Welcome to the Deep Dive. Glad to be here. If
you're tuning in right now, I know exactly why
you're here. You have that relentless curiosity,
that drive to learn something completely new
and fascinating. But you absolutely do not want
to be bogged down by a dry academic lecture.
Exactly. You want the good stuff, the historical
aha moments without feeling overwhelmed by, you
know, a barrage of dates and hard to pronounce
names. Well, you are in the perfect place. Today,
our mission is to unpack a stack of recent historical
analyses and fresh archaeological discoveries.
Specifically concerning the Thracians. Right,
the Thracians. We're going to uncover the truth
behind a sprawling ancient civilization that
history has... largely forgotten. Or at the very
least, completely misunderstood. That is exactly
what we're looking at today. To set the stage
for you, the Thracians were a vast Indo -European
people. We're talking about a huge population.
A massive population that inhabited an immense
swath of Southeast Europe. If you look at a modern
map, you'd find their territory covering modern
day Bulgaria, Romania, North Macedonia. Northern
Greece. Yeah, northern Greece, European Turkey,
and even stretching into northwestern Anatolia.
Wow. Their culture really began to emerge during
the early Bronze Age, so starting around 3500
BC. They were an undeniable, monumental presence
in the ancient world for thousands of years.
And here's the paradox we're about to explore,
which I think is the real hook of this whole
deep dive. It really is. The Greeks and the Romans,
who wrote most of the history we rely on, painted
the Thracians in an incredibly harsh light. They
called them bloodthirsty, ferocious, unsophisticated
barbarians. But at the exact same time, this
is the very culture that gave the ancient world
the origins of wine. Yes. They gave us legendary
mythic figures like Orpheus, real -life historical
icons like Spartacus, and even several Roman
emperors. It's a fascinating duality. You have
this entrenched image of wild, untamed warriors
on one hand, and then you see the profound cultural
and historical legacy they left behind on the
other. It really forces us to question the reliability
of the narrators who recorded their history.
OK, let's unpack this. Let's look at the actual
propaganda, because the ancient writers really
did a number on the Thracians' reputation. They
really did. And I want to look at this with a
bit of skepticism. Plato, for example, grouped
them right alongside the Scythians in his Republic,
calling them extravagant and high -spirited.
Which wasn't exactly a compliment in that context.
Not at all. And Tacitus, the Roman historian,
went even further in his annals. He wrote that
they were wild, savage, and impatient. Claiming
they were disobedient even to their own kings.
Right. And it wasn't just the ancients. A 19th
century French historian named Victor Giroux
later noted that the Thracians considered farming
entirely beneath them. He said they knew no source
of gain but war and theft. War and theft? Wait,
so if Victor Giroux is saying they only knew
war and theft, how does that square with the
fact that they literally gave us the origins
of wine? You don't build complex generational
vineyards through hit and run theft. That is
the perfect question to ask, and it cuts right
to the heart of the bias. The Greeks and Romans
judged the concept of civilization through a
very specific urban lens. Meaning walled cities.
Exactly. To them, if you didn't have sprawling
walled cities made of stone, centralized bureaucracies,
and a specific type of agriculture, you were
a barbarian. So the Thracians didn't have that.
Well, they were largely a rural pastoral society.
They lived mostly in simple, open villages spread
across the mountains and plains. But a lack of
stone cities does not mean a lack of civilization
or agricultural prowess. Not at all. And their
physical appearance was heavily stereotyped too,
right? Uh -uh, heavily. The ancient Greek poet
Xenophanes described the Thracians as having
blue eyes and red hair. In fact, ancient Greek
artwork often depicted them as redheads. Yeah,
and the name Rufus, which literally means redhead,
became a very common name given to enslaved people
in Rome because so many of them were of Thracian
origin. But I was reading the anthropological
data in our sources, and modern science pushes
back on that narrative entirely. It does. While
ancient authors love to categorize entire groups
as red -haired as a way to exoticize them. Which
they did to other groups too, right? Yes, they
did the exact same thing to the Slavs and the
Scythians. But modern academic studies point
in a completely different direction. Anthropologist
Eris N. Poulianos states that the ancient Thracians
actually belonged mainly to the Aegean anthropological
type. Let's clarify that term for a second. What
exactly does the Aegean type look like in reality?
