The Bisaltae were a Thracian

Thracians

The ancient Thracians were a group of Indo-European tribes inhabiting areas including Thrace in Southeastern Europe. They spoke the Thracian language – a scarcely attested branch of the Indo-European language family...

 people on the lower Strymon river, who gave their name to Bisaltia

Bisaltia

Bisaltia or Bisaltica was an ancient region extending from the river Strymon and Lake Cercinitis on the east to Crestonia on the west. The eponymous inhabitants, known as the Bisaltae, were a Thracian people. The most important town in Bisaltia was the Greek city of Argilus...

, the district between Amphipolis

Amphipolis

Amphipolis was an ancient Greek city in the region once inhabited by the Edoni people in the present-day region of Central Macedonia. It was built on a raised plateau overlooking the east bank of the river Strymon where it emerged from Lake Cercinitis, about 3 m. from the Aegean Sea. Founded in...

 and Heraclea Sintica

Heraclea Sintica

Heraclea Sintica was an ancient Greekcity in Thracian Macedonia, to the south of the Struma River, the site of which is marked by the village of Rupite, Bulgaria, and which was identified by the discovery of local coins....

 (the modern village of Rupite

Rupite

Rupite is a village which includes a small mountainous protected area in the southeastern part Blagoevgrad Province, Bulgaria, 10-12 kilometres northeast of Petrich, on the right bank of the Struma River. It is best known as the place where the Bulgarian medium Baba Vanga lived and was buried...

, Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

) on the east and Crestonice on the west. They also made their way into the peninsulas of Acte

Mount Athos

Mount Athos is a mountain and peninsula in Macedonia, Greece. A World Heritage Site, it is home to 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries and forms a self-governed monastic state within the sovereignty of the Hellenic Republic. Spiritually, Mount Athos comes under the direct jurisdiction of the...

 and Pallene

Pallene, Chalcidice

Pallene is the ancient name of the westernmost of the three headlands of Chalcidice, which run out into the Aegean Sea. Its modern name is Kassandra Peninsula . It is said to have anciently borne the name of Phlegra and to have witnessed the conflict between the gods and the earthborn Gigantes...

 in the south, beyond the river Nestus in the east, and are even said to have raided Cardia

Cardia (Thrace)

Cardia , anciently the chief town of the Thracian Chersonese , was situated at the head of the gulf of Melas...

.
Under a separate king at the time of the Persian Wars, they were annexed by Alexander I

Alexander I of Macedon

- Biography :Alexander was the son of Amyntas I and Queen Eurydice.According to Herodotus, he was unfriendly to Persia, and had the envoys of Darius I killed when they arrived at the court of his father during the Ionian Revolt...

 (498 BC-454 BC) to the kingdom of Macedon

Macedon

Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south....

. At the division of Macedon into four districts by the Romans after the battle of Pydna

Pydna

Pydna was a Greek city in ancient Macedon, the most important in Pieria. Modern Pydna is a small town and a former municipality in the northeastern part of Pieria regional unit, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Pydna-Kolindros, of which it is a...

 (168) the Bisaltae were included in Macedonia Prima.

Their country was rich in figs

FIGS

FIGS is an acronym for French, Italian, German, Spanish. These are usually the first four languages chosen to localize products into when a company enters the European market....

, vines

Grape

A grape is a non-climacteric fruit, specifically a berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or they can be used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, molasses and grape seed oil. Grapes are also...

 and olive

Olive

The olive , Olea europaea), is a species of a small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Basin as well as northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea.Its fruit, also called the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the...

 trees; the silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

 mines in the mountain range of Dysorum brought in a talent

Talent (weight)

The "talent" was one of several ancient units of mass, as well as corresponding units of value equivalent to these masses of a precious metal. It was approximately the mass of water required to fill an amphora. A Greek, or Attic talent, was , a Roman talent was , an Egyptian talent was , and a...

 a day to their conqueror Alexander. The Bisaltae are referred to by Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

 in connection with the treatment of the diseases of sheep. The fact that their eponym

Eponym

An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...

 is said to have been the son of Helios

Helios

Helios was the personification of the Sun in Greek mythology. Homer often calls him simply Titan or Hyperion, while Hesiod and the Homeric Hymn separate him as a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia or Euryphaessa and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn...

 and Ge

Gaia (mythology)

Gaia was the primordial Earth-goddess in ancient Greek religion. Gaia was the great mother of all: the heavenly gods and Titans were descended from her union with Uranus , the sea-gods from her union with Pontus , the Giants from her mating with Tartarus and mortal creatures were sprung or born...

points to a very early settlement in the district.