[754] THRACIA (Opic(e'l) was the country lying east of Macedonia, bounded on the north by the Danube and on the south by the Aegean Sea, the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmora, and the territory of Byzantium (a ‘free city,' connected with the Roman province of Bithynia from B.C. 74). Thrace is never mentioned in the NT, nor did any action alluded to in the NT take place in that country. Philippi and Neapolis indeed, had originally been in Thrace; but the boundaries of Macedonia were extended far towards the east by the conquests of the Macedonian kings and included both cities. Before the Roman period the boundary between Macedonia and Thrace was the boundary between civilization and barbarism, and this varied as civilization enlarged its limits. Originally the name Thracia was used in a very loose and vague fashion, and the Macedonians were even sometimes spoken of as a tribe of Thrace, which in that case practically meant the land north arid north-east of Greece. The Macedonians were akin to the Thracians, but came under the influence of Greek civilization earlier. 1 It was not until A.D. 46 that Thrace was incorporated as a province in the Roman empire.

In 2 Mac 12.35 a Thracian soldier is mentioned as saving the life of Gorgias, governor of Idumaea 2 under Antiochus Epiphanes, in a battle against Judas Maccabaeus, about B.C. 163. The Thracian tribesmen, barbarous, hardy, and inured to war were much used as mercenaries by the Greek kings of Syria, Pergamum, Bithynia, etc. This is several times mentioned by Polybius (vol. lxv.10, lxxix. 6); and inscriptions along with other evidence entirely corroborate him. Thracian mercenaries were settled as colonists in many of the garrison cities founded by those kings, e.g. in Apollonia of Pisidia (where they are often mentioned on coins, etc., in the full title of the city) and in other places: the Thracian mercenaries were sometimes called Traleis or "warriors": see Ramsay, Histor. Geogr. Of Asia Minor, p. 112, Cities and Bish. of Phrygia, i. P.34; Fraenkel, Inschr. Pergam

. i., No. 13, p. 16.

FOOTNOTES

Ramsay, Sir William M. "Thracia" in James Hastings, ed. A Dictionary of the Bible. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902. Vol. 4, pp. 754.

1 It is maintained by some scholars that Thrace, in that early wide extension, is alluded to in Gn 10.2. In that verse the sons of Japheth are said to be Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras; but see Tiras.

2 Idumaea is suspicious: it has been thought to be an error for Jamnia.