Skudra or Scudra was a province (satrap

Satrap

Satrap was the name given to the governors of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as the Sassanid Empire and the Hellenistic empires....

y) of the Persian Empire in Europe between 510s BC

510s BC

-Events and trends:*519 BC—Zhou Jing Wang becomes King of the Zhou Dynasty of China.*c. 518 BC—Darius I began construction of Parsa .*518 BC—Construction of Apadana of Darius and Xerxes, ceremonial complex, at Persepolis, Iran started....

 and 479 BC

479 BC

Year 479 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Vibulanus and Rutilus...

. Its name is attested in Persian and Egyptian inscriptions (an Egyptian record of c.498–497 B.C., and a list on the tomb of Darius the Great at Naqsh-e Rustam

Naqsh-e Rustam

Naqsh-e Rustam also referred to as Necropolis is an archaeological site located about 12 km northwest of Persepolis, in Fars province, Iran. Naqsh-e Rustam lies a few hundred meters from Naqsh-e Rajab....

, c.486 B.C.). It is believed to have comprised the lands now known as Thrace

Thrace

Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

.

N. G. L. Hammond

N. G. L. Hammond

Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond CBE, DSO was a British scholar of ancient Greece of great accomplishment and an operative for the British Special Operations Executive in occupied Greece during World War II....

 hypothesizes that the name Skudra may have been the name originally used for this region by the Phrygians, who had settled in the area before migrating to Asia. Persian sources describe the province as being populated by three groups: the Saka Paradraya (possibly referring to Getae

Getae

The Getae was the name given by the Greeks to several Thracian tribes that occupied the regions south of the Lower Danube, in what is today northern Bulgaria, and north of the Lower Danube, in Romania...

); the Skudra themselves (possibly Thracians

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...

), and Yauna Takabara. The latter term, which translates as "Ionians with shield-like hats", is believed to refer to Macedonians

Ancient Macedonians

The Macedonians originated from inhabitants of the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, in the alluvial plain around the rivers Haliacmon and lower Axios...

.

The Thracian and Scythia

Scythia

In antiquity, Scythian or Scyths were terms used by the Greeks to refer to certain Iranian groups of horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who dwelt on the Pontic-Caspian steppe...

n regions were conquered by Darius I around 512 BC, the 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....

ian kingdom by Mardonius

Mardonius

Mardonius was a leading Persian military commander during the Persian Wars with Greece in the early 5th century BC.-Early years:Mardonius was the son of Gobryas, a Persian nobleman who had assisted the Achaemenid prince Darius when he claimed the throne...

 in 492 BC

492 BC

Year 492 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Macerinus and Augurinus...

.