Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1207

 THRACIA. daughter, offeveil to buy her as a wife. (Anab. vii 2. § 38 ; ct'. Mehi, ii. 2") The want of union among the Thracians is men' tioned by Herodotus (v. 3) as the only cause of their weakness. Their tribes, like the Highland clans, seem to have been constantly engaged in petty warfare with one another, and to have been inca- pable of co-operating even against foreign foes, except tor very brief periods, and rarely with any higher object than plunder. Until a late period (Flor. iv. 12. §17) they appear to have been destitute of dis- cipline, and this, of course, rendered their bravery of comparatively little avail. Thus we learn from Thucydides (ii. 96, 98) that, although Sitalces was the most powerful Thracian king that had ever reigned — (beseems indeed to have been subsequently regarded as a kind of national hero; Xen. Anab. vi. 1. § 6), — yet a large part of the army with which he invaded Slaredonia consisted of mere volunteers, formidable chiefly for their immbers, and attracted to his standard by his offers of pay, or by their hope of plunder. Any one, in fact, who held out these inducements, could easily raise an army in Thrace. Thus Clearchus no sooner received sup- plies of money from Cyrus the Younger, than he collected a force in the Chersonesus, which, although in great part undoubtedly Thracian, was employ eil by him in making war upon other Thracians, until he was required to join Cyrus in Asia Jlinor (/6. i. 1. § 9, 2. § 9, &c.). So wiien Seuthes undertook the expediiion against his so-called revolted subjects, his army was soon tripled by volunteers, who hastened from other parts of Thrace to serve him, as soon as they heard of his enterprise (/6. vii. 4. § 21). Such soldiers could not, of course, he depenOed upon for one moment after a reverse. A considerable number of Thracian mercenaries in the army of Cyrus took the earliest ojiponunity to desert to Artaxerxes after the battle of Cunaxa (lb. ii. 2. § 7). Tacitus {Ann. iv. 46) informs us that the prin- cipal cause of the insurrection (a. d. 26) of the Thracians who dwelt in the elevated mountain dis- tricts (probably of Khodope), was their dislike of the conscription, which, it would appear, the Ro- mans had introduced into Thrace. This was a yoke to which they could not submit; they were not ac- customed to obey even their own rulers, except when it pleased them; and when they sent troops to the assistance of their princes, they used to appuint their own commanders, and to war against the neigh- bouring tribes only. (Of. Liv. xlii. 51 ; Xen. Anab. vii. 4. § 24, 7. § 29, seq.) Thra' ian troops were chiefly light-armed infentry and irregular horse. (Xen. Aiiub.i. 2. § 9, vii. 6. §27, Memor. iii. 9. § 2; Curt. iii. 9.) The bravest of the foot-soldiers in tiie army of Sitalces were the free mountaineers of Khodopo, who were armed with short swords (juaxnipo^x^f"" ; Ttiucyd. ii. 98). Tiie equipment of the Asiatic Thracians is described by Herod(jtus (vii. 75), and as this descripiion agrees with what Xenophon states respecting Seuthes' forces (Anab. vii. 4. § 4), it i* no doubt sub- stantially true of the Thracians generally. They wore caps covering their ears, made of fox-skins, cloaks, and party-coloured mantles (feipai, ? = plaids) ; their boots, which came high up the leg, were made of deer-skin; their arms were shields, javelins, and daggers (cf. Tlmcyd. vii. 27). The Tiiracians in the army of I'hihp V. were armed with very long rhomphaeae, a word which some translate jarcliiis, others swords. (Liv. xisi. 39; TIIKACIA. 11 S3 Plut. Paul. Aemil.M.) Thracian soldiers fought with imperuosity and with no lack of bravery; but they, like all barbarian and undisciplined troops were incapable ef sustained efforts. Livy (xlii. 59) describes them as rushing to the attack like wild beasts long confined in cages: they hamstrung the liorses of their adversaries, or stabbed them in the belly. When the victory was gained on this occa- sion (the first encounter in the war between the Romans and Perseus), they returned to their camp, singing loud songs of triumph, and carrying the heads of the slain on the tops of their weapons (lb. 60). When defeated, they tied with rapidity, throwing their shields upon their backs, to protect them from the missiles of the pursuers. (Xen. A nab. vii. 4. § 17.) About the time of the Peloponnesian War, Thrace began to be to the countries around the Aegean what Switzerland has long, to its disgrace, been to the despotic jjowers of modern Europe, a land where men might be procured to fight for any one who could hold out sufficient inducements in the shape of pay or plunder. (Thucyd. vii. 27, et alibi; Xen. Anub. i. pass.; Just. xi. 1 & 9.) The chief causes of this, apart from the character of its people, appear to have been the want of any central government, and the difKcult nature of the country, which ren- dered its savage independence tolerably secure; so that there was nothing to restrain those who might wish to seek their fortune in foreign warfare. Dur- ing the period of JIacedonian supremacy, and after its close, under the Roman power, Thracians are often mentioned as auxiliaries in JIacedonian and Roman armies; but few of these, it is probable, were volunteers. (Liv. xxxi. 39, xlii. 29, 51,etal.; Caes. B. C. iii. 4; VeU. Pat. ii. 112; Tac. Uist. i. 68, &c.) Cicero (de Prov. Com. 4) seems to imply that Thracians were sometimes hired to assassinate like the modern Italian bravos; these were perhaps gla- diators, of whom great numbers were Thracians. Caligula gave the command of his German body- guard to Thracians. (Suet, Calkj. 55.) Another point in which the Thracians remind us of the natives of India, is mentioned by Thucydides (ii. 97) in these words: "The tribute of the bar- barians and of the Greek cities received by Seuthes, the successor of Sitalces, might be reckoned at 400 talents of silver, reckoning gold and silver together. The presents in gold and silver amounteil to as much more. And these presents were made not or.ly to the king, but also to the most inHuential and dis- tinguished of the Odrysae. For these people, like those of Thrace generally, differ in this respect from the Persians, that they would rather receive than give; and among them it is more shameful not to give when you are asked, than to be refused when you ask. It is true that abuses arise from this custom ; for nothing can be done without presents." (Cf. Liv. xlii. 19, xlv. 42; Tac. Germ. 15.) Xeno- phon (,-l?i((i!<. vii. 3) gives some amusing illustralions of this practice among the Thracians. Mention is often made of the singing and dancing of the Thracians, especially of a martial kind. Xe- nophon (Anab. vi. 1. § 5, seq.) gives an account of a dance and combat perfoiined by some Ihiucians, to celebrate the conclusion of a peace between the rem- nant of the 10,000 Greeks and the i'Hphlagonians: they danced fully armed to the nnisic of the flutu, jumping up nimbly to a considerable height, and fencing with their swords: at last, one man struck another, to all apnearancc mortally and he fell as if