Greek city of Istros in Thrace Bronze 11mm (1.26 grams) Struck circa 200-100 B.C

Item: i50256

Authentic Ancient  Coin of:

Greek city of Istros in Thrace

Bronze 11mm (1.26 grams) Struck circa 200-100 B.C.

Reference: Lindgren A41d; Moushmov 148

Head of Apollo right.

ΙΣΤΡΙ, Sea-eagle standing left on dolphin which it attacks with its beak.

A Milesian colony, its large output of silver coiange in the first half of  the 4th Century suggests that it was a palce of commercial importance.

You are buying the exact  item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime  Guarantee of Authenticity.

2nd century AD Roman statue of Apollo depicting the god's attributes—the lyre and the snake PythonIn  Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo, is one of the most  important and diverse of the Olympian deities kouros (a beardless youth), Apollo has been  variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry,  and the arts; and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu. Apollo was  worshiped in both ancient Greek and Roman religion, as well as in the modern Greco-Roman Neopaganism.

As the patron of Delphi (Pythian Apollo), Apollo was an oracular god — the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Medicine and healing were  associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his  son Asclepius, yet Apollo was also seen as a god  who could bring ill-health and deadly plague as well as one who had the ability to  cure. Amongst the god's custodial charges, Apollo became associated with  dominion over colonists, and as the patron defender of herds  and flocks. As the leader of the Muses (Apollon Musagetes) and director of their choir, Apollo  functioned as the patron god of music and poetryy. Hermes created the lyre for him, and the instrument became a common attribute of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were  called paeans.

In Hellenistic times, especially during the third century BCE, as Apollo  Helios he became identified among Greeks with Helios, god of the sun, and his sister Artemis  similarly equated with Selene, goddess of the moon Sol among the Augustan poets of the first century, not even  in the conjurations of Aeneas and Latinus in Aeneid XII (161–215). Apollo and Helios/Sol  remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the third  century CE..

Ancient Histria or Istros (Ιστριη, Thracian river god, Danube), was a Greek colony or polis (πολις,  city) on the Black Sea coast, established by Milesian settlers to trade with the native Getae. It became the first Greek town on the present day Romanian territory. Scymnus of Chios (ca 110 BC), the Greek geographer and  poet, dated it to 630 BC. Eusebius of Caesarea, some centuries later,  dated its founding to 657 – 656 BC, at the time of the 33rd Olympic Games. The earliest documented currency  on Romanian territory was an 8-gram  silver drachma, issued in Histria in the year 480 BC.

Archaeological evidence seems to confirm that all trade with the interior  followed the foundation of Histria. Traders reached the interior via Histria and  the Danube valley, demonstrated by finds of Attic black-figure pottery, coins, ornamental  objects, an Ionian lebes and many fragments of amphoras. Amphoras have been found in great quantity at  Histria, some imported but some local. Local pottery was produced following  establishment of the colony and certainly before mid-6th century. During the  archaic and classical periods, when Histria flourished, it was situated near  fertile arable land. It served as a port of trade soon after its establishment,  with fishing and agriculture as additional sources of income. By 100 AD,  however, fishing was almost the sole remaining source of Istrian revenue.

Roman town. During the Roman period from the  1st to 3rd centuries AD, temples were built for the Roman gods, besides a public  bath and houses for the wealthy. Altogether, it was in continuous existence for  some 14 centuries, starting with the Greek period up to the Roman-Byzantine  period. The Halmyris bay where was the city founded was  closed by sand deposits and access to the Black Sea gradually was cut. Trade continued  until the 6th century AD. The invasion of the Avars and the Slavs in the 7th century AD almost entirely  destroyed the fortress, and the Istrians dispersed; the name and the city  disappeared.

Geographic  setting

Ancient Histria was situated on a peninsula, about 5 kilometres (3 mi) east  of the modern Romanian commune of Istria, on the Dobruja coast. The ancient seashore has since  been transformed into the western shore of Sinoe Lake, as the Danube's silt deposits  formed a shoal which closed off the ancient coastline.  The current Sinoe Lake was at the time the open northern  bay, while another bay on the southern shore served as the port. The acropolis  with sanctuaries was established on the highest point of the coastal plain. The  settlement itself, erected in the 6th century, was 1/2 mile (800 meters) to the  west of the acropolis. The settlement had stone paved streets and was protected  by strong wall. Water was collected along 12.5 mile (20 km) long aqueducts.

