Thracians in the Roman Imperial Navy

Abstract

The Roman fleets of the imperial period were crewed by provincials, not by Italians. Of the sailors and soldiers whose names and geographical origin are attested epigraphically (on military diplomas or epitaphs) almost 15 per cent claim a Thracian origin; and among these, the majority identify themselves as Bessi, a tribe in the mountains of southern Thrace that is not known to have had a tradition of seafaring. The explanations proposed by earlier research include Theodor Mommsen’s contention that Bessi was used as a synonym for Thracians in general, and Jerzy Kolendo’s suggestion that these people were recruited from a colony of displaced Bessi with maritime traditions. This article proposes that the presence of Bessi in the navy was a by-product of the creation of new Black Sea fleets in the first century AD.