Emergence of vici

Po Polsku

Origin of the vici
Relation to traffic routes
Function of the places
Typical building structures
Changes in construction methods
Religious cults
Summary

Origin of the vici

In the first centuries AD the Latin term vicus was probably used in Moesian provinces both for the co called semi-urban settlement (without the status of a city but with significant population, well-developed industrial and/or commercial activity and /or other specific functions) and the small farming community (rural village). In the regions away from the Danube, where Greek was more popular than Latin, the respective term was usually kome. Very little archaeological research has been carried out in the late Iron Age settlements in Serbia and in northern Bulgaria. The scant information about local population settlements in the last centuries BC hinders defining precisely the changes or continuity of the settlement pattern after the establishment of the Roman rule.

More than a dozen sites in Dardania (central and southern part of Upper Moesia) and barely a few in Lower Moesia, e.g. Straja and Prisovo, however, have yielded modest evidence of opposite trends operating in the province at the time: important changes in the native, pre-Roman settlement pattern in the former case, and the survival of quite a large number of the original villages in their original locations in the latter. The komai on the Black Sea coast, occupied mostly by hellenized Thracian or Getic rural communities, also remained unaffected by the Romans. Most of the native hill-forts (refugium-like settlements) in Dardania (e.g. Lopate near statio Lamud) and possibly in the tribal territory of

Celtic Scordisci (e.g. Singidunum) and in the mountainous region between Upper and Lower Moesia were abandoned following Roman annexation. The resettled population took up residence in new villages situated in the valleys or plains where it was easier to control.

In Lower Moesia, the pre-Roman origin of at least some small rural communities is indicated by the vici and komai bearing native, Thracian, Daco-Getic or Celtic names, attested epigraphically, however, not earlier than for the period of integration in the 2nd to first half of the 3rd century AD. From the very beginning of Roman military presence on the Lower Danube, extramural settlements were established near military sites: canabae around the legionary bases and vici next to auxiliary forts. Auxiliary townships, such as Ravna (Timacum Minus) , Sexaginta Prista (Rousse), attested around AD 100, and the not much later Vicus Classicorum (Murighiol in Dobrogea), attracted enterprising civilians, first from outside Moesia, then also the natives, ready to provide for the soldiers’ needs.


Military sites	canabae	The legionary bases	Ravna (Timacum Minus)

There is no information on the evolution of auxiliary vici located on the Daco-Moesian provincial boundary after the partial demilitarization of the Danube bank following the conquest of Dacia (AD 106). Some of these settlements certainly continued to exist, e.g. the semi-urban villages near still operating auxiliary forts in the region of the Iron Gate in Karataš (Diana Cataractarum), Donji Milanovac (Taliata) and Pontes opposite Drobeta.

A substantial number of the rural communities in Dobrogea, particularly those bearing Roman names, like Ulmetum and vicus Novus, and occupied in the 2nd century by veterans and other Roman citizens, as well as the Lai and Bessi resettled from Thrace, must have been established by the Romans within the framework of a considered colonizing operation, probably shortly after the conquest of Dacia (AD 106). The purpose of the colonization, as also of the earlier resettlement actions from beyond the Danube, was undoubtedly to populate the hinterland of the limes and provide a taxable source of income, and in the longer perspective, to create a stable source of supplies and native recruits for troops stationing on the Dobrogean section of the Danubian border, as well as an efficient maintenance system for the newly-built road network. Finally, there is an important group of rural villages in Dobrogea with toponyms formed from personal names, e.g. vicus Quintionis. One is led to assume that these settlements were established on private estates, taking their names after the landowners.

