Mr Sheldrick does ancient Thrace 2!

Slavery in the Thracian community existed on a smaller scale than in the Greek states. According to Herodotus, however, the Thracians did on occasion sell their own children into slavery ( just like me! lol). The state of Philip II (359 - 336 B.C.) and his son Alexander the Great (336-323 B.C.) resembled more closely the classical form of slave ownership. Both kings were involved in Greek and Balkan affairs. Alexander took the Greek world out east, drafting into his army lots of Thracians. The Celts, too, took possession of some Thracian lands. Their state, with the capital of Tile existed from 279 to 211 B.C. The Celts seem to have kicked off here, after which they seem to have moved over the entire continent, finally reaching the British Isles and Ireland. Scythian and other tribes also migrated to the Thracian lands. For a very long period, too, the Thracians repelled the attempts of the Roman empire to conquer them. It was only two centuries after they first set foot on the Balkans in the year 45 A.D., that the Romans succeeded in subjugating all Thracian lands.

The Thracians were employed as mercenaries in the armies of various rulers as early as the Hellenic epoch, later in the Roman auxiliary troops, and from the second century onwards in the legions. The great slave uprising in the Roman empire (74-71 B.C.) can also be attributed to Thracian history not just because its leader and military commander Spartacus was a Thracian (it seems most likely that he came from the Medi tribe which inhabited the areas along the Strouma River) but also for the reason that most of the insurgent slaves were Thracians and Gauls. Historical chronicles tell of many Thracian revolts against the Roman conquerors. The Odrysae tribe (which lived in-the Rhodope region) rebelled in the year 21 A.D., and the tribes settled south of the Balkan Range revolted in the year 26 A.D. The new ways introduced by the Romans ushered in a new stage in the development of the slave-owning society.

A great number of fortified settlements, to serve as military posts for the defence of the Roman empire, were constructed. Roads, bridges, public buildings, water-supply and sewage systems were constructed on a previously un-heard-of scale.

In the third century a process of decline began to take place in the life of the Roman empire. Spent in its efforts to assimilate the conquered peoples, the empire began to be influenced by the inferior cultures it had conquered. The Roman army was manned with soldiers from the rural population of the Danubean provinces. (The manning of the Roman army with Germans was to come later.) There were many Thracian cohorts in the empire. Thracian and Illyrian peasants also gained supremacy in the internecine strifes of contenders for the throne. From 236 to 238 Maximinus Thrax held the imperial throne. The Thracian armies secured the throne for Septimius Severus. The Thracian lands became the theatre of wars and conflicts.