Strabo, Geography

Thrace as a whole consists of twenty-two tribes. But although it has been devastated to an exceptional degree, it can send into the field fifteen thousand cavalry and also two hundred thousand infantry. After Maroneis one comes to the city Orthagoria and to the region about Serrhium¹ (a rough coastingvoyage) and to Tempyra, the little town of the Samothracians, and to Caracoma,² another little town, off which lies the island Samothrace, and to Imbros, which is not very far from Samothrace; Thasos, however, is more than twice as far from Samothrace as Imbros is. From Caracoma one comes to Doriscus,³ where Xerxes enumerated his army; then to the Hebrus, which is navigable inland to Cypsela,⁴ a distance of one hundred and twenty stadia. This, he⁵ says, was the boundary of the Macedonia which the Romans first took away from Perseus and afterwards from the Pseudo-Philip.⁶ Now Paulus,⁷ who captured Perseus, annexed the Epeirotic tribes to Macedonia, divided the country into four parts for purposes of administration, and apportioned one part to Amphipolis, another to Thessaloniceia, another to Pella, and another to the Pelagonians. Along the Hebrus live the Corpili, and, still farther up the river, the Brenae, and then, farthermost of all, the Bessi, for the river is navigable thus far. All these tribes are given to brigandage, but most of all the Bessi, who, He⁸ says, are neighbors to the Odrysae and the Sapaei. Bizye⁹ was the royal residence of the Astae. The term "Odrysae" is applied by some to all the peoples living above the seaboard from the Hebrus and Cypsela as far as Odessus¹⁰—the peoples over whom Amadocus, Cersobleptes, Berisades, Seuthes, and Cotys reigned as kings.