WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.859 Welcome to the Deep Dive. I am so thrilled you 00:00:03.859 --> 00:00:07.179 could join us today because we are taking a journey 00:00:07.179 --> 00:00:10.160 back thousands of years. We're going to explore 00:00:10.160 --> 00:00:12.839 an ancient powerhouse of Southeast Europe. A 00:00:12.839 --> 00:00:15.220 really overlooked one, too. Oh, entirely. We're 00:00:15.220 --> 00:00:17.980 talking about the Thracians. And for this deep 00:00:17.980 --> 00:00:20.280 dive, we are pulling from a massive, incredibly 00:00:20.280 --> 00:00:23.440 extensive Wikipedia repository of historical, 00:00:23.600 --> 00:00:27.800 archaeological and genetic data. Right. And our 00:00:27.800 --> 00:00:30.579 mission today is to separate the highly sophisticated 00:00:30.579 --> 00:00:33.840 reality of the Thracian civilization from the. 00:00:34.329 --> 00:00:37.630 Well, the bloodthirsty barbarian propaganda that 00:00:37.630 --> 00:00:39.490 was written almost entirely by their bitterest 00:00:39.490 --> 00:00:41.890 Greek and Roman rivals. It really is a quintessential 00:00:41.890 --> 00:00:44.130 example of history being written by the victors. 00:00:44.189 --> 00:00:46.189 Or, I mean, in this case, history being written 00:00:46.189 --> 00:00:47.729 by the neighbors who just happen to have a written 00:00:47.729 --> 00:00:49.969 language and a bigger platform. Exactly. To set 00:00:49.969 --> 00:00:52.270 the stage for you, the Thracians were an Indo 00:00:52.270 --> 00:00:55.009 -European people who first emerged around 3500 00:00:55.009 --> 00:00:58.289 BC. So really early. Yeah. We are talking right 00:00:58.289 --> 00:01:01.770 at the dawn of the early Bronze Age. Geographically. 00:01:02.119 --> 00:01:05.159 They populated this massive, sweeping swath of 00:01:05.159 --> 00:01:08.099 land. If you look at a map today, their territory 00:01:08.099 --> 00:01:11.420 covered modern -day Bulgaria, Romania, North 00:01:11.420 --> 00:01:14.939 Macedonia, northern Greece, and parts of Turkey. 00:01:15.180 --> 00:01:18.000 A huge footprint. They were a dominant looning 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:20.680 presence in that region for millennia. And even 00:01:20.680 --> 00:01:22.700 if you are sitting there listening to this and 00:01:22.700 --> 00:01:24.560 thinking to yourself, you know, I have absolutely 00:01:24.560 --> 00:01:27.060 no idea who the Thracians are, I can almost guarantee 00:01:27.060 --> 00:01:29.400 you are familiar with some famous ones. Oh, absolutely. 00:01:29.700 --> 00:01:32.569 Think about Spartacus. Right. legendary gladiator. 00:01:32.629 --> 00:01:35.569 The guy who led that massive historic slave rebellion 00:01:35.569 --> 00:01:38.390 against the Roman Republic. He was Thracian or 00:01:38.390 --> 00:01:41.870 Orpheus. Yes. The mythical musician and poet 00:01:41.870 --> 00:01:44.450 who supposedly charmed the gods themselves with 00:01:44.450 --> 00:01:47.909 his lyre. Also Thracian. So their cultural DNA 00:01:47.909 --> 00:01:50.150 has definitely permeated our popular culture, 00:01:50.290 --> 00:01:52.569 even if the label Thracian just kind of gets 00:01:52.569 --> 00:01:54.790 left out of the spotlight. It really does. OK, 00:01:54.890 --> 00:01:57.150 let's unpack this, because to really understand 00:01:57.150 --> 00:01:59.390 who these people were, we have to start by looking 00:01:59.390 --> 00:02:01.120 at how the rest of the ancient. Mediterranean 00:02:01.120 --> 00:02:04.760 viewed them. Precisely. And the view from ancient 00:02:04.760 --> 00:02:08.620 Greece and Rome was, to put it mildly, not flattering 00:02:08.620 --> 00:02:11.319 at all. No. The Greeks and Romans viewed the 00:02:11.319 --> 00:02:15.439 Thracians as ferocious, intensely warlike, and 00:02:15.439 --> 00:02:19.030 totally uncivilized. They were painted as the 00:02:19.030 --> 00:02:21.469 ultimate other. I mean, ancient great writers 00:02:21.469 --> 00:02:23.610 like Plato would group them together with tribes 00:02:23.610 --> 00:02:25.849 like the Scythians and the Celts. Just lumping 00:02:25.849 --> 00:02:27.650 them all together. Basically dismissing them 00:02:27.650 --> 00:02:30.370 all as high spirited, but ultimately savage. 00:02:30.689 --> 00:02:33.069 And Roman historians later went even further. 