Archaeology

The ruins of the settlement were first identified in 1868 by French  archaeologist Ernest Desjardins. Archaeological excavations were started by Vasile Pârvan in 1914, and continued after his  death in 1927 by teams of archaeologists led successively by Scarlat and  Marcelle Lambrino (1928–1943), Emil Condurachi (1949–1970), Dionisie Pippidi,  Petre Alexandrescu and Alexandru Suceveanu. The Histria Museum, founded in 1982,  exhibits some of these finds. The excavation project and site also features  prominently in the film The Ister..

  (demonym Thracian /ˈθreɪʃⁱən/; Bulgarian: Тракия, Trakiya, Greek: Θράκη, Thráki, Turkish: Trakya) is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace  designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east. The areas it  comprises are southeastern Bulgaria (Northern  Thrace), northeastern Greece (Western  Thrace), and the European part of Turkey (Eastern  Thrace). The biggest part of Thrace is part of present-day Bulgaria.  In Turkey, it is also called Rumelia. The name comes from the Thracians, an ancient Indo-European people inhabiting Southeastern  Europe.

The historical boundaries of Thrace have varied. Noteworthy is the fact that,  at an early date, the ancient Greeks employed the term "Thrace" to  refer to all of the territory which lay north of Thessaly inhabited by the Thracians, a region which "had no definite  boundaries" and to which other regions (like Macedonia and even Scythia Danube on the north, by the Euxine Sea (Black  Sea) on the east, by northern Macedonia in the south and by the Illyrian lands (i.e. Illyria) to the west. This largely coincided  with the Thracian Odrysian kingdom, whose borders varied in time.  During this time, specifically after the Macedonian conquest, the region's old  border with Macedonia was shifted from the Struma River to the Mesta River. This usage lasted until the Roman  conquest. Henceforth, (classical) Thrace referred only to the tract of land  largely covering the same extent of space as the modern geographical region. In  its early period, the Roman province of Thrace was of this extent,  but after the administrative reforms of the late 3rd century, Thracia's much  reduced territory became the six small provinces which constituted the Diocese of Thrace. The medieval Byzantine theme of Thrace contained only what today is Eastern Thrace.

The largest cities of Thrace are: İstanbul (European side), Plovdiv, Burgas, Stara Zagora, Haskovo, Edirne, Çorlu and Tekirdag.

Most of the Bulgarian and Greek population are Christians, while most of the  Turkish inhabitants of Thrace are Muslims.

Thrace in  ancient Greek mythology

Ancient Greek mythology provides them with a  mythical ancestor, named Thrax, son of the war-god Ares, who was said to reside in Thrace. The Thracians appear in Homer's Iliad as Trojan allies, led by Acamas and Peiros. Later in the Iliad, Rhesus, another Thracian king, makes an  appearance. Cisseus, father-in-law to the Trojan elder Antenor, is also given as a Thracian king.  Homeric Thrace was vaguely defined, and stretched from the River Axios in the west to the Hellespont and Black Sea in the east. The Catalogue of Ships mentions three separate  contingents from Thrace: Thracians led by Acamas and Peiros, from Aenus; Cicones led by Euphemus, from southern Thrace, near Ismaros; and from the city of Sestus, on the Thracian (northern) side of the  Hellespont, which formed part of the contingent led by Asius. Greek mythology is replete with Thracian  kings, including Diomedes, Tereus, Lycurgus, Phineus, Tegyrius, Eumolpus, Polymnestor, Poltys, and Oeagrus (father of Orpheus). In addition to the tribe that Homer  calls Thracians, ancient Thrace was home to numerous other tribes, such as the Edones, Bisaltae, Cicones, and Bistones..

