21. Persia

Abstract

The Persian presence in Europe in the late sixth and early fifth century BCE had an impact on the internal development of the Thracians and Thracian polities, most demonstratively on the Odrysian Kingdom. The Achaemenid invasion as well as their withdrawal stimulated economic and political life of the Thracian lands. Thrace was not incorporated in the imperial administrative system as a satrapy but faced Persian rule along the northern Aegean coast where fortresses and garrisons were placed at strategic sites. The closeness of northwest Anatolia which remained Achaemenid till Alexander the Great was responsible for the later impulses for emulation of Perso-Anatolian behavior and art by the noble Thracians.