“Thracians,” like the inclusive name “Scythians,” referred to many loosely connected tribes inhabiting the territory stretching from the Black Sea to the Adriatic Sea (northern Greece, European Turkey, southwestern Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and former Yugoslavia). Thracian and Scythian territory overlapped, and since at least 700 BC, Thracians mingled violently and peacefully with Scythians. Archaeology demonstrates Thracian-Scythian cultural ties. Not only are Thracian goods found in Scythian graves and Scythian artifacts in Thracian graves of 560-450 BC, but the remains of women warriors have been excavated in ancient Thrace (Chapter 4). Thracians and Scythians were neighbors and kinspeople through conquest and intermarriage. Many of their customs merged. Several mixed Thracian-Scythian tribes, such as the Tyragetai and Agathyrsi, were discussed by Herodotus and Strabo. According to Strabo, the Bithynians, Phrygians, Mysians, Mygdonians, and Trojans were all of Thracian origin, and one Thracian tribe, the Saraparai (“Beheaders”), was said to have migrated far east beyond Armenia and onto the Scythian steppes.3
Thracians, Scythians, and Amazons shared a guerrilla style of fighting, as light infantry (peltasts), archers, and cavalry, and their clothing, weapons, equipment, and artistic motifs were similar. Greek colonists skirmished with indigenous Thracians in the seventh to sixth centuries BC. A black-figure painted cup (ca. 560 BC, believed to be from a Thracian tomb) juxtaposes Greeks, Thracians, and Amazons in an interesting way. The cup’s exterior shows a “quasi-historical” battle between Greeks and Thracians, while on the inside the Greek hero Heracles battles an Amazon. The mythic scene seems to equate the Amazon with Thracians.4
By about 550 BC, Greek vase painters began to depict Amazons with a combination of Thracian and Scythian clothing and equipment, coinciding with increasing Greek familiarity with those two warrior races and the ongoing intermingling of the two peoples at the margins of their territories. (In earlier art, Amazons had been imagined as female Greek hoplites, with short chiton, armor, helmet, round shield, and spear.) As the popularity of Amazon scenes rose and familiarity increased, artists began to show Hippolyte, Antiope, Penthesilea, and other Amazons with quivers, bows, and javelins, clothed in patterned tunics and trousers, boots, and pointed soft caps, typical attire of Thracians and Scythians (and, later, Persians). By 525 BC, many Amazons were being shown with the Thracian pelta, a half-moon-shaped wicker shield, and some wear the distinctive Thracian cloak (zeira). Vase paintings also portray Amazons wearing spotted leopard skins, the signature accessory of Thracian maenads (violent female followers of Dionysus; in some myths it was they who killed Orpheus).5
Thracians, Scythians, and Amazons were horse people. An Amazon rider on a vase painting by Polygnotus is named Dolope, the name of a Thracian tribe. Thracians were described by the Greeks as tall, with straight reddish hair and pale tattooed skin. Thracians, Scythians, and Persians were frequently depicted as red-haired on vases. The artistic pairing of Amazons with Thracians leads some scholars to assume that the vase painters and their viewers knew of genuinely ancient oral traditions that located Amazons in Thrace. Indeed, one of the earliest mentions of Amazons in Greek writing places them in Thrace. According to the Aethiopis epic (seventh century BC) Amazons were a Thracian race, and Penthesilea, the Amazon queen with a starring role in the legendary Trojan War, was born in Thrace. In Homer’s Iliad, the Thracians and Amazons were both allies of Troy. (See fig. 8.2 For a vase painting of a Thracian huntress offering a gift to Penthesilea.)
According to the Greek historian Hecataeus of Miletus (550-476 BC), the Amazons of Pontus spoke a Thracian dialect. Strabo recounts an old story about some Thracians joining the Gargarians of the northern Caucasus to make war on the Amazons (Chapter 8). Diodorus describes a war against the Amazons waged by a Thracian-Scythian army led by Mopsus the Thracian and Sipylus the Scythian. Several ancient sources state that various groups in Anatolia were originally from Thrace. The strong cultural ties and geographic proximity of Thracians and Scythians and Amazons suggests that these groups shared many customs, including tattooing.6
World History
