Rhodope
Ῥοδόπη
Rhodope (Ῥοδόπη, Hdt. 6.49; Thuc. 2.96; Plb. 34.19; Strab. iv. p.208, vii. pp. 313, 329, 331; Mela, 2.2.2; Plin. Nat. 3.29, 4.5. s. 17; Amm. Marc. 21.10.3; Malchus, ap. Exc. de Leg. Rom. p. 90), a mountain chain forming the W. continuation of Haemus, and the frontier between Thrace and Macedonia, of which little more is known than the name. On its desolate heights, the lurking places of the fierce Satrae, was the great sanctuary and oracle of the Thracian Dionysus. As the Strymon took its sources in Rhodope (Strab. viii. p.331) the high ridges round Dúpnitza and Ghiustendíl must be assigned to Rhodope, which may roughly be said to belong to the central of the three continuous chains, which under the name of the Despoto Dagh branches out to the S. of the Balkan (Haemus) at about 23° E. long.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.