Satren

The Satren (also Satrer) were a Thracian people who colonized the forests of the Pangaion Mountains . The ancient writer Herodotus characterized them as a particularly freedom-loving tribe, who bravely defended themselves against the penetration of the Thasitic colonialists and could not be subjugated by the Persian kings either. Xerxes I. avoided the mountains on his passage.

On the highest mountains of the Pangaion there was probably a Thracian oracle site of Dionysus , which belonged to the Satren and was administered by their relatives, the Bessen . Herodotus established an analogy to the priesthood of the Delphic Apollo sanctuary and recognized a correspondence between the Thracian Bessen and the Delphic Pythia . The location of the sanctuary has not yet been successful. One possible location is the Asketotrypa cave near the Eikosiphoinissa monastery in the north of the Pangaion Mountains.

literature

• A. Pavlopoulou: Thrace with Herodotus: Representation of an intermediate world, studies on Herodotus history, geography and ethnography of Thrace , pp. 399-340, Inaugurial dissertation to obtain a doctorate in philosophy at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Institute for Ancient History , Munich 2006