Thracians in Rome. Toward a quantitative estimate of foreigners from the “Thracian space” in the capital of the Empire

As the center of a multicultural Empire, the city of Rome acted as a pole of attraction for a lot of immigrants from the provinces. Thracians were among the most represented ‘communities’. This resulted both from the very high migration rates of Thracian peoples and, more specifically, from Thracians’ involvement in the Roman army, especially the urban military corps (e.g. the praetorian guard). Previous attempts of registering the Thracian population of Rome from the epigraphic evidence has been affected by the known difficulty of assessing with certainty an individual’s geographic origin, as the latter is explicitly specified in inscriptions only in a few cases. Yet other criteria may be prove useful. As regards, in particular, Thracians, onomastics is very informative, since Thracian names are hardly born by non Thracians. The onomastic data can be used in combination with a further (albeit less reliable) criterion, namely the occurrence in inscriptions of theonyms and epithets specifically connected with the Thracian territory. Much less informative is the use of Greek language in urban inscriptions from Thracians. Indeed, Greek inscriptions in Rome from Thracian individuals are almost absent. In my presentation I will discuss the above mentioned criteria for the identification of Thracians in Rome. I am not going to provide comprehensive figures on the Thracian residents in Rome during the Empire. Instead, I will try to offer a methodological insight on the combined use of specific criteria (origo, onomastics, religious and linguistic choices) as a tool toward a quantitative estimation of the Tracian population of Rome through the epigraphic evidence. My approach might prove useful, more generally, for a reconsideration through the epigraphic evidence of quantitative issues within the more general and complex theme of ancient migration movements in the Greco-Roman civilization.