Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1919-08-06
THRAcE AGAIN IN CONTROVERSY.

Ancient Thrace, one of the morning lands of the
worlds history for parts of which Greece has present.
ed claims to the peace conference, affords PARALLEL
to the difficulties of self determination already expert
7enced along the eastern shores of the Adriatic
1t will be recalled that the spirited dispute between
JugoSava and Italy arose from the fact that Italians
were predominant in coastal cities while the hnterand
was undeniaby Slavic The Latin peoples of Italy had
gone across the Adrac past centuries settled along
the east Adriatc shores but pushed well out to
islands and pennsulas by the influx OF Slavic tribes
In much the same way this phenomenon was dup
Heated in the earlier age the eastern side of the Bal
kan peninsula where lay the extremely mobile Thrace
The Greeks colonzed the coast cities of Thrace,
what now are the Marmora, Black and Aegean Seas,
for settlement much for trading stations They
did not seek to mpnge upon the Thracians of the in
terror
Thus Constantnople was founded, and thus Greece
came into possession of peninsula now called CALI
poll building wall across the five mile neck of the 18th
mus to keep the Thracians within bounds
Shrinking and expanding and changing its con-
formation time and time again as Darius invaded it,
Xerxes abandoned it, Philip II united part of it with
Macedonia and garrsoned the rest the Romans orgaz-
ed it province, Thrace dropped at last into the
capacious OF the Turks with the fall of CONSTANT
nope in 1853, that historic date from which some his
torans mark the beginnings of modern hstroy
Later the western part, that Philip joined to Mace
dona, fell within the limits of prear Serbia and the
to Bulgaria at the London settlement of 1918 The
rest remained with European Turkey until the World
War exploded that domain and left the pieces to be the
step children of the Allied nations.
Adrianople, the Paris of Thrace, and later the
Versailles of the Turkish suans, is a picturesque, il
somewhat unkemnt reminder of the ancient days But
more familiar, perhaps, the name of Philpi in the
center of the rich gold mine district of Thrace ard neal
the hill of Donysius, which owes its fame to neither
of those facts much to the visits of Paul. who
wrote letters to the converts that were incorporated in
the Bible the book of Philippians
Dionysius, or Bacchus or the Romans call the god
typifed the loose morality of the wild and barbarous
inhabitants Of Thrace originally for the Thracans OF
historic times already were a composite people
Every girl passed through period when she was
the common property of the male community before she
married one of them Even in Grecian days the worship
Of Dionysius consisted of wild nocturnal oges There
IS the story that three women who declined to Join
in the revelres were translated into doves and king
of Thrace reputed to have resstd visit of Dony-
sius to his domain The god escaped by plunge into
ne sea, but the king stricken with blindness
ehd frenzy, so the myth relates that caused him tc
hew down his own son. believing him to be tree
At one period Thrace had an alliance with Greece
but the relations of the two nations at other periods
Moot question. Certain it is that the cultured Greeks
regarded the Thracans rugged and semi-barbarous
people just as they regarded the climate of Thrace
IS severe, and believed it to be the home of Boreas
the north wind.
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