Editing Thrace (section)

==History==
{{see also|History of Western Thrace|History of East Thrace}}

=== Ancient and Roman history ===
{{Main|Thracians|Thracia}}
[[File:Xerxes_I_tomb_Skudrian_soldier_circa_470_BCE_cleaned_up.jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|[[Skudrian]] (Thracian) soldier of the Achaemenid army, circa 480 BC. [[Xerxes I]] tomb relief.]]
[[File:Kazanluk 1.jpg|thumb|[[Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak]].]]
Indigenous [[Thracians]] were divided into numerous tribes. The first to take greater control of Thrace, in part or whole, were the [[Achaemenian Empire|Achaemenian]] [[Persians]] in the late 6th century BC. The region was incorporated into their empire as the [[Skudra|Satrapy of Skudra]], after the [[Scythian campaign of Darius I|Scythian campaign of Darius the Great]].<ref>Joseph Roisman, Ian Worthington. [https://books.google.com/books?id=QsJ183uUDkMC&dq=Achaemenid+Persians+ruled+balkans&pg=PA345 "A companion to Ancient Macedonia"] John Wiley & Sons, 2011. {{ISBN|144435163X}} p 343</ref> Thracian soldiers were used in Persian armies and are depicted in carvings of the [[Persepolis]] and [[Naqsh-e Rostam]]. Persians' presence in Thracia lasted for more than a century, ending with the conquests in the 4th century BC by [[Alexander III of Macedon|Alexander the Great of Macedon]], who divided the vast realm between his generals. Notably, Thracian troops are known to have accompanied Alexander when he crossed the [[Hellespont]] which abuts Thrace, during the invasion of the [[Achaemenid Empire|Persian Empire]] itself.

The Thracians recorded no collective name for themselves; terms such as ''Thrace'' and ''Thracians'' were assigned by the Greeks.<ref>The [[Cambridge Ancient History]], Volume 3, Part 2: The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and Other States of the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries BC by John Boardman, I. E. S. Edwards, E. Sollberger, and N. G. L. Hammond,{{ISBN|0-521-22717-8}},1992, page 597: "We have no way of knowing what the Thracians called themselves and if indeed they had a common name...Thus the name of Thracians and that of their country were given by the Greeks to a group of tribes occupying the territory..."</ref>

Divided into separate tribes, the Thracians did not form any lasting political organizations until the founding of the [[Odrysian|Odrysian state]] in the 4th century BC. Like [[Illyrians]], the locally ruled Thracian tribes of the mountainous regions maintained a 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.{{citation needed|date=August 2020}}

During this period, a subculture of [[celibacy|celibate]] [[ascetics]] called the [[Ctistae]] lived in Thrace, where they served as philosophers, priests, and prophets.

Sections of Thrace particularly in the south started to become hellenized before the [[Peloponnesian War]] as Athenian and Ionian colonies were set up in Thrace before the war. Spartan and other [[Dorians|Doric]] colonists followed them after the war. The special interest of Athens to Thrace is underlined by the numerous finds of Athenian silverware in Thracian tombs.<ref>A. Sideris, [https://www.academia.edu/19830301/Theseus_in_Thrace._The_Silver_Lining_on_the_Clouds_of_the_Athenian-Thracian_Relations_in_the_5th_century_BC ''Theseus in Thrace. The Silver Lining on the Clouds of the Athenian-Thracian Relations in the 5th Century BC''] (Sofia 2015), pp. 13–14, 79–82.</ref> In 168 BC, after the [[Third Macedonian war]] and the subjugation of Macedonia to the Romans, Thrace also lost its independence and became a tributary to Rome. Towards the end of the 1st century BC Thrace lost its status as a client kingdom as the Romans began to directly appoint their kings.<ref>D. C. Samsaris, Le royaume client thrace aux temps de Tibere et la tutelle romaine de Trebellenus Rufus (Le stade transitif de la clientele a la provincialisation de la Thrace), Dodona 17 (1), 1988, p. 159-168</ref> This situation lasted until 46 AD, when the Romans finally turned Thrace into a Roman province (Romana provincia Thracia).<ref>[http://olympias.lib.uoi.gr/jspui/handle/123456789/27369] D. C. Samsaris, The Hellenization of Thrace during the Greek and Roman Antiquity (Diss. in Greek), Thessaloniki 1980, p. 26-36</ref>

During the Roman domination, within the geographical borders of ancient Thrace, there were two separate Roman provinces, namely Thrace ("provincia Thracia") and Lower Moesia ("Moesia inferior"). Later, in the times of Diocletian, the two provinces were joined and formed the so-called "Dioecesis Thracia".<ref>D. C. Samsaris, Historical Geography of Western Thrace during the Roman Antiquity (in Greek), Thessaloniki 2005, p. 7-14</ref> The establishment of Roman colonies and mostly several Greek cities, as was Nicopolis, Topeiros, Traianoupolis, Plotinoupolis, and Hadrianoupolis resulted from the Roman Empire's urbanization. The Roman provincial policy in Thrace favored mainly not the Romanization but the Hellenization of the country, which had started as early as the Archaic period through the Greek colonisation and was completed by the end of Roman antiquity.<ref>[http://olympias.lib.uoi.gr/jspui/handle/123456789/27369] D. C. Samsaris, The Hellenization of Thrace, passim</ref> As regards the competition between the Greek and Latin language, the very high rate of Greek inscriptions in Thrace extending south of [[Balkan Mountains|Haemus Mountains]] proves the complete language Hellenization of this region. The boundaries between the Greek and Latin speaking Thrace are placed just above the northern foothills of Haemus Mountains.<ref>[http://olympias.lib.uoi.gr/jspui/handle/123456789/27369] D. C. Samsaris, The Hellenization of Thrace, p. 320-330</ref>