00:02:33.189 --> 00:02:36.340 Tacitus described them as. Wild, savage, and 00:02:36.340 --> 00:02:39.560 so inherently impatient and unruly that they 00:02:39.560 --> 00:02:42.120 wouldn't even obey their own kings. Yeah, the 00:02:42.120 --> 00:02:44.900 source material mentions that some ancient historians, 00:02:45.060 --> 00:02:46.939 like the French historian Victor Durie later 00:02:46.939 --> 00:02:49.740 on, basically noted they considered farming entirely 00:02:49.740 --> 00:02:52.879 beneath them. Like it was unworthy of a true 00:02:52.879 --> 00:02:55.199 warrior and that their only real industries were 00:02:55.199 --> 00:02:57.560 just war and theft, which is an incredibly intense 00:02:57.560 --> 00:03:00.439 reputation to carry around. But I guess my question 00:03:00.439 --> 00:03:02.439 is, was that reputation actually based on anything 00:03:02.439 --> 00:03:05.169 real or was it just pure zeal? It was heavily 00:03:05.169 --> 00:03:07.770 exaggerated, sure, but it wasn't built on entirely 00:03:07.770 --> 00:03:10.169 nothing. There were specific Thracian tribes 00:03:10.169 --> 00:03:12.849 that genuinely terrified their neighbors, and 00:03:12.849 --> 00:03:15.310 those encounters deeply scarred the Greek and 00:03:15.310 --> 00:03:18.349 Roman psyche. Like who? Well, the tribe known 00:03:18.349 --> 00:03:21.530 as the Dai, for example, were notorious. During 00:03:21.530 --> 00:03:23.710 the Peloponnesian War, the Dai were responsible 00:03:23.710 --> 00:03:27.389 for some truly horrific atrocities. Historical 00:03:27.389 --> 00:03:29.849 texts recount how they swept into the towns of 00:03:29.849 --> 00:03:32.509 Tanagra and Michalesos and massacred absolutely 00:03:32.509 --> 00:03:35.110 everything. Every living thing. Oh, wow. And 00:03:35.110 --> 00:03:37.409 I mean everything. The accounts specifically 00:03:37.409 --> 00:03:39.569 note they didn't just kill the opposing soldiers. 00:03:39.750 --> 00:03:42.409 They killed the children, the livestock, even 00:03:42.409 --> 00:03:46.110 the dogs. That is just bleak. It is total annihilation. 00:03:46.110 --> 00:03:48.349 It was absolute psychological warfare. And later 00:03:48.349 --> 00:03:51.990 on, during a conflict called the Kalinikos skirmish 00:03:51.990 --> 00:03:55.659 around 171 B .C. Roman soldiers had their own 00:03:55.659 --> 00:03:57.919 visceral encounters with them. Right. The sources 00:03:57.919 --> 00:04:00.159 mention that. Yeah, there are accounts of Thracian 00:04:00.159 --> 00:04:02.419 warriors impaling the severed heads of Roman 00:04:02.419 --> 00:04:05.280 soldiers on their spears and specifically on 00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:07.460 their rompheus. Wait, I wanted to ask about the 00:04:07.460 --> 00:04:09.759 rompheus because the sources highlight that weapon 00:04:09.759 --> 00:04:13.139 specifically. What exactly was it? It was a devastating 00:04:13.139 --> 00:04:16.949 curved weapon unique to the Thracians. Imagine 00:04:16.949 --> 00:04:20.629 a polearm with a massive scythe -like blade on 00:04:20.629 --> 00:04:23.389 the end. Sounds brutal. Very. It was designed 00:04:23.389 --> 00:04:26.529 for slashing and armor piercing. It was terrifying 00:04:26.529 --> 00:04:29.569 to face in a tight infantry formation. So when 00:04:29.569 --> 00:04:31.990 the Greeks and Romans called them bloodthirsty 00:04:31.990 --> 00:04:35.850 barbarians, they did have these very real, very 00:04:35.850 --> 00:04:38.389 traumatic encounters playing on a loop in their 00:04:38.389 --> 00:04:40.310 cultural memory. That definitely explains the 00:04:40.310 --> 00:04:42.629 terror. But there's this one historical quirk 00:04:42.629 --> 00:04:44.670 in the sources about the Thracians that completely 00:04:44.670 --> 00:04:46.850 threw me off. and it has to do with their physical 00:04:46.850 --> 00:04:49.850 appearance. Some ancient Greek philosophers, 00:04:50.069 --> 00:04:52.730 like Xenophanes, famously described the Thracians 00:04:52.730 --> 00:04:55.410 as having bright blue eyes and red hair. There's 00:04:55.410 --> 00:04:57.949 even a mythological Thracian king named Rhesus, 00:04:58.050 --> 00:05:00.430 who was consistently depicted on Greek pottery 00:05:00.430 --> 00:05:03.189 with this striking red beard. It became such 00:05:03.189 --> 00:05:05.529 a pervasive stereotype that the Romans often 00:05:05.529 --> 00:05:08.730 named their red -headed slaves Rufus, specifically 00:05:08.730 --> 00:05:10.970 because of that Thracian association. Which is 00:05:10.970 --> 00:05:12.829 so funny in hindsight. Because then the source 00:05:12.829 --> 00:05:14.910 material dives into modern genetics, which... 00:05:14.920 --> 00:05:17.319 paints a totally different picture. Exactly. 00:05:17.319 --> 00:05:20.500 What's fascinating here is how modern science 00:05:20.500 --> 00:05:23.199 has completely dismantled that ancient narrative. 