The Vivid Feast Of Prince Seuthes of Thrace

Xenophon (c. 420-350 BCE) was one of those special ancient authors who not only wrote down for posterity the events of his time, but also recorded it in an absorbing way that pulls the reader into the atmosphere of daily life in his long-gone age. He did not simply discuss what the competing states were doing in his day, but also described in vivid detail the feelings and experiences of the people in these regions—the decadent lives of courtiers, the attitudes of common warriors, and the goings-on of civilians all fell into his scope. Xenophon’s insight into the different sections of society was greatly enlightened by his own colorful career. An Athenian scholar (who studied under Socrates), a landed aristocrat, and a mercenary captain who worked with royalty in Persia, Thrace and Sparta, Xenophon’s personal experiences gave his works incredible depth and life.

One such vivid scene of daily existence was Xenophon’s description of a feast hosted by Prince Seuthes of Thrace. The year was 399 BCE, and Seuthes had just hired the mercenary company to which Xenophon belonged. To celebrate their partnership, Seuthes invited the commanding officers of the mercenaries to a banquet with himself and his courtiers. In his Anabasis, which covered the mercenary company’s career from 401-399 BCE, Xenophon wrote down what he and his comrades saw as they joined the Thracians for the feast:

“The dinner guests included the most high-ranking of the Thracians who were there, the Greek generals and company commanders, and envoys from various communities. Once they had gone inside, they were seated for the meal in a circle, and then three-legged tables were brought in for everyone. There were about twenty of these tables and they were laden with slices of meat joined by skewers onto huge loaves of risen bread. For the most part, the tables were placed, according to Thracian custom, by each of the guests” (Anabasis, 7.3).

Along with the tables of food, the Thracian prince also provided each guest his own horn of wine, handed out by cup-bearers. The host also had on hand a band of musicians playing horns and trumpets, as well as some comedians or jesters, who were eventually given the stage in the course of the evening. When all the pieces of the banquet were in place, Xenophon watched with amusement as the Thracian prince started off the feast with an interesting local custom:

“Seuthes initiated the proceedings as follows: he picked up the loaves which had been served in front of him, broke them into small pieces, and tossed the pieces to whichever of the guests he felt like. Then he did the same with the meat, leaving himself only morsels. Once he had finished, everyone else who had a table placed near by did the same. But an Arcadian called Arystas, who had a prodigious appetite, could not be bothered with throwing pieces of food around: he just picked up a three-choenix-sized loaf, put some meat on his knees, and began to eat” (Anabasis, 7.3).

After everyone had their fill of the food, the drinking and socializing continued. In time, courtiers among the banqueters began to offer gifts to Seuthes. The presents greatly differed in size and value—a silver goblet, a carpet, a white horse and a slave were all reportedly handed over to Seuthes during the course of the evening. Xenophon, however, was caught off guard by the gift-giving and, having brought nothing, improvised a speech to make up for his lack of an offering. His gift, he claimed, would be the land and wealth soon to be delivered to Seuthes by the mercenary company.

As the drinking continued, the group became quite merry. By the end of the feast, Xenophon, who was “a little tipsy” (Anabasis, 7.3), gave a public and long-winded pledge of friendship to the Thracian prince. Yet, Xenophon was not the only one feeling jolly—he wrote, “Seuthes also stood up on his own, yelled out a war-cry, and with great agility performed a vigorous dance which simulated the dodging of missiles” (Anabasis, 7.3).

Although they were all evidently having a great time, the mercenaries kept a strict schedule. When the sun began to set, the mercenary officers at the banquet proclaimed that they had to take their leave to prepare their army’s nighttime security. After ceremoniously sprinkling out the last drops of wine from the feast, Prince Seuthes gave the mercenaries a counter-offer, suggesting that they set off on their campaign that very night. According to Xenophon, the mercenaries accepted the proposal and they all began their march around midnight.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Scene depicting Achilles from Pompeii, c. 1st century, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Anabasis Kyrou (The Expedition/Upcountry March of Cyrus) by Xenophon and translated by Robin Waterfield. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

The Thynian Night Raid On The Forces Of Prince Seuthes Of Thrace

In 399 BCE, Prince Seuthes (a future Thracian king) hired around 7,000 experienced Greek mercenaries to further his interests in a region to the northwest of Byzantium. The mercenary company that he employed had just spent the last three years, 401-399 BCE, marauding through Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Armenia and the southern coast of the Black Sea. These spears-for-hire were now starting to weary of war (and thus they expected great pay), but, on the other hand, they were an incredibly experienced and effective army. Xenophon—the philosopher, historian and accomplished mercenary—was at this time the most influential general of the mercenary force, and he wrote down their exploits (including the campaign with Seuthes) in his Anabasis.