Select Bibliography

- M. Barbulescu, Viata rurala în Dobrogea romana (sec. I-III p. Chr.), Constanta 2001
- V.H. Baumann, Asezari rurale antice în zona gurilor Dunarii. Contributii arheologice la cunoastera habitatului rural (sec. I-IV p. Chr.), Tulcea 1995
- V.H. Baumann, Noi sapaturi de salvare în asezarea rurala antica de la Telita-Amza, jud. Tulcea, Peuce (NS) 1, 2003, 160 - 221
- E. Cerškov, Rimljani na Kosovu i Metohiji, Beograd 1969
- E. Condurachi, Beiträge zur Frage der ländlichen Bevölkerung in der römischen Dobrudscha, Corolla memoriae E. Swoboda dedicata, Graz-Köln, 95 -104
- V.N. Dincev, Polugradskite neukrepeni selišta prez rimskata, kâsnorimskata i rannovizantijskata epocha (I - nacaloto na VII v.) v dnešnite bâlgarski zemi, Istorija 3-4, 1996, 99 -104
- V.N. Dincev, Selata v dnešnata bâlgarska teritorija prez rimskata epocha (I – kraja na III vek), Izvestija na Nacionalnija Istoriceski Muzej 11, 2000, 185 -218
- S. Dušanic, Aspects of Roman Mining in Noricum, Pannonia, Dalmatia and Moesia Superior, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 6, Berlin-New York 1977, 55 -94
- B. Gerov, Zemevladenieto v Rimska Trakija i Mizija (I-III v.), Sofia 1980
- M. Irimia, Nouvelles données concernant les habitats gétiques en Dobroudja pendant la seconde époque du fer, Pontica 13, 1980, 100 -118
- M. Mirkovic, Einheimische Bevölkerung und römische Städte in der Provinz Obermösien, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 6, Berlin-New York 1977, 811 - 848
- M. Mirkovic, Rimsko celo Bube kod Singidunuma, Starinar 39, 1988, 99 -104
- A.G. Poulter, Rural Communities (Vici and komai) and Their Role in the Organization of the Limes of Moesia Inferior, Roman Frontier Studies 1979 (= British Archaeological Reports. Intern. Series 71 III), Oxford 1980, 729 -743
- A.G. Poulter, Cataclysm on the Lower Danube: The Destruction of a Complex Roman Landscape, N. Christie (ed.), Landscapes of Change. Rural Evolutions in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Aldorshot 2004
- A. Suceveanu, Viata economica în Dobrogea romana secolele I - III e.n., Bucuresti 1977
- A. Suceveanu, Fântânele. Contributii la studiul vietii rurale în Dobrogea romana, Bucuresti 1998
- A. Suceveanu, Al. Zahariade, Un nouveau vicus sur le territoire de la Dobroudja romaine, Dacia 30, 1986, 109-120
- V. Velkov, Die Stadt und das Dorf in Südosteuropa, Actes du IIe Congrès Intern. des Études du Sud-Est Européen, Athènes 1970, 147-166
- V. Velkov, Kâm vâprosa za agrarnite otnošenija v Mizija prez II v. na n.e., Archeologija 4, 1962, 31-35

Relation to traffic routes

The growth and pattern of semi-urban and rural settlement in both Moesian
provinces in the second century AD is clearly associated with the establishment of the Roman road network and the process of its extending. This concerns especially the Danubian Plain (Lower Moesia after AD 86), which was underpopulated in the first century. The creation of the first military lines of communication (viae militares) was accompanied, no later than in Nero’sreign (AD 54-68), by the establishment of numerous road stations (mansiones) with all necessary buildings such as tabernae and praetoria mentioned in a contemporary inscription from Thrace.To believe later sources, such as the fourth-century Tabula Peutingeriana, there were as many as 10 posting stations operating on just one, hardly the longest road from Oescus to Philippopolis in Thrace. These stations (e.g. Storgosia, Melta, Sostra) have been located in the field and in the vicinity of each there is evidence of settlement; future research will presumably qualify this settlements as semi-urban villages .


semi-urban villages	rural villages in Dobrogea

The numerous rural villages in Dobrogea owed their development largely to their location near the Roman roads, although the situation had also its weaknesses. An inscription, now in the Museum of Constanta, refers to some burdensome duties imposed on the inhabitants of Chora Dagei and Laikos Pyrgos in connection with the villages’ location near a public road (via publica). The duties, which were required of the inhabitants several times in a year by the liturgiai and angareiai systems, were connected with supplying the public post (cursus publicus). Abuses by the provincial administration with regard to villages lying on the roads, and especially on the road crossings, could have been prevented sometimes by the beneficiarii consularis, soldiers detached from the legions for policing the roads. Their stations have been confirmed in some semi-urban (Socanica, Pavlikeni, Storgosia) as well as rural villages (Râmnicu de Jos - Vicus V... and Mihai Bravu - Vicus Bad...).


Socanica	Pavlikeni

Select Bibliography

- M. Barbulescu, Viata rurala în Dobrogea romana (sec. I-III p. Chr.), Constanta 2001
- V.H. Baumann, Asezari rurale antice în zona gurilor Dunarii. Contributii arheologice la cunoastera habitatului rural (sec. I-IV p. Chr.), Tulcea 1995
- E. Cerškov, Rimljani na Kosovu i Metohiji, Beograd 1969
- V.N. Dincev, Polugradskite neukrepeni selišta prez rimskata, kâsnorimskata i rannovizantijskata epocha (I - nacaloto na VII v.) v dnešnite bâlgarski zemi, Istorija 3-4, 1996, 99 -104
- V.N. Dincev, Selata v dnešnata bâlgarska teritorija prez rimskata epocha (I – kraja na III vek), Izvestija na Nacionalnija Istoriceski Muzej 11, 2000, 185 -218
- K. Docev, Stari rimski pâtišta v Centralna Dolna Mizija (II-IV v. sl. Chr.), Sbornik Rjahovec. Veliko Târnovo-G. Orjahovica 1994, 61 -76
- B. Gerov, Zemevladenieto v Rimska Trakija i Mizija (I - III v.), Sofia 1980
- M. Madžarov, Rimskijat pât Eskus-Filipopol. Pâtni stancii i selišta, Plovdiv 2004
- M. Mirkovic, Einheimische Bevölkerung und römische Städte in der Provinz Obermösien, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 6, Berlin-New York 1977, 811 - 848
- A.G. Poulter, Rural Communities (Vici and komai) and Their Role in the Organization of the Limes of Moesia Inferior, Roman Frontier Studies 1979 (= British Archaeological Reports. Intern. Series 71 III), Oxford 1980, 729 -743
- A.G. Poulter, Cataclysm on the Lower Danube: The Destruction of a Complex Roman Landscape, N. Christie (ed.), Landscapes of Change. Rural Evolutions in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Aldorshot 2004
- A. Suceveanu, Viata economica în Dobrogea romana secolele I-III e.n., Bucuresti 1977
- A. Suceveanu, Fântânele. Contributii la studiul vietii rurale în Dobrogea romana, Bucuresti 1998
- Y. Todorov, Le grandi strade romane in Bulgaria, Roma 1937
- S. Torbatov, The Roman Road Durostorum – Marcianopolis, Archaeologia Bulgarica 4, 2000, 59 - 72

