Thracians () — a Homeric kingdom of the Odyssey, c. 1200 BC

Thracians — The top-knotted spearmen of the Hellespont — Trojan allies who left both their war-captains dead in the Ilian dust.

A Trojan-allied people of the Thracian shore, led to Troy by Akamas and hero Peiroos. Both captains fell in the fighting, and the late-coming Thracian king Rhesos was butchered in his sleep by Diomedes; ten years into the returns their coast is a kingless land whose lords never came home.

Leader at Troy: Akamas.

Ruler in the Odyssey's present: Akamas.

Role in the Trojan War: Trojan allies from across the Hellespont, led by Akamas and Peiroos. Peiroos slew Diores of the Epeians and was cut down in the same breath by Thoas of Aitolia; the late-arriving king Rhesos and twelve of his men were slaughtered in the night-raid of Diomedes and Odysseus, their marvellous horses driven off to the Achaian ships.

The homecoming: No king came home — both war-captains fell in the Trojan dust.

The Thracians came to Troy from beyond the water — the wide coast "that the strong stream of Hellespont shutteth in" — a people of horsemen and long spears who wore the warrior's top-knot in the fight. They marched under two captains, Akamas and hero Peiroos son of Imbrasos, this last come up from Ainos on the Thracian shore, and they took their place among the allies of Priam, hard by the Kikones (CIC) with whom they shared that northern seaboard. Theirs was no small levy: in the great mustering of the host they stand named among the peoples who answered Ilion's call against the mail-clad Achaians. Their war is written in blood in the fourth book of the fighting. When the sworn truce broke and the lines closed, Peiroos crushed the leg of Diores son of Amarynkeus, captain of the Epeians (EPE), with a jagged stone, then drove a spear beside his navel so that all his bowels gushed upon the ground. But the Thracian's triumph lasted a heartbeat: as he drew back, Thoas of Aitolia (AET) speared him through the chest above the pap, plucked out the ponderous shaft and finished him with the sword. Only the ring of top-knotted Thracians, hedging their fallen lord with long spears, drove Thoas off before he could strip the armour — and so the two captains lay stretched in the dust side by side, "he of the Thracians and he of the mail-clad Epeians," a mutual slaughter that is the emblem of this people's part in the war. Akamas fought on and was reckoned so terrible a spearman that Ares himself, rousing the sons of Priam, took his shape and voice to shame them back into the battle — but he too fell before Troy came down. The Thracians' most famous night was not their own. Late to the war came another Thracian lord, Rhesos son of Eioneus, encamped apart at the furthest edge of the allied host, with horses whiter than snow and swifter than the winds, and armour of gold "such as it is in no wise fit for mortal men to bear, but for the deathless gods." The captured spy Dolon betrayed his bivouac, and in the dark Diomedes of Argos (ARG) fell upon the sleeping Thracians and slew twelve of them and Rhesos the thirteenth king, while Odysseus of Ithaca (CEP) loosed the wondrous horses and lashed them back to the ships. Rhesos' kinsman Hippokoon woke to a desolate camp and men gasping in the death-struggle, and raised a cry too late. So the richest prince of Thrace never lived to fight a full day at Troy. This is a realm framed wholly by death abroad. In the world of the returns there is no Thracian nostos to tell — no seat-city hymned, no king restored. Both the captains of the catalogue lie in the Ilian plain and Rhesos in his own blood; the Hellespontine shore is a leaderless coast whose spears were spent for Priam. It was on that same Thracian seaboard, at Ismaros of the Kikones (CIC), that Odysseus began his long wandering home — the one return that touches Thrace is an Achaian's raid upon it, not a Thracian's homecoming.

“So were the two captains stretched in the dust side by side, he of the Thracians and he of the mail-clad Epeians; and around them were many others likewise slain.” — Iliad 4.536-538