During the imperial period many Thracians – particularly members of the local aristocracy of the cities – had been granted the right of the [[Roman citizen]]ship (civitas Romana) with all its privileges. Epigraphic evidence show a large increase in such naturalizations in the times of Trajan and Hadrian, while in 212 AD the emperor Caracalla granted, with his well-known decree ([[constitutio Antoniniana]]), the Roman citizenship to all the free inhabitants of the Roman Empire.<ref>D. C. Samsaris, Surveys in the history, topography and cults of the Roman provinces of Macedonia and Thrace (in Greek), Thessaloniki 1984, p. 131-302</ref>
During the same period (in the 1st–2nd century AD), a remarkable presence of Thracians is testified by the inscriptions outside the borders (extra fines) both in the Greek territory<ref>D. C. Samsaris, Les Thraces dans l' Empire romain d' Orient (Le territoire de la Grèce actuelle). Etude ethno-démographique, sociale, prosopographique et anthroponymique, Jannina (Université) 1993, pp. 372</ref> and in all the Roman provinces, especially in the provinces of Eastern Roman Empire.<ref>D. C. Samsaris, Les Thraces dans l' Empire romain d' Orient (Asie Mineure, Syrie, Palestine et Arabie). Etude ethno-démographique et sociale, VIe Symposium Internazionale di Tracologia (Firenze 11–13 maggio 1989), Roma 1992, p. 184-204 [= Dodona 19(1990), fasc. 1, p. 5-30]</ref>

===Medieval history===
{{Main|Macedonia (theme)|Thrace (theme)}}
By the mid-5th century, as the [[Western Roman Empire]] began to crumble, Thracia fell from the authority of Rome and into the hands of Germanic tribal rulers. With the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Thracia turned into a battleground territory for the better part of the next 1,000 years. The surviving eastern portion of the [[Roman Empire]] in the Balkans, later known as the [[Byzantine Empire]], retained control over Thrace until the 7th century when the northern half of the entire region was incorporated into the [[First Bulgarian Empire]] and the remainder was reorganized in the [[Thrace (theme)|Thracian theme]]. [[Byzantine conquest of Bulgaria|The Empire regained]] the lost regions in the late 10th century 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 (excluding Constantinople). In 1265, the area suffered a Mongol raid from the [[Golden Horde]], led by [[Nogai Khan]], and between 1305 and 1307 the area was raided by the [[Catalan Company|Catalan company]].<ref><span class="reference-text">''La Venjança catalana''. Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana.</span></ref>

===Ottoman period===
[[File:Greek flag (black cross).svg|thumb|right|Flag of rebels of Thrace during the [[Greek War of Independence]].]]
In 1352, the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] [[Turkic people|Turks]] conducted their first incursion into the region [[Ottoman conquest of the Balkans|subduing it]] completely within a matter of two decades and ruled it for five centuries in general peace. In 1821, several parts of Thrace, such as [[Lavara]], [[Maroneia]], [[Sozopol]]is, [[Enez|Aenos]], [[Gallipoli|Callipolis]], and [[Samothraki]] rebelled during the [[Greek War of Independence]].

===Modern history===
[[File:DBFP03.jpg|thumb|Proposal to cede East Thrace to Greece during [[World War I]]. This photocopy came from a larger color map.]]
With the [[Congress of Berlin]] in 1878, Northern Thrace was incorporated into the semi-autonomous Ottoman province of [[Eastern Rumelia]], which united with Bulgaria in 1885. The rest of Thrace was divided among [[Bulgaria]], [[Turkey]] and [[Greece]] at the beginning of the 20th century, following the [[Balkan Wars]], [[World War I]] and the [[Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922)|Greco-Turkish War]]. In Summer 1934, up to 10,000 Jews<ref>see [http://www.bpb.de/internationales/europa/tuerkei/181867/vertreibung-der-tuerkischen-juden footnote 4]</ref> were maltreated, bereaved,{{clarify|date=February 2022}} and then forced to quit the region (see [[1934 Thrace pogroms]]). From [[Bulgaria]] and [[Romania]] between 1934 and 1938 a large wave of [[Muslim]] immigrants called ''Göçmenler'' went to [[East Thrace]].<ref>https://www.historystudies.net/trakyanin-yeni-sakinleri -gocmenler-1934-1938_1634</ref>

Today, ''Thracian'' is a geographical term used in [[Bulgaria]], [[Turkey]], and [[Greece]].