Function of the places

Considering that few Moesian vici have so far been „sampled” either by field walking or rescue digs, and none has yet been excavated in full (cf. Pavlikeni as one possible exception),


field walking or rescue digs	Pavlikeni

we are forced to draw conclusions on their role in the life of the province mainly on the grounds of analyses of the following data: location and geographical distribution; social, ethnic and professional make-up of the population ; practiced religious cults ; toponymy ; evidence of various agricultural and industrial activities; finds of tools and the presence of structures of special purpose.

The following categories of vici can be distinguished based on the location of these non-municipal settlements in the two Moesian provinces:

1. Extramural vici near existing or evacuated auxiliary forts (ex. Timacum Minus , Taliata, Sexaginta Prista);
2. Vici distant about 2 km (= 1 leuga) from legionary fortresses) (ex. Ostrite Mogili municipalized as Municipium Novensium; Ostrov municipalized as Municipium Aurelium Durostorum);
3. Vici around road stations (mansiones) (ex. Storgosia , Granicak);
4. Vici in mining districts (ex. vici metalli of Socanica, Jezero, Stojnik);
5. Vici near local market centres (ex. Butovo / Emporium Piretensium)
6. Vici near production centres (ex. Butovo, Pavlikeni);
7. Vici near hot-water springs, sometimes developed into spa-resorts (ex. Vrban);
8. Vici near native religious sites (ex. Pleven / Storgosia - probably the main settlement in the territorium Dianensium, Vicus Casianum);
9. Vici on the river Danube or on the sea shore (ex. Vicus Amlaidina, Vicus Classicorum);
10. Vici in farming lands and villa zones (ex. Fântânele, Prisovo, Kamen).

Villages from the first five categories were semi-urban in character and occasionally fully deserving of the designation of small town or township (cf. Ostrite Mogili and Ravna. Their location with regard to other settlement or administrative units or centres determined their function, e.g. commerce, industry, services, crafts.


Ostrite Mogili	Ravna

Starting from the second half of the first century AD, some of the vici existing near former (possibly Pincum and Tricornium) or still functioning forts occupied by auxiliary troops (Dimum ?, Timacum Minus ?),


Timacum Minus	capita civitatium

likely took over the function of centres (capita civitatium) of civilian territorial organization as tribal capitals. Vici of the fifth and sixth category listed above, lying in the territory of Nicopolis ad Istrum, played an important role not only as places for large-scale local and regional production (Butovo, Pavlikeni), but also as trade centres (Butovo). The pottery workshops at Pavlikeni were operated not only by the inhabitants, but also presumably by slaves.


Nicopolis ad Istrum	Pavlikeni

The present state of knowledge provides the most extensive information on vici of the last two categories. The inhabitants of at least some of the vici on the Danube or Black Sea coast understandably must have been involved in fishing, shipping and commerce; testifying to this, for example, is the name of a settlement in Dobrogea (Vicus Clasicorum) and the presence of a sailing corporation (nautae universi Danuvii) in another village (Axiopolis). Two religious dedications from a vicus near Durostorum are very meaningful in this respect: one was to Mercury, the Roman deity of trade, and the other to the Winds (Flattoribus Ventis) and the Good Gust of Wind (Bono Flanti).
Epigraphical evidence concerns mostly rural villages, which regardless of origin were usually small communities dependent on the exploitation of their territories (terrae vici). They usually operated a mixed agricultural and pastoral economy. Traditional occupations of farming, often enough with grain cultivation on a medium scale, are signaled not only by finds of agricultural
implements; some villages had small substantial granaries (Mihai Bravu, Kurt Bair), others have yielded religious dedications to „agricultural” deities (Silvanus Sator, Ceres, Liber Pater), and the gravestone of one of the inhabitants of Vicus Ulmetum in Dobrogea depicts the ploughing of fields and the tending of a flock of sheep.

The inhabitants of a few rural villages (ex. Kamen, Credinta, Niculitel, Vicus Ulmetum) engaged in industrial activity, usually conducted on a small domestic scale, pottery production, ore smelting and iron working.
In keeping with a practice known from other provinces, the vici located near the more important roads had to fill duties connected with road maintenance and the operation of the public post (cursus publicus).

