| Provincia Thracia ἐπαρχία Θρᾳκῶν | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Province of theRoman Empire | |||||||||||
| 46–c. 680 AD | |||||||||||
.svg) The province of Thracia within the Roman Empire, c. 125 AD | |||||||||||
| Capital | Heraclea Perinthus (modern-dayMarmara Ereğlisi,Turkey) | ||||||||||
| Historical era | Classical antiquity | ||||||||||
• Annexation ofThracian client state | 46 | ||||||||||
• Division byDiocletian | 293 | ||||||||||
• Theme of Thrace established | c. 680 AD | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
| Today part of |  Turkey Greece Bulgaria | ||||||||||
Thracia orThrace (Ancient Greek:Θρᾴκη,romanized: Thrakē) is the ancient name given to the southeasternBalkan region, the land inhabited by theThracians.Thrace was ruled by theOdrysian kingdom during theClassical andHellenistic eras, and briefly by the GreekDiadochi rulerLysimachus, but became aclient state of the lateRoman Republic and earlyRoman Empire as theSapaean kingdom.Roman emperorClaudius annexed the kingdom as aRoman province in 46 AD.
.jpg)
From the perspective ofclassical Greece, Thracia included the territory north ofThessaly, with no definite boundaries,[1] sometimes to the inclusion ofMacedonia andScythia Minor.[2] Later, Thracia proper was understood to include the territory bordered by theDanube on the north, by the Black Sea on the east, byMacedonia in the south and byIllyria to the west,[2] roughly equivalent with the territory of theThracian kingdom as it stood during the 5th to 1st centuries BC.
With the annexation of the Thracian kingdom by theRoman Empire, by order of emperorClaudius, in AD 46,Thracia (formallyprovincia Thracia "Thracian province",ἐπαρχία Θρᾳκῶν "eparchy of the Thracians") was established as aRoman province. After the administrative reforms of the 3rd century,Thracia was reduced to the territory of the six small provinces of theDiocese of Thrace. Later still, the medievalByzantinetheme ofThracia contained only what today isEastern Thrace.
TheOdrysian kingdom of Thrace became a Romanclient kingdom c. 20 BC, while the Greekcity-states on theBlack Sea coast came under Roman control ascivitates foederatae ("allied" cities with internal autonomy). After the death of the Thracian kingRhoemetalces III in 46 AD and an unsuccessful anti-Roman revolt, the kingdom was annexed as theRoman province of Thracia.[3]
The new province encompassed not only the lands of the former Odrysian realm, but also the north-eastern portion of the province ofMacedonia as well as the islands ofThasos,Samothrace andImbros in theAegean Sea. To the north, Thracia bordered the province ofMoesia Inferior; initially, the provincial boundary ran at a line north of theHaeumus Mountains, including the cities ofNicopolis ad Istrum andMarcianopolis in Thracia, but by the end of the 2nd century AD the border had moved south along the Haemus. The area of theThracian Chersonese (modernGallipoli Peninsula) was excluded from its governor's purview and administered as part of the emperor's personal domains.[4] The province's first capital, where the Roman governor resided, wasHeraclea Perinthus. Thracia was animperial province, headed initially by aprocurator, and, after c. 107/109, by alegatus Augusti pro praetore. Otherwise, the internal structure of the old Thracian kingdom was retained and only gradually superseded by Roman institutions. The old tribal-basedstrategiai ("generalcies"), headed by astrategos ("general"), were retained as the main administrative divisions, but some villages were grouped together intokōmarchiai ("village headships") or subordinated to neighbouring cities (the twoRoman colonies ofcolonia Claudia Aprensis andcolonia Flavia Pacis Deueltensium and several Greek cities, many of whom were founded byTrajan), which were set apart. In the mid-1st century, thestrategiai 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.[5]
Septimius Severus (r. 193–211), frequently traveled through Thrace during his military campaigns from 193 to 198, first during his war withPescennius Niger and later against theParthians. The city ofPerinthus, which backed Severus, was granted the prestigious title ofneokoros twice, alongside the permission to hold crown festivals in his honor. Severus also allowedAnchialus to organizeseuereia festivals, possibly as a reward for its support during the civil war.[6]
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 theCrisis of the Third Century, when it was repeatedly raided byGoths from beyond theDanube. During the campaigns to confront these raiders, EmperorDecius (r. 249–251) fell in theBattle of Abritus in 251. Thracia suffered especially heavily in the greatGothic seaborne raids of 268–270, and it was not until 271 that EmperorAurelian (r. 270–275) was able to secure the Balkan provinces against Gothic raids for some time to come.[7]
Generally, the provincial and urban policy of Roman emperors, with the foundation of several cities of Greek type (city-state),[8] 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.[9]
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.[10][11]
Under the administrative reforms ofDiocletian (r. 284–305), Thracia's territory was divided into four smaller provinces:Thracia,Haemimontus,Rhodope andEuropa.
The new province of Thracia comprised the northwestern portion of the old province, i.e. the upper valley of theHebrus river between Haemus andRhodope and includingPhilippopolis (in Thracia), which had become the provincial capital in the early 3rd century. It was headed by a governor with the rank ofconsularis.
The four Thracian provinces, along with the two provinces ofMoesia Inferior, were grouped into thediocese ofThraciae, which in turn was part of thePrefecture of the East. Militarily, the entire region was under the control of themagister militum per Thracias.[12]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)42°N26°E / 42°N 26°E /42; 26