00:05:23.819 --> 00:05:27.019 When you look at recent academic and genetic 00:05:27.019 --> 00:05:29.920 breakthroughs, like the work of Eris and Poulianos, 00:05:30.040 --> 00:05:32.899 the data shows that the ancient Thracians actually 00:05:32.899 --> 00:05:36.040 had dark hair, dark eyes, and standard Mediterranean 00:05:36.040 --> 00:05:38.579 features. Interesting. They looked very much 00:05:38.579 --> 00:05:40.740 like modern Bulgarians and Greeks. So the whole 00:05:40.740 --> 00:05:42.680 red -haired, blue -eyed barbarian thing was just 00:05:42.680 --> 00:05:45.379 entirely made up. It was a profound stereotype. 00:05:45.620 --> 00:05:48.759 It perfectly illustrates how ancient Mediterranean 00:05:48.759 --> 00:05:51.339 writers often generalized populations that lived 00:05:51.339 --> 00:05:53.779 to their north. Oh, I see. If someone came from 00:05:53.779 --> 00:05:56.759 the cold, mysterious northern regions, the Greeks 00:05:56.759 --> 00:05:58.740 and Romans just assumed they must look completely 00:05:58.740 --> 00:06:01.800 alien to themselves. They took traits they associated 00:06:01.800 --> 00:06:04.180 with the extreme north and projected them onto 00:06:04.180 --> 00:06:06.439 this entirely different, diverse population. 00:06:06.660 --> 00:06:09.279 Just a total guess. A total guess. It's a brilliant 00:06:09.279 --> 00:06:11.519 example of why we cannot take ancient historical 00:06:11.519 --> 00:06:14.500 texts at face value. They were applying a broad 00:06:14.500 --> 00:06:16.420 brush to a people they didn't actually bother 00:06:16.420 --> 00:06:19.449 to understand. And that broad brush didn't just 00:06:19.449 --> 00:06:22.949 cover their physical appearance. It totally misrepresented 00:06:22.949 --> 00:06:25.750 their entire culture. Because the archaeological 00:06:25.750 --> 00:06:28.769 evidence makes it incredibly clear that the Thracians 00:06:28.769 --> 00:06:31.410 were not just brute mercenaries swinging curved 00:06:31.410 --> 00:06:34.670 swords around. They had a remarkably sophisticated 00:06:34.670 --> 00:06:37.790 reality. They absolutely did. Even the Greek 00:06:37.790 --> 00:06:41.050 texts, as biased as they were, grudgingly had 00:06:41.050 --> 00:06:43.629 to admit that the Thracians were renowned for 00:06:43.629 --> 00:06:46.110 their complex poetry and their music. Which ties 00:06:46.110 --> 00:06:48.209 right back to the myth. myth of Orpheus. Exactly. 00:06:48.389 --> 00:06:50.649 But where their sophistication really shines 00:06:50.649 --> 00:06:53.129 through to us today is in their material culture. 00:06:53.250 --> 00:06:56.709 They were absolute master metalworkers. The gold 00:06:56.709 --> 00:06:59.149 and silver hoards they left behind were simply 00:06:59.149 --> 00:07:01.430 breathtaking. The source material highlights 00:07:01.430 --> 00:07:04.750 a couple of specific finds. The Panadger Ishte 00:07:04.750 --> 00:07:07.509 and Rogozin treasures. Sunning pieces. And they 00:07:07.509 --> 00:07:10.279 date back to the 5th and 4th centuries BC. And 00:07:10.279 --> 00:07:11.860 looking at the descriptions of these artifacts, 00:07:12.139 --> 00:07:14.240 it completely shatters that savage narrative. 00:07:14.579 --> 00:07:16.819 We are talking about intricately carved drinking 00:07:16.819 --> 00:07:20.459 vessels, ceremonial armor, and jewelry that rivaled 00:07:20.459 --> 00:07:22.660 and in some cases exceeded anything that was 00:07:22.660 --> 00:07:24.839 coming out of Athens or Rome at the time. And 00:07:24.839 --> 00:07:27.519 yet, alongside that high art, they maintained 00:07:27.519 --> 00:07:30.459 cultural practices that deeply unsettled their 00:07:30.459 --> 00:07:33.480 southern neighbors. Like the tattoos. I find 00:07:33.480 --> 00:07:35.600 this detail so fascinating because it feels so 00:07:35.600 --> 00:07:39.040 culturally distinct. The Thracians heavily tattooed 00:07:39.040 --> 00:07:41.040 themselves, both the men and the women. Right. 00:07:41.180 --> 00:07:44.100 Now for the Greeks, marking your skin was a punishment. 00:07:44.360 --> 00:07:47.000 It was something you only did to slaves or criminals 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:49.759 to mark them as property or outcasts. It was 00:07:49.759 --> 00:07:52.360 seen as horrific. But for the Thracians, what 00:07:52.360 --> 00:07:55.100 was the purpose of all this ink? For them, tattoos 00:07:55.100 --> 00:07:57.379 were a major point of pride and a vital symbol 00:07:57.379 --> 00:08:00.240 of high status. In a society that didn't rely 00:08:00.240 --> 00:08:02.199 on a written language to record its history, 00:08:02.360 --> 00:08:04.579 you have to find other ways to document who you 00:08:04.579 --> 00:08:06.959 are. So it's like a visual record. Their tattoos 00:08:06.959 --> 00:08:09.740 were essentially a permanent visual resume. You 00:08:09.740 --> 00:08:12.019 could likely read a person's lineage, their tribal 00:08:12.019 --> 00:08:13.959 affiliation, and their personal achievements 00:08:13.959 --> 00:08:17.139 just by looking at the ink on their skin. To 