Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1208

 1184 TIIRACIA. dead, though in reality not in the least injured, His antagonist then strij>ped off his armour, and went out singing the praises of Sitalces, while the other man was carried out like a corpse by his com- rades (ef. lb. vii. 3. § 32, &eq.; Tac. Ann. iv. 47). Their music was rude and noisy. Strabo (x. p. 471) compares it to that of the Phrygians, whom, indeed, he regards as descended from the Thracians. Xenoplion, in the passage last referred to, says that they played on horns and on trumpets made of raw ox-hide. Their worship of Diiinysus and Cotytto was celebrated on mountain tops with loud instru- ments of music, shouting, and noises like the bellow- ing of cattle. (Strab. x. p. 470.) Their bai'barity and ferocity became proverbial. Herudotus (viii. 116) tells a story of a king of the liisaltae, who punished his six sons for disobeying }iim by ]]utting out their eyes. Seuthes, with his own hand, transfixed some of the Thyni who had been taken prisoners (Xen. Anab. vii. 4. § 6). Elias- cuporis invited his nephew to a banquet, plied him with wine, then loaded him with fetters, and after- wards put him to death. (Tac. Ann. ii. 64, seqq.) Thucydides (vii. 27, seq.) gives an instance of the fe ocity of the Thracians in their massacre of the inhabitants of Mycalessus. A truly barbarian trait in the cliaracter of the Thracians was their faithlessness, even to one another. This is especially shown in their disregard of their obligations towards the hostages whom they gave as .securities for their observance of their enganements with others. Seuthes had received from tlie Thyni a nuinber of old men as hostages; yet the Thyni, seeing a favourable opportunity, as they supposed, for renewing h(«tilities, at once seized it, apparently without a thought of the but too probable consequences of such conduct to their lielpless countrymen. (Xen. ylMn&. vii. 4. § 2! ; cf. Liv. xl. 22). Some of the tribes inhabiting the Tliracian coast of the Euxine were systematic wreckers [Sai.mydessus]. Rubbery, as we have fceen, was considered honourable by them ; and jilunder was their chief inducement to engage in war. (Strab. vii. p. 318; Cic. Pis. 34; Liv. xxvi. 25, xxxviii. 40, seq.) Strabo (iii. pp. 164, 165), Meh (ii. 2), and Tacitus (Ann. iv. 51) bear witness to the bravery of the Thracian women. The deity most worshipped by the Thracians was Dionysus, whom they, as well as the Phrygians, called Sabazius. (Schol. Aristopli. Vesp, 9.) The mythical stories respecting Orpheus and Lycurgus are closely connected w-ith the worship of this god, who had an oracle on Pihodope, in the country of the Satrae, but under the direction of the Bessi [Satrae]. Herodotus (vii. Ill) states that the mode of deliver- ing the answers of this oracle resembled that which prevailed at Delphi. He compares also the wor- ship of Artemis (whose Thracian name was Bendis or Cotytto), as he had seen it celebrated by Thra- cian and Paeonian women, with some of the ceremo- nies at Delos (iv. 33). These resemblances may be accounted for on the supposition that the Thracian rites were derived from tlie original Pelasgian popu- lation, remnants of which may have maintained themselves amid the mountain fastnesses; as Niebuhr holds (Ethnog. and Geoff, i. p. 287) was the case with the Paeonians, who are mentioned by Herodotus in the passage last referred to. (On the Thracian divinities, tee Strabo, x. pp. 470, 471 ; Soph. Antiij. 955, seq.; Plin. xvi. 62; and the articles Bkndis, CoTYS, and KiiEA, in the JJkt. B'wfj. and 3/ijlh.) THRACIA. It lias sometimes Dcen asserted that the Thracians were accustomed to sacrifice liuman victims to their divinities; but this appears to be either an incorrect generalisation, or a confounding of them with other races; for we find no reference to such a custom in any of the ancient accounts of their manners. He- rodotus, it is true, states (ix. 119) that when the Persian Oeobazus fell into the hands of the Apsin- tliii, after the taking of Sestus by the Athenians, they sacrificed him to their local god, Pleistorus; but from the next words (rpoTvcf) rtp acperepcji) it is clear that he regarded the practice as characteristic of the Apsinthii, and not as one common to all Thracians : nor is it conceivable that he would have omitted to mention so striking a circumstance, in his general description of Thracian manners, which has been already quoted (v. 3, seqq); for the practice of slaying the favourite w-ife on the tomb of her deceased husband cannot with any propriety be called a sacrifice. Whether indulgence in wine was regarded as a part of the homage due to Dionysus, or simply as a means of sensual gratification, certain it is that it was prevalent in Thiace, and frequently attended with violent and sanguinary quarrels: '• Natis in usum laelitiae scyphis pugnare Thracuin est," says Horace, and evidence is not wanting in support of the accusation. Ammianus (xxvii. 4. § 9) describes the Odrysae as so fonJ of bloodshed that in their banquets, after eating and drinking to satiety, they used to fall to blows with one another. Tacitus (Ann. iv. 48) relates that the Thracians .serving with Poppaeus Sabinus against their fellow-country- men, indulged to such a degree in feasting and drinking that they kept no guard at night, so that their camp was stormed by their exasperated brethren, who slew great numbers of tliem. Xeno- plion tells us that at his first interview with Seuthes, they diank horns of wine to each other's health, ac- cording to the Thracian custom (Anab. vii. 2. § 23). At the banquet which Seuthes afterwards gave to Xenophon and some other important persons the drinking seems to have been deep. Xenophon admits that he had indulged freely ; and lie was evidently astonished that wlien Seuthes rose from the table, he manifested no signs of intoxication. (lb. 3. § 26, seqq.) The Thracians are said to have had a custom, which prevailed in England as late as the last century, of compelling all the guests to drink the same quantity. (Callim. ap. A then. x. p. 442.) The Odrysian auxiliaries of Dercyliidas poured great quantities of wine upon the graves of their slain comrades. (Xen. Hell. iii. 2. § 5.) It would appear from Jlela (ii. 2), that some of the Thracians weie unacquainted with wine, but practised another mode of producing intoxication: while feasting, they threw into the fires around which they were seated certain seeds, the fumes of which caused a cheerful kind of drunkenness. It is possible that these may have been the seeds of hemp, which, as we have seen, probably grew in Thrace, and contains, as is well known, a narcotic principle. The Thracians against whom Seuthes led his forces lived in villages (lb. § 43), the houses being fenced round with large stakes, within the inclosure formed by which their sheep were secured (lb. 4. § 14 ; cf. Tac. An7i. iv. 49). Pliny (vii. 41) states that the Thracians had a custom of marking their happy or unhappy days, by placing a whi;e or a bhick stone in a vessel at the close of each day. On any one's death, the vessel