc., in the Peloponnese colonized Sicily and S. Italy, while Athens, Euboia, etc., colonized the Asia Minor and Black Sea coasts. (It’s not an absolute, but one certainly sees trends.)

So, looking at their land, we can see why Macedonians and Thracians were both horse people with their wide valleys. They also practiced agriculture, had rich forests for logging, and significant metal (and mineral) deposits—including silver and gold—that made mining a source of wealth. They shared some burial customs but maintained acute differences. Both had lower status for women compared to Illyria/Epiros/Paionia. Yet that’s true only of some Thracian tribes, such as the Odrysians. Others had stronger roles for women. Thracians and Macedonians shared a few deities (The Rider/Zis, Dionysos/Zagreus, Bendis/Artemis/Earth Mother), although Macedonian religion maintained a Greek cast. We also shouldn’t underestimate the impact of Greek colonies along the Black Sea coast on inland Thrace, especially the Odrysians. Many an Athenian or Milesian (et al.) explorer/merchant/colonist married into the local Thracian elite.

Let’s look at burial customs, how they’re alike and different, for a concrete example of this shared regional culture.

First, while both Thracians and Macedonians had shrines, neither had temples on the Greek model until late, and then largely in Macedonia. Their money went into the ground with burials.

Temples represent a shit-ton of city/community money plowed into a building for public use/display. In southern Greece, they rise (pun intended) at the end of the Archaic Age as city-state sumptuary laws sought to eliminate personal display at funerals, weddings, etc. That never happened in Macedonia/much of the northern areas. So, temples were slow to creep up there until the Hellenistic period. Even then, gargantuan funerals and the Macedonian Tomb remained de rigueur for Macedonian elite. (The date of the arrival of the true Macedonian Tomb is debated, but I side with those who count it as a post-Alexander development.)

A “Macedonian Tomb” (above: Tomb of Judgement, photo mine) is a faux-shrine embedded in the ground. Elite families committed wealth to it in a huge potlatch to honor the dead. Earlier cyst tombs show the same proclivities, but without the accompanying shrine-like architecture. As early as 650 BCE at Archontiko (= ancient Pella), we find absurd amounts of wealth in burials (below: Archontiko burial goods, Pella Museum, photos mine). Same thing at Sindos, and Aigai, in roughly the same period. Also in a few places in Upper Macedonia, in the Archaic Age: Aiani, Achlada, Trebenište, etc.. This is just the tip of the iceberg. If Greece had more money for digs, I think we’d find additional sites.

Vivi Saripanidi has some great articles (conveniently in English) about these finds: “Constructing Necropoleis in the Archaic Period,” “Vases, Funerary Practices, and Political Power in the Macedonian Kingdom During the Classical Period Before the Rise of Philip II,” and “Constructing Continuities with a Heroic Past.” They’re long, but thorough. I recommend them.

What we observe here are “Princely Burials” across lingo-ethnic boundaries that reflect a larger, shared regional culture. But one big difference between elite tombs in Macedonia and Thrace is the presence of a BODY, and whether the tomb was new or repurposed.

In Thrace, at least royal tombs are repurposed shrines (above: diagram and model of repurposed shrine-tombs). Macedonian Tombs were new construction meant to look like a shrine (faux-fronts, etc.). Also, Thracian kings’ bodies weren’t buried in their "tombs." Following the Dionysic/ Orphaic cult, the bodies were cut up into seven pieces and buried in unmarked spots. Ergo, their tombs are cenotaphs (below: Kosmatka Tomb/Tomb of Seuthes III, photos mine).

What they shared was putting absurd amounts of wealth into the ground in the way of grave goods, including some common/shared items such as armor, golden crowns, jewelry for women, etc. All this in place of community-reflective temples, as seen in the South. (Below: grave goods from Seuthes’ Tomb; grave goods from Royal Tomb II at Vergina, for comparison).

So, if some things are shared, others (connected to beliefs about the afterlife) are distinct, such as the repurposed shrine vs. new construction built like a shine, and the presence or absence of a body (below: tomb ceiling décor depicting Thracian deity Zalmoxis).

Aside from graves, we also find differences between highlands and lowlands in the roles of at least elite women. The highlands were tough areas to live, where herding (and raiding) dominated, and what agriculture there was required “all hands on deck” for survival. While that isn’t necessary for women to enjoy higher status (just look at Minoan Crete, Etruria, and even Egypt), it may have contributed to it in these circumstances.

Illyrian women fought. And not just with bows on horseback as Scythian women did. If we can believe Polyaenus, Philip’s daughter Kyanne (daughter of his Illyrian wife Audata) opposed an Illyrian queen on foot with spears—and won. Philip’s mother Eurydike involved herself in politics to keep her sons alive, but perhaps also as a result of cultural assumption: her mother was royal Lynkestian but her father was (perhaps) Illyrian. Epirote Olympias came to Pella expecting a certain amount of political influence that she, apparently, wasn’t given until Philip died. Alexander later observed that his mother had wisely traded places with Kleopatra, his sister, to rule in Epiros, because the Macedonians would never accept rule by a woman (implying the Epirotes would).

I’ve noted before that the political structure in northern Greece was more of a continuum: Thessaly had an oligarchic tetrarchy of four main clans, expunged by Jason in favor of tyranny, then restored by Philip. Epiros was ruled by a council who chose the “king” from the Aiakid clan until Alexandros I, Olympias’s brother, established a real monarchy. Last, we have Macedon, a true monarchy (apparently) from the beginning, but also centered on a clan (Argeads), with agreement/support from the elite Hetairoi class of kingmakers. Upper Macedonian cantons (formerly kingdoms) had similar clan rule, especially Lynkestis, Elimeia, and Orestis. Alas, we don’t know enough to say how absolute their monarchies were before Philip II absorbed them as new Macedonian districts, demoting their basileis (kings/princes) to mere governors.

