Goths (who split into the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths), the
Alamanni, the Vandals, the Suebi, and the Burgundians. Th e
Visigoths and the Ostrogoths organized themselves into ac-
tual kingdoms in the third century c.e. Th eir social organiza-
tion was heavily infl uenced by Roman culture over the next
century. Th e two groups of Goths had kings and genuine gov-
ernments and adopted Christianity, which added a church
hierarchy to their society.THRACIANS
Th e region north of Greece was home to various peoples who
spoke Th racian languages. Th is area encompassed modern
Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Ukraine, Hungary, and Slovakia.
Homer wrote about the Tracians in the Iliad, describing Th race
as including the region bordered by the Black Sea and Helles-
pont to the east and the Vardar River to the west. According to
the ancient Greeks, the people who lived in Th race organized
themselves into tribes led by kings or chiefs. Th ese tribes were
defi ned by kinship, military power, and geography.
Most people in Th race lived in small villages and did not
venture far from home. Th race had no cities or large social
groups. Th e region is mountainous, and travel was very dif-
fi cult during ancient times. Th erefore, groups of people were
isolated from one another. Th e Greeks thought that the moun-
tain tribes were the most warlike and uncivilized of the Th ra-
cian peoples. Tracians who lived in lower, fl atter areas close
to Greece were more peaceful and better informed about the
larger world than those who lived in the mountains.
Th e only organized Th racian nation was the Odrysian
Kingdom, which existed in Bulgaria, Romania, northern
Greece, and the European portion of Turkey between the fi ft h
century b.c.e. and the third century b.c.e. Its fi rst capital was
located in Edirne, Turkey. Th is kingdom was formed by King
Teres (r. 480–440 b.c.e.), who gathered several tribes together
in a rough union. Not all Th racian tribes joined the union,
and though contemporary Greeks occasionally mentioned
kings of Th race, these kings did not control all tribes liv-
ing in the region. Kings tried to unify the tribes, to increase
both their own power within the kingdom and the power
of the Th racians against kingdoms to the south, such as the
Macedonians, but they had little success. In the fourth cen-
tury b.c.e. the Th racian Kingdom divided into three smaller
kingdoms. Th ese smaller kingdoms proved easier for rulers to
run. One of them moved its capital to Seuthopolis, Bulgaria,
where its rulers kept it together for the century. Th e Greeks
and Romans gradually colonized the area, infl uencing social
structures. By 400 c.e. Th racian languages had disappeared,
and the tribal structure had been replaced by Greek and Ro-
man customs and styles of administration.GREECE
BY JEFFREY S. CARNES
Greek societies were hierarchical, with clearly marked so-
cial classes and kinship groups. Th e place of an individualwithin society was defi ned by birth and family connections,
property or other wealth, and status, particularly with re-
spect to citizenship. Social structures varied from one polis
(city-state) to the next but tended to fall into certain basic
categories; they were, moreover, subject to manipulation and
change over time; as always, ideology (of class, equality, or
freedom) could cover over the actual social conditions under
which people lived.FREEDOM AND SLAVERY
Th e most basic social distinction at all times in ancient
Greece was between the free person and the slave. Greeks
prided themselves on freedom, and this freedom was defi ned
by contrast with those who lacked it: slaves in Greek cities
and the inhabitants of other, non-Greek nations. Slaves made
up a large percentage of the population during the Classical
Period (fi ft h and fourth centuries b.c.e.), perhaps as high as
one-third in Athens and somewhat lower elsewhere. Inscrip-
tions show the categories of liberty that the slave was denied:
freedom to live where one chooses (including the possibility
of migrating to another polis), freedom to act on one’s own
behalf in legal matters, freedom from arbitrary capture or
seizure, and freedom of action. Greeks believed that other
peoples, in particular, the Persians, also lacked such free-
doms. It was common to portray the inhabitants of the vast
Persian Empire as slaves to the Great King while the Greeks
were their own masters.
As is always the case with ideological constructs, the sim-
ple free-slave, Greek-barbarian dichotomies masked a more
nuanced reality. Eleutheria (freedom) became the rallying cry
of Sparta in its imperialist struggles with Athens, despite the
fact that citizens of Athens enjoyed far greater personal liberty
than did Spartans. Nor was the distinction between slave and
free always hard and fast. In addition to chattel slavery, a va-
riety of types of limited servitude existed (such as debt bond-
age and serfdom). As Aristotle points out, the Greek ideal of
freedom also included not having to work for the benefi t of
another person; however, a relatively small percentage of the
population could make this claim, and many free laborers
must have led lives more diffi cult and more constrained than
those of some slaves (and in some instances may even have
enjoyed lesser social status). In addition, the freedoms denied
slaves were also denied women, and women of higher status
were more subject to male scrutiny and control and thus en-
joyed less freedom than did lower-class women.SOCIETY IN THE HOMERIC AGE
Th e poems of Homer (ca. ninth to eighth centuries b.c.e.)
present a vivid, if idealized picture of early Greek society as
it existed in the years prior to the eighth century b.c.e., told
from the viewpoint of the upper classes (though with a great
deal of sympathy for others). Th e Odyssey shows a world in
which the self-suffi cient household (oikos) is the basic social
and economic unit. Landholders with relatively large estates
dominate the political and social landscape; Odysseus, as thesocial organization: Greece 10310895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i1031 1031 10/10/07 2:30:49 PM