After Thrace became a Roman province, the Triballi retained enough strength to cause trouble to the Roman governors of Macedonia. Many rebelions against the Roman empire broke out in Thrace. According to Florus [Florus II, XXVII], after one of these rebellions had been crushed, the Thracians showed their mad rage even in captivity, for they punished their own savagery by trying to bite through their fetters.
It is most likely here that the history of Thracians and Dachians diverges most. Some of the Thracians were Latinized by the Roman empire, they were called Vlachs. But the Dachians were much more thoroughly Latinized by Rome. It is possible the deals Rome made with some Thracian kings to conquer other Thracian tribes, the wide degree of independence Thrace preserved for a long time within the empire, and the constant Thracian rebellions against Rome, are all reasons why, unlike the Dachians, most of the Thracians were not Latinized. In fact the term ‘Vlach’ still has somewhat of a negative meaning in Bulgaria today. It is possible Thracians who were Latinized were marginalized by the rest. The Romanians, {Romania means ‘land of the Romans’.} on the other hand, are proud of their Latin heritage today. Romanian is the closest to Latin, in a grammatical sense, of all the Romance languages.
The Thracians had a strong influence on Roman history and culture, for one, there were the Gladiators. The gladiator was often the object of female adoration. This is clear in the following graffiti from Pompeii: Celadus the Thracian, three times victor and three times crowned, adored by young girls.
And the most famous of all the gladiators Spartacus, was a Thracian. Spartacus, it seems most likely, came from the Medi tribe which inhabited the areas along the Strouma River. Most of the insurgent slaves in the great slave uprising {74-71 BC} were Thracians and Gauls.
And could the Roman empire have expanded, as much as it did, without the sons of Ares?
With pray’rs and vows the Dryads I atone,
With all the sisters of the woods, and most
The God of Arms, who rules the Thracian coast,
That they, or he, these omens would avert,
Release our fears, and better signs impart.
The Thracians were employed in the Roman auxiliary troops, and from the second century onwards in the legions. It was the Thracian armies which secured the throne for Emperor Septimius Severus. Finally, the first barbarian who became Caesar {Emperor} was Maximinus the Thracian. In 235 AD, the legions raised him to the purple. Maximinus had begun his career as a common soldier. According to the legends about him, he was eight-and a-half feet tall, could crumble stones in his hands and break a horse’s leg with a kick of his heel, and each day ate forty Pounds of meat and drank nearly eight gallons of wine. {Your typical Thracian, in other words.} Thrace and the Thracians were thriving as a part of the Roman empire in the 3rd century AD, but only one century later, Rome would fall to the Hunnish tribal confederacy and Thrace would be invaded by Slavs and Bulgars…
Similar Topics from Ancient Bulgaria Archive
» The Ragged Shining Armour of the Bulgarian Middle Ages pretalk» Philippopolis
» Villa Armira archeological monument, Ivailovgrad municipality
» The Christianization of Bulgaria part I
» The Barbarians Attack the Roman Empire
