Post by Emperor AAdmin on Jan 1, 2008 19:39:08 GMT -5
Kveldulf
(12/13/03 8:22 pm)
Ancient quotes on Greek speaking Thracians
---------- a. "When Seuthes heard all that, he said that he trusted all Athenians, because he knows that between him and them there is a kinship, and thus he considers them as his dear friends."
[Seuthes was the King of Southern Thrace]
(Seuthes' ancestor Teres, and First King of the Thracian Odrysians, was in fact Tereus who married the daughter of the Athenian King Pandion and had lands in Phocis. This happened in the remote antiquity. Events described here take place ca. 400 B.C.)
Source:
---------
Xenophon, Êýñïõ ÁíÜâáóéò-Anabasis: Book VII, Chapter II, 31
---------- b. (Seuthes replied:) Maisades was my father, and he ruled the Melanditae, the Thynians and the Tranipsae.[Thracian tribes].
(The Thracian Tribal names are all Greek etymologically.)
Source:
---------
Xenophon, Êýñïõ ÁíÜâáóéò-Anabasis: Book VII, Chapter II, 32
---------- c. (Xenophon said:) We intend to go to a place where the soldiers will be able to find food for themselves. There, we will hear what Aristarchus the Spartan has to say and what you have to propose, and we shall choose to go with whomever proposals' sound more beneficial to us.
(King Seuthes replied:) I know many villages that are not far away one from the other, where food can be found in abudance.
(Seuthes could speak and understand Attic Greek, thus he was able to converse with Xenophon, an Athenian, directly without the intervention of an itepreter.)
Source:
---------
Xenophon, Êýñïõ ÁíÜâáóéò-Anabasis: Book VII, Chapter III, 8-10
----------- d. When they were close at the gates, and they were preparing themselves to enter and dine, they met a certain Heracleides from Maronia.
(Maronia was a Greek City on the Thracian Coast between Abdera and Doriscon Lt. Doriscum. Heracleides was King Seuthes' aid-de-camp.)
Source:
---------
Xenophon, Êýñïõ ÁíÜâáóéò-Anabasis: Book VII, Chapter III, 16
----------- e. Then Seuthes arose, and drunk along with Xenophon all the wine in their cups, and then, together, they shed the last drops of the wine on the ground, as a "sponde".
(A "Sponde", was an Archaic Greek Custom, documented to be practised at least from the time of the Trojan War. Achilles, Menelaus, Patroclus, Agamemnon, Diomedes, Odysseus, Hector, Paris, Priamus, in short terms everybody as early as 1260 B.C. to honour the Gods. The practicing of the same custom by the Thracians means that, they had common customs with the Greeks.)
Source:
---------
Xenophon, Êýñïõ ÁíÜâáóéò-Anabasis: Book VII, Chapter III, 32
----------- f. (Seuthes said:) Prepare yourselves and wait. When the time is right I shall come with my Peltasts take you and lead you with the help of the Gods.
(Greeks and Thracians had the same Gods, i.e. the twelve Olympian Gods.)
Source:
---------
Xenophon, Êýñïõ ÁíÜâáóéò-Anabasis: Book VII, Chapter III, 36
----------- g. And [thus] as a password, they set the name of the Godess Athena, because of the kinship between Athenians and Tracians.
Source:
---------
Xenophon, Êýñïõ ÁíÜâáóéò-Anabasis: Book VII, Chapter III, 39
----------- h. (The Thynians, one of the Thracian tribes Seuthes and Xenophon wage war against, attack the Greco-Thracian Army. Book VII, Chapter IV, 12-19)
(And) they even called out the name of Xenophon as well, and challenged him to step out of the (keep) to kill him, otherwise they threatened him that they would burn him where he stands.
(It is clear that even the Thynian tribesmen, commoners in other words, spoke Greek. Knowledge of the Greek language was not limited to Noblemen only.)
Source:
---------
Xenophon, Êýñïõ ÁíÜâáóéò-Anabasis: Book VII, Chapter IV, 15
----------- i. Because many of the Odrysians left their mountain homes to take part in his [Seuthes'] military operations because they have learned of his achievements.
(Seuthes was the son of the King of the Odrysians, a Thracian tribe that lived in the Thracian mountains, not in the Thracian coast.)
Source:
---------
Xenophon, Êýñïõ ÁíÜâáóéò-Anabasis: Book VII, Chapter IV, 21
CONCLUSION:
-----------------
There were clearly many ties, linguistic, cultural, racial, as well as religious between the Thracians and the Greeks.
As the evidence of the Archaic Thracian King Tereus tells us, contacts between the mainland Greeks and the Thracians are as old as at least 8th cent. B.C.
Of course there is even more evidence in the Iliad, which is much more difficult to read and extract quotations, due to the highly poetic language of Homerus.
You may use the above quotations freely, as the translation is mine from the original Attic Greek text, and thus is not copyrighted or anything else.
