Bessi

The Bessi (/ˈbɛsaɪ/; Ancient Greek: Βῆσσοι, Bēssoi or Βέσσοι, Béssoi) or Bessae,[1] were a Thracian tribe that inhabited the upper valley of the Hebros and the lands between the Haemus and Rhodope mountain ranges in historical Thrace.

[4] In light of archaeological and epigraphic evidence, modern scholars have formulated a number of theories on the location of the lands associated with the Bessi during the period of Roman imperialism - known as Bessica.

While these two paradigms dominate academia, a third theory presented by Peter Delev puts forth that Bessica was centred on the northern foothills of the Rila mountain range and was located outside of the Rhodopes.

[4] According to Herodotus, the Bessi were a sub-tribe or branch of the Satrae intimately tied to the cult of Dionysus and responsible for interpreting the prophetic utterances of the prophetess at the deity's sanctuary, located on the highest summits of the land inhabited by the tribe.

[8] In c. 340 BCE, the Macedonian generals Antipater and Parmenion are noted as having conducted military campaigns in the lands of the Tetrachoritai as a part of Philip II of Macedon's subjugation of various Thracian polities.

Between the years 106 and 100 BCE, the Bessi would come into armed conflict with the consul Marcus Minucius Rufus who was distinguished in his campaigns against the Thracians, to the point in which the people of Delphi erected an equestrian statue in his honour.

The statue bore a bilingual inscription which outlined the consul's victory against the Celtic Scordisci and "Bessi and the rest of the Thracians" (pros Bessous [k]ai tous loipous Thrai[kas]).

[15] In 72 BCE, following the retreat of Mithridates VI Eupator and his forces to Bithynia, Thrace was assigned to the proconsul of Macedonia, Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus, who initiated a campaign against the Thracians and subjugated the Bessi, occupying the settlement of Uscudama – one of the Bessian tribal centres.

[20] The stereotypical image of the Bessi would also become representative for all natives of Thrace as a whole, as is evidenced by a second century CE mural painting from Valentia, Hispania Tarraconensis, which depicts a Bessian woman next to other peoples exotic to the Romans.

[22] Epigraphic analysis attests to around 40–50 individuals bearing the ethnonym of Bessi or Bessus in the Roman imperial navy, while 22 appear in the auxiliary land forces, 5–7 in the equites singulares Augusti, and even less in the Praetorian Guard.

[citation needed] In 570, Antoninus Placentius wrote that in the valleys of Mount Sinai there was a monastery in which the monks spoke Greek, Latin, Syriac, Egyptian and Bessian.