Being a Thracian at the frontier: cultural affiliation of the Thracian population living at Novae in Moesia Inferior
Being a Thracian at the frontier: cultural affiliation of the Thracian population living at Novae in Moesia Inferior

Summary/Abstract: The focus of this study is Novae (in Moesia Inferior) and the Thracians in local military, administrative and civilian structures. My interest was provoked by the success of Roman provincialism, which led a particular person, their family or a group of people in a settlement to call themselves “Romans” or “Greeks”. The processes known as Romanization and Hellenization depended on a number of factors, such as the presence of Roman legionary and auxiliary units, administration and urbanization, production and trade, etc. To these factors can be added the military-political aspirations of the emperor, the central and provincial authorities, as well as the geographical features of an area. In this case, the legionary headquarters of legio I Italica is one such specific point. With its location – between the “civilized” society of the Balkan south and barbaricum in the north, between the highly Latinized West and the Hellenic ἀποικίαι in the East – it is one of the most important links in the provincial system along the Lower Danube. It is at such a dynamic point that it is interesting to trace the Thracian population and clarify its participation in the local landscape, its motivation for this and the methods of realization in the structures created by the authorities.

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