We hear of king Amyntas in friendly connection with the Peisistratid princes at Athens, whose dominion was in part sustained by mercenaries from the Strymon, and this amicable sentiment was continued between his son Alexander and the emancipated Athenians.[33] It is only in the reigns of these two princes that Macedonia begins to be implicated in Grecian affairs: the regal dynasty had become so completely Macedonized, and had so far renounced its Hellenic brotherhood, that the claim of Alexander to run at the Olympic games was contested by his competitors, and he was called upon to prove his lineage before the Hellanodikæ.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THRACIANS AND GREEK COLONIES IN THRACE.
That vast space comprised between the rivers Strymon and Danube, and bounded to the west by the easternmost Illyrian tribes, northward of the Strymon, was occupied by the innumerable subdivisions of the race called Thracians, or Threïcians. They were the most numerous and most terrible race known to Herodotus: could they by possibility act in unison or under one dominion (he says), they would be irresistible. A conjunction thus formidable once seemed impending, during the first years of the Peloponnesian war, under the reign of Sitalkês king of the Odrysæ, who reigned from Abdêra at the mouth of the Nestus to the Euxine, and compressed under his sceptre a large proportion of these ferocious but warlike plunderers; so that the Greeks even down to Thermopylæ trembled at his expected approach. But the abilities of that prince were not found adequate to bring the whole force of Thrace into effective coöperation and aggression against others.
Numerous as the tribes of Thracians were, their customs and character (according to Herodotus) were marked by great uniformity: of the Getæ, the Trausi, and others, he tells us a few particularities. And the large tract over which the race were spread, comprising as it did the whole chain of Mount Hæmus and the still loftier chain of Rhodopê, together with a portion of the mountains Orbêlus and Skomius, was yet partly occupied by level and fertile surface,—such as the great plain of Adrianople, and the land towards the lower course of the rivers Nestus and Hebrus. The Thracians of the plain, though not less warlike, were at least more home-keeping, and less greedy of foreign plunder, than those of the mountains. But the general character of the race presents an aggregate of repulsive features unredeemed by the presence of even the commonest domestic affections.[34] The Thracian chief deduced his pedigree from a god called by the Greeks Hermês, to whom he offered up worship apart from the rest of his tribe, sometimes with the acceptable present of a human victim. He tattooed his body,[35] and that of the women belonging to him, as a privilege of honorable descent: he bought his wives from their parents, and sold his children for exportation to the foreign merchant: he held it disgraceful to cultivate the earth, and felt honored only by the acquisitions of war and robbery. The Thracian tribes worshipped deities whom the Greeks assimilate to Arês, Dionysus, and Artemis: the great sanctuary and oracle of their god Dionysus was in one of the loftiest summits of Rhodopê, amidst dense and foggy thickets,—the residence of the fierce and unassailable Satræ. To illustrate the Thracian character, we may turn to a deed perpetrated by the king of the Bisaltæ,—perhaps one out of several chiefs of that extensive Thracian tribe,—whose territory, between Strymon and Axius, lay in the direct march of Xerxês into Greece, and who fled to the desolate heights of Rhodopê, to escape the ignominy of being dragged along amidst the compulsory auxiliaries of the Persian invasion, forbidding his six sons to take any part in it. From recklessness, or curiosity, the sons disobeyed his commands, and accompanied Xerxês into Greece; they returned unhurt by the Greek spear; but the incensed father, when they again came into his presence, caused the eyes of all of them to be put out. Exultation of success manifested itself in the Thracians by increased alacrity in shedding blood; but as warriors, the only occupation which they esteemed, they were not less brave than patient of hardship, and maintained a good front, under their own peculiar array, against forces much superior in all military efficacy.[36] It appears that the Thynians and Bithynians,[37] on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, perhaps also the Mysians, were members of this great Thracian 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 partially 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[38] 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 huge 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 principal 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 Chalkidikê, 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 Haliakmôn,—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 to have been Methônê, founded by the Eretrians in Pieria; nearly at the same time (if we may trust a statement of rather suspicious character, though the date itself is noway improbable) as Korkyra was settled by the Corinthians (about 730-720 B. C.).[39] It was a little to the north of the Pierian town of Pydna, and separated by about ten miles from the Bottiæan town of Alôrus, which lay north of the Haliakmôn.[40] We know very little about Methônê, except that it preserved its autonomy and its Hellenism until the time of Philip of Macedon, who took and destroyed it. But though, when once established, it was strong enough to maintain itself in spite of conquests made all around by the Macedonians of Edessa, we may fairly presume that it could not have been originally planted on Macedonian territory. Nor in point of fact was the situation peculiarly advantageous for Grecian colonists, inasmuch as there were other maritime towns, not Grecian, in its neighborhood,—Pydna, Alôrus, Therma, Chalastra; whereas the point of advantage for a Grecian colony was, to become the exclusive seaport for inland indigenous people.
The colonies, founded by Chalkis and Eretria on all the three projections of the Chalkidic peninsula, were numerous, though for a long time inconsiderable. We do not know how far these projecting headlands were occupied before the arrival of the settlers from Eubœa,—an event which we may probably place at some period earlier than 600 B. C.; for after that period Chalkis and Eretria seem rather on the decline,—and it appears too, that the Chalkidian colonists in Thrace aided their mother-city Chalkis in her war against Eretria, which cannot be much later than 600 B. C., though it may be considerably earlier.
The range of mountains which crosses from the Thermaic to the Strymonic gulf, and forms the northern limit of the Chalkidic peninsula, slopes down towards the southern extremity, so as to leave a considerable tract of fertile land between the Torônaic and the Thermaic gulfs, including the fertile headland called Pallênê,—the westernmost of those three prongs of Chalkidikê which run out into the Ægean. Of the other two prongs, or projections, the easternmost is terminated by the sublime Mount Athos, which rises out of the sea as a precipitous rock six thousand four hundred feet in height, connected with the mainland by a ridge not more than half the height of the mountain itself, yet still high, rugged, and woody from sea to sea, leaving only little occasional spaces fit to be occupied or cultivated. The intermediate or Sithonian headland is also hilly and woody, though in a less degree,—both less inviting and less productive than Pallênê.[41]