15-9-2003
Kveldulf
(12/13/03 8:22 pm)
Ancient quotes on Greek speaking Thracians
---------- a. "When Seuthes heard all that, he said that he trusted all Athenians, because he knows that between him and them there is a kinship, and thus he considers them as his dear friends."
[Seuthes was the King of Southern Thrace]
(Seuthes' ancestor Teres, and First King of the Thracian Odrysians, was in fact Tereus who married the daughter of the Athenian King Pandion and had lands in Phocis. This happened in the remote antiquity. Events described here take place ca. 400 B.C.)
Source:
---------
Xenophon, Êýñïõ ÁíÜâáóéò-Anabasis: Book VII, Chapter II, 31
---------- b. (Seuthes replied:) Maisades was my father, and he ruled the Melanditae, the Thynians and the Tranipsae.[Thracian tribes].
(The Thracian Tribal names are all Greek etymologically.)
Source:
---------
Xenophon, Êýñïõ ÁíÜâáóéò-Anabasis: Book VII, Chapter II, 32
---------- c. (Xenophon said:) We intend to go to a place where the soldiers will be able to find food for themselves. There, we will hear what Aristarchus the Spartan has to say and what you have to propose, and we shall choose to go with whomever proposals' sound more beneficial to us.
(King Seuthes replied:) I know many villages that are not far away one from the other, where food can be found in abudance.
(Seuthes could speak and understand Attic Greek, thus he was able to converse with Xenophon, an Athenian, directly without the intervention of an itepreter.)
Source:
---------
Xenophon, Êýñïõ ÁíÜâáóéò-Anabasis: Book VII, Chapter III, 8-10
----------- d. When they were close at the gates, and they were preparing themselves to enter and dine, they met a certain Heracleides from Maronia.
(Maronia was a Greek City on the Thracian Coast between Abdera and Doriscon Lt. Doriscum. Heracleides was King Seuthes' aid-de-camp.)
Source:
---------
Xenophon, Êýñïõ ÁíÜâáóéò-Anabasis: Book VII, Chapter III, 16
----------- e. Then Seuthes arose, and drunk along with Xenophon all the wine in their cups, and then, together, they shed the last drops of the wine on the ground, as a "sponde".
(A "Sponde", was an Archaic Greek Custom, documented to be practised at least from the time of the Trojan War. Achilles, Menelaus, Patroclus, Agamemnon, Diomedes, Odysseus, Hector, Paris, Priamus, in short terms everybody as early as 1260 B.C. to honour the Gods. The practicing of the same custom by the Thracians means that, they had common customs with the Greeks.)
Source:
---------
Xenophon, Êýñïõ ÁíÜâáóéò-Anabasis: Book VII, Chapter III, 32
----------- f. (Seuthes said:) Prepare yourselves and wait. When the time is right I shall come with my Peltasts take you and lead you with the help of the Gods.
(Greeks and Thracians had the same Gods, i.e. the twelve Olympian Gods.)
Source:
---------
Xenophon, Êýñïõ ÁíÜâáóéò-Anabasis: Book VII, Chapter III, 36
----------- g. And [thus] as a password, they set the name of the Godess Athena, because of the kinship between Athenians and Tracians.
Source:
---------
Xenophon, Êýñïõ ÁíÜâáóéò-Anabasis: Book VII, Chapter III, 39
----------- h. (The Thynians, one of the Thracian tribes Seuthes and Xenophon wage war against, attack the Greco-Thracian Army. Book VII, Chapter IV, 12-19)
(And) they even called out the name of Xenophon as well, and challenged him to step out of the (keep) to kill him, otherwise they threatened him that they would burn him where he stands.
(It is clear that even the Thynian tribesmen, commoners in other words, spoke Greek. Knowledge of the Greek language was not limited to Noblemen only.)
Source:
---------
Xenophon, Êýñïõ ÁíÜâáóéò-Anabasis: Book VII, Chapter IV, 15
----------- i. Because many of the Odrysians left their mountain homes to take part in his [Seuthes'] military operations because they have learned of his achievements.
(Seuthes was the son of the King of the Odrysians, a Thracian tribe that lived in the Thracian mountains, not in the Thracian coast.)
Source:
---------
Xenophon, Êýñïõ ÁíÜâáóéò-Anabasis: Book VII, Chapter IV, 21
CONCLUSION:
-----------------
There were clearly many ties, linguistic, cultural, racial, as well as religious between the Thracians and the Greeks.
As the evidence of the Archaic Thracian King Tereus tells us, contacts between the mainland Greeks and the Thracians are as old as at least 8th cent. B.C.
Of course there is even more evidence in the Iliad, which is much more difficult to read and extract quotations, due to the highly poetic language of Homerus.
You may use the above quotations freely, as the translation is mine from the original Attic Greek text, and thus is not copyrighted or anything else.
15-9-2003
Kveldulf