The Sintians () were a group of people who were known to the Greeks as

pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are call ...

s and raiders. They are also referred to as a Thracian people who once inhabited the area of Sintice and the island of

Lemnos Lemnos ( ) or Limnos ( ) is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Lemnos (regional unit), Lemnos regional unit, which is part of the North Aegean modern regions of Greece ...

which was also called in ancient times ''Sinteis''. The Sintians worshipped

Hephaestus Hephaestus ( , ; wikt:Hephaestus#Alternative forms, eight spellings; ) is the Greek god of artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftsmen, fire, metallurgy, metalworking, sculpture and volcanoes.Walter Burkert, ''Greek Religion'' 1985: III.2. ...

. They are mentioned in

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...

: in the ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and ...

'' as the folk who had tended

after the lame smith god was let fall to earth; the Sintians "of wild speech" (ἀγριόφωνοι ''agriophonoi'') also appear in the ''

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; ) is one of two major epics of ancient Greek literature attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest surviving works of literature and remains popular with modern audiences. Like the ''Iliad'', the ''Odyssey'' is divi ...

''; in the tradition reported by Homer it was understood by their incomprehensible speech that they were among the non-Hellenic peoples of the Aegean. "Because the Sintians have no place in the immediate context (that is, they are not asking the god for anything), we may suspect that they were the ones who in some pre-Homeric myth rescued the god." In 2002 the city of Heraclea Sintica was accidentally discovered at the foot of an extinct volcano on the land of Rupite, Bulgaria.Heraclea Sintica: from Hellenistic Polis to Roman Civitas: (4th C. BC - 6th C. AD); Proceedings of a Conference at Petrich, Bulgaria, September 19–31, 2013, Volume 2 of Papers of the American Research Center in Sofia, Contributor Ljudmil Ferdinandov Vagalinski.

References

Ancient tribes in the Balkans Thracian tribes of Macedonia Thracian tribes {{Ancient-Thrace-stub