The modern boundaries of Thrace in Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey.

The physical-geographical boundaries of Thrace: the Balkan Mountains, the Rhodope Mountains and the Bosporus. The Rhodope mountain range is highlighted.

The Roman province of Thrace

The Byzantine thema of Thrace.

Map of Ancient Thrace made by Abraham Ortelius, in 1585.

Thrace 5th-3rd century BC

Thrace  /ˈθreɪs/ (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.

Geography[link]

Borders[link]

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,^[1] a region which "had no definite boundaries" and to which other regions (like Macedonia and even Scythia) were added.^[2] In one ancient Greek source, the very Earth is divided into "Asia, Libya, Europa and Thracia".^[2] As the knowledge of world geography of the Greeks broadened, the term came to be more restricted in its application: Thrace designated the lands bordered by the 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.^[2] 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.^[3][4] 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.

Cities of Thrace[link]

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

Demographics and religion[link]

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

Thrace in ancient Greek mythology[link]

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[link]

Ancient history[link]

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[link]

By the mid 5th century, as the Roman Empire began to crumble, Thracia fell from the authority of Rome and into the hands of Germanic tribal rulers. With the fall of Rome, Thracia turned into a battleground territory for the better part of the next 1,000 years. The eastern successor of the 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[link]

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[link]

• 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 Sultan
• 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.
• Belisarius, 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.

See also[link]

• 1934 Thrace Pogroms
• 1989 expulsion of Turks from Bulgaria
• Bulgarisation
• Dacia
• Dardania
• Macedon
• Moesia
• Moesogoths
• Music of Thrace
• Paionia
• Spartacus:Blood and Sand
• The Destruction of Thracian Bulgarians in 1913
• Kara Thrace, a fictional character from the series Battlestar Galactica
• Turkish Republic of Thrace
• Turks of Western Thrace

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Hoddinott, R.F., The Thracians, 1981.
• Ilieva, Sonya, Thracology, 2001

External links[link]

• Ethnological Museum of Thrace, comprehensive website on Thracian history and culture.
• Bulgaria's Thracian Heritage. including images of the comprehensive art collection of Thracian gold found on the territory of contemporary Bulgaria.
• Information on Ancient Thrace
• MA in Black Sea Studies. International Hellenic Universities-School of Humanities

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ancient Thrace and Ancient Thracians

Bear McCreary
at San Diego House of Blues 2009
Background information
Born	(1979-02-17) February 17, 1979 (age 33) Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States
Occupations	Composer
Years active	1998–present
Labels	La La Land Records

Bear McCreary (born 17 February 1979) is an American composer and musician living in Los Angeles, California. He is best known for his work on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series.

Biography[link]

McCreary was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and spent most of his formative years in Bellingham, Washington. He is the son of author Laura Kalpakian and professor Jay McCreary of University of Hawaii. He is of Irish and Armenian descent. He studied under the renowned film score composer Elmer Bernstein at the USC Thornton School of Music, during which time he reconstructed and re-orchestrated Bernstein's 1963 score for Kings of the Sun. Their collaboration allowed for the complete score to be available as a soundtrack album for the first time in forty years.^[1]

From 1998 until 2005, McCreary built up a body of work scoring short films. McCreary is a pianist and a self-taught accordionist, and plays in the avant-jazz band 17 Billion Miles of DNA.^[2]

McCreary is married ^[3] to singer/songwriter Raya Yarbrough, with whom he worked on the music of Battlestar Galactica.^[4]

Work[link]

Television[link]

[edit] Battlestar Galactica and Caprica

In 2003, McCreary worked under primary composer Richard Gibbs on the 3-hour miniseries which served as a pilot for the re-imagined series of Battlestar Galactica. When the show was picked up, Gibbs opted not to devote full time to the regular series' production, and McCreary became the sole composer. He worked on the series until it reached its conclusion in 2009, scoring over 70 episodes. To date, six Battlestar Galactica soundtrack albums have been released, and have garnered a great deal of critical acclaim^[5][6] and commercial success. The soundtracks for season two and three ranked amongst Amazon.com's Top 30 Music Sales on their first days of release.^[1]

McCreary composed for Caprica, a prequel series set in the fictional Battlestar Galactica universe. On February 18, 2012, Bear announced that he will compose the score to the 2-hour pilot movie Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome.

[edit] Eureka

McCreary is currently the composer for Syfy's Eureka, now in its fifth season, after having taken over from Mutato Muzika starting with the second season of the show in 2007.

[edit] Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

He has scored both seasons of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008–2009).

[edit] Human Target

Bear provided the score for the series Human Target (based on the comic book of the same name), on to which the pilot episode and main theme score had been recorded with a full orchestra.^[7] The series has the distinction of being one of the few with largest orchestras on television today.

The score to the finale of season 1, "Christopher Chance", utilized the largest orchestra ever assembled for episodic television, and he took the opportunity to re-record the main title theme with a new orchestration with this larger ensemble.

In July 2010, he received his first Emmy nomination for the Human Target theme.^[8]

In a post on his blog on July 25, 2010, Bear announced the new creative leadership brought in for season 2 had not asked him to return for it, and he would be leaving the series.^[9]

[edit] The Walking Dead and The Cape

During Comic-Con 2010, Bear McCreary attended panels for AMC's The Walking Dead and NBC's The Cape to announce he would be composing the score for both television series.^[10][11]

Feature films[link]

Bear McCreary made his theatrical feature film scoring debut with Step Up 3D.^[12] He has also composed the scores for several direct-to-DVD features, including Rest Stop, Rest Stop 2: Don't Look Back and Wrong Turn 2: Dead End.

Bear is currently working on The Knights of Badassdom, his second movie with director Joe Lynch (of Wrong Turn 2) and third time for actress Summer Glau.

Video games[link]

McCreary worked on the Capcom titled video game for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, Dark Void.^[13]

He has made an 8-bit rendition of the Dark Void theme, which was originally an April Fools joke. However, the theme was used for the 8-bit prequel, Dark Void Zero. He composed all the songs in an 8-bit fashion by connecting the wires on an actual NES console and cartridge to create authenticity.

Bear composed the soundtrack for SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs for the PS3, which came out in 2011.^[14]

He arranged James Rolfe's Angry Video Game Nerd 2010 Christmas video for the You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch song parody, with orchestra and 8-bit audio elements.

Albums[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Bear McCreary Website
• Bear McCreary's YouTube Channel
• Bear McCreary at the Internet Movie Database
• Audio Interview on GeeksOn!