THRAKI, Ancient country, BALKANS

  Thrace, as a geographicalerm, does not coincide with one particular perople, since it was not inhabited solely by Thracians in antiquity. The Thracians had migrated to Southeastern Europe after the Greeks, after the middle of the second millenium B.C. and in particular in the 12th century B.C. At the same time, Thracian tribes settled in Asia Minor, especially in Bithynia and the Troad.
   Thracian tribes inhabited Central Macedonia until the founding of the kingdom of Macedonia by the Temenids (early 7th century B.C.), at which time they were forced to move eastwards. In the end, the Thracian tribes were resitricted mainly to the northeastern area of the Balkans.
   From the 7th century B.C. Greek colonies were founded on the Thracian seashores by colonists from the islands of the Eastern Aegean and the Ionian city-states of Asia Minor, a fact which led to more intense mutual influence between the Greeks and Thracians throughout the historical period.
   In the Classical Period, the great kingdom of the Odrysians, which covered at its height the area from the Strymon River to the Black Sea and from the Aegean to the Danube, was created. The Odrysian kings were subjugated in 342 B.C. by the Macedonians, and after the fall of the kingdom of Macedonia in 168 B.C., became subject to the Romans.
   In 47 B.C. the kingdom of the Odrysians was terminated and Thrace became established as a Roman province. During the Hellenistic and Roman tribes, the diaspora of the Thracian tribes due to movement elsewhere and service in the Roman army produced the final disappearance of the Thracians and their ethnic and cultural assimilation. After the hellenization of the main area of Thrace, the romanization of its northern areas followed. The subsequent spreading of Christianity contributed to the full integration of these populations into the Greco-Roman world.