Epigraphic documentation of this phenomenon in the mid second century AD in Lower Moesia refers to the Dobrogean villages of Chora Dagei and Laikos Pyrgos.
The geographical distribution of rural vici attested epigraphically,
demonstrating a concentration in Dobrogea, suggests that contrary to the other parts of the two Moesian provinces, which presumably enjoyed a greater share of big land estates left in state, imperial and private hands, the Dobrogean villages played an important role in the system of supplying the troops stationed along the Lower Danubian limes.


Dobrogea	other parts of the two Moesian provinces

Select Bibliography

- M. Barbulescu, Viata rurala în Dobrogea romana (sec. I-III p. Chr.), Constanta 2001
- E. Cerškov, Rimljani na Kosovu i Metohiji, Beograd 1969
- E. Condurachi, Beiträge zur Frage der ländlichen Bevölkerung in der römischen Dobrudscha, Corolla memoriae E. Swoboda dedicata, Graz-Köln, 95 -104
- V.N. Dincev, Polugradskite neukrepeni selišta prez rimskata, kâsnorimskata i rannovizantijskata epocha (I- nacaloto na VII v.) v dnešnite bâlgarski zemi, Istorija 3-4, 1996, 99 -104
- V.N. Dincev, Selata v dnešnata bâlgarska teritorija prez rimskata epocha (I – kraja na III vek), Izvestija na Nacionalnija Istoriceski Muzej 11, 2000, 185 - 218
- S. Dušanic, Aspects of Roman Mining in Noricum, Pannonia, Dalmatia and Moesia Superior, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 6, Berlin-New York 1977, 55 - 94
- B. Gerov, Zemevladenieto v Rimska Trakija i Mizija (I-III v.), Sofia 1980
- M. Madžarov, Rimskijat pât Eskus-Filipopol. Pâtni stancii i selišta, Plovdiv 2004
- M. Mirkovic, Einheimische Bevölkerung und römische Städte in der Provinz Obermösien, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 6, Berlin-New York 1977, 811 - 848
- A.G. Poulter, Rural Communities (Vici and komai) and Their Role in the Organization of the Limes of Moesia Inferior, Roman Frontier Studies 1979 (= British Archaeological Reports. Intern. Series 71 III), Oxford 1980, 729 -743
- A.G. Poulter, Cataclysm on the Lower Danube: The Destruction of a Complex Roman Landscape, N. Christie (ed.), Landscapes of Change. Rural Evolutions in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Aldorshot 2004
- A. Suceveanu, Viata economica în Dobrogea romana secolele I-III e.n., Bucuresti 1977
- A. Suceveanu, Fântânele. Contributii la studiul vietii rurale în Dobrogea romana Bucuresti 1998
- V. Velkov, Die Stadt und das Dorf in Südosteuropa, Actes du IIe Congrès Intern. des Études du Sud-Est Européen, Athènes 1970, 147 - 166

Typical building structures

Our knowledge of typical building structures from vici of different origins and function in Upper and Lower Moesia is largely imperfect and it can hardly be otherwise considering how relatively few regular excavations have been carried out. Indeed, most of the work has been of a salvage nature.
Finds of inscribed stones have provided additional information. Public buildings erected in the settlements were mentioned in a few Latin and Greek building inscriptions, originating from the Lower and Upper Moesian vici. Temples of Diana, Antinous, Terra Mater and Jupiter Dolichenus are attested epigraphically by building inscriptions or dedications from semi-urban villages at Ravna (Timacum Minus), Socanica and Jezero in Upper Moesia and from a rural settlement near Niculitel in the Dobrogean part of Lower Moesia. One of the temples attested epigraphically was excavated (the temple to Antinous at Socanica).


Timacum Minus	Socanica

The presence of a temple or chapel at a given location could be deduced occasionally from a concentration of religious dedications devoted to a single deity found at one site (ex. dedications to oriental deities Mithras and Jupiter Dolichenus in Ravna – Timacum Minus) or the mention in an inscription of a religious society (ex. in Vicus Clementianensis and in Butovo). The largest number of investigated structures and inscriptions mentioning public buildings either erected or refurbished, comes from the Dobrogean part of Lower Moesia (modern Romania), considerably less are known from Upper Moesia and there is virtually no evidence available to date from the north Danubian Plain (today northern Bulgaria).
There is epigraphical confirmation of three public structures in three of the rural vici from the territory of modern-day Dobrogea:

Dobrogea

an auditorium or assembly hall in the vicus Quintionis in the countryside (chora) of Histria, which served the needs of not only the elected officials (magistri vici), but probably also other representatives of the inhabitants (veterani et cives Romani et Bessi consistentes ) of a settlement clearly boasting quasi- or premunicipal organization; a balineum or bath in the vicus Petra in central northern Dobrogea, erected by the vicani Petrenses “for the health of the body” (causa salutis corporis); an abitorion at Carnaruf near Histria, a structure of unknown function, believed by some to be an outdoor toilet facility. According to an inscription from Sinoe-Casapchioi (vicus Quintionis), the auditorium there was rebuilt in the reign of Antoninus Pius (AD 138-161), which could mean that it had been in operation at an earlier date already.

