Word: thrace
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Thracians were a tall, gray-eyed, fair race, renowned mercenaries in Homer's time, fearsome cavalrymen and deadly as centaurs. They were born guerrillas with a passion for ornament, especially gold. Ancient Thrace included what is now modern Bulgaria, south-east Yugoslavia, European Turkey and part of north-eastern Greece, but the Museum of Fine Arts' current exhibition of Thracian Treasures consists only of artifacts discovered in Bulgaria. It is a sumptuous collection of objects that were the compensation if not theraison d'etre for a savage and uncertain life...
...their martial valor over centuries--even the Romans admired their bravery and preferred them as gladiators (Spartacus was Thracian). Yet there was more to them than banditry alone, as this range of art works dating from around the 16th century B.C. to the 2nd century A.D. proves. For Thrace was the land whence came Orpheus, mythical musician-king who enchanted the most ferocious beasts and defied Pluto, the king of the underworld; it was the country where the Horseman--a god combining aspects of Apollo, Dionysos and Asclepius--was at once the object of popular veneration and emulation. People...
...often most difficult to fathom the characters of those who are superficially very similar to one and yet actually possess that single unknown quality that defies explanation. That is how many of Thrace's neighbors must have felt. The Greeks, for example, were both baffled and obsessed by the Thracians, and so labelled them "barbarians." The Trojan War was waged largely to gain control of Thrace's Hellespont (the Dardanelles). So there were definite strategic motives for heeding that nation. And yet it put forward, in some regions, what to the Greeks seemed bizarre notions, particularly about death...
...since a large part of the insight one gains today into ancient cultures in general (and that of Thrace in particular) derives from the contents of burial mounds, it is well to consider this perspective when examining these works. Heroes and heroines of Greek and Persian mythology provide the subjects for many of the works, but the treatment departs often from the subject's "typical" interpretation...
...Fencer, recently deployed in East Germany, is the first Soviet fighterbomber designed specifically to engage ground targets. Thus, before Washington even has time to decide whether or not to use tactical nuclear weapons, the Soviet Army and its allies might be deep into West Germany, at the Gorizia and Thrace gaps in southeast Europe and into Norway...