Thrace (Seuthopolis)
Lying west of Istanbul, ancient Thrace is now shared between Bulgaria (Northern Thrace), Greece (Western Thrace) and European Turkey (Eastern Thrace). The country originally extended as far west as the Adriatic but the Thracians had to retreat eastwards between the thirteenth and fifth centuries BC under pressure from the Illyrians and the Macedonians.
From the seventh century BC many Greek colonies were founded on the Thracian shores. In 514 BC Darius-I of Persia (c.64; r.522-486 BC) crossed the Bosporus to pursue the Scythian armies. He soon had to return to Asia, but was able to leave a strong army behind with instructions to annex Thrace and Macedonia. Divided into many tribes, the unification of the Thracians was apparently prompted by the Greek repulsion of the invasion of the peninsula by the Persian army under Xerxes-I (c.54; r.486-465 BC). The Odrysae, the leading tribe of Thrace, under their king Teres-I (r.460-445 BC), founded the kingdom of Odrysia (460-00-46). Under the rule of Teres and his successors the Odrysian state remained the dominant alliance until the rise of the Macedonians.
The Thracians continued to live almost entirely in villages until the Roman era. Seuthes III (r.c.331-c.300 BC) built Seuthopolis near modern Kazanlak in central Bulgaria, which seems to have been the only significant town in Thrace not built by the Greeks, though the Thracians did build forts as places of refuge.
Macedonia (Aegae, Pella)
The ancient kingdom of Macedonia was centred in the northeastern part of the Greek Peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, Thrace to the northeast, and Thessaly to the south. It consisted of two distinct regions: Lower Macedonia comprising the great alluvial coastal plain created by the Haliacmon and Axios rivers during their course to the Thermaic Gulf; and Upper Macedonia with rugged uplands and mountains stretching westwards to Epirus and Illyria.
In antiquity Macedonia was occupied by people of various origins. Perhaps in the seventh century BC one of these, the ‘Macedones’, occupied the ancient capital Aegae (=Vergina) on the foothills of Mount Olympus, and expanded into the coastal plain of Lower Macedonia. Their descendents were the Macedonians of the classical period.
It seems that the first Macedonian state emerged under the Argead Dynasty (c.808-310 BC). According to later traditions its first king was Caranus (r.c.808-c.778 BC), but according to Herodotus it was Perdiccas-I (r.c.700-c.678 BC). The Argeads claimed descent from the Temenidae of the city of Argos in the Peloponnese (hence the name ‘Argead’), whose legendary ancestor was Temenus, the great-great-grandson of Heracles.
Late in the sixth century BC Macedonia was occupied by the Persians. After the Persian defeat at Plataea in 479 BC, Macedonia regained its independence, but pressure from Thracian and Illyrian tribes kept it relatively weak. The situation worsened when the Athenians founded a colony at Amphipolis on the east bank of the Strymon in 437 BC. Archelaus-I (r.413-399 BC) transferred his capital north to Pella in Bottiaea.
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