None of the buildings mentioned in the second and third century inscriptions from Dobrogea has been excavated so far. We are entitled to assume, however, that the village assembly halls, wherever they actually existed, could not have been much different from Building D in the Romano-Getic settlement of Telita-Amza in northern Dobrogea. This structure, which covered an area of over 130 m2, consisted of two small rooms located symmetrically on either side of the entrance, and a big rectangular room in the back (7.15 by 9.70 m), divided symmetrically into three aisles by two rows of three supports (columns ?). The discoverers presumed the existence of columns in the entrance, which measured 3.20 m in width. The pavement in this building was of stone.

As in other frontier provinces in Europe, so on the Lower Danube, baths (thermae) in semi-urban vici lying near the auxiliary forts were what one might call a canonical building structure. Inscriptions found at Rousse in Bulgaria and at Karataš in Serbia speak of such buildings in Sexaginta Prista and Diana Cataractarum. Two bath-houses were excavated in Ravna (Timacum Minus) and one in Donji Milanovac (Taliata). There is no way to estimate, however, to what extent the rural landscape of Moesian vici was dotted with similar public baths. Perhaps clay water-pipe systems, such as those found at Pavlikeni , also supplied modest village balinea with water.


Timacum Minus	Pavlikeni

The presently known homesteads from the Moesian rural villages can be divided into a number of types. The most modest of the huts are similar to the late Iron Age Grubenhäuser (sunken-floored huts). These single-room, usually oval, but occasionally rectangular and trapezoidal habitations found in a few Dobrogean vici, had a surface area ranging from 9 to 20 m2.

In the first and early second century AD settlement at Telita-Amza, the huts formed small groups of two or three, set some 50 m apart as a rule. They were sunk a few dozen centimeters into the ground. A massive post in the center suggests a conical roof supported on low walls; without a central post, the hut appeared more like an ordinary shelter. Interior furnishings (features and installations) included storage pits, earth platforms (for sleeping ?) and fireplaces. The latter were occasionally built outside the huts

Considering mentions of Troglodytae (Troglodytai), whom Strabo, Pliny and Ptolemy all reported among the peoples inhabiting eastern Moesia in the first century AD, one is led to believe, based also on the etymology of the name, that at least some of the local population lived seasonally in caves. This is an archaeologically confirmed fact for the pre-Roman period. It is possible, however, that the name referred to people who were still actually living in huts sunk in the loess at the beginning of the Roman period.
In the second and third century AD, the inhabitants of rural settlements in Dobrogea and on the Danubian Plain generally lived in farmhouses. The evolution of this form is well exemplified by investigations carried out in the settlement of Fântânele situated in the countryside of the Greek colony of Histria.

Prior to being destroyed at the end of the second century AD, Dwelling a was a rectangular building, consisting of a courtyard (a) and two small rooms (b, c). The courtyard could have been taken up in part by a roofed portico supported on stone columns; eight small limestone column bases were found, unfortunately not in situ, along with two shaft fragments and one capital. A structure found near the southeastern corner, of which merely two short sections of walls survive, must have served as a sort of outbuilding. The alleged presence of a portico in the farmhouse of the first phase (c. AD 150) suggested to the discoverer the potential influence of Hellenistic domestic architecture.

In phase II, the building developed into a block measuring 30 by 11.75 m. It then incorporated four clearly distinct parts: a residential quarter supplemented by a large cooking area and dining room (g), and a domestic part consisting primarily of a semi-open stockyard (h) and small storeroom ? (i).

At approximately the same time, the closely set buildings of a settlement discovered in Kurt Baiîr near the modern locality of Slava Cercheza in central northern Dobrogea were block-like (or single-body) rectangular structures, measuring respectively 85 and 147 m2 in area. Living and domestic quarters, ranging in number from one to three, in the back part of the complex, were preceded by a kind of long gallery in front. A grand entrance with two columns was featured in one of the buildings. With time, a small room (e) was built, joining the two structures into one complex, which by then also included a separate outbuilding in the form of a rectangular stone-paved granary.

In the Danubian Plain, a plan similar to the one described above was demonstrated by some homesteads in the settlement that arose around the villa in Pavlikeni, which specialized in ceramic vessel production. The same plan was also to be discerned in the remains explored in the settlement at Kamen, this and the previous site being both situated in the rural hinterland of Nicopolis ad Istrum.

