The Great Illyrian Revolt by Jason R Abdale

Author:Jason R Abdale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / Ancient
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books Limited
Published: 2018-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

Rome asks the Thracians for Help

The Romans wanted to end the rebellion quickly, but they also realized that they couldn’t afford such costly victories as the Battle of the Dravus River. With the rebels greatly outnumbering the legionnaires that were immediately at hand, the Romans knew that they needed to rapidly increase their numbers. So they sent word to their allies and vassal states, requesting aid. Among those who were contacted was Thrace.53

Ancient Thrace encompassed eastern Greece, most of southern Bulgaria and the European part of Turkey. The people who inhabited this land were called Thracians, and may have been related to the Dacians, their northern neighbours, who dwelt on the opposite side of the Danube River in modern Romania. The ancient Greeks knew the Thracians very well; the historian and geographer Herodotus, writing in the fifth century BC, discusses them in detail in his Histories when he was describing Shah Darius’ invasion of Europe. The name almost assuredly descends from the name of one of their tribes, the Trausi; this name would have been ascribed to all of the Thracians by outsiders such as the Greeks. Herodotus states that the Thracians were divided into many tribes, with most following a similar culture.54

Thrace did not exist as a unified country until the mid to late 400s BC. For the preceding hundred years, the Odrysae tribe had been expanding their territory and gaining power. Then in the mid-fifth century BC, King Sitacles of the Odrysae proclaimed himself ‘King of the Thracians’ and proceeded to conquer all of his neighbours, and even fought against the kingdom of Macedon. However, the unified Thracian kingdom was short-lived. After Sitacles’ grandson died in 358 BC, Thrace split apart once again. Thrace became a target for invasion and became incorporated into one dominion or another for many years. It wasn’t until the reign of Caesar Augustus that Thrace was once again unified, not as an independent kingdom but as a vassal state, more commonly known as a client kingdom; Thrace had its own laws, government and ruler, but it still had to acknowledge Rome as its overlord. King Rhoemetalces I, the son of Chief Cotys of the Astae tribe, was the first ruler of this new united Thracian kingdom. King Rhoemetalces I reigned from 11 BC to 12 AD. His capital city was located at Bizye (Vize), which lay exactly halfway between Byzantium and Hadrianopolis. It was the home of an important Thracian holy site and at least one royal tomb consisting of a burial mound containing gold, silver and bronze objects. He had a brother named Rhascyporis, who would fight alongside him during the Great Illyrian Revolt. Thrace would become a Roman province in 46 AD during the reign of Emperor Claudius.55

By the time of Caesar Augustus, the Thracians had been very heavily Hellenized. Thracian coins had inscriptions on them in Greek. King Rhoemetalces, as he is called in the Roman sources, is listed as Basileos Roimhtalkou on Thracian coins. His actual name, based upon a combination of Greek and Roman variations of it, might have sounded like ‘Rowim-hetalkos’.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.