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Greek city of Kabyle (Cabyle) in Thrace
under Kavaros – King of Thrace circa 230-218 B.C.
Posthumous issue in the name and types of Alexander III of Macedon,
Silver Tetradrachm 27mm (16.25 grams) Struck circa 225-215 B.C.
Reference: Price 882. Peykov F2010. Very rare!
Certification: NGC Ancients Ch AU Strike: 4/5 Surface: 4/5 3988781-002
Head of Heracles right, wearing lion skin headdress, paws tied before neck.
ΒAΣIΛEΩΣ / ΑΛΕΞANΔΡOY, Zeus seated left on backless throne, right leg drawn back, feet on ground line, eagle in right hand, scepter in left; Artemis Phosphoros standing facing with long lit torch in each hand in inner left field.
In 279 BC, the Celtic Gauls swept down into Thrace and Asia Minor, defeating most the Greek armies sent to stop them with ease. They occupied Thrace for the next five decades, replacing the Odrysian rulers with their own succession of kings. The only one of these to strike coinage in his own name was Cavarus (Kavaros), who used Cabyle as his capitol and mint city. The types are those of Alexander the Great, and most of the coins struck under Cavarus have Alexander’s name as well; but a few were struck with the name of Cavarus himself. The Gauls of Thrace later mass-migrated into Asia Minor and founded the Galatian Kingdom. He was The last Gaulish King in Thrace.
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Thrace (demonym Thracian; Bulgarian: Тракия, Trakiya, Greek: Θράκη, Thráki, Turkish: Trakya) is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east. The areas it comprises are southeastern Bulgaria (Northern Thrace), northeastern Greece (Western Thrace), and the European part of Turkey (Eastern Thrace). The biggest part of Thrace is part of present-day Bulgaria. In Turkey, it is also called Rumelia. The name comes from the Thracians, an ancient Indo-European people inhabiting Southeastern Europe.
The historical boundaries of Thrace have varied. Noteworthy is the fact that, at an early date, the ancient Greeks employed the term “Thrace” to refer to all of the territory which lay north of Thessaly inhabited by the Thracians, a region which “had no definite boundaries” and to which other regions (like Macedonia and even Scythia) were added. In one ancient Greek source, the very Earth is divided into “Asia, Libya, Europa and Thracia”. As the knowledge of world geography of the Greeks broadened, the term came to be more restricted in its application: Thrace designated the lands bordered by the Danube on the north, by the Euxine Sea (Black Sea) on the east, by northern Macedonia in the south and by the Illyrian lands (i.e. Illyria) to the west. This largely coincided with the Thracian Odrysian kingdom, whose borders varied in time. During this time, specifically after the Macedonian conquest, the region’s old border with Macedonia was shifted from the Struma River to the Mesta River. This usage lasted until the Roman conquest. Henceforth, (classical) Thrace referred only to the tract of land largely covering the same extent of space as the modern geographical region. In its early period, the Roman province of Thrace was of this extent, but after the administrative reforms of the late 3rd century, Thracia’s much reduced territory became the six small provinces which constituted the Diocese of Thrace. The medieval Byzantine theme of Thrace contained only what today is Eastern Thrace.
The largest cities of Thrace are: İstanbul (European side), Plovdiv, Burgas, Stara Zagora, Haskovo, Edirne, Çorlu and Tekirdag.
Most of the Bulgarian and Greek population are Christians, while most of the Turkish inhabitants of Thrace are Muslims.
Thrace in ancient Greek mythology
Ancient Greek mythology provides them with a mythical ancestor, named Thrax, son of the war-god Ares, who was said to reside in Thrace. The Thracians appear in Homer’s Iliad as Trojan allies, led by Acamas and Peiros. Later in the Iliad, Rhesus, another Thracian king, makes an appearance. Cisseus, father-in-law to the Trojan elder Antenor, is also given as a Thracian king. Homeric Thrace was vaguely defined, and stretched from the River Axios in the west to the Hellespont and Black Sea in the east. The Catalogue of Ships mentions three separate contingents from Thrace: Thracians led by Acamas and Peiros, from Aenus; Cicones led by Euphemus, from southern Thrace, near Ismaros; and from the city of Sestus, on the Thracian (northern) side of the Hellespont, which formed part of the contingent led by Asius. Greek mythology is replete with Thracian kings, including Diomedes, Tereus, Lycurgus, Phineus, Tegyrius, Eumolpus, Polymnestor, Poltys, and Oeagrus (father of Orpheus). In addition to the tribe that Homer calls Thracians, ancient Thrace was home to numerous other tribes, such as the Edones, Bisaltae, Cicones, and Bistones.
Thrace is also mentioned in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the episode of Philomela, Procne, and Tereus. Tereus, the King of Thrace, lusts after his sister-in-law, Philomela. He kidnaps her, holds her captive, rapes her, and cuts out her tongue. Philomela manages to get free, however. She and her sister, Procne, plot to get revenge, by killing Itys (son of Tereus and Procne) and serving him to his father for dinner. At the end of the myth, all three turn into birds-Procne, a swallow; Philomela, a nightingale; and Tereus, a hoopoe.
History
Ancient history
The indigenous population of Thrace was a people called the Thracians, divided into numerous tribal groups. Thracian troops were known to accompany neighboring ruler Alexander the Great when he crossed the Hellespont which abuts Thrace, and took on the Persian Empire of the day.
The Thracians did not describe themselves as such and Thrace and Thracians are simply the names given them by the Greeks.
Divided into separate tribes, the Thracians did not manage to form a lasting political organization until the Odrysian state was founded in the 4th century BC. Like Illyrians, Thracian tribes of the mountainous regions fostered a locally ruled warrior tradition, while the tribes based in the plains were purportedly more peaceable. Recently discovered funeral mounds in Bulgaria suggest that Thracian kings did rule regions of Thrace with distinct Thracian national identity.
During this period, a subculture of celibate ascetics called the Ctistae lived in Thrace, where they served as philosophers, priests and prophets.
Medieval history
By the mid 5th century, as the Roman Empire began to crumble, Thracia fell from the authority of Rome and into the hands of Germanic tribal rulers. With the fall of Rome, Thracia turned into a battleground territory for the better part of the next 1,000 years. The eastern successor of the Roman Empire in the Balkans, the Byzantine Empire, retained control over Thrace until the 8th century when the northern half of the entire region was incorporated into the First Bulgarian Empire. Byzantium regained Thrace in the late 10th century and administered it as a theme, until the Bulgarians regained control of the northern half at the end of the 12th century. Throughout the 13th century and the first half of the 14th century, the region was changing in the hands of the Bulgarian and the Byzantine Empire(excl. Constantinopole). In 1265 the area suffered a Mongol raid from the Golden Horde, led by Nogai Khan. In 1352, the Ottoman Turks conducted their first incursion into the region subduing it completely within a matter of two decades and occupying it for five centuries.
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