Bistones


Bistones is the name of a Thracian people who dwelt between Mount Rhodopé and the Aegean Sea, beside Lake Bistonis, near Abdera "extending westward as far as the river Nestus". It was through the land of the Bistones that "Xerxes marched on his invasion of Greece ". "The Bistones continued to exist at the time when the Romans were masters of Thrace". "Roman poets sometimes use the names of the Bistones for that of the Thracians in general." "Pliny mentions one town as belonging to the Bistones: Tirida; the other towns on their coast, Dicaea, Ismaron, Parthenion, Phalesina and Maronea, were Greek colonies."

Mythology

The Bistones were militant people who worshiped Ares, Dionysus or Bacchus, Minerva. and Bellona.
In the play Alcestis by Euripides, the mythical Heracles is on his way "to the land of the Bistones" in his "labour for Tirynthian Eurystheus" "to fetch the chariot-steeds of Thracian Diomedes." The Thracian Diomedes "was king of the Bistones".
The Argonautica implies Orpheus is king of Bistonian Pieria.
"From the worship of Bacchus in Thrace, Bacchic women are called Bistonides." Similarity in some Latin poems, Edonis are Bacchic women from the Thracian tribe Edoni.
"Some traditions state that Phineus was killed by Boreas, or that he was carried off by the Harpyes into the country of the Bistones or Milchessians."
According to another myth Biston founded the Bistones tribe.