essentially it means they looked like typical
mediterranean populations okay they likely shared
the olive skin darker hair and darker facial
features of modern bulgarians and greeks they
weren't a monolith of bright red hair and blue
eyes so where did the red hair thing come from
the red hair descriptions were likely a mix of
encountering a few specific northern tribes combined
with a literary trope meant to make them sound
alien and other to a greek audience that makes
a lot of sense what's fascinating here is that
the whole barbarian label is a textbook case
of history being written by the victors. Or the
urban elites, in this case. Precisely. Even the
Romans and Greeks who insulted them constantly
had to reluctantly admit that the Thracians were
renowned for their highly sophisticated poetry
and music. And we have the physical artifacts
to prove it. It's not just ancient hearsay. No,
the archaeology is stunning. When archaeologists
started digging, especially after World War II
in southern Bulgaria, they found things that
completely dismantle that savage stereotype.
I am looking at the notes on the Valley of the
Thracian Rulers and specifically the Panegyrish
Day gold treasure. Oh, the Panegyrish Day treasure
is incredible. We are talking about a breathtaking
set of 24 karat gold vessels from the 4th or
3rd century BC. Right. There are drinking horns
intricately shaped like the heads of stags and
rams and amphoras detailed with complex mythological
scenes. These people were master goldsmiths and
silversmiths. Absolutely. The level of artistry
is... staggering. You don't create the Panagiotis
State treasure if your entire society only knows
how to raid your neighbors. Exactly. The material
wealth, the understanding of metallurgy, and
the sheer artistic skill required to make those
artifacts point to a highly stratified, wealthy,
and sophisticated society. They had elite classes.
Yes. Elites who commissioned art that rivaled
anything coming out of Athens or Rome. Speaking
of their society, let's dive into their social
customs, because they are incredibly complex
very much so in some ways they feel surprisingly
modern and in others completely foreign for one
they were heavily tattooed both men and women
tattooed their bodies which the greeks and romans
thought was bizarre And we should contextualize
why that was so shocking to the Greeks. In ancient
Greek society, tattoos were generally used as
a penal measure. Like for criminals. Yeah, you
tattooed criminals or the enslaved to mark them.
But for the Thracians, tattoos were a mark of
high nobility and status. Wow, total opposite.
A profusely tattooed Thracian was likely an aristocrat,
which completely inverted the Greeks' social
norms. That makes so much sense. And their views
on relationships were just as contrary to the
Greeks. According to Herodotus, virginity among
women was not valued at all prior to marriage.
Unmarried Thracian women had total sexual freedom
to be with whatever men they pleased. However,
once they were married, wives were strictly guarded.
And marriage itself was a completely different
institution. It was. They practiced extreme polygamy,
which was highly unusual for the region. There
is a quote from the Greek writer Menander that
perfectly captures how the rest of the Mediterranean
view this. I love this quote. He wrote, all Thracians,
especially us in the Getae, are not much abstaining
because no one takes less than 10, 11, 12 wives.
12 wives. If one dies and has only four or five
wives, he's called ill -fated, unhappy, and unmarried.
It's just wild to think about. It's like showing
up to a modern high school reunion with a flip
phone society. Just looks at you with sheer pity.
But logistically, how did that even work in a
society of simple villages? Having 10 wives implies
an enormous economic burden. You've hit the nail
on the head. That kind of extreme polygamy was
almost certainly restricted to the tribal elites
and chieftains. Okay, that makes more sense.
It was an indicator of immense wealth. If you
could support 12 wives and their subsequent children,
you are projecting your power and resources to
the rest of the tribe. But what makes Thracian
society so dynamic is that for every extreme,
there was a counter extreme. While the elite
men were practicing this intense polygamy, they
also had a highly honored subculture of male
ascetics known as the Tiste. Right. The monks.
Yes, these were Thracian monks, philosophers,
and prophets who lived completely celibate lives.
