Bistones () is the name of a

Thracian The Thracians (; ; ) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Southeast Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied the area that today is shared between north-eastern Greece, ...

people who dwelt between Mount Rhodopé and the

Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans and Anatolia, and covers an area of some . In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea, which in turn con ...

, beside

Lake Bistonis Lake Vistonida (, older form: Βιστωνίς) is a lake in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, Greece. Fed by the Kompsatos river, it encompasses a unique ecosystem and the local climate can be described as mid-Mediterranean. It hosts a variety of fau ...

, near Abdera extending westward as far as the river

Nestus The Nestos ( ), Mesta ( ) is a river in Bulgaria and Greece. It rises in the Rila Mountains and flows into the Aegean Sea near the island of Thasos. It plunges down towering canyons toward the Aegean Sea through mostly metamorphic formations. At ...

. It was through the land of the Bistones that Xerxes marched on his invasion of Greece (480 BC). The Bistones continued to exist at the time when the Romans were masters of

Thrace Thrace (, ; ; ; ) is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe roughly corresponding to the province of Thrace in the Roman Empire. Bounded by the Balkan Mountains to the north, the Aegean Sea to the south, and the Black Se ...

. Roman poets sometimes use the names of the Bistones for that of the Thracians in general. Pliny mentions one town as belonging to the Bistones: Tirida; the other towns on their coast, Dicaea, Ismaron, Parthenion, Phalesina and Maronea, were Greek colonies.

Mythology

The Bistones were militant people who worshiped

Ares Ares (; , ''Árēs'' ) is the List of Greek deities, Greek god of war god, war and courage. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. The Greeks were ambivalent towards him. He embodies the physical valor necessary for ...

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ...

Bacchus In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ) by the Gre ...

Minerva Minerva (; ; ) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. She is also a goddess of warfare, though with a focus on strategic warfare, rather than the violence of gods such as Mars. Be ...

, and Bellona. In the play

Alcestis Alcestis (; Ancient Greek: Ἄλκηστις, ') or Alceste, was a princess in Greek mythology, known for her love of her husband. Her life story was told by pseudo-Apollodorus in his '' Bibliotheca'', and a version of her death and return from t ...

Euripides Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to ...

, the mythical

Heracles Heracles ( ; ), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a Divinity, divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of ZeusApollodorus1.9.16/ref> and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive descent through ...

is on his way ''to the land of the Bistones'' in his labour for Tirynthian

Eurystheus In Greek mythology, Eurystheus (; , ) was king of Tiryns, one of three Mycenaean Greece, Mycenaean strongholds in the Argolid, although other authors including Homer and Euripides cast him as ruler of Argos, Peloponnese, Argos. Family Eurysthe ...

to fetch the chariot-steeds of Thracian Diomedes. The Thracian Diomedes was king of the Bistones. The

Argonautica The ''Argonautica'' () is a Greek literature, Greek epic poem written by Apollonius of Rhodes, Apollonius Rhodius in the 3rd century BC. The only entirely surviving Hellenistic civilization, Hellenistic epic (though Aetia (Callimachus), Callim ...

(line 78) implies

Orpheus In Greek mythology, Orpheus (; , classical pronunciation: ) was a Thracians, Thracian bard, legendary musician and prophet. He was also a renowned Ancient Greek poetry, poet and, according to legend, travelled with Jason and the Argonauts in se ...

is king of Bistonian Pieria, succeeding his mortal father, King Oeagrus. Orpheus is also said to have been killed by Bistonian women. From the worship of Bacchus (Dionysus) in Thrace, Bacchic women are called ''Bistonides''. Similarly, in some Latin poems, ''

Edoni The Edoni (also ''Edones'', ''Edonians'', ''Edonides'') () were a Thracian tribe who dwelt mostly between the Nestus and the Strymon rivers in southern Thrace, but also once dwelt west of the Strymon at least as far as the Axios. They inhabited ...

s'' are Bacchic women from the Thracian tribe

. Some traditions state that

Phineus In Greek mythology, Phineus (; ), was a king of Salmydessus in Thrace and seer, who appears in accounts of the Argonauts' voyage. Some accounts make him a king in PaphlagoniaScholia on Apollonius of Rhodes, 2.178, 237; Scholia ''ad eund'' 2.1 ...

was killed by Boreas, or that he was carried off by the Harpyes into the country of the Bistones or Milchessians. According to another myth

Biston In Greek mythology, Biston ( ; or ) was the son of Ares and Callirrhoe, daughter of river-god Nestus. His two brothers were Odomas and Edonus (eponyms of two Thracian tribes, the Odomanti and the Edoni). Alternately, he was called son of Pa ...

founded the Bistones tribe. OdrysianKingdom

Mythology

References

See also