According to Xenophon, Seuthes’ goal for hiring the mercenaries was to conquer independent tribes that had once been ruled by his father, Maesades. These tribes included the Melanditae, the Tranipsae and the Thynians, of which the last group was Prince Seuthes’ first target. The Thracian nobleman and his mercenaries began their invasion at midnight, reaching a mountainous region with several villages by noon on the next day. Seuthes immediately attacked the villages, which were unprepared and did not put up much of a fight. According to Xenophon, “about 1,000 captives were herded together, along with 2,000 oxen and 10,000 sheep and goats as well” (Anabasis Kyrou, Book 7, section 3).

After capturing these villages and enslaving anyone who was not able to flee, Seuthes set fire to the towns and moved closer to the mountains. There were more villages near the forested slopes, but these were virtually deserted, as the inhabitants had reportedly withdrawn to secluded camps on the mountainside, intending to take a guerrilla warfare approach to Seuthes’ invasion. The Thracian prince promised the Thynians on the mountainside (through captives sent as messengers) that no harm would come to them if they returned to their villages and lived peacefully as his subjects. Women, children and elderly did indeed return to the villages, but the Thynian warriors remained on the mountain. Seuthues, in order to starve out these insurgents, sent his mercenary forces to occupy the villages closest to the mountains. When Xenophon and his troops reached the towns, some young warriors were still there and a few were killed, but most of the Thynian fighters were able to flee deeper into the mountains.

With the Thynian warriors quarantined to the mountains, the forces of Seuthes spread out among the villages. The Thracian prince brought his personal troops back down into the plains and camped in the more docile region. Xenophon and the mercenaries, however, remained at the villages closest to the mountains. Around this time, the guerrillas from the mountainside sent representatives to Seuthes to discuss a truce. Other representatives also visited the mercenary camp on a similar mission to broker peace. Yet, these diplomats also served another purpose—they were gathering intelligence on the occupation camps and were at the same time reconnecting with their contacts in the villages. Consequentially, on a night not long after the negotiations began, Thynian warriors silently poured out of the mountains and crept toward the villages, where, as had been planned, they were let into the villages by sympathizers and guided to the homes where the mercenary leaders were staying. When the assailants were in place, they began hurling spears and javelins into the building, while also setting the structures on fire. Xenophon, who awoke to the disembodied voices of the Thynians taunting him by name, described his perspective of the night raid:

“Flames were just beginning to be visible through the roof, and Xenophon and his men were inside, with their breastplates on and equipped with shields, swords, and helmets. Then Silanus of Macistus, who was eighteen years old, blew a blast on his trumpet and they immediately dashed out of the house with their swords drawn. The Greeks in the other houses did the same, and the Thracians [Thynians] ran away, with their shields swung round on their backs, as is their custom. Some of them got their shields snagged on the stakes as they tried to leap over a stockade and were caught hanging there; others were killed because they could not find their way out of the village” (Anabasis Kyrou, Book 7, section 4).

Thanks to their quick and calm response to the attack, the experienced mercenaries were able to turn the potentially disastrous night raid of the Thynians into a great victory for the Greeks. Curiously, when the sounds of battle erupted, Prince Seuthes rushed over to aid the mercenaries with only a reported seven horsemen and one trumpeter. Yet, after the mercenaries had everything under control, the Thracian prince soon brought his entire force to the mountain villages, and soon after, the guerrillas agreed to become Seuthes’ subjects.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (The Archers, painted by Bryson Burroughs (1869-1934), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Anabasis Kyrou (The Expedition/Upcountry March of Cyrus) by Xenophon and translated by Robin Waterfield. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

The Ravaging Of Mycalessus By Mercenaries During The Peloponnesian War

In 413 BCE, Demosthenes led an army of over 5,000 Athenian and allied forces to Sicily in order to reinforce a preexisting siege of Syracuse. A certain band of around 1,300 tardy Thracian mercenaries was meant to be sailing with that army, but when the swords-for-hire arrived in Athens, they found that Demosthenes had already sailed away. The jobless Thracians then renewed the offer of their military services to the city of Athens, which at that time was plagued by the presence of a nearby Spartan stronghold that had recently been built at Decelea, in the Athenian heartland of Attica. Although the Thracians were helpful in countering Peloponnesian raids, the Athenians decided that the mercenary company was too expensive to keep around. Athens eventually forced the Thracians to leave, but as they headed home to Thrace, the mercenaries were paid for one last job.

