Note 145 — Chapter XX · STATE OF SOCIETY AND MANNERS AS EXHIBITED IN GRECIAN LEGEND.
Reading edition
Respecting the Thracians, compare Herodot. v. 11; Thucydid. vii. 29-30. The expression of the latter historian is remarkable,—τὸ δὲ γένος τῶν Θρᾳκῶν, ὁμοῖα τοῖς μάλιστα τοῦ βαρβαρικοῦ, ἐν ᾧ ἂν θαρσήσῃ, φονικώτατόν ἐστι.
Compare Herodot. viii. 116; the cruelty of the Thracian king of the Bisaltæ towards his own sons.
The story of Odysseus to Eumæus in the Odyssey (xiv. 210-226) furnishes a valuable comparison for this predatory disposition among the Thracians. Odysseus there treats the love of living by war and plunder as his own peculiar taste: he did not happen to like regular labor, but the latter is not treated in any way mean or unbecoming a freeman:—
ἔργον δέ μοι οὐ φίλον ἦεν Οὐδ᾽ οἰκωφελίη, ἥ τε τρέφει ἀγλαὰ τέκνα, etc.