Greece -- History -- Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C.
About the same time, at the beginning of this winter, Sitalces, son of
Teres, the Odrysian king of Thrace, made an expedition against
Perdiccas, son of Alexander, king of Macedonia, and the Chalcidians in
the neighbourhood of Thrace; his object being to enforce one promise
and fulfil another. On the one hand Perdiccas had made him a promise,
when hard pressed at the commencement of the war, upon condition that
Sitalces should reconcile the Athenians to him and not attempt to
restore his brother and enemy, the pretender Philip, but had not
offered to fulfil his engagement; on the other he, Sitalces, on
entering into alliance with the Athenians, had agreed to put an end to
the Chalcidian war in Thrace. These were the two objects of his
invasion. With him he brought Amyntas, the son of Philip, whom he
destined for the throne of Macedonia, and some Athenian envoys then at
his court on this business, and Hagnon as general; for the Athenians
were to join him against the Chalcidians with a fleet and as many
soldiers as they could get together.
Beginning with the Odrysians, he first called out the Thracian tribes
subject to him between Mounts Haemus and Rhodope and the Euxine and
Hellespont; next the Getae beyond Haemus, and the other hordes settled
south of the Danube in the neighbourhood of the Euxine, who, like the
Getae, border on the Scythians and are armed in the same manner, being
all mounted archers. Besides these he summoned many of the hill
Thracian independent swordsmen, called Dii and mostly inhabiting Mount
Rhodope, some of whom came as mercenaries, others as volunteers; also
the Agrianes and Laeaeans, and the rest of the Paeonian tribes in his
empire, at the confines of which these lay, extending up to the Laeaean
Paeonians and the river Strymon, which flows from Mount Scombrus
through the country of the Agrianes and Laeaeans; there the empire of
Sitalces ends and the territory of the independent Paeonians begins.
Bordering on the Triballi, also independent, were the Treres and
Tilataeans, who dwell to the north of Mount Scombrus and extend towards
the setting sun as far as the river Oskius. This river rises in the
same mountains as the Nestus and Hebrus, a wild and extensive range
connected with Rhodope.
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