Ancient Thrace in the Modern Imagination: Ideological Aspects of the Construction of Thracian Studies in Southeast Europe (Romania, Greece, Bulgaria)

Ancient Thrace in the Modern Imagination: Ideological Aspects of the Construction of Thracian Studies in Southeast Europe (Romania, Greece, Bulgaria) Tchavdar Marinov Who Are the Thracians? An Outline of Ancient and Modern Views “[. .] the Thracian race is the most numerous, except the Indians, in all the world—and if it should come to be ruled over by one man, or to agree together in one, it would be irresistible in fight and the strongest by far of all nations, in my opinion [. .]” Today, this excerpt from Herodotus1 is practically obligatory to quote in monographs, articles and even in novels dedicated to the paleo- Balkan peoples known under the common ethnonym Thracians (referred to in Ancient Greek as Thra[i]kes, Thrēikes, etc.).2 This is especially true in Romania and in Bulgaria, where scholars, writers, journalists and political propagandists have created an immense library of writings dedicated to these ancient populations. These countries have even institutionalized a specific field of Thracian studies—or “Thracology”—that covers a series of disciplines: archaeology, history and art history, classical philology, epigraphy and linguistics, the history of religions, Indo-European studies and ethnography.3 At first glance, this inter- est might be perfectly legitimate, given the historical data at our disposal. Thracians were mentioned for the first time in the Iliad, while the last con- temporary references to them are from the sixth century CE. By that time, it is likely that they were completely Romanized or Hellenized. Contrary to the 1 Histories, vol. 5, 3, translated by G.C. Macaulay. 2 Throughout this text I use different principles of transliteration of Classical and Modern Greek. While in the first case, I employ the standard system based on the Erasmian pronun- ciation, in the second, I have tried to follow the modern Greek phonetical features, although not to the extreme. Thus, while β is transliterated as b in the case of Ancient Greek and as v in Modern Greek, and η is ē and i respectively, in both cases the old diphthongs αι, ει, οι are rendered as ai, ei, oi, in order to preserve a certain visual correspondence with the Greek original. 3 This large scope is often interpreted as a proof that Thracology is a “modern interdisci- plinary scholarly discipline”: http://www.thracians.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=270 (accessed on January 20, 2013). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004�90365_003 Ancient Thrace In The Modern Imagination 11 superlatives in Herodotus’s description, the Thracians were certainly not the most numerous ancient people after the Indians, even if we add to them the Getae, the Dacians and other populations that are sometimes classified sepa- rately. Yet in the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods of ancient Greek history, they inhabited the territory (or parts thereof) of several modern countries—primarily Romania and Bulgaria, but also Greek Thrace and eastern Greek Macedonia, Turkish Thrace and also an area of northwestern Anatolia, as well as parts of Serbia, the Republic of Macedonia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. Ancient sources also indicated that there were Thracian populations on a number of Aegean islands and in the core territory of Hellas. During the Roman Imperial period, they were scattered over a much larger territory: apart from the city of Rome itself and Italy, researchers have found informa- tion on Thracian soldiers, mercenaries and slaves in Egypt, in the Near East and elsewhere. The Thracians certainly did not live on this space in isolation. Starting in the eighth century BCE, the Thracian coasts—first those by the Aegean Sea, followed by those by the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea—were inten- sively colonized by Greeks. By the mid-fourth century, Philip II, the famous king of Macedonia, launched a series of military campaigns that imposed Macedonian domination over Thrace. It continued until 281 BCE and the death of Lysimachus, diadochus (successor) of Alexander the Great and king of Thrace, which was followed by a massive invasion of Celts. The long Roman conquest started by the end of the second century BCE. It was complete by the mid-first century CE in Thrace and by the beginning of the second century to the north of Danube, in Dacia. The Thracians created kingdoms of varying strength during certain periods—such as the Odrysian kingdom from the fifth to fourth century BCE or the Dacian kingdom from the first century BCE to the second century CE. But, in fact, exactly when these kingdoms existed is subject to debate. The same holds true for particular questions such as the level of “urbanization” of their territories.4 In general, the case of the Thracians is notable for the impressive number of far-reaching conclusions, ambitious hypotheses and speculations dedicated to them and the equally numerous deficiencies in our basic knowledge about them. To begin with, the ancient Thracian language is almost completely unknown, despite the exhausting exercises of etymology made by modern 4 For an archaeological discussion of this topic (untainted by nationalist overtones): Hristo Popov, Urbanizatsiyata văv vătreshnite rayoni na Trakiya i Iliriya prez VI-I vek predi Hrista (Sofia: Nous, 2002). On the Odrysian state: Zofia Archibald, The Odrysian Kingdom of Thrace: Orpheus Unmasked (Oxford and New York: Clarendon and Oxford University Press, 1998)..

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