I think continued highland resistance to that absorption is too often overlooked/minimized in modern histories of Philip’s reign, excepting a few like Ed Anson’s. In Dancing with the Lion: Rise, I touch on the possibility of highland rebellion bubbling up late in Philip’s reign but can’t say more without spoilers for the novel.

In antiquity, Thessaly was always considered Greek, as was (mostly) Epiros. But Macedonia’s Greek bona-fides were not universally accepted, resulting in the tale of Alexandros I’s entry into the Olympics—almost surely a fiction with no historical basis, fed to Herodotos after the Persian Wars. The tale’s goal, however, was to establish the Greekness of the ruling family, not of the Macedonian people, who were still considered barbaroi into the late Classical period. Recent linguistic studies suggest they did, indeed, speak a form of northern Greek, but the fact they were regarded as barbaroi in the ancient world is, I think instructive, even if not necessarily accurate.

It tells us they were different enough to be counted “not Greek” by some southern Greek poleis and politicians such as Demosthenes. Much of that was certainly opportunistic. But not all. The bias suggests Macedonian culture had enough overflow from their northern neighbors to appear sufficiently alien. Few Greek writers suggested the Thessalians or Epirotes weren’t Greek, but nobody argued the Thracians, Paiones, or Illyrians were. Macedonia occupied a liminal status.

We need to stop seeing these areas with hard borders and, instead, recognize permeable boundaries with the expected cultural overflow: out and in. Contra a lot of messaging in the late 1800s and early/mid-1900s, lifted from ancient narratives (and still visible today in ultra-national Greek narratives), the ancient Greeks did not go out to “civilize” their Eastern “Oriental” (and northern barbaroi) neighbors, exporting True Culture and Philosophy. (For more on these views, see my earlier post on “Alexander suffering from Conqueror’s Disease.”)

In fact, Greeks of the Late Iron Age (LIA)/Archaic Age absorbed a great deal of culture and ideas from those very “Oriental barbarians,” such as Lydia and Assyria. In art history, the LIA/Early Archaic Era is referred to as the “Orientalizing Period,” but it’s not just art. Take Greek medicine. It’s essentially Mesopotamian medicine with their religion buffed off. Greek philosophy developed on the islands along the Asia Minor coast, where Greeks regularly interacted with Lydians, Phoenicians, and eventually Persians; and also in Sicily and Southern Italy, where they were talking to Carthaginians and native Italic peoples, including Etruscans. Egypt also had an influence.

Philosophy and other cultural advances didn’t develop in the Greek heartland. The Greek COLONIES were the happenin’ places in the LIA/Archaic Era. Here we find the all-important ebb and flow of ideas with non-Greek peoples.

Artistic styles, foodstuffs, technology, even ideas and myths…all were shared (intentionally or not) via TRADE—especially at important emporia. Among the most significant of these LIA emporia was Methone, a Greek foundation on the Macedonian coast off the Thermaic Gulf (see map below). It provided contact between Phoenician/Euboian-Greek traders and the inland peoples, including what would have been the early Macedonian kingdom. Perhaps it was those very trade contacts that helped the Argeads expand their rule in the lowlands at the expense of Bottiaians, Almopes, Paionians, et al., who they ran out in order to subsume their lands.

My main point is that the northern Greek mainland/southern Balkans were neither isolated nor culturally stunted. Not when you look at all that gold and other fine craftwork coming out of the ground in Archaic burials in the region. We’ve simply got to rethink prior notions of “primitive” peoples and cultures up there—notions based on southern Greek narratives that were both political and culturally hidebound, but that have, for too long, been taken as gospel truth.

Ancient Macedon did not “rise” with Philip II and Alexander the Great. If anything, the 40 years between the murder of Archelaos (399) and the start of Philip’s reign (359/8) represents a 2-3 generation eclipse. Alexandros I, Perdikkas II, and Archelaos were extremely capable kings. Philip represented a return to that savvy rule.

(If you can read German, let me highly recommend Sabine Müller’s, Perdikkas II and Die Argeaden; she also has one on Alexander, but those two talk about earlier periods, and especially her take on Perdikkas shows how clever he was. For those who can’t read German, the Lexicon of Argead Macedonia’s entry on Perdikkas is a boiled-down summary, by Sabine, of the main points in her book.)

Anyway…I got away a bit from Thracian-Macedonian cultural parallels, but I needed to mount my soapbox about the cultural vitality of pre-Philip Macedonia, some of which came from Greek cultural imports, but also from Thrace, Illyria, etc.

Ancient Macedonia was a crossroads. It would continue to be so into Roman imperial, Byzantine, and later periods with the arrival of subsequent populations (Gauls, Romans, Slavs, etc.) into the region.

That fruit salad with Cool Whip, or Jello and marshmallows, or chopped up veggies and mayo, that populate many a family reunion or church potluck spread? One name for it is a “Macedonian Salad”—but not because it’s from Macedonia. It’s called that because it’s made up of many [very different] things. Also, because French macedoine means cut-up vegetables, but the reference to Macedonia as a cultural mishmash is embedded in that.

---------------

* I’ve seen this personally between my first trip to Greece in 1997, and the new modern highway. Instead of winding around mountains, the A2 just blasts through them with tunnels. The A1 (from Thessaloniki to Athens) was there in ’97, and parts of the A2 east, but the new highway west through the Pindus makes a huge difference. It takes less than half the time now to drive from the area around Thessaloniki/Pella out to Ioannina (near ancient Dodona) in Epiros. Having seen the landscape, I can imagine the difficulties of such a trip in antiquity with unpaved roads (albeit perhaps at least graded). Taking carts over those hills would be daunting. See images below.