Greek vase painting showing a Thracian woman with tattooed arms, c. 470 BC
Confines
From the perspective of classical Greece, Thracia included the territory north of Thessaly, with no definite boundaries,[2] sometimes to the inclusion of Macedonia and Scythia Minor.[3] Later, Thracia proper was understood to include the territory bordered by the Danube on the north, by the Black Sea on the east, by Macedonia in the south and by Illyria to the west,[3] roughly equivalent with the territory of the Thracian kingdom as it stood during the 5th to 1st centuries BC.
With the annexation of the Thracian kingdom by the Roman Empire, by order of emperor Claudius, in AD 46, Thracia (formally provincia Thracia "Thracian province", ἐπαρχία Θρᾳκῶν "eparchy of the Thracians") was established as a Roman province. After the administrative reforms of the 3rd century, Thracia was reduced to the territory of the six small provinces of the
Diocese of Thrace. Later still, the medieval Byzantinetheme of Thracia contained only what today is Eastern Thrace.
The new province encompassed not only the lands of the former Odrysian realm, but also the north-eastern portion of the province of Macedonia as well as the islands of Thasos, Samothrace and Imbros in the Aegean Sea. To the north, Thracia bordered the province of Moesia Inferior; initially, the provincial boundary ran at a line north of the Haeumus Mountains, including the cities of Nicopolis ad Istrum and Marcianopolis in Thracia, but by the end of the 2nd century AD the border had moved south along the Haemus. The area of the Thracian Chersonese (modern Gallipoli Peninsula) was excluded from its governor's purview and administered as part of the emperor's personal domains.[5] The province's first capital, where the Roman governor resided, was Heraclea Perinthus. Thracia was an imperial province, headed initially by a procurator, and, after c. 107/109, by a legatus Augusti pro praetore. Otherwise, the internal structure of the old Thracian kingdom was retained and only gradually superseded by Roman institutions. The old tribal-based strategiai ("generalcies"), headed by a strategos ("general"), were retained as the main administrative divisions, but some villages were grouped together into kōmarchiai ("village headships") or subordinated to neighbouring cities (the two Roman colonies of colonia Claudia Aprensis and colonia Flavia Pacis Deueltensium and several Greek cities, many of whom were founded by Trajan), which were set apart. In the mid-1st century, the strategiai numbered fifty, but the progressive expansion of the cities and the land assigned to them reduced their number: by the early 2nd century, they had decreased to fourteen, and c. 136 they were abolished altogether as official administrative divisions.[6]
Septimius Severus (r. 193–211), frequently traveled through Thrace during his military campaigns from 193 to 198, first during his war with Pescennius Niger and later against the Parthians. The city of Perinthus, which backed Severus, was granted the prestigious title of neokoros twice, alongside the permission to hold crown festivals in his honor. Severus also allowed Anchialus to organize seuereia festivals, possibly as a reward for its support during the civil war.[7]
Personification of the province of Thrace from the Hadrianeum
As it was an interior province, far from the borders of the Empire, and having a major Roman road (Via Egnatia) that passed through the region, Thrace remained peaceful and prosperous until the Crisis of the Third Century, when it was repeatedly raided by Goths from beyond the Danube. During the campaigns to confront these raiders, Emperor Decius (r. 249–251) fell in the Battle of Abritus in 251. Thracia suffered especially heavily in the great Gothic seaborne raids of 268–270, and it was not until 271 that Emperor Aurelian (r. 270–275) was able to secure the Balkan provinces against Gothic raids for some time to come.[8]
Generally, the provincial and urban policy of Roman emperors, with the foundation of several cities of Greek type (city-state),[9] contributed more to the progress of Hellenization than to the Romanization of Thrace. So by the end of Roman antiquity, the phenomenon of Romanization occurs only upon the Lower Moesia, while Thrace lying south of the Haemus mountains had been almost completely Hellenized.[10]
As regards the Thracian dispersion outside the borders (extra fines provinciae), from epigraphic evidence we know the presence of many Thracians (mostly soldiers) throughout the Roman Empire from Syria and Arabia to Britain.[11][12]
Late antiquity
Under the administrative reforms of Diocletian (r. 284–305), Thracia's territory was divided into four smaller provinces: Thracia, Haemimontus, Rhodope and Europa.
The new province of Thracia comprised the northwestern portion of the old province, i.e. the upper valley of the Hebrus river between Haemus and Rhodope and including Philippopolis (in Thracia), which had become the provincial capital in the early 3rd century. It was headed by a governor with the rank of consularis.
^"In Hellenistic Thrace, the double axe was an attribute of Zalmoxis, the god of thunder. It is also depicted on coins of Thrace as the symbol of the kings of the Odrysae, who considered Zalmoxis the ancestor and protector of the royal house."[1]
^Bertolazzi, Riccardo (2024). "The Severan Augustae as Mistresses of the World". In Hoffmann-Salz, Julia; Heil, Matthäus; Wienholz, Holger (eds.). The Eastern Roman Empire under the Severans: Old Connections, new Beginnings?. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. pp. 242–243. ISBN978-3-647-30251-5.
^D. Samsaris, Historical Geography of Western Thrace during the Roman Antiquity (in Greek), Thessaloniki 2005
^[1] D. Samsaris, The Hellenization of Thrace during the Greek and Roman Antiquity (Diss. in Greek), Thessaloniki 1980
^D. Samsaris, Les Thraces dans l' Empire romain d' Orient (Le territoire de la Grece actuelle). Etude ethno-demographique, sociale, prosopographique et anthroponymique, Jannina 1993 (University of Jannina)
^D. Samsaris, Les Thraces dans l' Empire romain d' Orient (Asie Mineure, Syrie, Palestine et Arabie), Dodona 19 (1), 1989, p. 5-30
As found in the Notitia Dignitatum. Provincial administration reformed and dioceses established by Diocletian, c. 293. Permanent praetorian prefectures established after the death of Constantine I. Empire permanently partitioned after 395. Exarchates of Ravenna and Africa established after 584. After massive territorial losses in the 7th century, the remaining provinces were superseded by the theme system in c. 640–660, although in Asia Minor and parts of Greece they survived under the themes until the early 9th century.
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