00:08:17.139 --> 00:08:20.100 the Greeks, it looked like mutilation. To a Thracian, 00:08:20.199 --> 00:08:22.339 it was their identity etched into their very 00:08:22.339 --> 00:08:25.329 being. That tension between how they saw themselves 00:08:25.329 --> 00:08:27.810 and how the rest of the world saw them is just 00:08:27.810 --> 00:08:32.090 wild. But it begs a massive question. If they 00:08:32.090 --> 00:08:35.090 were this numerous, this wealthy, and this terrifying 00:08:35.090 --> 00:08:37.710 on the battlefield, why didn't they just sweep 00:08:37.710 --> 00:08:41.029 down and conquer Greece or Rome? It comes down 00:08:41.029 --> 00:08:44.070 to their political landscape. Their biggest weakness 00:08:44.070 --> 00:08:48.129 by far was their complete lack of unity. There 00:08:48.129 --> 00:08:52.279 wasn't one single unified Thracian empire. for 00:08:52.279 --> 00:08:54.500 the vast majority of their history. Instead, 00:08:54.879 --> 00:08:58.879 there were over 200 distinct, fiercely independent 00:08:58.879 --> 00:09:02.639 tribes spread out across the Balkans. 200. Over 00:09:02.639 --> 00:09:05.659 200. Ancient historians explicitly noted that 00:09:05.659 --> 00:09:08.019 if the Thracians had ever managed to put aside 00:09:08.019 --> 00:09:10.080 their differences and fully unite, they would 00:09:10.080 --> 00:09:11.960 have been utterly invisible. In sheer numbers 00:09:11.960 --> 00:09:14.240 alone. Their sheer numbers and martial skill 00:09:14.240 --> 00:09:16.019 would have overwhelmed the ancient Mediterranean 00:09:16.019 --> 00:09:18.299 world. But they couldn't stop fighting each other 00:09:18.299 --> 00:09:20.879 long enough to actually do it. At least not until 00:09:20.879 --> 00:09:23.580 the 6th century BC when an outside force violently 00:09:23.580 --> 00:09:25.980 changed the equation. Right, the Persians. Yeah, 00:09:26.019 --> 00:09:29.259 the Persian Achaemenid Empire decided to expand 00:09:29.259 --> 00:09:32.320 its borders and invade. You have the the Persian 00:09:32.320 --> 00:09:35.860 king Darius I, along with his top general Megabasis, 00:09:35.960 --> 00:09:39.240 sweeping into the region. Yes. And they conquered 00:09:39.240 --> 00:09:42.259 these fragmented Thracian tribes and actually 00:09:42.259 --> 00:09:45.399 absorbed Thrace into the Persian Empire as a 00:09:45.399 --> 00:09:48.159 province or a satrapy, which they called Scudra. 00:09:48.279 --> 00:09:51.279 If we connect this to the bigger picture, this 00:09:51.279 --> 00:09:54.340 invasion sets up a massive historical irony. 00:09:54.919 --> 00:09:57.399 We are all familiar with the famous conflicts 00:09:57.399 --> 00:09:59.759 between the Greeks and the Persians. Think of 00:09:59.759 --> 00:10:02.200 the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae. or the Battle 00:10:02.200 --> 00:10:05.279 of Marathon. Sure. Well, a bit later, when the 00:10:05.279 --> 00:10:07.679 Ionian Greeks launched a major revolt against 00:10:07.679 --> 00:10:10.419 the Persian Empire, they fully expected the Thracians 00:10:10.419 --> 00:10:12.039 to join them. Because they were both occupied. 00:10:12.259 --> 00:10:14.639 Exactly. They assumed the Thracians would jump 00:10:14.639 --> 00:10:16.559 at the chance to throw off the Persian yoke. 00:10:16.820 --> 00:10:19.320 But the Thracians didn't. They actually chose 00:10:19.320 --> 00:10:21.740 to side with the Persians. Why on earth would 00:10:21.740 --> 00:10:23.919 they side with an invading empire over their 00:10:23.919 --> 00:10:26.179 neighbors? Because the Persians were incredibly 00:10:26.179 --> 00:10:28.720 pragmatic imperialists. They didn't just conquer 00:10:28.720 --> 00:10:31.039 and destroy the integrated. They treated the 00:10:31.039 --> 00:10:33.879 Thracians remarkably well. Yeah. The Achaemenid 00:10:33.879 --> 00:10:36.700 rulers favored local Thracian elites, gave them 00:10:36.700 --> 00:10:39.299 additional land, and crucially, the Persian Empire 00:10:39.299 --> 00:10:41.759 acted as a massive, highly organized bulwark 00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:44.279 against Greek colonization on the coasts and 00:10:44.279 --> 00:10:46.279 Scythian raids coming down from the north. So 00:10:46.279 --> 00:10:48.389 it was actually a good deal for them. For the 00:10:48.389 --> 00:10:51.090 Thracians, submitting to Persian rule actually 00:10:51.090 --> 00:10:53.190 brought a level of stability and protection from 00:10:53.190 --> 00:10:55.490 their immediate, more annoying neighbors. So 00:10:55.490 --> 00:10:58.129 it was a classic case of the enemy of my enemy 00:10:58.129 --> 00:11:00.549 is my friend, even if that friend is a massive 00:11:00.549 --> 00:11:03.950 foreign empire. Here's where it gets really interesting, 00:11:04.029 --> 00:11:06.159 though. Because after that Persian influence 00:11:06.159 --> 00:11:08.899 eventually begins to wane, the Thracians finally 00:11:08.899 --> 00:11:11.779 experience that elusive moment of unity. They 00:11:11.779 --> 00:11:14.799 do. In the 5th century BC, a leader named King 00:11:14.799 --> 00:11:17.139 Teres Asai manages to pull off the impossible. 