Most of the buildings combining living and domestic functions in one enclosure, which are known from present-day northern Bulgaria, resemble the villa-farms with big open courtyards surrounded by rows of rectangular rooms developing one after the other. A typical example is a building from Prisovo, a settlement located south of Nicopolis ad Istrum . The structure occupied an area of 22.5 by 24 m and incorporated a courtyard with alleged portico on the northern side, storeroom (4) and what were evidently living quarters (2, 3, 6), as well as domestic units (1, 7, 9, 10); it also contained a heated bathroom featuring a hypocaust system (5). A similar installation was also found at the biggest villa-like building discovered at Vârbovska Reka in Pavlikeni.

In the semi-urban settlement at Stojnik in the mining district of Kosmaj in Upper Moesia some of the houses were also equipped with hypocaust heeting and decorated with frescos.
The total area of rural vicus-sites in northern Bulgaria and in Dobrogea is significant; they often cover an area of about or even over 10 ha. There were roadside villages (ex. Fântânele) and settlements with more or less isolated farmhouses of peasant renters situated among parcels of arable land (ex. Kamen).


Fântânele	Kamen

Drawing an analogy from the adjacent territories of the Roman province Thracia it can be speculated that the unifying components of such vici were their common tumulus cemeteries and, possibly, isolated sanctuaries. The sanctuaries, when there any (ex. Vicus Casianum), were in the villages periphery or at a certain distance from them. Such seem to be the vicus-sites at Goljama Brestnica (Longinopara ?), Prisovo, Gorsko Ablanovo, Niculitel, Telita-Amza, Sarichioi and Sveti Nikola.

Select Bibliography

Changes in construction methods

The only 1st and early 2nd century AD building structures from the Moesian vici, of which we have knowledge that is more substantial, are the huts with sunken floors (Grubenhäuser) in the settlement at Telita-Amza in Dobrogea.

Made of impermanent materials, namely wood, branches and clay, they were constructed in a manner that did not differ substantially from the later Iron Age habitations of the population living both to the north and south of the lower course of Danube. The huts were of two kinds: with a central post and without, but in all cases the floors were sunken up to a few dozen centimeters below ground level. The post was made of a tree trunk, while smaller stakes around the circumference formed the framework for the wattle-and-daub walls.

Stake-holes in huts without walls testify to a conical roof construction made of thatch, reed and branches, and sealed with daub. A similar roof but supported on a central post covered huts with low walls.

In the second and early third centuries AD, the sites of Telita-Amza and Prisovo (which had probably started out in the later Iron Age as native hamlet-like settlements with modest huts) developed into well-organized villages with at least a few romanized farmhouses each. The settlements at Fântânele Prisovo and Kamen Prisovo must have become vici of this sort, too, around AD 200. Their appearance must have been very much like that of second-century settlements, which grew on villa estates, as in Pavlikeni, for example.


Fântânele Prisovo	Kamen Prisovo	Pavlikeni

One of the characteristic elements of changing construction was, among others, the increasingly frequent use of stone in the pavements of some buildings and outbuildings, as well as in wall foundations. Another newly introduced element were bricks and roof tiles fired in relatively high temperatures, used alongside mud brick. Thus, stone appears as a building material even in the principally wooden sunken-floored huts of the first and early second century. At Sarichioi in northeastern Dobrogea, the roof supports in the entrances to the local sunken-floored huts were made of stone.

In the end of the second and in the early third century, and in Dobrogea even around the middle of the second century, the farmhouse-like homesteads in the Moesian rural vici were erected on stone foundations, typically raised some 20 to 30 cm above ground level and forming a kind of base straight on the ground. Broken sandstone, limestone and argillaceous slate from local outcrops was almost invariably earth-bonded. Possibly under the influence of villa architecture, which had already become heavily romanized at an earlier date, in some of the vici the bearing walls of the bigger homesteads (perhaps high-status dwellings) had stone foundations sunk up to 50 cm into the ground (e.g. Prisovo). The use of lime mortar was noted in a few cases, as well as the presence of small quantities of lime in the bonding material (vicus Petra in Dobrogea, Kamen and Prisovo on the Danubian Plain);


The farmhouse in Prisovo	Kamen	Prisovo

these were prepared according to requirements, as evidenced by a square pit containing more than 4 m3 of lime, discovered 9 m from the farmhouse in Prisovo. The thickness of bearing walls was 0.50-0.65 m and 0.80 m (exceptionally in Kamen), while partition walls were about 0.45 m thick. Low foundations or substructures supported walls erected of either mud brick or wattle-and-daub, or tamped loess or clay in boarding formwork. The substructure of one of the partition walls in Prisovo included rectangular kiln-baked bricks with holes a few centimeters deep used to mount the vertical elements of a wooden wall framework. Walls constructed in this manner were capable of supporting not only a mud-coated roof of thatch, straw or branches, but also the much heavier roofs made of fired tiles.

The roofing-tiles in use, usually c. 2.5 cm thick, included the flat type with flanges (tegulae cum marginibus) as well as a gently arched so-called Laconian type. The width of these roof tiles ranged from 27 to 39 cm, the length from 43 to 69 cm. The usually semi cylindrical cover-tiles (imbrices or calypteroi, to use a Greek term), which usually joined the tiles at the top, were of appropriate length. The diameter of these tiles was from 12 to 18 cm. The technological revolution that occurred under Roman influence – also impacted by the Greeks in the coastal areas - was reflected in the common use of wrought iron nails, from 6.5 to 18 cm long, in the wooden structure of the roof.


