Thrace
Thrace was the vast, wild region north of Greece — homeland of Ares, Orpheus, the Maenads, and the fearsome warrior tribes the Greeks both feared and respected.
The Story of Thrace
Thrace was where Ares was most worshipped — a god of pure, bloody war fitting a land the Greeks considered barbarous and fierce. Orpheus was Thracian; the Maenads who tore him apart were Thracian women. King Diomedes fed his horses on human flesh. Boreas, the north wind, dwelt there. The region's warrior culture, strange music, and ecstatic Dionysian worship fascinated and terrified the Greeks. Spartacus, who led the great slave revolt against Rome, was Thracian.
Symbols
Fun Fact
Spartacus — history's most famous rebel slave — was a Thracian warrior, connecting this mythological land to one of history's great uprisings.
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth. See our full guide to English words from Greek mythology.
Explore Further
Thessaly
🏛 placeregion, northern Greece
The largest fertile plain in Greece, legendary homeland of Achilles, the Centaurs, and the Argonauts' leader Jason.
Phthia
🏛 placeGeography
The homeland of Achilles in southern Thessaly, ruled by his father Peleus
Epirus
🏛 placeregion, northwestern Greece
A mountainous region in northwestern Greece, home to the Oracle of Dodona and the legendary kingdom of the Molossians.
Latium
🏛 placeGeography
The region of central Italy where Aeneas settled and where Rome would eventually be founded
Lycia
🏛 placekingdom, Anatolia
A mountainous region in southwestern Anatolia whose warriors fought for Troy and whose hero Bellerophon slew the Chimera.
Colchis
🏛 placeLand of the Golden Fleece
Colchis was a kingdom at the eastern edge of the Greek world, on the shore of the Black Sea in modern Georgia, famous as the destination of Jason and the Argonauts.
Corinth
🏛 placeCity of Sisyphus and Medea
Corinth was a wealthy trading city on the narrow isthmus connecting mainland Greece to the Peloponnese, associated with Sisyphus, Medea, Bellerophon, and Pegasus.
Meroe
🏛 placegeography
A distant African kingdom mentioned in Greek mythology as the land at the source of the Nile, associated with the Ethiopians.
Lilybaeum
🏛 placegeography
The westernmost promontory of Sicily, near where Odysseus encountered the land of the dead in some traditions.
Laconia
🏛 placeregion, Peloponnese
The territory of Sparta in the southeastern Peloponnese, whose inhabitants were renowned for their brevity of speech and military discipline.
Arges
🏛 placegeography
The Argolid plain dominated by the city of Argos, one of the oldest and most mythologically saturated regions of Greece.
Libya
🏛 placeGeography
The ancient Greek name for the entire continent of Africa, personified as a daughter of Epaphus and Memphis