Thrace. Anciently the name of an extensive country bounded on the north by the Danube, on the east by the Euxine, on the south by the Ægean and Macedonia, and on the west by Macedonia and Illyria. War and robbery were the only honorable occupations of the Thracians. They lived to steal, either from each other or from neighboring peoples. When not fighting or plundering, they spent their days in savage idleness, or in quarreling over their cups. Courageous, or rather ferocious, after the fashion of barbarous peoples, they yet lacked the steady valor and endurance of disciplined troops; at all times, their warfare displayed more fierceness and impetuosity than fortitude. In 513 B.C., Darius, king of Persia, marched through Thrace on his way to punish the European Scythians, and on his return left Megabazus with 80,000 men to subdue the country. In this he partially succeeded, but new disturbances and complications arose between the Persians and Greeks, which resulted (480 B.C.) in the famous expedition of Xerxes. The consequence of the expulsion of the Persians from Europe was the resumption of liberty and the revival of prosperity among the Greek colonies in Thrace. Shortly before the Peloponnesian war, a native Thracian state—the Odrysian—had attained to great power and eminence under a ruler named Sitalces, who joined the Athenian alliance, but could not, in spite of his resources, prevent the triumph of Sparta in the north as well as in the south. The rise of the Macedonian kingdom, under Philip II. (359 B.C.), destroyed the independence of a great part of Thrace. Under the government of Lysimachus, the subjugation of Thrace became complete. On the fall of the Macedonian kingdom (168 B.C.) it passed into the hands of the Romans, and subsequently shared the vicissitudes of the Roman empire. In 334 a colony of Sarmatians, and in 376 another of Goths, was planted in Thrace. In 395 it was overrun by Alaric, and in 447 by Attila. In 1353, Amurath obtained possession of all its fortresses, except Constantinople, and it has ever since remained in the possession of the Turks.
Thrasimenus Lacus. See [Trasimenus Lacus].
Throw, To. To force anything from one place to another; thus, artillerists say, to throw a shot or shell, or so many shells were thrown.
Thrust. Hostile attack with any pointed weapon, as in fencing. When one party makes a push with his sword to wound his adversary with the point, it is called a thrust.
Thud. The sound of a bullet on hitting the intended object.
Thug. One of an association of robbers and murderers in India, who practiced murder not by open assault, but by stealthy approaches, and from religious motives. They have been nearly exterminated by the British government.
Thumb-stall. See [Implements].
Thunderbolt. In heraldry, a bearing borrowed from classical mythology, which may be described as a twisted bar in pale inflamed at each end surmounting two jagged darts in saltire between two wings displayed with streams of fire.
Thundering Legion. During a contest with the invading Marcomanni, the prayers of some Christians in a Roman legion are said to have been followed by a storm of thunder, lightning, and rain, which tended greatly to discomfit the enemy; and hence the legion received the name in 174.
Thurii, or Thurium. A Greek city in the south of Italy, on the north shore of the Tarentine Gulf, was founded in 452 B.C., by a body of Sybarite exiles, near the spot where their ancient city had stood till it was destroyed by the Crotonians fifty-eight years before. The rise of a new colony re-awakened the anger of the Crotonians, and after five years they expelled the Sybarites. These after an unsuccessful appeal to Sparta for assistance, applied to the Athenians, who resolved to send out a colony along with the persecuted Sybarites. The leaders of this colony were Lampon and Xenocritus. A war subsequently occurred between Thurii and Tarentum, but was terminated by a compromise. In 390 B.C. the city received a severe blow from a total defeat of their army by the Lucanians. From this period it began to decline, and was at length obliged to submit to the Roman power, in order to escape the continued attacks of the Lucanians.