Pavlikeni	Prisovo

Kiln-baked bricks of square and rectangular shape were also used for the hypocaust heating (Prisovo, Pavlikeni ), in the body of a furnace (?) for heating purposes (Fântânele) and in a pavement (Kamen). Their length did not exceed 34 and the width 17 cm, while the thickness usually oscillated around 4 cm. Bricks did not follow strictly the Roman standards of size based on the foot = 0.296 m and referred more frequently to the Greek linear standards. Bricks used for the pillars (pilae) supporting the suspensura, i.e. the floor suspended above the hypocaust, in Prisovo were up to 8 cm thick. At Pavlikeni warm air circulated in the hypocaust cellar between vertical water-pipes which successfully replaced brick pillars under the floor.

Room 5 in the villa-like building at Prisovo also had heated walls. The heated inner face of the wall made of ceramic tiles was separated from the stone outer walls by ceramic bobbins attached using T-shaped elements.

At a few Dobrogean vicus-sites (Târgusor, vicus near Capidava and Rasova-La Pescarie), situated relatively near the limes on the Danube, and at Butovo on the Danubian Plain, as well as in the municipalized vicus at Ostrit e Mogili (Municipium Novensium), the bricks and roofing-tiles found there bear the stamps of Moesian legions and auxiliary troops. This could possibly correspond to the presence in many vici of discharged soldiers, a fact evidenced in inscriptions and by finds of military diplomas.

Around AD 200, some of the inhabitants of the Moesian rural vici lived in houses of relatively high standard, often resembling villas, which they doubtless wished to emulate. Testifying to this are fragments of painted plaster from Prisovo, marble elements of interior decoration from Izvorul Mare and Capul Tuzla, stone bases and column shafts from Fântânele, Kurt Baiîr near Slava Cercheza, Ivrinezu Mic, and the window glass from Fântânele. In some of the vici, masonry wells and water-source facilities were supplemented with local water-supply systems making use of clay and occasionally even leaden pipes, the latter as in Botevo, for example, situated on the border between Upper and Lower Moesia.


Houses of relatively high standard	pipes

Select Bibliography

Religious cults in vici

The vicus is best evidenced for Moesia Inferior and within its boundaries for Dobrogea ; it even determines a certain specificity of the province. Testimony from Upper Moesia is sporadic, although there is no way of knowing how little or many of the sources have survived. Therefore, the below reflections on the religious cults of vicus inhabitants are largely relevant to Lower Moesia.

Surviving religious dedications are mostly of official character. Those erecting them were either vicus officials (mostly magistri), or else specific groups of inhabitants (all of the residents?) of a given vicus upon the initiative of their officials. This state of affairs was reflected in the designations cives Romani consistentes (settlers with Roman citizienship), veterani et cives Romani consistentes (military settlers and settlers with Roman citizenship), and veterani et cives Romani et Lai and/or Bessi consistentes (military settlers and settlers with Roman citizenship and the Lai and/or Bessi), vicani (vicus inhabitants) or Viconovenses (inhabitants of Vicus Novus). Even so, there is no lack of inscriptions whose founders were private individuals, acting upon their own initiative.
Heading the ranking of worshipped deities is Jupiter (Juppiter Optimus Maximus). As a phenomenon, it is only natural, considering the “official” character of the inscriptions. Jupiter symbolized the Roman state and religious manifestations of homage to him were an expression of state loyalty. At the same time, they may have been deemed a way of emphasizing the legal and political status of the migrant population versus the autochthons. Juno (Iuno Regina) also occurs in the inscriptions next to Jupiter, although surprisingly seldom (four dedications from vicus Ulmetum, three from vicus Secundini, one each from vicus Celeris, Turris Mucaporis, vicus Tautiomosis). Not once is there any mention of Minerva, the third of the Capitoline divinities. Perhaps the distinct emphasis on the Jupiter cult reflected a religious veneration of the ruler, whose identification with Jupiter hardly needed special justification. It should be made clear that a substantial part of the surviving inscriptions were dedicated to Jupiter (and possibly to Juno) “for the safety” (pro salute) of the reigning emperor (two dedications from vicus Trullensium, one each from vicus Ulmetum, vicus Quintionis, vicus Secundini).

Jupiter occurred also in association with other deities. In vicus Quintionis he was identified with the Dolichenian Baal as Iuppiter Dolichenus. At Vicus Ulmetum he was accompanied by Silvanus, who appears to have enjoyed special popularity there. Also at Ulmetum Jupiter was worshipped together with Hercules. At Giridava a votum was dedicated to Jupiter the Best and Greatest and to all other gods and goddesses. From Topalu in Dobrogea, where an ancient vicus of unidentified name was localized, there comes a dedication to Jupiter associated with Juno and Ceres Frugifera. The same goddess (Ceres Frugifera) was mentioned in an inscription from Tropaeum Traiani along with Jupiter, Hercules Invictus and Liber Pater.