So no wives for them. None. They lived without
women entirely, often abstained from eating meat,
and dedicated themselves strictly to the gods.
That's a huge contrast. Despite being the polar
opposite of the wealthy chieftains, they were
held in places of highest honor and reverence
within the society. If we connect this to the
bigger picture, you start to see how deeply spiritual
the Thracians were. Their religion was incredibly
rich. They followed a polytheistic system, but
with very strong monotheistic elements. Like
the Thracian horsemen. Yes. Also known as Sabazios,
who was a god of the underworld, often depicted
slaying a beast with a spear. And then there
was another god for the northern tribes. The
Getae tribe, up near modern Romania, followed
a god named Zalmoxis who promised them eternal
life after death. Got it. But crucially, Thrace
is considered by many historians to be the literal
motherland of wine culture. This is the part
that blows my mind. We are talking about a winemaking
tradition dating back 6 ,000 years. They were
the very first to worship the god of wine, a
deity they called Zagreus. And Zagreus eventually
makes his way into Greek mythology and gets...
rebranded as Dionysus, right? Precisely. The
Greeks adopted the god of wine from the Thracians,
though it's worth noting the Greeks were often
scandalized by how the Thracians drank their
wine. Oh, so? Well, the Greeks always diluted
their wine with water, considering it civilized.
The Thracians drank it straight, often in large
quantities during religious rituals to achieve
a state of divine ecstasy. So every time you
enjoy a glass of undiluted wine, you might just
have the Thracians to thank for starting the
trend. Exactly. But it's important we don't swing
the pendulum too far the other way and romanticize
them as just peaceful. wine -drinking monks.
They lived in a brutal ancient world. Very brutal.
And the archaeology shows they participated in
its darkest aspects. For instance, archaeological
evidence does confirm that the Thracians practiced
human sacrifice. They did. It was a complex,
rugged world. Yeah. Human sacrifice, often involving
prisoners of war or sometimes even their own
people in times of extreme crisis, was a reality
of their religious practices. So what does this
all mean? Which brings us to a fascinating geopolitical
puzzle. Right. If you have this incredibly wealthy,
heavily armed civilization, I mean, Herodotus
said they were the second most numerous people
in the known world, right behind the Indians.
That's a massive population. Why didn't they
just conquer the Mediterranean? With that kind
of vast population and martial culture, why aren't
we speaking Thracian today? That is the exact
question ancient historians wrestled with. Herodotus
himself said that if the Thracians could ever
unite under one ruler, they would be invincible.
But they didn't. The short answer for why they
didn't is severe political fragmentation. They
were fractured into roughly 200 distinct independent
tribes. 200 that... That is a logistical nightmare.
It was. You had major groups like the Idrisians
in the south and the Gitei in the north near
the Danube River. But the geography of the Balkans
with its dense forests and the towering road
open Balkan mountain ranges fostered isolation.
So they were cut off from each other. Mostly,
yes. These tribes were fiercely independent and
fought each other for territory and resources
almost as much as they fought outsiders. They
simply could not form a unified front. But there
was one moment in the 6th century BC when someone
else united them by force, right? The Persians.
Yes, the Persian Achaemenid Empire under Darius
I launched a colossal campaign into Europe and
conquered Thrace. And they made it a province.
Right, incorporating it into their empire as
a satrapy called Scudra. Wait, so a fiercely
independent warrior culture just accepted being
conquered by an outside empire. That seems totally
counterintuitive. It does sound strange, but
the historical record shows something very surprising.
What's that? The Thracians actually seemed to
like Persia. or at least they found it highly
beneficial. Really? The Persians were pragmatic
administrators. They treated the Thracians with
favor, sometimes giving local chieftains more
land and authority. Ah, playing the politics.
Exactly. More importantly, the Thracians realized
that being part of the sprawling Persian Empire
provided a powerful economic and military buffer.
Against who? It protected them against Greek
expansion from the south, and it stopped the
relentless devastating raids from the Scythian
nomads. to the north. So it was essentially a
mutually beneficial security pact. Exactly. In
fact, during the Ionian Revolt, when various
Greek cities rebelled against Persian rule, the
Thracians flat out refused to help the Greeks.
