THE IRON AGE IN THE BULGARIAN LANDS

Persons captured during such clashes were also put to work in production. Domestic slavery also appeared. Important changes took place in the structure and essence of the clan community. The man now acquired the mastery and the matriarchate soon made way for the patriarchate. Private ownership, mainly of movable property, also appeared, and cattle acquired great importance. The clan community began to disintegrate. Individual families now began to appear,at the head of which stood the father with his unlimited authority over the remaining members of the family. The family community thus came into being.

The Thracians and Greek Colonization

The Bronze Age in the Bulgarian lands is considered to have ended at the beginning of the first millenium B. C. Profound and complicated changes took place in the economy and history of these lands in this millenium. About the 8th and 7th centuries iron became known in production. The introduction of iron implements of labour gave a new impetus to the further development of society’s productive forces. About the end of the 6th century B. C., the potter’s wheel also appeared — a clear sign that pottery had detached itself as an independent craft tours bulgaria, and that commodity production now existed. In the meanwhile the Greek colonization of the Black Sea and Aegean coasts had begun at the end of the 7th century B. C. In the course of two centuries a whole series of Hellenic colonies appeared here, and the eastern half of the Balkan Peninsula was already closely linked with the economic and cultural sphere of the Mediterranean world.

The name of the Thracians now appears for the first time, being more and more frequently mentioned by ancient Hellenic historians. The Thracians were a numerous people of Indo-European origin, divided into numerous tribes, which were never able to achieve full union and create lasting power as a state. To this day science can give no final answer to the questions of when the Thracians first appeared in the peninsula, and where they came from. Only one thing is certain — that at the beginning of the first millenium they were already settled in the greater part of the peninsula, leading a settled life as stockbreeders and farmers; that iron was known to them, that they engaged successfully in many crafts, and that the southern tribes along the shores of the Aegean were coming into contact with the Greek Mediterranean world.

Many distant memories of these oldest ties of the Greeks with the Thracians have found expression in ancient Greek mythology, and in ancient Greek epics. On their way to Colchis, the Argonauts stopped to see the blind Thracian King Phineus on the Black Sea coast. He amicably showed them the way to the distant land they sought. In the tenth song of the Iliad, the tragic fate of the Thracian tribal chieftain Rhesus is related, who went to the aid of Troy against the Achaeans with his Thracians. Rhesus appears in all the splendour of his accoutrements — his chariot is wrought with silver and gold, and his weapons, big and golden, as the poet puts it, are worthy only of the immortal gods. The images of Thracian heroes are found in many places in Homer’s poems; they are armed like the Greeks, fight like them, and do not yield pride of place to them in any way. Thracian swords are frequently mentioned. Every day ships carried jars of the famous Thracian wine to I lion. The Thracians were known in epics as horesbreeders, and their land had fertile soil, called by the poet «mother of flocks.