Thraco-Macedonian Tribes, Moriaseis
2nd century BCE
Æ 17.5mm, 5.62g
Laureate head of Zeus right /
Star
Franke, MOPIAΣEIΣ, p. 67–8; Peykov –; HPM –; HGC 3, –
The Moriaseis tribe is believed by numismatists to be the Moriseni tribe mentioned by Pliny the Elder, who placed them on the western shore of the Black Sea. Their neighbors were the Sithoni. The name itself is believed to derive from the Slavic word for “sea”. Supposedly, they and the Sithoni were the ancestral peoples of Orpheus.
Pliny doesn’t say a lot about them: Its opposite side sloping down towards the Danube is inhabited by the Moesi, Getae, Aedi, Scaugdae and Clariae, and below them the Sarmatian Arraei called Areatae, and the Scythians, and round the shores of the Black Sea the Moriseni and the Sithoni, the ancestry of the poet Orpheus.
Their exact location is today unknown, and therefore the one used here is an educated guess.
Moriseni peak in Antarctica was named for them.