Originally Posted by
Sears (2013), pp 28-31
Recent excavations undertaken by a Bulgarian team at a site in the eastern Rhodopes called Perperikon suggest that the place of the oracle may have been found. According to archaeologists, the site was used for cult practices as far back as the Neolithic period, and finds from the late Bronze Age and Iron Age are abundant. Most interesting are a series of small clay altars and a large open hall with a round altar in its center. The area around Perperikon is littered with troughs and basins, which some archaeologists have equated with wine-making facilities for ritual purposes. According to the excavators, there is also evidence for the practice of Orphic ritual, traditionally connected to Dionysiac worship...
There is some indication of a military relationship at Pistiros, both symbiotic and adversarial. The Greeks would have had some sort of armed protection for an economic center in the heart of foreign territory. The site was fortified in the third quarter of the fifth century with a curtain wall and tower that may have reached over 6 meters high. The fortifications resemble those of Thrasos much more than Thracian examples, perhaps reflecting the number of Thrasians involved with the emporion. These defenses were strengthened in the fourth century. Although profitable contact was made with many of the Thracians in the area, there was still some danger of attack. The Vetren inscription demonstrates that the Odrysian rulers protected the Greek merchants at Pistiros, but official protection would have been no guarantee against attack from the independent tribes dwelling in the nearby mountains. In the town itself, some Thracian weapons, including the head from a spear and several arrowheads, have been found on the main road. Chariots, either as transports or weapons of war or both, were present as indicated by their mention in the Vetren inscription and by the presence of distinctive wheel-ruts on the main road and gate. Chariots would have added a distinctively exotic and perhaps even heroic flavor to Pistiros.
Alexander himself found out how much Thracians and Greeks living together in places such as Pistiros could come together militarily. In describing Alexander's campaigns in Thrace, Arrian says that the autonomous Thracians of Mount Haemus - to the north and east of Pistiros - banded together with many armed merchants to oppose Alexander from the heights. These merchants, or emporoi, mentioned by Arrian were most likely Greek inhabitants or emporia, mentioned by Arrian were most likely Greek inhabitants of emporia, such as Pistiros. That the Greeks opted to fight along with the Thracians, and indeed to exploit the mountainous terrain to their advantage in a typically Thracian fashion, demonstrates that Greeks and Thracians dwelling in the heart of the Balkans worked together militarily and learned from one another. It also indicates that many Greeks living in the region were more ready to join forces with Thracians rather than to capitulate to Alexander.
As a final consideration, Greeks and Thracians had to find some way to communicate with one another in emporia such as Pistiros, because they would have had to communicate at the courts of Thracian rulers, on embassies, and as allies on military expeditions. Miller addresses the question of how Greeks and Persians could have communicated and concludes that for the most part interpreters were needed. The same is probably true of Greeks and Thracians, though some Greeks living for extended periods of time in Thrace probably did learn to speak some of the local language. Thracians too, living in and around various northern Aegean Greek settlements, could have learned Greek. There are a few interpreters mentioned in the literary sources, such as the bilingual Carian used by the Persian satrap Tissaphernes in his dealings with the Greeks. Bilingual Thracians would have been immensely valuable in Pistiros and countless other contexts. Many Thracians lived at Athens in the Classical period, perhaps a majority of whom were household slaves who not only would have learned Greek themselves but could have taught their native tongue to members of the household. We are told by Plutarch that Alcibiades was given a Thracian tutor named Zopyrus by his guardian Pericles (Alc. 1.22). This relationship probably paid dividends later in Alcibiades' career when he took refuge on his personal estates in Thrace and had under his command Thracian soldiers.