Treres

The Treres (Ancient Greek: Τρηρες, romanized: Trēres; Latin: Treres) were a Thracian tribe, of whom a part invaded Anatolia in the 7th century BCE, while another part lived in Thrace and Illyria.

History

In Anatolia

A Thracian mounted warrior followed by a warrior on foot.

Around the c. 660s BCE, the Treres migrated across the Thracian Bosporus and invaded Anatolia from the north-west, after which they allied with the Cimmerians, who were a nomadic Iranic people originating in the Eurasian Steppe who had themselves invaded Anatolia from the east in the middle of the preceding 8th century BCE.

From around the c. 650s BCE, the Treres were nomadising in Anatolia along with the Cimmerians.

Invasion of Lydia

In 644 BCE, the Treres under their king Kōbos (Κωβος), along with the Cimmerians under their king Lygdamis, and in alliance with the Lycians or Lycaonians, attacked the kingdom of Lydia: they defeated the Lydians and captured their capital city of Sardis except for its citadel, and the Lydian king Gyges was killed during this attack.

Invasion of Asian Greece

After sacking Sardis, Lydgamis and Kōbos led the Cimmerians and the Treres into invading the Greek city-states of the Troad, Aeolia and Ionia on the western coast of Anatolia, where they destroyed the city of Magnesia on the Meander as well as the Artemision of Ephesus. The city of Colophon joined Ephesus and Magnesia in resisting this invasion.

The Cimmerians and Treres remained on the western coast of Anatolia inhabited by the Greeks for three years, from c. 644 to c. 641 BCE, where later Greek tradition claimed that Lygdamis had occupied Antandros and Priene, which forced a large number of the inhabitants of the coastal region called Batinētis to flee to the islands of the Aegean Sea.

Activities in Cilicia

Sensing the exhaustion of Neo-Assyrian power following the suppression of a revolt by the Babylonian king Šamaš-šuma-ukin over the course of 652 to 648 BCE, the Cimmerians and Treres moved to Cilicia on the north-west border of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in c. 640 BCE itself, immediately after their third invasion of Lydia and the attack on the Asian Greek cities. There, Lygdamis allied with the king of the then rebellious Assyrian vassal state of Tabal, Mussi, to attack the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

Although the Urartians had sent tribute to the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 643 BCE, the Urartian king Sarduri III (r. c. 645 – c. 625 BCE), who had been a Neo-Assyrian vassal, was at this time also forced to accept the suzerainty of the Treres' Cimmerian allies.

A Thracian warrior.

However, Mussi died before the planned attack on Neo-Assyrian Empire and his kingdom collapsed when its elite fled or was deported to Assyria, while Lygdamis carried it out but failed because, according to Neo-Assyrian sources, he became ill and fire broke out in his camp. Following this, Lygdamis was faced with a revolt against himself, after which ended his hostilities against the Neo-Assyrian Empire and sent tribute to the Neo-Assyrian king Ashurbanipal to form an alliance with him, while Ashurbanipal forced Lygdamis to swear an oath to not attack the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

Death of Lygdamis

Lygdamis soon broke his oath and attacked the Neo-Assyrian Empire again, but during his military campaign he contracted a grave illness whose symptoms included paralysis of half of his body and vomiting of blood as well as gangrene of the genitals, and he consequently committed suicide in 640 BCE in Cilicia itself.

Lygdamis was succeeded as king of the Cimmerians in Cilicia by his son Sandakšatru, who continued Lygdamis's attacks against the Neo-Assyrian Empire but failed just like his father.

The power of the Cimmerians dwindled quickly after the death of Lygdamis, although the Lydian kings Ardys and Sadyattes might however have either died fighting the Cimmerians or were deposed for being incapable of efficiently fighting them, respectively in c. 637 and c. 635 BCE.

Defeat

Around c. 635 BCE, and with Neo-Assyrian approval, the Scythians under their king Madyes entered Central Anatolia and defeated the Cimmerians and Treres. This final defeat of the Cimmerians was carried out by the joint forces of Madyes's Scythians, whom Strabo of Amasia credits with expelling the Treres from Asia Minor, and of the Lydians led by their king Alyattes, who was himself the son of Sadyattes as well as the grandson of Ardys and the great-grandson of Gyges, whom Herodotus of Halicarnassus and Polyaenus of Bithynia claim permanently defeated the Cimmerians so that they no longer constituted a threat.

In Thrace

Location of the Treres among the Thracian tribes.

Another group of Treres lived in Thrace, although their relation with those who had invaded Anatolia is unclear:

• according to one hypothesis, they were completely unrelated to the Treres who invaded Anatolia;
• another hypothesis is that these European Treres might have been the same ones who had previously invaded Anatolia, and who after being defeated by Alyattes had fled to Thrace.

In northwestern Thrace

One section of the European Treres lived in north-west Thrace, more specifically in the northwestern borderlands of the Odrysian kingdom, where they occupied the region of Serdica to the north of mount Scombrus and the west of the Oescus river along with the Tilataei. The Treres and Tilataei had the Triballi as their western neighbours.

In the 4th century BCE, the Triballi migrated to the east and assimilated the Treres and Tilataei, who consequently disappeared from history. By the late 1st century BCE, the territory of the Treres and Tilataei was occupied by the Thraco-Celtic tribe of the Serdi.

In southern Thrace

Strabo of Amasia also claimed that another group of Treres were one of the Thracian tribes who lived around Lake Bistonis in southern Thrace.

In Illyria

Pliny the Elder also referred to a group of the Treres who lived in southeastern Illyria, and, alongside the Dardani and Pieres, were located near the boundary of the Macedonian kingdom from which the river Axios flowed into it at the time of Philip II and Alexander III.

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See also

• Bithyni
• Thyni