Thracians
Ancient Indo-Europeans in eastern Europe / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Thracian?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
The Thracians (/ˈθreɪʃənz/; Ancient Greek: Θρᾷκες, romanized: Thrāikes; Latin: Thraci) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Southeast Europe in ancient history.[1][2] Thracians resided mainly in Southeast Europe in modern-day Bulgaria, Romania and northern Greece, but also in north-western Anatolia (Asia Minor) in Turkey.
This article needs additional citations for verification. (April 2022) |
The exact origin of the Thracians is uncertain, but it is believed that Thracians descended from a purported mixture of Proto-Indo-Europeans and Early European Farmers, arriving from the rest of Asia and Africa through Asia Minor (Anatolia).[3]
Around the 5th millennium BC, the inhabitants of the eastern region of the Balkans became organized in different groups of indigenous people that, were later named by the ancient Greeks under the single ethnonym of “Thracians”.[4][5][6][7]
The Thracian culture emerged during the early Bronze Age, which began about 3500 BC.[4][8][9][10] From it also developed the Getae, the Dacians and other regional groups of tribes. Historical and archaeological records indicate that the Thracian culture flourished in the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC.[4][11][12] Writing in the 6th century BC, Xenophanes described Thracians as "blue-eyed and red-haired".[13]
Greeks and Romans portrayed the Thracians and their culture as uncivilized and tribal. According to them they remained largely disunited, with their first permanent state being the Odrysian kingdom with capital city Seuthopolis in the 5th century BC. They faced subjugation by the Achaemenid Empire around the same time. Thracians experienced a short period of peace after the Persians were defeated by the Greeks in the Persian Wars. The Odrysian kingdom lost independence to Macedon in the late 4th century BC, and regained independence following Alexander the Great's death.
The Thracians faced conquest by the Romans in the mid 2nd century BC under whom they faced internal strife. They composed major parts of rebellions against the Romans along with the Macedonians until the Third Macedonian War. The last reported use of a Thracian language was by monks in the 6th century AD.
Thracians were described as "warlike" and "barbarians" by the Greeks and Romans and were favored as mercenaries. Archaeology has been used since the mid-twentieth century in southern Bulgaria to identify more about them. Both Romans and Greeks called them barbarians since they were neither Romans nor Greeks, and due to the perceived primitiveness of their culture. Some Roman authors noted that even after the introduction of Latin they still kept their "barbarous" ways.[14] While the Thracians were perceived as unsophisticated by Romans and Greeks, their culture was reportedly noted for its poetry and music.[15]
Thracians spoke the extinct Thracian language and shared a common culture.[1] The Thracians culturally interacted with the peoples surrounding them – Greeks, Persians, Scythians and Celts – although such interactions mostly affected the circles of the aristocratic elite of Thracian society.[16] Among their customs was tattooing, common among both males and females.[17] They followed a polytheistic religion. The study of the Thracians is known as Thracology.