Thracia

“ Have you forgotten the unsettled state of Thracia? Do you not remember that the people hate travellers, throw all kinds of vexatious restrictions in their way, seize every opportunity of insulting and injuring them? Our dear marquis must not come. The country is positively dangerous.”
“Is that intended as a reason for our not visiting it?” asked Caerleon. “Cyril, I think we’ll make a tour in Thracia.” ”

“ Then after Perinthos had been conquered, Megabazos marched his army through the length of Thracia, forcing every city and every race of those who dwell there to submit to the king, for so it had been commanded him by Dareios, to subdue Thracia.
3. Now the Thracian race is the most numerous, except the Indians, in all the world: and if it should come to be ruled over by one man, or to agree together in one, it would be irresistible in fight and the strongest by far of all nations, in my opinion. ”

“ Scythia will brag and bluster—perhaps try to put you out of the way, but that is our private affair. And in Thracia you have just the field you have always wanted for your administrative and philanthropic talents. From what Drakovics says, they seem to have a fairly good army, but very little else. You will have to make the nation. Oh, there’s no question as to which is the biggest thing to do. As King of Thracia, in the people’s present state of mind, your opportunities would be limitless.”
“And that is what one ought to think of,” said Caerleon, recalling Nadia’s words. ”

“ I am going to ask you to make a great sacrifice for me, Nadia. Those silly women out there may think that it’s something very grand to be Queen of Thracia, but you know better, and so do I. It means isolation, and worry, and being opposed and thwarted in what you have set your heart on, and it is very likely to mean danger, perhaps death. ”

“ I never expected to be able to hear about the Thracian revolution from one who was in it.”
“From one who may be said to have been at the head of it,” corrected M. Drakovics, gravely. “You are interested in Eastern Europe, milord?”
“Naturally, since no one who takes any interest whatever in international politics can well avoid keeping his eye on the Balkan States,” said Usk; “and Thracia has always seemed to me the most promising of them all, if only she got a chance. Your long struggle against Roum, and the way in which you won your freedom, have shown what your people are made of.” ”

“ Is there nothing that your Majesty can suggest that would avert such a calamity, while at the same time salving the wounded honour of Thracia?”
“We have no power of raising an indemnity,” said the King.
“The very suggestion is an insult, your Majesty!” cried M. Drakovics. “We Thracians are striving for our national life, not for money. What we desire is a place among the nations. Any assistance towards the attainment of our ideal——” he broke off, watching the King narrowly. ”

“ It would be high treason, treaty-breaking—I don’t know what.”
“The matter is a secret, milord. Once in Thracia, and crowned, your Government could scarcely bring you back.”
“Do you expect me to give up my own country—make myself an outlaw, in fact—for the sake of your precious Thracia?”
“Yes, milord,” said M. Drakovics, steadily, “that is what I do expect. You are the very man for us—by reason of your personal advantages especially. Our people worship tall fair men, for they recall to them the heroes of their legends. Then you are descended from a great house of warriors. ”

“ If I don’t feel myself insulted by the Princess’s way of leading up to it, I don’t see why any one else should.”
“Thracia won’t see things in the same light, though. The whole nation has been insulted in your person, and, furthermore, cheated into giving up territory without a return. Nothing but blood will wash out the remembrance.” ”

“ Our only hope of preserving Thracia as an independent kingdom lies in our maintaining an equilibrium in the influence of the Powers surrounding us. If we allow one to gain an advantage, we not only encourage that Power to further encroachments, but we stimulate the opposing Powers to demand similar advantages. Not to refer too particularly to past difficulties, need I do more than remind your Majesty that in the past her Royal Highness has not exactly proved herself a successful politician, as we in Thracia consider it? ”

“ Although you may be a fool, your father knows how to avenge the honour of his house, and he will not fail to do it. You refused to share the Thracian throne; but it is Carlino who has put it out of his own power to offer you the crown a second time, and for this he must be rewarded as he deserves. In every way we are undone. Not only have we lost the position we might have held in Thracia, but this marriage will endanger the result of all our labours in Europe. ”

“ Have women no idea of political morality, of duty to the country? Can you in cold blood imagine that I am likely to hand over Thracia, bound, to Scythia, after all I have done to strengthen her independence and give her a voice among the Powers?”
“But she says you have no choice,” faltered Ernestine.
“Who says?—the Princess of Dardania? That was the secret of your anxiety for me in your suggested compromise, was it? What is the dilemma into which she hopes to force me?” ”

“ It was generally known throughout Europe by this time that there was a difference of opinion between Scythia and Pannonia on the subject of Thracia, and that in all probability the interposition of Pannonia and her allies at Czarigrad would obtain a settlement of affairs in Caerleon’s favour. This prospect served to stimulate the activity of the Thracian conspirators both at home and in exile, who had been lying low for a week or two, and watching the course of events, but now realised that they could not look to the Powers to do their business for them. ”

“ It requires a practical, unromantic man to look into the thing first, and decide whether the game is worth the candle. Mrs Sadleir is as sensible a woman generally as any I know, but she has not outlived her enthusiasms yet, and she is quite ready to give Thracia a king at my expense, and I don’t see it. When I’m gone, it will be a different thing. You will have only yourself to please then, but the Thracians will probably have killed or banished two or three kings, and run through a few republics, by that time. In any case, I ask you, as a favour to me, to refuse this offer now. ”

“ What brings you to the palace at this hour, in the company of a man who is a traitor and a spy?”
“Milord Caerleon,” returned the War Minister, “I am deputed by the National Convention to inform you that Thracia has returned to her true allegiance. The city is in the hands of the patriotic supporters of the exiled King, and you might well expect that no mercy would be shown you. ”

