Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1210

 1186 THRACIA. a powei'ful force in Thrace, the Paeonians could hardly have succeeded in making their escape from Phrygia back to the Strymon (Id. v. 98), nor could the revolted lonians (b. c. 498) have taken Byzan- tium and all the other cities in that country. (Id. V. 103.) It is to this period tjiat vre must refer the invasion of the Scythians, who are said to have ad- vanced as far as the Chersonesus, thus occasioning the temporary flight of Miltiades, who, they were aware, had assisted Darius in his attack upon their coa;:try. (Id. vi. 40.) After the suppression of the Ionian revolt (b. c. 493), the Phoenician fleet sailed to the Hellespont, and again brought the country under the Persian dominion, Cardia being the only city which they were unable to take. (Id. vi. 33.) Miltiades made his escape from the Chersonesus to Athens, on hear- ing of the approach of the hostile fleet. (/6. 41.) Next year Mardonius led an army across the Hellespont, and advanced as far as Macedonia ; but his fleet having been wrecked off Jlount Athos, and his land forces having suffered considerably in a war with the Thracians, who then occupied the country W. of the Strymon, he retraced his steps, and trans- ported his shattered army into Asia (Id. vi. 43, seqq.). It was not till b. c. 480 that the vast army under the command of Xerxes crossed the Hellespont by the famous bridges which spanned the strait from Abydos to Sestus. Of his march through Thrace, Herodotus gives an interesting account (vii. 108 — 1 1 .5) ; but, as he met with no opposition, we need not dwell upon these circumstances. After the disastrous battle of Salamis, Xerxes, with an escort of 60,000 men, hastened back by the same road which he had so recently trod in all the overweening confidence of despotic power: in Thrace, his miserable troops suffered greatly from hunger and consequent disease, but do not appear to have been openly attacked. (Herod, viii. 115, seqq.) Next year (b. c. 479) was fought the battle of Plataeae in which Thracians formed part of the motley host arrayed against Greek freedom (Id. ix. 32). Artabazus led the 40,000 men, who alone remained of the Persian army, by forced marches through Thessaly, Macedonia, and Thrace. He struck through the interior of the latter country, probably for fear of the Greek cities on the coast; but he en- countered enemies as much to be dreaded, and lost a great part of his army by hunger, fatigue, and the at- tacks of the Thracians, before he reached Byzantium. It was now the turn of the victorious Greeks to assail their foes in their own territories. Thrace, with the exception of Doriscus, was soon cleared of the Persians. After the battle of Mycale, their fleet sailed to the Hellespont, where the Athenians laid siege to Sestus, which was taken early in the following year (b. c. 478) [Sestus]. Eion, at the mouth of the Strymon, made a desperate resistance ; but at length (b. c. 476) fell into the hands of Cimon and the Athenians, after its Persian governor had put to death all his family, and finally himself. (Herod, vii. 107 ; cf. Thucyd. i. 98). Byzantium had been taken by Pausanias the year before. Thus the Per- sians were driven out of Europe, and the Greek settlements in Thrace resumed their internal freedom of action, though most of them, it is probable, were under the supremacy of Athens, as the chosen head of the great Greek confederacy. During the administration of Pericles, 1000 Athe- nian citizens were settled in the Thracian Cher- souesus, which was always the chief stronghold of THEACIA. Athens in that quarter. Under the auspices of the same statesman, in b. c. 437, the Athenians suc- ceeded in founding Amphipolis, the contests for the possession of which occupy a very prominent place in the subsequent histoiy of Greece. [Amphipolis, Voh I. p. 126.] About this time flourished the most powerful Thracian kingdom that ever existed, that of the Odrysae, for the history of which see Odeysae, Vol. II. pp. 463 — 465. At the commencement of the Peloponnesian War (b.c. 431), the Athenians en- tered into an alliance with Sitalces, the king of the Odrysae (Thucyd. ii. 29), who, they hoped, would enable them to subdue all opposition to their supre- macy in the Chalcidic penhisula. In consequence of this alliance, Sitalces led (b. c 429) a vast host into ]Iacedonia, the ruler of which supported the enemies of Athens : he encountered no opposition, yet was compelled by want of supplies to return to Thrace, about a month after he had left it (/&. 95 — 101). But although Sitalces was an ally of Athens, this did not prevent Brasidas from having great numbers of light-armed Thracians in his armies, while commanding the Spartan forces in the neigh- bourhood of Amphipolis (b. c. 422). It would occupy too much space to relate minutely the various turns of fortune which occurred in Thrace during the Peloponnesian War. The prin- cipal struggle in this quarter was for the command of the Bosporus and Hellespont, so important, espe- cially to the Athenians, on account of the corn trade with the Euxine, from which Athens drew a large part of her supplies. Hence many of the most im- portant naval battles were fought in the Hellespont ; and the possession of Byzantium and Sestus was the prize of many a victory. The battle of Aegospotami, which terminated the long contest for supremacy, took place to the S. of Sestus, B. c. 405. By the peace concluded next year, Athens gave up all her foreign possessions ; and those in the east of Thrace fell into the hands of the Spartans and Persians. [See Byzantium, Sestus, &c.] When the remnant of the 10,000 Greeks returned (b. c. 400) to Europe, they were engaged by Seuthes, an Odrysian prince, to assist him in recovering the dominions which had belonged to his father, in the south eastern part of Thrace. (Xen. Anah. vii. pass.) Having thus been reinstated in his principality, he showed his gratitude to the Greeks, by sending aux- iliaries to Dercyllidas, who commanded the Spartan forces against the Persians, with whom they were now (B.C. 399) at war (Xen. Eell. iii. 2). Next year Dercyllidas crossed over into the Chersonesus, and erected a wall across Tls northern extremiiy, as a protection to the Greek inhabitants, who were ex- posed, to constant attacks from their barbarous neighbours (76. 2. §§ 8 — 10). The same general successfully defended Sestus from the combined forces of Conon and Pharuabazus (b. c. 394 : lb. iv. 8. § 5, seqq.). But in b. c. 390 Thrasybulus restored Athenian influence in Thrace, by forming an alliance with two native princes, and by establishing demo- cracy at Byzantium (76. § 25, seqq.); and his suc- cess was confirmed by the victory of Iphicrates over Anaxibius the next year (ih. § 34). The peace of Antalcidas, however, released all the Greek states from their connection with Athens, and virtually gave the supremacy to Sparta (b. c. 387). Nothing of any importance happened in Thrace after this event till the accession of Philip II. to the throne of Macedonia (b. c. 359). This able but un-