They stuck with the Persians. They actively supported
the Persians because the arrangement brought
them stability and wealth. But eventually, the
Persians were pushed out of Europe by the Greeks.
And when that superpower left, the Thracians
finally had their moment of internal unity. The
Idrisian Kingdom. Right. This is the rise of
the Idrisian Kingdom. Under a king named Teres
I, the Idrisian tribes started conquering their
neighbors and making strategic alliances. He
was very effective. They managed to unite over
40 different Thracian tribes into one unprecedented
state. The Idrisian Kingdom became incredibly
powerful to the point where they allied with
Athens and even joined the Peloponnesian War
on the Athenian side. It was their golden age
of political unity. They controlled trade routes,
fielded huge armies and held vast territories
from the Aegean Sea all the way up toward the
Danube. Here's where it gets really interesting.
Even when they weren't united into one kingdom,
the entire ancient world relied heavily on Thracian
military might. They were the ultimate ancient
mercenaries. They were highly sought after. They
developed a highly specialized type of light
infantry soldier called a peltast. The peltast
completely revolutionized ancient warfare. Right.
Instead of fighting in a clunky, heavily armored
Greek phalanx, the peltast was lightly armed.
They carried a crescent shaped wicker shield
called a pelt and a bundle of javelins. Very
mobile. They relied on speed, mobility and hit
and run tactics. It's almost like comparing a
slow moving tank to a highly mobile special ops
unit. That's a great comparison. They were so
effective that Alexander the Great recruited
Thracian cavalry and infantry into his own army.
Alexander the Great understood their value perfectly.
Thracian soldiers fought right alongside him
in his most pivotal battles, like Isis and Gagamella.
Those were massive. The specific battles where
Alexander literally toppled the Persian Empire.
He couldn't have done it without Thracian mobility
on his flanks. And that leads us to some of the
most famous Thracians in history. We already
mentioned Orpheus, the mythical bard whose music
could charm stones and trees. Right. But the
most famous historical Thracian has to be Spartacus.
Yes, that's Spartacus. The gladiator. He was
a Thracian who was enslaved, forced to become
a gladiator, and then led a massive slave uprising
that literally brought the Roman Republic to
its knees. And when you realize he likely had
training in those highly mobile, peltast, hit
-and -run tactics, it suddenly makes sense. It
completely does. It explains how a group of gladiators
and enslaved people could outmaneuver and defeat
organized Roman legions. It is a brilliant connection.
Spartacus perfectly embodies that Thracian martial
spirit and tactical brilliance that the Romans
both feared and heavily exploited. But eventually
Rome did come for Thrace itself. Of course they
did. By the mid -2nd century BC, the Romans were
slowly conquering the region. The Thracians,
true to form, rebelled constantly. There are
accounts of a particularly fierce mountain tribe
called the Dai. Yes, the Dai. They were armed
with a terrifying weapon called a romphea, which
was a long, slightly curved blade that could
literally cleave a Roman shield in half. That
sounds terrifying. It was. The daia were responsible
for horrifying atrocities during their conflicts,
famously decapitating Roman soldiers and impaling
their heads on those long swords to strike fear
into the legions. But the Romans... with their
endless resources, were relentless. They always
were. Eventually, the Odrysian heartlands were
converted into the official Roman province of
Thracia around 46 AD. But here's the ultimate
historical irony. I love this part. The people
Rome conquered and enslaved eventually ended
up ruling Rome itself. Several later Roman and
Byzantine emperors were actually of Thracian
descent. It's incredible. You have Maximinus
Thrax, a literal giant of a man who ruled in
the 3rd century. You have Justin I, and maybe
most famously, Justinian the Great. Yes, Justinian.
The emperor who rewrote Roman law and built the
iconic Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, he was
of Thracian origin, born in the region of Dardania.
