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2025 - Volume 8 - Number 2

The Downfall of the Odrysians: Cersobleptes’ Struggle to Unite the Kingdom and the Thraco-Athenian Relations During the Rise of Philip II

Asen Bondzhev
New Bulgarian University, Department of History, Sofia, BULGARIA

Open Journal for Studies in History, 2025, 8(2), 61-70 * https://doi.org/10.32591/coas.ojsh.0802.02061b
Received: 18 September 2025 ▪ Revised: 4 December 2025 ▪ Accepted: 25 December 2025

LICENCE: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

ARTICLE (Full Text - PDF)

ABSTRACT:
With the death of Cotys I began the downfall of the Odrysian kingdom. His son Cersobleptes inherited a war with Athens for the strategic and long desired Thracian Chersonese, which Athens intended to win by supporting the Odrysian separatists Berisades and Amadocus II. But Cersobleptes realized that a united Odrysian kingdom was a more perspective goal and this marked a sudden swift in his relations with the polis. This study traces the complex internal and foreign relations of Cersobleptes, who in 353/2 BC, either because of the threat posed by Philip II, or because of Athens’ abandonment of its policy of supporting Amadocus II and Cetriporis, handed over to Athens the entire Thracian Chersonese, keeping only Cardia for himself, which allowed him to effectively secure his rear from the south and look for opportunities to defeat the separatists. But Philip would not allow this to happen and, beginning his conquest eastward in 352/351 BC, by the end of the 340s the Odrysians lost their access to the Thracian Sea and Sea of Marmara.

KEY WORDS: Odrysian kingdom, Cersobleptes, Thracian Chersonese, Philip II of Macedon, Berisades, Amadocus II, Cetriporis.

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR:
Asen Bondzhev, New Bulgarian University, Department of History, Sofia, BULGARIA.

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