ANCIENT THRACE AND THE THRACIANS THROUGH ATHENIAN EYES
ANCIENT THRACE AND THE THRACIANS THROUGH ATHENIAN EYES

Summary/Abstract: Subject of this paper is Ancient Thrace and its inhabitants, the Thracians. However, the goal is not to present the region and its characteristics through the actual findings discovered in the area occupied by the Thracian tribes in Antiquity, rather to see it through the ancient Greek eyes and in particular to picture the Athenian view. Therefore the geographic boundaries of ancient Thrace or the particular tribes who inhabited it are not examined, since the interest is to take a glimpse at what the Athenians thought and had in their minds when they referred to Thrace and Thracians. The material that is used in order to present and understand the Athenian perspective on ancient Thrace are the literary sources, poetry, myths and the visual arts. As regards the latter, it is the vase painting of the Athenian Kerameikos that provides a great number and variety of representations related to Thrace. The appearance of Thracian topics in Athenian vase painting corresponds with the periods known from the ancient authors that Athens was in various types of relations and contacts with the area. That is in particular the 6th and 5th centuries BC, meaning the Archaic and Classical times. Therefore, this is the timeframe in order to see how the Greeks, and in particular the Athenians, used to see Thrace and Thracians with the Attic vases to be the primary tool.

• Details
• Contents