It shows how deeply intertwined they became with
the Roman world. They weren't just conquered
and erased. They assimilated into the very fabric
of the empire's leadership. Which brings us to
the Great Vanishing Act. Where did this vast
civilization go? Because you don't hear about
the country of Thrace today. You really don't.
Part of it is a very dark story of human exploitation.
For centuries, the Greeks engaged in widespread
slave raids into Thracian territory. It was so
common that in ancient Athenian comedies, the
generic default name for any female slave character
was literally Thrata. Thrata, yeah. Which translates
to Thracian woman. This raises an important question
about how a population of millions seemingly
disappears from the map. The truth is, geography
was their ultimate undoing. How so? They were
standing at the little crossroads of Europe and
Asia. Over the centuries, they were repeatedly
invaded and overrun by subsequent migrations.
We are talking about the Celts, the Goths, the
Huns, the Romans, and eventually the Slavs. Just
wave after wave. Exactly. By the 6th century
AD, the last remnants of their distinct independent
culture were fading. But they held on in some
incredibly remote places, right? They did. I
read about a fascinating report from the year
570 AD by a traveler named Antoninus Placentius.
He wrote about visiting a remote monastery in
the deep valleys of Mount Sinai, way down in
Egypt. Very remote. And the monks there spoke
several languages, and one of them was Bessian,
the language of the Thracian Bessi tribe. Exactly.
So you had this tiny pocket of Thracian language
still being spoken by monks in the desert long
after their homeland had been conquered. That's
wild. But eventually, even that language died
out completely, and the Thracians were fully
assimilated into the Byzantine and Slavic societies
that took over the Balkans. And this is the crucial
part of our deep dive today. they didn't disappear
biologically. A major genetic study published
in 2013 looked at the DNA of ancient Thracian
remains and compared it to modern populations.
They found an incredible genetic similarity between
ancient Thracians and modern Bulgarians. Yes,
the study looked at their autosomal genetic legacy.
Which means what exactly? For those unfamiliar,
autosomal DNA is essentially the broader genetic
code you inherit from all your ancestors across
the board. Not just your direct strict maternal
or paternal lines. It gives us a full picture
view of lineage. And what did that full picture
show? It showed that roughly 55 % of the modern
Bulgarian autosomal genetic legacy is Paleo -Bulcan
and Mediterranean. Wow. 55%. Yeah. Paleobalkan
simply means the indigenous pre -Slavic populations
of the region. This directly ties modern populations
to the ancient Thracians. They didn't vanish
into thin air or get entirely wiped out. Their
DNA is still walking around today in southeastern
Europe. That is just incredible. To summarize
the journey we've been on today for you, we started
with this caricature of bloodthirsty, savage
barbarians that the Greek Roman elites wanted
us to believe. But by looking at the archaeology
in the broader context, we've uncovered a highly
sophisticated society. Truly sophisticated. A
society that crafted stunning 24 -carat gold
treasures, maintained complex social customs,
operated as a crucial geopolitical buffer, and
served as the motherland for a 6 ,000 -year -old
wine culture. Absolutely. They were fractured
into hundreds of tribes, but they still provided
the ancient world with its most innovative warriors,
its most enduring myths, and eventually, the
emperors who ruled over their conquerors. And
as we wrap up, I want to leave you with one final
lingering thought to mull over. Okay. We are
talking about an immense population, millions
of people that shaped European history for millennia.
Right. Yet today, despite all their wealth and
influence, we only have four short inscriptions
of their written language in existence. Only
four? Just four. One of them is the mysterious
Ring of Azarovo, a gold ring inscribed with eight
lines of text that remains entirely undeciphered
to this day. It really makes you wonder if a
civilization of millions spanning thousands of
years can leave behind essentially zero deciphered
words of their own. What other profound, incredible
cultures in human history have been entirely
silenced or rewritten simply because their enemies
held the pen? That is a haunting and fascinating
thought to end on. Thank you so much for joining
us on this deep dive into the Thracians. We hope
you walk away with a totally new perspective
on the ancient world. And maybe a little extra
appreciation the next time you pour yourself
a glass of wine. Keep that curiosity alive, and
we will catch you on the next deep dive.