Becoming Roman: The Thracians Part 2
The son of the first king of the Odrysian Kingdom, Sitalces, proved to be a good military leader and built roads to develop trade and a powerful army. In 429 BCE. Sitalces allied himself with the Athenians and the Greek alphabet was adopted as a new Thracian script. Sitalces also organized a vast army from independent Thracian and Paeonian tribes that, according to Thucydides, included as many as 150,000 men to defend Thrace against the Macedonians, now led by the ambitious Philip II of Macedon. But, Odrysian military strength was based on intra-tribal elites, making the kingdom prone to fragmentation and as a result of the intertribal unrest, the Odrysian kingdom split into three parts. Philip II of Macedon then invaded and conquered much of Thrace. Some Odrysian kings and other Thracian tribes submitted and paid taxes at times during different periods to Philip II, Alexander the Great and Philip V. Two of the three kingdoms were forced in...