Rome and the Black Sea Region. Группа авторов

maintained in good condition and guarded by the army, even during the terrible crisis of the third century AD, and was entirely restored during the Tetrarchy and House of Constantine.

       Fig. 2. The roads of Roman Dobrudja (second-fourth centuries AD), after Bărbulescu 2001.

      Due to the shortage of manpower in the provincial administration, the Roman authorities resorted to the army, which supplied the necessary substitutes, who had the great advantage of not demanding additional expenses.²⁵ If the procedure of giving soldiers administrative tasks appeared as early as the beginning of the Principate, it developed gradually until the end of the third century AD according to the strengthening of the imperial power and the decreasing of the prerogatives of the self-governing provincial communities. Not surprisingly, this process is to be found also in Dobrudja where, apart from the presence of a lot of beneficiarii, some of them acting as a police force, the direct involvement of the army is attested in the regulation of boundary disputes. Thus, in AD 177-178 landmarks were put in by the tribunus cohortis I Cilicum between civitas Ausdecensium and a Dacian community (IDRE II, 338); in AD 198-202 by the commander-in-chief of the Moesian fleet, praefectus classis, between the villa of Messia Pudentilla and vicani Buteridavenses (ISM I, 359-360); and in AD 229, inside the territory of Capidava by one legionary centurion (ISM V, 8; 57-58). It seems obvious that the use of the army for marking the controversial limits of communal and private estates, or of the individual plots, was due both to its capacity of imposing the observance of the dispositions taken in the name of the governors and to the technical expertise on making measurements of the land.

      At the end of this survey it is worth emphasizing the main aspects of the impact of the Roman army on the local societies in the northeastern part of Moesia Inferior. From the beginning of the second century AD the presence of nearly 15,000 troops together with their followers in a small rather scarcely populated region, except for the seashore with its three Greek towns, profoundly influenced the subsequent development of the country. As all the military units were quartered along the Danube frontier, this part of Dobrudja was completely Romanised. Nevertheless the role of the army extended far beyond its forts and the civil settlements developed near them in the inner part of the region, where numerous rural settlements organized in Roman manner are attested. Even in the territories of the Greek towns of Histria and Tomis there are numerous vici settled at least partially by veterani et cives Romani, led by magistri and using Latin. And, significantly, if in the old Greek colonies of Histria, Tomis and Callatis the population still predominantly spoke Greek, one met in each of them a conventus c. R. or a tribe of the Romans. A large part of these Roman citizens were veterans and Latin speakers.

      In conclusion, with the exception of the Greek towns, which kept their traditions despite the strong influence of the Roman civilization, the rest of the territory of Dobrudja was thoroughly Romanised during the Early Empire, especially as a result of the presence of a considerable number of troops.

       Notes

       1 For the Roman military activity until the inclusion of Dobrudja in the province of Moesia see Vulpe 1968, 13-48; Suceveanu 1991, 23-26 with bibliography.

       2 See Kolendo 1998. At variance with the traditional opinion, Suceveanu repeatedly asserts that Dobrudja was not annexed to the province of Moesia before the time of Vespasian, when the first Roman military units are attested to have settled in the region (Suceveanu 1991 a, 28-29; Suceveanu 1991 b.). Yet the horotesia of Laberius Maximus (ISM V, 67-68) mention in AD 47 the first defining of the borders of Histria by a legatus of Moesia.

       3 For the Roman army in Dobrudja during the Principate, see especially Aricescu 1977 and Matei-Popescu 2001-2002.

       4 Doruţiu-Boilă 1974, 8.

       5 Suceveanu 1977, 62-65.

       6 Vulpe 1968, 167.

       7 Suceveanu 1998, 138.

       8 Barnea 1988, 53-60.

       9 Scorpan 1977.

      10 Bărbulescu 2001, 116-117.

      11 Cheluţă-Georgescu 1979, 179-182.

      12 Baumann 1983, 156, no.20.

      13 Suceveanu & Zahariade 1986.

      14 Bărbulescu 2001, 286.

      15 Tudor 1956, 572-577, nos. 28-43 and CIL III 7485; 14214.

      16 Capidava: Cheluţă-Georgescu 1979; unpublished lecture by the author at the annual Symposium of Constanţa Museum in 2002. Noviodunum: Simion 1984; Simion 1994-1995.

      17 De Martino 1965, 717.

      18 See for Tomis indices of ISM II, p. 397 and for Histria, indices of ISM I, p. 537.

      19 Unpublished lecture by the author at the annual Symposium of Constanţa Museum in 1983.

      20 Bărbulescu 2001, 120.

      21 Bărbulescu 2001, 282.

      22 Bărbulescu 2001, 283.

      23 Baumann 1983, no. 20.

      24 Bărbulescu 2001, 94.

      25 For the utilisation of the Roman army in the administration, see Zwicky 1944.