Better (people)

The Besser (also Bessen, Latin Bessi , Bulgarian Беси ) were a people in northeastern Thrace , in the Thasitic Peraia and on the Haimos , with the main town Uskudama .

The Besser first mentioned by Herodotus maintained their freedom for a long time under their own princes, until they were 72 BC Were subjugated by the Romans under Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus . Roman generals had to fight their resistance several times in the following decades: 59 BC. Chr. Gaius Octavius , 44 v. BC Marcus Junius Brutus , 29 BC BC Marcus Licinius Crassus , 14 to 12 BC Chr. Lucius Calpurnius Piso . There were further uprisings in the 1st century AD (21 and 68 AD)

The bishop Nikita Remesianski (Bulgarian Епископ Никета Ремесиански) has Christianized the Thracian tribe of the warlike better.

Roman auxiliary units

During the imperial era , the following auxiliary units were recruited in the area of ​​the Besser:

• Cohors I Flavia Bessorum
• Cohors II Flavia Bessorum

As the inscription ( CIL 8, 9381 ) shows, large numbers of soldiers were recruited from the people of the better at the beginning of the 3rd century. Sex (tus) Iul (ius) Iulianus transferred a 1000-strong group of recruits ( iuniores Bessos ) from the province of Thracia to the province of Mauretania Tingitana in order to strengthen the units there.

See also

• List of Thracian tribes

literature

• Iris von Bredow : Bessi, Bessoi. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 2, Metzler, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-476-01472-X , Sp. 586 f.
• Eugen Oberhummer : Bessoi . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume III, 1, Stuttgart 1897, Col. 329-331.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ John Spaul: Cohors² The evidence for and a short history of the auxiliary infantry units of the Imperial Roman Army , British Archaeological Reports 2000, BAR International Series (Book 841), ISBN 978-1841710464 , page 339