Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/40

 52 HISTORY OF GREECE. mans, 1 on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, perhaps also tha Mysians, were members of this great Thraci.in race, which was more remotely connected, also, with the Phrygians. And the whole race may be said to present a character more Asiatic than European, especially in those ecstatic and maddening religious rites, which prevailed not less among the Edonian Thracians than in the mountains of Ida and Dindymon of Asia, though with some important differences. The Thracians served to furnish the Greeks with mercenary troops and slaves, and the number of Grecian colonies planted on the coast had the effect of par- tially softening the tribes in the immediate vicinity, between whose chiefs and the Greek leaders intermarriages were not unfrequent. But the tribes in the interior seem to have retained their savage habits with little mitigation, so that the language in which Tacitus 2 describes them is an apt continuation to that of Herodotus, though coming more than five centuries after. To note the situation of each one among these many different tribes, in the large territory of Thrace, which is even now so imperfectly known and badly mapped, would be unnecessary, and, indeed, impracticable. I shall proceed to mention the prin- cipal Grecian colonies which were formed in the country, noticing occasionally the particular Thracian tribes with which they came in contact. The Grecian colonies established on the Thermaic gulf, as well as in the peninsula of Chalkidike, emanating principally from Chalkis and Eretria, though we do not know their precise epoch, appear to have been of early date, and probably preceded the time when the Macedonians of Edessa extended their conquests to the sea. At that early period, they would find the Pierians still between the Peneius and Haliakmon, also a number of petty Thracian tribes throughout the broad part of the Chalkidic peninsula ; they would find Pydna a Pierian town, and Therma, Anthemus, Chalastra, etc. Mygdonian. The most ancient Grecian colony in these regions seems lo seventh book of the Anabasis generally, which describes the relations (-f Xenophon and the Ten Thousand Greeks with Seuthes the Thmciao prince. 1 Xenopb. Anab. vi, 2, 17 ; Hcrodot. vii, 75.
 * Tacit. Annal. ii, 66 ; iv, 46.