00:11:17.399 --> 00:11:19.919 He founds the Odrysian kingdom. He essentially 00:11:19.919 --> 00:11:22.279 brings together over 40 different tribes and 00:11:22.279 --> 00:11:25.440 22 separate smaller kingdoms under one banner. 00:11:25.620 --> 00:11:27.860 It was a monumental achievement in diplomacy 00:11:27.860 --> 00:11:30.779 and conquest. The Odrysian kingdom quickly evolved 00:11:30.779 --> 00:11:33.539 into a regional superpower. A force to be reckoned 00:11:33.539 --> 00:11:36.970 with. They were so powerful and so resource rich 00:11:36.970 --> 00:11:39.750 that they became a major, highly sought after 00:11:39.750 --> 00:11:42.090 ally to Athens during the Peloponnesian War. 00:11:42.590 --> 00:11:45.149 We were talking about a kingdom fielding massive 00:11:45.149 --> 00:11:48.950 armies, controlling vast trade networks and heavily 00:11:48.950 --> 00:11:51.789 influencing Mediterranean politics. And their 00:11:51.789 --> 00:11:54.009 reputation for producing elite soldiers only 00:11:54.009 --> 00:11:56.710 continued to grow. Fast forward a bit and you 00:11:56.710 --> 00:11:58.769 have a young Macedonian king named Alexander 00:11:58.769 --> 00:12:01.350 the Great starting his campaign to conquer the 00:12:01.350 --> 00:12:04.549 known world. Right. And Alexander knew exactly 00:12:04.549 --> 00:12:07.210 who he needed on his front lines. Alexander was 00:12:07.210 --> 00:12:10.480 a brilliant tactician. and he recognized immediately 00:12:10.480 --> 00:12:13.659 that Thracian fighters were absolutely unparalleled 00:12:13.659 --> 00:12:16.600 in specific types of warfare. He heavily recruited 00:12:16.600 --> 00:12:19.120 their cavalry, which was legendary, but he also 00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:21.799 specifically targeted their light infantry skirmishers, 00:12:21.799 --> 00:12:24.740 known as peltasts. Let's define that for a second. 00:12:24.799 --> 00:12:26.980 What makes a peltast different from a standard 00:12:26.980 --> 00:12:29.440 Greek hoplite soldier? A standard hoplite was 00:12:29.440 --> 00:12:31.740 heavily armored, fought in a tight phalanx formation, 00:12:32.120 --> 00:12:35.259 and was relatively slow -moving. A peltast was 00:12:35.259 --> 00:12:37.789 the opposite. They were highly mobile, lightly 00:12:37.789 --> 00:12:41.370 armed skirmishers. They carried javelins to harass 00:12:41.370 --> 00:12:44.269 the enemy from a distance. And they used these 00:12:44.269 --> 00:12:46.690 unique, lightweight, crescent -shaped shields. 00:12:46.870 --> 00:12:49.649 So they were fast. Incredibly fast. They could 00:12:49.649 --> 00:12:52.049 run onto the battlefield, unleash a devastating 00:12:52.049 --> 00:12:55.309 volley of javelins, and sprint away before the 00:12:55.309 --> 00:12:58.549 heavy infantry could even react. Alexander started 00:12:58.549 --> 00:13:01.490 his campaigns with just about 150 of these Thracian 00:13:01.490 --> 00:13:04.490 troops. Just 150? But they proved so effective 00:13:04.490 --> 00:13:07.409 and so vital to his battlefield strategy that 00:13:07.409 --> 00:13:09.789 by the time his army reached Susa, deep in the 00:13:09.789 --> 00:13:11.909 Persian Empire, he had expanded their numbers 00:13:11.909 --> 00:13:15.559 to 1 ,600. He literally used Thracian blood and 00:13:15.559 --> 00:13:18.759 skill to build the Macedonian Empire. It's incredible 00:13:18.759 --> 00:13:20.860 to think about how much of ancient history was 00:13:20.860 --> 00:13:22.899 shaped by Thracian soldiers fighting in other 00:13:22.899 --> 00:13:25.340 people's wars. But I want to pivot here because 00:13:25.340 --> 00:13:27.360 while they were out building empires for the 00:13:27.360 --> 00:13:29.879 Macedonians and the Persians, what was actual 00:13:29.879 --> 00:13:33.100 day -to -day life like back in Thrace? The source 00:13:33.100 --> 00:13:35.860 material paints a picture of a society with religious 00:13:35.860 --> 00:13:38.279 and social customs that were incredibly extreme 00:13:38.279 --> 00:13:40.679 by modern standards. Their religious life was 00:13:40.679 --> 00:13:43.970 deeply complex. On the surface, it was polytheistic, 00:13:44.090 --> 00:13:46.909 much like the Greeks. But it had these very distinct 00:13:46.909 --> 00:13:49.970 monotheistic hints running through it that fascinated 00:13:49.970 --> 00:13:52.769 ancient observers. Like who? A central figure 00:13:52.769 --> 00:13:55.330 of their worship was a deity known as the Thracian 00:13:55.330 --> 00:13:59.470 Horseman, or Sabazios. You look at Thracian funeral 00:13:59.470 --> 00:14:02.669 statues, he is almost always depicted as a heroic 00:14:02.669 --> 00:14:05.429 rider on horseback, violently slaying a beast 00:14:05.429 --> 00:14:08.769 with a spear. He functioned as a god of the underworld, 00:14:09.009 --> 00:14:11.889 but also as a powerful symbol of martial virtue 00:14:11.889 --> 00:14:15.809 and elite status. Meanwhile, you had other tribes 00:14:15.809 --> 00:14:18.009 in the northern territories, like the Getae and 00:14:18.009 --> 00:14:20.450 the Dacians, who followed a very mysterious god 00:14:20.450 --> 00:14:23.649 named Zelmoxis. Some modern anthropologists actually 00:14:23.649 --> 00:14:25.870 argue that the worship of Zelmoxis was an early 00:14:25.870 --> 00:14:28.470 form of a monotheistic cult. But we absolutely 00:14:28.470 --> 00:14:30.809 cannot talk about Thracian religion without talking 00:14:30.809 --> 00:14:32.850 about their arguably greatest contribution to 00:14:32.850 --> 00:14:35.250 human history. The sources show that the Thracians 00:14:35.250 --> 00:14:37.490 practically invented wine culture. Yes, they 00:14:37.490 --> 00:14:41.870 did. We are talking over 6 ,000 years ago. Long 00:14:41.870 --> 00:14:44.690 before the Greeks ever raised a glass, the Thracians 00:14:44.690 --> 00:14:46.830 were worshipping the god of wine, whom they called 00:14:46.830 --> 00:14:50.110 Zagreus. The Greeks actually adopted him later 00:14:50.110 --> 00:14:53.240 and renamed him Dionysus. But for the Thracians, 00:14:53.279 --> 00:14:55.580 winemaking and heavy wine consumption weren't 00:14:55.580 --> 00:14:58.039 just about throwing a good party. Not at all. 00:14:58.100 --> 00:15:01.559 It was deeply, intrinsically tied to their religious 00:15:01.559 --> 00:15:04.700 rituals. Consuming wine in massive quantities 00:15:04.700 --> 00:15:07.000 was a way to achieve an altered state of consciousness, 00:15:07.279 --> 00:15:10.100 a way to directly commune with the divine. Right. 00:15:10.240 --> 00:15:12.399 They took their wine very seriously, and that 00:15:12.399 --> 00:15:14.980 penchant for excess extended into their social 00:15:14.980 --> 00:15:17.820 lives, taking forms that genuinely shocked the 00:15:17.820 --> 00:15:20.059 ancient writers who observed them. Their marriage 00:15:20.059 --> 00:15:22.059 customs are a perfect example of this. I have 00:15:22.059 --> 00:15:24.200 to ask you to break this down because the logistics 00:15:24.200 --> 00:15:26.620 of their social structure sound like absolute 00:15:26.620 --> 00:15:28.720 chaos. It was certainly a completely different 00:15:28.720 --> 00:15:30.940 paradigm. We have accounts from ancient writers, 00:15:31.080 --> 00:15:33.799 like Menander, detailing the extreme nature of 00:15:33.799 --> 00:15:36.600 Thracian polygamy. It was noted that Thracian 00:15:36.600 --> 00:15:40.059 men routinely had 10, 11, or even 12 wives simultaneously. 00:15:40.580 --> 00:15:43.340 12 wives. It was such an ingrained marker of 00:15:43.340 --> 00:15:46.320 status and wealth that if a Thracian man died 00:15:46.320 --> 00:15:50.019 and he only had four or five wives, he was mourned 00:15:50.019 --> 00:15:52.919 by his community as being ill -fated and practically 00:15:52.919 --> 00:15:55.649 unmarried. The social pressure of your friends 00:15:55.649 --> 00:15:57.970 feeling sorry for you because you only managed 00:15:57.970 --> 00:16:00.830 to secure five marriages is just hard to wrap 00:16:00.830 --> 00:16:03.090 your head around. Very different times. But what 00:16:03.090 --> 00:16:05.490 did this mean for the women in this society? 00:16:05.649 --> 00:16:07.750 How did the social dynamics actually function? 00:16:08.269 --> 00:16:11.889 It was a life of harsh extremes. Unmarried Thracian 00:16:11.889 --> 00:16:13.929 women were actually granted a surprising amount 00:16:13.929 --> 00:16:17.230 of autonomy and total sexual freedom. They could 00:16:17.230 --> 00:16:19.269 associate with whoever they pleased without any 00:16:19.269 --> 00:16:21.149 real social stigma. Okay, but what about when 00:16:21.149 --> 00:16:48.419 they got married? Wow. Wow. It is such a stark 00:16:48.419 --> 00:16:51.220 contrast to try and reconcile. On one hand, you 00:16:51.220 --> 00:16:53.679 have this highly sophisticated culture producing 00:16:53.679 --> 00:16:56.879 master artisans who make breathtaking gold jewelry. 00:16:57.139 --> 00:16:59.399 And on the other hand, you have warlords managing 00:16:59.399 --> 00:17:02.059 12 wives and selling their kids to pay the bills. 