LE SYMPOSIUM INTERNATIONAL LE LIVRE. LA ROUMANIE. L ...

544 IVO TOPALILOV
It is worth mentioning that most of the romanized thracian aristocracy
belongs to that group and since the act of romanisation was taken place
in the time of Claudius or nero and under the Flavii they usually got these
emperor’s names. the famous topirus inscription presenting the list of
thracian strategoi makes these things clear. thus, among the strategoi one
could find Τιβέριος Κλαύδιος Δῖνις or Τιβέριος Κλαύδιος Ροιμητάλκας
Ἀπολλωνἰου, Μ(αρκος) Οὐέττιος Δῖνις, after M. Vettius Marcelus etc. 25 As
for the Flavii, in Philippopolis, for instance, there is Τ. Φλάβιος Δορζινθης
etc. 26 the end of the process is dated to the time of trajan who changed the
administrative system in thrace and the establishment of the cities. 27
there are two more things I would like to mention for this group of roman
citizens. First, after 214 and Constitutio Antoniniana this group expanded
immensely and Aelius, Claudius, Iulius etc. appeared among the thracians,
mostly after military service. entirely roman or mixed names occurred that
time. Second, the practice of transferring father’s name to first borne son
and, thus, preserving the Claudian or Flavian romanization for more than a
century. In this group of peregrines with roman citizenship and names quite
often the father’s cognomen could be altered into son’s gentilicum. 28
the third group consists of people with latin names (praenomen or
cognomen), which occurred within the Greek onomastic formula (name
+ patronymic in the genitive). It is said that these people did not possess
roman citizenship. 29 these examples in thrace are after 212, so they lay
out of the scope of the article.
the Constitutio Antoniniana, which declares roman citizenship and,
therefore, roman names to all except dediticii, changed radically the
situation in thrace. until that time, the people possessed roman citizenship
and names were not in a large scale. they were mostly veterans (thracian
or foreign), thracians of importance for roman rule, mostly aristocracy,
Greek eastern provincials, romans (quite rarely) and freedmen. thus, it is
not surprisingly to find out that the only way for the ordinary thracian to
get roman citizenship and, therefore, names is by military service. After
the edict was pronounced a lot of thracians were allowed and accepted
the roman name of M. Aurelius and since then it is almost impossible
to recognize the ordinary peregrine with roman names and the veterans
or their descendents. exceptions are the examples with old imperial
romanization, such as Claudii, Flavii, Ulpii, Aelii, etc., which show the
25 IA thr e84.
26 See ShArAnKoV 2004a, 148-153.
27 See tAtSCheVA.
28 See pASCAl 1993, 103 sqq.
29 pArISSAKI 2007, 283; for the examples in thrace – see BeŠeVleIV 1965, 27.