“ From the time of Herodotus, until the general prevalence of the name of Goths, it is undeniable, that the Thracians remained unconquered, and that they extended themselves from Macedonia to the Dniester, and from the Euxine Sea to the confines of Germany. For, as the Getæ are identified by ancient writers with the Thracians, and as neither proof nor probability supports the assumption that Thracia was ever occupied by either Scythians or Scandinavians, it must necessarily follow, that whatever is predicated of the Getæ, must equally apply to the Thracians ”

“ Thracia is the nation of the future in Eastern Europe. We are the only truly European race south of the Carpathians. The Mœsians are Slavs, the Dardanians half Roumis. Our blood is chiefly Latin, with a large Teutonic admixture. ”

“ Our object, like yours, is to save the honour of Drakovics and Thracia. The Premier must be above suspicion. If he is warned by to-day’s experience, it will be well; but if not, then Thracia is to be considered before Drakovics.”
“It may interest you if I remark,” said Cyril carelessly, as he stood at the window, “that you have all been watched here. I recognise two or three of Drakovics’s spies on the other side of the street. I am afraid you have let me in for trouble, Prince. My presence will show that this is a political gathering.”
“You shall not suffer, Count,” said Prince Mirkovics. ”

“ The irony underlying the speech was necessarily lost upon Princess Boris, to whom Princess Lida of Dardania was the only possible Queen for Thracia, but she responded with sympathetic cheerfulness, relieved to be able to display her new Felix gown without offering it up as a sacrifice to her loyalty. The locality of the picnic had cost Prince Mirkovics much anxious thought, but he had fixed at last upon a spot known as the Tannenspitze, a grassy hill-top emerging from a sea of pines, and commanding an extensive view. ”

“ Nasica, in the mean time, who had ridden out to the skirmishers, saw the whole force of the enemy on the point of eugaging. First marched the Thracians, who, he himself tells us, inspired him with most terror; they were of great stature, with bright and glittering shields and black frocks under them, their legs armed with greaves, and they brandished, as they moved, straight and heavily-ironed spears over their right shoulders. ”

“ Seeing the creeks descend in noisy foaming cascades, or hearing the roaring of steers in the uplands and the strange sounds of the wind-beaten forests, the Thracians thought they heard the voice and the calls of the lord of that empire, and imagined a god who was fond of extravagant leaps and of wild roaming over the wooded mountains. This conception inspired their religion, for the surest way for mortals to ingratiate themselves with a divinity was to imitate him, and as far as possible to make their lives resemble his. ”

“ The Thracians bursting into Mycalessus sacked the houses and temples, and butchered the inhabitants, sparing neither youth nor age, but killing all they fell in with, one after the other, children and women, and even beasts of burden, and whatever other living creatures they saw; the Thracian race, like the bloodiest of the barbarians, being even more so when it has nothing to fear. ”

“ High o'er the Thracian hills rose the voice of the shepherdess, wailing.
"Ai! for the fleecy flocks—the meek-nosed, the passionless faces;
Ai! for the tallow-scented, the straight-tailed, the high-stepping ;
Ai! for the timid glance, which is that which the rustic, sagacious,
Applies to him who loves but may not declare his passion!" ”

“ For they, being very luxurious, and indeed being the first men who abandoned themselves wholly to luxury, proceeded to such a pitch of insolence that they used to cut off the noses of all the men wherever they came; and their descendants, after they emigrated to other countries, even now derive their name from this treatment. But their wives used to tattoo the wives of the Thracians, (of those Thracians, that is, who lived on the northern and western frontiers of Scythia,) all over their bodies, drawing figures on them with the tongues of their buckles ”

“ Of the other Thracians the custom is to sell their children to be carried away out of the country; and over their maidens they do not keep watch, but allow them to have commerce with whatever men they please, but over their wives they keep very great watch; and they buy their wives for great sums of money from their parents. To be pricked with figures is accounted a mark of noble rank, and not to be so marked is a sign of low birth. ”

“ That a number of Thracian, especially Odrysian, princes coined in part even at a very early period, proves only that they ruled over places on the coast with a Greek or half–Greek population. A similar judgment must be formed as to the tetradrachms of the “Thracians,” which stand quite isolated (Sallet, Num. Zeitschrift, iii. 241) .—The inscriptions also found in the interior of Thrace are throughout of Roman times. ”

“ This shocking act, which won for him the title of “the Thracian,” shews how terribly the Asmonean princes were degenerating. Externally, indeed, the country appeared to be prosperous, for the realm of Jannæus extended over Samaria and Idumæa, the entire western seaboard from Strato’s Tower to Rhinocorura, and a considerable district beyond the Jordan, but the temper neither of prince nor people was the same as in the times of Mattathias and Judas, and evil days were at hand. ”

“ I will speak to you freely, Princess—not that I am ashamed of what I have to say; quite the contrary. There is a lady whom I love, and whom I would give anything to marry. But she has refused me—she is not of royal blood, and she considers that it would be prejudicial to the interests of Thracia were she to marry me. I have no hope of getting her to change her mind so long as I remain on the throne, but I will never marry any one else. It would be perjury. When I heard that Drakovics had set on foot negotiations for my marriage with you I was horror-struck, and tried to break them off at once. ”

“ Across the broad sea ever they cast and anon their eyes
With a haunting fear lest the Thracian sails in the offing should rise.
So when they beheld the Argo’s oars flashing down to their coast,
Forth from the gates of Myrinê straightway in one great host
Clad in their harness of battle down to the beach they poured
Like unto ravening Thyiads: they weened that the Thracian horde
Were come: and there was Hypsipylê clad in the war-array
Of Thoas her father: and all these speechless with wildered dismay
Streamed down,—such panic was wafted about them all that day. ”