00:17:02.220 --> 00:17:05.319 And just to add one more layer of profound cognitive 00:17:05.319 --> 00:17:08.339 dissonance to their society, you have to contrast 00:17:08.339 --> 00:17:12.119 that wild, polygamous, wine -soaked warlord lifestyle 00:17:12.119 --> 00:17:15.500 with a completely different subculture that existed 00:17:15.500 --> 00:17:17.980 right alongside it. Right, the holy men. Yes, 00:17:18.039 --> 00:17:20.619 the Thracians had a highly revered class of holy 00:17:20.619 --> 00:17:23.220 men known as the Kistess. These were ascetic 00:17:23.220 --> 00:17:25.460 philosophers, prophets, and healers. who lived 00:17:25.460 --> 00:17:28.019 entirely celibate lives. Total opposite end of 00:17:28.019 --> 00:17:29.779 the spectrum. Exactly. They lived completely 00:17:29.779 --> 00:17:32.299 without women, abstained from all the excesses 00:17:32.299 --> 00:17:34.859 of regular Thracian society, and dedicated themselves 00:17:34.859 --> 00:17:37.740 entirely to the spiritual realm. And the incredible 00:17:37.740 --> 00:17:40.240 part is that these celibate ascetics were held 00:17:40.240 --> 00:17:42.640 in the absolute highest honor by the very same 00:17:42.640 --> 00:17:44.740 warlords who were hoarding wives and drinking 00:17:44.740 --> 00:17:47.200 themselves into religious stupors. It just proves 00:17:47.200 --> 00:17:49.180 you really cannot put this civilization into 00:17:49.180 --> 00:17:52.380 a neat little box. They were a mass of contradictions. 00:17:52.759 --> 00:17:56.019 So with all this... All this wealth and this 00:17:56.019 --> 00:17:59.079 massive population. How did it all eventually 00:17:59.079 --> 00:18:02.160 come crashing down? How do you go from fielding 00:18:02.160 --> 00:18:05.099 armies for Alexander the Great to disappearing 00:18:05.099 --> 00:18:07.839 from the political map? It wasn't a sudden dramatic 00:18:07.839 --> 00:18:10.460 collapse. It was a slow, relentless absorption 00:18:10.460 --> 00:18:13.380 by the growing Roman Republic and later the Roman 00:18:13.380 --> 00:18:16.839 Empire. After the Romans won the Third Macedonian 00:18:16.839 --> 00:18:18.920 War, they finally turned their full attention 00:18:18.920 --> 00:18:22.039 to Thrace. Right. Initially, Thrace was reduced 00:18:22.039 --> 00:18:24.450 to a Roman client state. They were allowed to 00:18:24.450 --> 00:18:27.029 keep their own kings, but those kings answered 00:18:27.029 --> 00:18:29.470 directly to Rome. Which, knowing Roman history, 00:18:29.650 --> 00:18:32.009 is usually just step one of a total takeover. 00:18:32.109 --> 00:18:35.450 Exactly. The Thracian royal families became deeply 00:18:35.450 --> 00:18:38.509 enmeshed in volatile Roman politics, and it all 00:18:38.509 --> 00:18:41.569 culminated in AD 46 in a betrayal that feels 00:18:41.569 --> 00:18:43.650 straight out of a political thriller. Oh, this 00:18:43.650 --> 00:18:45.670 is the Game of Thrones part. Yes. The reigning 00:18:45.670 --> 00:18:48.410 Thracian king, Romatelsus III, was murdered by 00:18:48.410 --> 00:18:51.150 his own wife. The Roman emperor used the ensuing 00:18:51.150 --> 00:18:53.910 chaos and instability as the perfect excuse to 00:18:53.910 --> 00:18:56.549 step in, abolish the Odrysian kingdom entirely, 00:18:56.950 --> 00:18:59.750 and officially incorporate the territory as the 00:18:59.750 --> 00:19:02.309 Roman province of Thracia. So what does this 00:19:02.309 --> 00:19:05.089 all mean for the actual people? Because the Roman 00:19:05.089 --> 00:19:07.829 Empire eventually falls, and then that specific 00:19:07.829 --> 00:19:10.069 region of the Balkans gets invaded over and over 00:19:10.069 --> 00:19:12.549 again. You have the Celts, the Huns, the Slavs 00:19:12.549 --> 00:19:14.990 all sweeping through. Did the Thracian people 00:19:14.990 --> 00:19:17.799 just get wiped out in the crossfire? Culturally 00:19:17.799 --> 00:19:20.160 and linguistically, yes. They were eventually 00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:22.460 completely assimilated into the Byzantine and 00:19:22.460 --> 00:19:25.380 later the Bulgarian empires. The Thracian language 00:19:25.380 --> 00:19:27.920 went extinct, and their ancient polytheistic 00:19:27.920 --> 00:19:30.400 religion was entirely replaced by Christianity. 