Triballer

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The Triballer or Triballi / Triballoi (Τριβαλλοί) were a Southeast European tribe of antiquity . He is commonly counted among the Thracians , but has a special position due to the Thracian, Illyrian , Celtic and Scythian cultural influences, which is why the tribalists are often listed separately by historians next to the Thracians and others. Almost nothing is known about their religion. Their equipment is said to have been Scythian. Their strength was the foot troops.

history

The Triballers are mentioned for the first time in Herodotus (approx. 490–424 BC) histories (4, 49). Here he names a level after them. This “triballic level” (πεδίον Τριβαλλικόν) is partially identified as the Morava valley or the blackbird field in today's Kosovo . 424 BC The Odrysen king Sitalkes fell on a campaign against the tribalists , who were anxious for their independence. In the 4th century BC The Triballers were displaced by the Illyrian Autariatai and Celtic immigrants across the Morava river to the northeast to the southern bank of the Danube . 376 BC Because of a lack of food, the Triballians led a raid through southern Thrace against the Greek city of Abdera on the Aegean Sea and plundered the fertile surrounding area.

After dividing up the booty, the previously defeated Abderites took advantage of the disorder and killed around 2000 triballers. Chabrias and a squadron from Athens prevented a vengeance campaign by the tribalists against the city . The Triballers were known as a nefarious and cruel tribe, and this was said to be the case with many “barbaric” tribes. However, the bourgeois Athenians and other Greeks must have noticed them in particular, so that their name was remembered for several hundred years and became a bad word of abuse. The Triballers were initially bitter opponents of Macedonia . Philip II succumbed to them in 339 BC. In this battle he was badly injured by a tribal spear.

Finally, Alexander the Great struck in May and June 335 BC. The Triballer in his campaign against the peoples who border Macedonia to the north. At that time the king Syrmos ruled over the triballers. An attack on Macedonia was expected by the Triballians and other tribes, but Alexander surprised them with his determination and the pace he set. The battle in a forest ended after a tough fight with a defeat of the Triballer, they lost 200 men, and the retreat with their King Syrmos to one of the many Danube islands called Peuke, to which the women and children had already withdrawn. In this battle, as in many later ones, the Macedonian phalanx proved insurmountable.

A transfer of Alexander to the fortified island failed for lack of men and material and so he moved against the Geten . He forced peace negotiations on the Tribal people and other peoples and ultimately returned to Macedonia with plenty of booty and tribute. Alexander is said to have been impressed by the will to fight the Triballer, so that he committed them for his campaign against the Persian Empire , in which they performed great services with their infantry.

They are also mentioned by Pliny and Ptolemy in their geographies, but were already insignificant in Roman times. At the beginning of the Middle Ages, the triballers disappeared from history. In the High and Late Middle Ages, various Byzantine chroniclers used this term for the Serbs .

In Serbia, the southern region of Timočka Krajina is also known as Tribalien ( Tribalija Трибалија).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Cambridge ancient history: The prehistory of the Balkans ..., Volume 3, Part 1, John Boardman, Cambridge University Press 1982, p. 837
  2. ↑ Hans Volkmann : Sitalkes 1. In: Der Kleine Pauly (KlP). Volume 5, Stuttgart 1975, Col. 215.
  3. ↑ Diodorus 15:36 ; Aenia's tactics 15, 8-10.
  4. ^ The Greek settlements in Thrace until the Macedonian conquest, Benjamin H. Isaac, Brill 1986, p. 106 ; General encyclopedia of the sciences and arts in alphabetical order from the mentioned script edited and edited by JS Verlag and JG Gruber, Leipzig 1827, p. 96 .
  5. ^ The fragments by Eubulus, RL Hunter, Cambridge University Press, 1983, p. 168 .
  6. ↑ Interpreting a classic: Demosthenes and his ancient commentators, Craig A. Gibson, University of California Press, 2002, p. 130 .
  7. ↑ Ruth Sheppard: Alexander the Great and his campaigns. Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 3806222460 , p. 69.
  8. ^ Byzantine Archives , Volume 19 Polypleuros nous , Cordula Scholz, Georgios Makris, Leipzig / Munich, 2000, p. 187