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The Dacians were the ancient Indo-European inhabitants of the cultural region of Dacia, located in the area near the Carpathian Mountains and west of the Black Sea. They are often considered a subgroup of the Thracians. This area includes mainly the present-day countries of Romania and Moldova, as well as parts of Ukraine, Eastern Serbia, Northern Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary and Southern Poland. The Dacians and the related Getae spoke the Dacian language, which has a debated relationship with the neighbouring Thracian language and may be a subgroup of it. Dacians were somewhat culturally influenced by the neighbouring Scythians and by the Celtic invaders of the 4th century BC.
The Thracians were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Southeast Europe in ancient history. Thracians resided mainly in Southeast Europe in modern-day Bulgaria, Romania and northern Greece, but also in north-western Anatolia in Turkey.
The Getae or Gets were a Thracian-related tribe that once inhabited the regions to either side of the Lower Danube, in what is today northern Bulgaria and southern Romania. Although it is believed that the Getae were related to their westward neighbours, the Dacians, several scholars, especially in the Romanian historiography, posit that the Getae and the Dacians were the same people.
The Bessi or Bessae were a Thracian tribe that inhabited the upper valley of the Hebros and the lands between the Haemus and Rhodope mountain ranges in historical Thrace.
The Paesuri or Paesures were an ancient pre-Roman people of Lusitania, akin to the Lusitani, to whom they were a dependent tribe.
The Costoboci were a Dacian tribe located, during the Roman imperial era, between the Carpathian Mountains and the river Dniester. During the Marcomannic Wars the Costoboci invaded the Roman empire in AD 170 or 171, pillaging its Balkan provinces as far as Central Greece, until they were driven out by the Romans. Shortly afterwards, the Costoboci's territory was invaded and occupied by Vandal Hasdingi and the Costoboci disappeared from surviving historical sources, except for a mention by the late Roman Ammianus Marcellinus, writing around AD 400.
The Halizones are an obscure people who appear in Homer's Iliad as allies of Troy during the Trojan War. Their leaders were Odius and Epistrophus, said in the Bibliotheca to be sons of a man named Mecisteus. According to Homer, the Halizones came from "Alybe far away, where is the birth-place of silver,..." Strabo speculates that "Alybe far away" may originally have read as "Chalybe far away", and he suggests that the Halizones may have been Chalybes, as well as Chaldians. Strabo's speculation equating the Halizones with the Chalybes still has proponents, such as the Russian historian Igor Diakonoff.
The Dentheletae, also Danthaletae (Δανθαλῆται) or Denseletae, were a Thracian tribe that in antiquity lived near the sources of the River Strymon, and are mentioned in texts by Polybius, Cassius Dio, Tacitus and by Livy. They lived in the neighbourhoods of the modern towns Kyustendil and Dupnitsa, stretching to as far as the mountains to the west towards the valleys of the Morava and the Vardar river, with territories situated next to the Thracian tribes Agrianes and the Maedi. Their main city, called Dentheletica, was presumably Pautalia as this was the capital of the Roman region Dentheletica. They possibly built fortifications around Stara Planina in the 1st century BC, lived around Sofia and Skaptopara was their town.
Bistones is the name of a Thracian people who dwelt between Mount Rhodopé and the Aegean Sea, beside Lake Bistonis, near Abdera "extending westward as far as the river Nestus". It was through the land of the Bistones that "Xerxes marched on his invasion of Greece ". "The Bistones continued to exist at the time when the Romans were masters of Thrace". "Roman poets sometimes use the names of the Bistones for that of the Thracians in general." "Pliny mentions one town as belonging to the Bistones: Tirida; the other towns on their coast, Dicaea, Ismaron, Parthenion, Phalesina and Maronea, were Greek colonies."
Odomanti or Odomantes were an ancient tribe. Some regard it as Paeonian, while others claim, that the tribe was with certainty Thracian. The Odomanti are noted by Herodotus, Thucydides, Stephanus of Byzantium and Pliny the Elder.
Digeri is the name of a Thracian tribe mentioned by Pliny the Elder and Polybius.
Pactya or Paktye was an ancient Greek city located in ancient Thrace, on the Thracian Chersonesus. It is cited in the Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax, in its recitation of the towns of the Thracian Chersonesus, along with Aegospotami, Cressa, Crithote and then Pactya, situated 36 stadia from Cardia. It is said that Miltiades founded it. Strabo places it on the Propontis between Crithote and Macron Teichos. According to Herodotus, Miltiades the Elder ordered a wall built between Cardia, which was on the coast of Gulf of Melas and Pactya, which was on the Propontis side, to prevent invasion of the Chersonesus by the Apsinthii. Alcibiades retired here the Athenians had for the second time deprived him of the command. It was a member of the Delian League. Pliny the Elder points out that both Cardia and Pactya later joined to form Lysimachia.
Cressa or Kressa was an ancient Greek city located in ancient Thrace, on the Thracian Chersonesus. It is cited in the Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax, in the second position of its recitation of the towns of the Thracian Chersonesus, along with Aegospotami, Cressa, Crithote and Pactya. It may be the same town cited by Pliny the Elder as Crissa on the Propontis.
Crithote or Krithote was an ancient Greek city located in Thrace, located in the region of the Thracian Chersonesos. It was on the Hellespont north of Gallipolis, and was an Athenian colony founded by Miltiades. It is cited in the Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax among the cities of the Thracian Chersonesos: Aegospotami, Cressa, Crithote, and Pactya.
Artakioi was a Moesian tribe mentioned in the Roman period. Cassius Dio (155–235) mentioned the tribe. The ethnonym has been connected with the Roman-era toponyms Artiskos and Artanes. The tribe inhabited the region of the upper Tundzha river, a tributary of Maritsa. It is believed that they spoke a Thracian language.
The Timachi were a Thracian tribe in living by present-day Timok, Serbia, then part of Moesia Inferior. It may have been an artificial creation by the Romans. In the 1st century before Claudius conquest of Thrace, Pliny the Elder lists them as one of the Moesian tribes alongside Dardanians, Celegeri, Triballi and Moesi.
Grabus was an Illyrian king who reigned in southern Illyria in the 4th century BC.
Salmydessus or Salmydessos, also Halmydessus or Halmydissos (Ἁλμυδισσός), was a coast-town of ancient Thrace, on the Euxine, about 97 kilometres (60 mi) northwest of the entrance of the Bosporus. The eastern offshoots of the Haemus here come very close to the shore, which they divide from the valley of the Hebrus. The people of Salmydessus were thus cut off from communication with the less barbarous portions of Thrace, and became notorious for their savage and inhuman character, which harmonised well with that of their country, the coast of which was extremely dangerous. Aeschylus, who incorrectly places the town in Asia Minor, describes Salmydessus as "the rugged jaw of the sea, hostile to sailors, step-mother of ships;" and Xenophon informs us, that in his time its people carried on the business of wreckers in a very systematic manner, the coast being marked out into portions by means of posts erected along it, and those to whom each portion was assigned having the exclusive right to plunder all vessels and persons cast upon it. This plan, he says, was adopted to prevent the bloodshed which had frequently been occasioned among themselves by their previous practice of indiscriminate plunder. Strabo describes this portion of the coast of the Euxine as "desert, rocky, destitute of harbours, and completely exposed to the north winds;" while Xenophon characterises the sea adjoining it as "full of shoals." The earlier writers appear to speak of Salmydessus as a district only, but in later authors, as Apollodorus, Pliny the Elder, and Pomponius Mela, it is mentioned as a town.