00:19:30.400 --> 00:19:33.200 So the culture died. But biologically, they didn't 00:19:33.200 --> 00:19:35.779 disappear at all. Their bloodline survived every 00:19:35.779 --> 00:19:38.259 single one of those invasions. A major genetic 00:19:38.259 --> 00:19:41.119 study published in 2013 looked at the DNA extracted 00:19:41.119 --> 00:19:43.759 from ancient Thracian remains and compared it 00:19:43.759 --> 00:19:45.700 to modern populations. And what did they find? 00:19:45.839 --> 00:19:48.859 They found that roughly 55 % of the autosomal 00:19:48.859 --> 00:19:51.480 genetic legacy of modern Bulgarians is of Paleo 00:19:51.480 --> 00:19:53.859 -Balkan origin. Just to clarify, when we say 00:19:53.859 --> 00:19:56.900 autosomal genetic legacy, we are talking about 00:19:56.900 --> 00:19:59.900 the core DNA passed down through the generations 00:19:59.900 --> 00:20:03.000 outside of just the specific X and Y chromosomes, 00:20:03.220 --> 00:20:04.819 right? Exactly. It's the broad genetic footprint 00:20:04.819 --> 00:20:08.170 of a population. And that data directly links 00:20:08.170 --> 00:20:10.809 the people living in Southeast Europe today to 00:20:10.809 --> 00:20:13.210 the ancient Thracians who built the Adrygian 00:20:13.210 --> 00:20:15.950 kingdom all those millennia ago. That is just 00:20:15.950 --> 00:20:18.230 amazing to think about. After thousands of years 00:20:18.230 --> 00:20:20.769 of invasions and empire collapses, the literal 00:20:20.769 --> 00:20:24.309 DNA of the people who invented wine culture and 00:20:24.309 --> 00:20:26.509 fought alongside Alexander the Great is still 00:20:26.509 --> 00:20:28.990 walking around today. It really is. It really 00:20:28.990 --> 00:20:32.049 reframes the entire story we set out to explore. 00:20:32.269 --> 00:20:34.490 We started this deep dive looking at a group 00:20:34.490 --> 00:20:36.589 of people who were completely dismissed by their 00:20:36.589 --> 00:20:39.690 rivals as heavily tattooed, bloodthirsty, barbarian 00:20:39.690 --> 00:20:41.930 polygamists. But when you actually dig into the 00:20:41.930 --> 00:20:44.430 archaeological and genetic evidence, you find 00:20:44.430 --> 00:20:47.589 highly sophisticated musicians, master artisans, 00:20:47.650 --> 00:20:50.369 elite tactical soldiers, and the direct genetic 00:20:50.369 --> 00:20:53.480 ancestors of modern Southeast Europe. It is such 00:20:53.480 --> 00:20:55.920 a powerful reminder of why we have to look past 00:20:55.920 --> 00:20:58.859 the propaganda of history's victors. This raises 00:20:58.859 --> 00:21:00.839 an important question, though, and it is something 00:21:00.839 --> 00:21:02.920 that haunts anyone who studies this civilization. 00:21:03.480 --> 00:21:06.579 What's that? We are talking about a society that 00:21:06.579 --> 00:21:09.839 numbered in the millions. They had 200 tribes. 00:21:09.980 --> 00:21:12.500 They shaped Greek and Roman history. They built 00:21:12.500 --> 00:21:15.660 vast trade networks and regional empires. But 00:21:15.660 --> 00:21:18.039 despite all of that wealth and sophistication, 00:21:18.220 --> 00:21:20.900 the Thracians never developed a unified written 00:21:20.900 --> 00:21:23.299 language of their own. Wait. Really? Nothing 00:21:23.299 --> 00:21:25.920 at all? Almost nothing. To this day, across all 00:21:25.920 --> 00:21:29.059 their ancient territory, only four Thracian inscriptions 00:21:29.059 --> 00:21:32.000 have ever been found. Just four? Just four. The 00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:34.839 most famous is a mysterious eight -line text 00:21:34.839 --> 00:21:37.980 etched into a beautiful gold ring found in Ezrovo, 00:21:38.099 --> 00:21:41.000 Bulgaria. And to this day, it remains completely 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:43.299 undeciphered. We have no Thracian histories, 00:21:43.480 --> 00:21:45.759 no Thracian poems written by their own hands, 00:21:45.920 --> 00:21:48.839 no Thracian laws or philosophy. So you really 00:21:48.839 --> 00:21:51.589 have to ponder. What does it mean for an entire 00:21:51.589 --> 00:21:55.309 massive civilization to be utterly silenced by 00:21:55.309 --> 00:21:58.130 time? Everything we've discussed today, their 00:21:58.130 --> 00:22:00.529 complex culture, their physical appearance, their 00:22:00.529 --> 00:22:03.289 bravery, their contradictions, we have had to 00:22:03.289 --> 00:22:06.089 piece together almost entirely through the highly 00:22:06.089 --> 00:22:08.730 biased words of their bitterest enemies and the 00:22:08.730 --> 00:22:11.450 silent gold they left buried in the dirt. It 00:22:11.450 --> 00:22:13.029 makes you wonder what their story would sound 00:22:13.029 --> 00:22:15.210 like if they had only possessed the tools to 00:22:15.210 --> 00:22:17.960 tell it themselves. That is an incredibly haunting 00:22:17.960 --> 00:22:20.579 thought to leave on, a massive silenced empire 00:22:20.579 --> 00:22:23.140 whispering to us through undeciphered gold rings 00:22:23.140 --> 00:22:25.480 in the DNA of their descendants. I want to thank 00:22:25.480 --> 00:22:27.160 you so much for coming along on this deep dive 00:22:27.160 --> 00:22:29.460 with us today. Keep questioning the history you 00:22:29.460 --> 00:22:31.740 think you know, and stay insanely curious until 00:22:31.740 --> 00:22:32.200 next time.