Athens tasked the homeward-bound Thracian mercenaries with the job of spreading chaos in the Spartan-aligned regions of Greece as they traveled back to Thrace.  To help with this mission, the Athenians apparently gave the Thracians an advisor (or possibly a general), as well as a fleet of transport ships. The Thracians sailed these transports along the coast of Greece, intending to sail into the Euboean Gulf, but they took a detour to raid Tanagra, on the borderland between Attica and Boeotia. After rushing back to their ships with the plunder, the mercenaries passed through the Euripus Strait between Euboea and mainland Greece, continuing to sail along the Boeotian shoreline.

Yet, before the Thracians sailed too far from the Euripus Strait, they disembarked on Boeotian soil and began marching inland. For unknown reasons, but perhaps on direction from their Athenian advisor, the Thracians continued marching inland until they reached an uninformed and poorly defended city called Mycalessus. It was a settlement seemingly devoted to farming, with little else of note except a few modest shrines and a large school for boys. Perhaps the city also catered to travelers, for there was a sizable temple of Hermes located only two miles away from the town. As Mycalessus was well inland and not a power player in the region, the people there had unfortunately let their guard down. The city was ill-protected by an inadequate garrison, and, although the city did have walls, the defensive features of the settlement were dilapidated and crumbling. Unfortunately, as the city also apparently had little in the way of scouts or patrols, Mycalessus left its gates wide open and it walls virtually undefended. The city remained in this sorry state as the army of Thracian mercenaries marched ever closer.

Eventually, the mercenaries arrived at the aforementioned temple of Hermes, which lay about two miles out from the city. Even then, the city of Mycalessus apparently still had no knowledge of the danger they were in. The mercenaries spent the night camped by the temple, but once daybreak arrived, they quickly rushed across the two mile stretch to the city and assaulted the unprepared people of Mycalessus. When the mercenaries attacked, the gates were still open, the wall still had gaps, and the garrison of the city was still understaffed. The Athenian general and historian, Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE), wrote of this event in his History of the Peloponnesian War and his account infers that the city fell without a battle—the mercenaries were able to break in and immediately begin pillaging.

For no stated reason, the mercenary army’s occupation of Mycalessus became a bloodbath. According to Thucydides, “The Thracians burst into Mycalessus, sacked the houses and temples, and butchered the inhabitants, sparing neither the young nor the old, but methodically killing everyone they met, women and children alike, and even the farm animals and every living thing they saw” (History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VII, section 29). As happened with the city’s temples and houses, the boys’ school of Mycalessus was also invaded, and all of the schoolchildren who had gone to class that morning were reportedly massacred by the mercenaries. Thucydides’ sympathy for the city is palpable in his writing. He stated: “Mycalessus lost a considerable part of its population. It was a small city, but in the disaster just described its people suffered calamities as pitiable as any which took place during the war” (History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VII, section 30).

Fortunately for the survivors of Mycalessus, the city of Thebes had a competent intelligence network and learned of the attack quickly. A respected Boeotian commander named Scriphondas mobilized the forces of Thebes and rushed to the aid of Mycalessus. The Thebans caught the mercenaries unawares and unprepared. Some Thracians were still pillaging in the city at the time, while the majority were back out in the field. Upon the arrival of the Boeotians, the mercenaries apparently abandoned any of their comrades still inside the city and began an orderly withdrawal back toward their ships. The main contingent of Thracians was able to escape to the coast by carefully alternating between advance and retreat against the pursuing Thebans. Any mercenaries still inside the city, however, were said to have been killed by the newly arrived Boeotians forces.

When the embattled Thracian mercenaries reached the sea, a problem quickly developed. The Thebans had chased the mercenaries to the coast and the Thracians had not been able to fully embark on the ships before Boeotian archers forced the transports to sail out of arrow range. Many mercenaries found themselves stranded and some were either slain on the beach or drowned as they tried to swim to the transports. Although the majority of the mercenaries had escaped, a reported 250 Thracians died during the Theban counter-attack at Mycalessus or on the beach. The casualties of the Theban relief force was much lighter, with twenty men reported dead. Unfortunately, the leader of the Theban army, Scriphondas, was among the dead.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Scene depicting Aphrodite saving Aeneas, Etruscan black-figure amphora, ca. 480 BC. Martin-von-Wagner-Museum, L 793, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner and introduced by M. I. Finley. New York: Penguin Classics, 1972.