Thrace is also mentioned in Ovid's Metamorphoses in the episode of Philomela, Procne, and Tereus. Tereus, the King of Thrace, lusts after  his sister-in-law, Philomela. He kidnaps her, holds her captive, rapes her, and  cuts out her tongue. Philomela manages to get free, however. She and her sister,  Procne, plot to get revenge, by killing Itys (son of Tereus and Procne) and  serving him to his father for dinner. At the end of the myth, all three turn  into birds—Procne, a swallow; Philomela, a nightingale; and Tereus, a hoopoe.

History

Ancient history

Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak

The indigenous population of Thrace was a people called the Thracians, divided into numerous tribal groups.  Thracian troops were known to accompany neighboring ruler Alexander the Great when he crossed the Hellespont which abuts Thrace, and took on the Persian Empire of the day.

The Thracians did not describe themselves as such and Thrace and Thracians are simply the names given them by the Greeks.[5]

Divided into separate tribes, the Thracians did not manage to form a lasting  political organization until the Odrysian state was founded in the 4th century  BC. Like Illyrians, Thracian tribes of the mountainous  regions fostered a locally ruled warrior tradition, while the tribes based in  the plains were purportedly more peaceable. Recently discovered funeral mounds  in Bulgaria suggest that Thracian kings did rule regions of Thrace with distinct  Thracian national identity.

During this period, a subculture of celibate ascetics called the Ctistae lived in Thrace, where they served as  philosophers, priests and prophets..

Medieval history

Roman Empire in the Balkans, the Byzantine Empire, retained control over Thrace  until the 8th century when the northern half of the entire region was  incorporated into the First Bulgarian Empire. Byzantium regained  Thrace in the late 10th century and administered it as a theme, until the Bulgarians regained  control of the northern half at the end of the 12th century. Throughout the 13th  century and the first half of the 14th century, the region was changing in the  hands of the Bulgarian and the Byzantine Empire(excl. Constantinopole). In 1265  the area suffered a Mongol raid from the Golden Horde, led by Nogai Khan. In 1352, the Ottoman Turks conducted their first incursion into the  region subduing it completely within a matter of two decades and occupying it  for five centuries.

Modern history

With the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Northern Thrace was  incorporated into the semi-autonomous Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia, which united with Bulgaria in  1885. The rest of Thrace was divided among Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey at the  beginning of the 20th century, following the Balkan Wars, World War I and the Greco-Turkish War. Today Thracian is a  strong regional identity in Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and other neighbouring  countries.

Famous Thracians and people from Thrace

Mehmed II Ottoman Sultan, born at Edirne in Thrace; he was the Sultan who  conquered Constantinople, marking the end of the Middle Ages.

Bayezid II Ottoman Sultann

Spartacus was a Thracian auxiliary soldier  in the Roman army who deserted but was captured  and then enslaved by the Romans. He led a large slave uprising in what is  now Italy in 73–71 BC. His army of escaped gladiators and slaves defeated several Roman legions in what is known as the Third Servile War

Belisaurius, one of the most successful  Generals of the Roman Empire, was born in the borderlands  between Thrace and Illyria.

In Ancient Greek mythology, Orpheus was the chief representative of the  art of song and playing the lyre.

Democritus was a Greek philosopher and  mathematician from Abdera, Thrace (c. 460–370 BC.) His main  contribution is the atomic theory, the belief that all matter  is made up of various imperishable indivisible elements which he called atoms.

Herodicus was a Greek physician of the  fifth century BC who is considered the founder of sports medicine. He is believed to have  been one of Hippocrates' tutors.

Protagoras was a Greek philosopher from Abdera, Thrace (c. 490–420 BC.) An expert  in rhetorics and subjects connected to virtue  and political life, often regarded as the first sophist. He is known primarily for three  claims (1) that man is the measure of all things, often interpreted as a  sort of moral relativism, (2) that he could make  the "worse (or weaker) argument appear the better (or stronger)" (see Sophism) and (3) that one could not tell if  the gods existed or not (see Agnosticism).

A number of Roman emperors of the 3rd-5th century were  of Thraco-Roman backgrounds (Maximinus  Thrax, Licinius, Galerius, Aureolus, Leo the Thracian, etc.). These emperors  were elevated via a military career, from the condition of common soldiers  in one of the Roman legions to the foremost positions of political power

 Returns accepted 14 days. Worldwide shipping available