an important tribe of Thrace, occupied a territory whose limits were different at different times, but whose central part was on the banks of the Artiscan and in the neighbourhood of the Hebrus. They seem to have been a colony of that horde of barbarians that came pouring into Thrace from the north after the Trojan war. They were an important people from the first period of their settlement. Their name frequently occurs in legendary history. Thamyris, the ancient bard, is said to have been one of their tribe, and Orpheus is represented to have been their king. At the date of their introduction into authentic history, during the invasion of Scythia by Darius Hystaspis, their native mountains protected their independence against the Persians; and the fine breed of horses which they pastured on the plains of the Hebrus supplied their armies with a large and efficient squadron of cavalry. In the latter half of the fifth century B.C., they had extended their territory northward to the Danube, westward to Abderna, and eastward to the Euxine Sea; and their annual revenue had risen to be equal to the sum of 800 talents. The prosperity of the Odryse, however, had now reached its zenith, and began to decline. A disputed succession divided them into factions, and made them an easy prey for their ambitious neighbours. In 357 B.C., after a course of various fortune, the Athenians wrested from them the Thracian Chersonese; and in 343 B.C., after a war of nine or ten years, Philip II. of Macedon reduced them to the state of tributaries, and began to plant Philippopolis and other colonies in the very heart of the country. Yet the spirit of independence among the Odryse soon began to revive, and even before the death of Alexander the Great they had raised the standard of rebellion. On the accession of Lysimachus to the sovereignty of Thrace they commenced a struggle for liberty, which continued with various intervals till the fall of the Macedonian kingdom. The Odryse then became the auxiliaries of the Romans, and were employed in subjecting the other Thracian tribes to the dominion of Rome. Yet they retained a form of independence, and were treated like allies rather than tributaries. Augustus allowed them still to be governed by native sovereigns, even though their king Sadalas, in 42 B.C., had bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans; Crassus bestowed upon them parts of the territory of the Bessi; and in course of time Rome had placed the whole of Thrace under their control. Yet in the time of Tiberius they began a series of rebellions, which resulted in the abolition of their independence, and the reduction of their territory into the form of an Roman province, during the reign of Vespasian.

ECOLAMPADIUS, the Graecized name of Johann Hauschein, one of the most eminent of the Reformers. He was descended by his mother's side from a Swiss family, and was born at Weinsberg in Franconia in 1482. His father, a wealthy merchant, at first intended him for trade, and afterwards sent him to Bologna to learn jurisprudence. But the timid youth, averse to the turmoil of business and fond of letters, soon entered upon the peaceful and studious life of an ecclesiastic. He studied divinity at Heidelberg, and Greek and Hebrew at Stuttgart; in 1516 he was preaching at Basle, and assisting his friend Erasmus in publishing Annotations on the New Testament; and in 1520 he retired into the monastery of Altenmünster, near Augsburg. Yet underneath this love of literary ease there was a strong sincerity of heart, which would not suffer him to remain undecided in the midst of the controversies of those reforming days. Before two years had passed, his attacks upon the creed of the Romish Church had brought him into danger: he escaped immediately from the convent, and took refuge in the castle of Ebernburg; and in 1524 he undertook the duties of a preacher and a theological professor at Basle, with the avowed intention of teaching nothing but what was consistent with the Scriptures. From this period Ecolampadius was a learned, tolerant, yet decided advocate of the opinions of the Reformed in Switzerland. In a short time his elegant and powerful eloquence had overcome all opposition in Basle; and a thorough reformation of the church in that town was going rapidly on under his superintendence. He then went to the assistance of Zwingli in the controversy with Luther regarding the real presence in the Eucharist. A treatise, entitled De vero intellectu verborum Domini "Hoc est Corpus Meum," was published by him in 1525; this was followed, as the controversy proceeded, by several letters and pamphlets; and in the celebrated discussion in 1529 at Marburg between the champions of the two parties, he entered the lists against the great German Reformer. He was still busily engaged both with tongue and pen in refuting the Lutherans, when death closed his career, in December 1531.

The principal works of Ecolampadius are—In Librum Job Exegemata—in Danielem Prophetam Libri Duo, fol. 1553; et Commentarii Omnes in Libros Prophetarum, in 2 vols. fol., 1558. His Life, written in Latin by Capito, and published in 4to, 1536, was translated into English, and printed along with those of Zwingli and Luther, by Henry Bennet Callesian, 8vo, London, 1561. There is also a Life, in German, by Herzog, in 2 vols., 1843.

ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. See Council.