A correct analysis of the state of facts at the Lower Danube, from the 4th to the 3rd centuries BC, including the conflict between the kings Lishimah and Dromichete, must take into account the fact that behind the political-military leaders were state-type institutional structures. The Lisimah-Dromichete episode is just a facet of a wider political-military confrontation, involving the Getae kingdom, the satrapy of Thracia, and the Thracian kingdom itself, on which the diadochi’s satrapy was overlaid. The nature of the disputes between them is specific to statal institutions: political self-determination (sovereignty), territorial control and delimitation, etc. The same aspect reveals some details of military organization (such as the existence of a strategist in the Getic army), but above all the capacity of the political formations involved to mobilize large armies in the long run and to act on the basis of motivations formed in past generations.
