Map of south-eastern Europe, showing ancient Thrace in dark yellow over the borders of the modern States of Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey. Thrace became Roman province in 44 CE. In Antiquity thrace was thought to be the homeland of the gods Apollo and Dionysos, and according to Homer it was the „golden realm of Orpheus“. Thrace was also famous for its philosophers, and the Carpathian mountains were thoght to be home of the mythical Griffons, the head of the Griffon is also constituting the distinctive element on a thraex gladiator´s helmet. Also the chariot of the goddess Nemesis, closely related to the Gladiators and Gladiator games, was thought to be drawn by Griffons.

He produced some decayed twopenny-halfpenny gladiators, who would have fallen flat if you breathed on them; I have seen better ruffians turned in to fight the wild beasts. He shed the blood of some mounted infantry that might have come off a lamp; dunghill cocks you would have called them: one a spavined mule, the other bandylegged, and the holder of the bye, just one corpse instead of another, and hamstrung. One man, a Thracian, had some stuffing, but he too fought according to the rule of the schools. In short, they were all flogged afterwards. How the great crowd roared at them, Lay it on'!

Petronius, Satyricon, 45.

A full thraex kit consists of the following items:

AER/1502 Thraex Helmet, bronze

AER/1502-TN Thraex Helmet, tinned steel

AER/AS/1502-GR Thraex /Hoplomachus Greaves, bronze

AER/AS/1502-GR-TN Thraex /Hoplomachus Greaves, tinned steel

AER/CL/1501-LB Textile Armour Right Arm

AER/CL/1502- (size)-N Textile Armour Trouser

AER/MISC/1503 Gladiator Belt

AER/SWS/1503 Thraex sica

AER/CL/1504-STD-WL Subligaculum