The Spectacularly Underwhelming Invasion of The Thracian King Sitalces Into Macedonia During the Peloponnesian War

In the winter of 429 BCE, King Sitalces of the Odrysian Empire in Thrace launched a campaign against his western neighbors of Macedonia and Chalcidice. At the time, Sitalces was an ally of Athens, and was consequently on the Athenian side of the Peloponnesian War. The Chalcidians, however, had sided with the Peloponnesians, led by Sparta. The kingdom of Macedonia, as usual, was trying to navigate precariously with both sides of the war. King Perdiccas of Macedonia had voiced support for Athens at the beginning of the conflict (on the urging of King Sitalces), but had shown little desire to support the Athenian war effort ever since becoming their ally. In fact, the historian, Thucydides, wrote that Perdiccas lent the Peloponnesians 1,000 Macedonian soldiers for a failed attack on Athenian-aligned Acarnania that occurred earlier in 429 BCE, but his troops arrived too late to be of any help. Therefore, King Sitalces’ winter invasion served as both an attack against an Athenian enemy and a punitive mission against a terrible Athenian ally.

Around the time of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE), the Odrysian Empire in Thrace was considered one the most powerful entities known to the Greek world. Thucydides, an Athenian, even claimed that Sitalces’ kingdom was more wealthy and prosperous than the Athenian Empire. Also, in sheer military might, Thucydides estimated that the Thracians could have only been outmatched by the combined power of the populous Scythian tribes.

King Sitalces summoned a large force from several regions of his empire. Out of his heartland in Thrace, he called up a force of cavalry. From the Getae tribe near Scythia, he recruited mounted archers. Bands of sword-wielding infantrymen poured into his army from the Dii and other tribes near Mount Rhodope. Even more infantry joined the Thracian king from the Agrianian and Paeonian tribes. In the end, Thucydides estimated (with a likely dose of exaggeration) that King Sitalces set out on his winter invasion with around 150,000 men. One-third of the army was made up of cavalry, while the rest consisted of infantry. Even though the Thracian king had mustered a formidable military, the strength of Sitalces’ army was mainly due to sheer numbers—training and discipline were apparently lacking.

King Sitalces gathered his forces at Doberus, and once the troops were in position, he marched his men through mountainous terrain into lower Macedonia. Despite the alleged poor quality of his troops, Sitalces’ army did quite well. They caught the Macedonians off guard, causing Perdiccas to pull his men further back into Macedonia to regroup. In the meantime, he sent small bands of Macedonian cavalry to harass the Thracians, but he even had to call off these raids, because the horsemen were all too often surrounded and defeated by Sitalces’ horde of men. The Thracians were so confident when they saw the Macedonians withdrawing, that they split off a section of their army to march southward against the lands of the Chalcidians and even the Bottiaeans, another Peloponnesian ally. Just as had happened in Macedonia, the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans were forced to retreat further into their territories as the Thracians sacked towns and ravaged the countryside.

After about a month, King Sitalces had occupied and pillaged large swaths of Macedonia, Chalcidice and Bottiaea. Nevertheless, he had overextended himself, and, from the beginning, his military logistics had been lackluster. The king supposedly had 150,000 mouths to feed, and his horses and pack animals, too, required food and water. After a short campaign lasting only thirty days, King Sitalces simply ran out of supplies.

During this invasion, King Perdiccas of Macedonia had been allegedly keeping up a secret correspondence with Sitalces’ son, Seuthes. When the Thracians faced their food shortage after their month of mayhem, Seuthes urgently suggested to his father that the invasion needed to be ended and the soldiers should return home. In an underwhelming end to the Thracian winter invasion of 429, Sitalces agreed to his son’s advice and retreated back to his kingdom after only thirty days of fighting. Sometime later, King Perdiccas of Macedonia arranged for his daughter, Stratonice, to marry Seuthes as a reward for his service and accepted the Thracian as his son-in-law.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (4th-century paintings of Macedonian soldiers from the tomb of Agios Athanasios in Greece, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• History of the Peloponnesian War (Book II) by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner and introduced by M. I. Finley. New York: Penguin Classics, 1972.