Deities occurring “independently”, that is, not in connection with Jupiter or Juno are very rare. The worship of Liber (Liber Pater), an agricultural deity, identified with Dionysus (Bacchus) is hardly surprising. From Troesmis comes an altar dedicated to Jupiter and Liber Pater (Dionysus); similarly from Tropaeum Traiani, there is one inscription mentioning Liber Pater next to Jupiter associated with Hercules and Ceres, and another one in which he is mentioned alone. Naturally, dedications to Ceres (Ceres Frugifera) should also be linked with the Liber Pater milieu. Undoubtedly close was the worship of Silvanus, patron of the forests, but also of fields and pastures. Evidenced in Vicus Ulmetum is an association (cultores) of the worshippers of this god with the attribute “Sower” (Sator) and Sanctus. Further, a collegium Silvani operated at Neatârnea in central Dobrogea. Evidence of a worship of this deity was also recorded at Vicus Quintionis, where he appeared together with the Nymphs.

Hercules is frequently seen in Jupiter’s company (Tropaeum Traiani, Vicus Ulmetum), but there is no dearth of dedications referring to him alone Vicus Quintionis, Sendreni). A Vicus from the vicinity of Durostorum yielded an inscription in homage of Mercury with the attribute Sanctus. A unique altar found there was dedicated to the Auspicious Winds and the Good Gust of Wind. In one case, we also find Mithra, mentioned as Deus Bonus Mithra, and similarly Diana as Diana Optima.

Deities of Thracian origin, like the Thracian Heros, Sabasios or Megas Theos are evidenced mostly by representations on votive tablets from numerous vicus-sites in Dobrogea, northern Bulgaria, but also in Serbia. Only twice is there epigraphical evidence in the attested vici of the cult of the Thracian Heros. The first is an inscription from Vicus Trullensium, the second is from Vicus Ulmetum. In a Thracian rural sanctuary in V. Târnovo-Dâlga Lâka, south of Nicopolis ad Istrum, there was found recently, however, a marble votive tablet showing the Thracian horseman and bearing a Greek dedication to Heros. It says that the votum was dedicated by the village (kome) with Thracian name Theolopara.

The population of Thracian origin, like the Bessi and Lai in the Dobrogean vici Ulmetum, Secundini and Quintionis, for example, was probably striving simultaneously for full assimilation (at least in official religious manifestations) in order to identify with broadly understood Romanity. An excellent example of such an attitude is provided by the votive altars from vicus Quintionis, erected by the inhabitants regularly during celebrations of the Italic feast of the Rosalia on June 13.

Select Bibliography

- M. Barbulescu, Viata rurala în Dobrogea romana (sec. I-III p. Chr.), Constanta 2001
- I. Cârov, Niakoi aspekti na kulta kâm Trakijskija Konnik v regio Nicopolitana, Izvestija na Istoriceski Muzej – V. Târnovo 14, 1999, 78 - 87
- B. Gerov, Zemevladenieto v Rimska Trakija i Mizija (I-III v.), Sofia 1980
- E. Cerškov, Municipium DD kod Socanice, Beograd 1970
- T. Gerasimov, Edin chram na Trakijskija bog-konnik pri s. Lesiceri, Târnovsko, Studia in honorem K. Škorpil, Sofia 1961, 245 - 253
- Z. Goceva, M. Oppermann, Corpus Cultus Equitis Thracii, II1, II2, Leiden 1981, 1984
- G. Kacarov, Thrake (Religion), Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, VI A, Stuttgart 1936, 472 - 551
- G. Kacarov, Die Denkmäler des Trakischen Reitergottes in Bulgarien (Dissertationes Pannonicae II 14), Budapest 1938
- K. Konstantinov, Trakijsko svetilište pri s. Draganovec, Târgoviško. Trakijski svetilišta. Trakijski pametnici (Monumenta Thraciae antiquae), II, Sofia 1980
- D. Ovcarov, Trako-rimsko selište i svetilište na Apolon pri s. Gorno Ablanovo, Târgiviško, Archeologija 14, 1972, 46 - 55
- P. Petrovic, Inscriptions de la Mésie Supérieure. III 2. Timacum Minus et la Vallée du Timok, Beograd 1995
- A. Suceveanu, Fântânele. Contributii la studiul vietii rurale în Dobrogea romana Bucuresti 1998
- A. Suceveanu, Al. Zahariade, Un nouveau vicus sur le territoire de la Dobroudja romaine, Dacia 30, 1986, 109 - 120
- J. Todorov, Paganizmât v Dolna Mizija (prez pârvite tri veka sled Christa), Sofia 1928

Summary

Despite its fragmentariness, the panorama of Moesian townships and villages, which emerges from an analysis of available evidence, seems familiar enough. It also illustrates perfectly well the Roman Empire’s role in the cultural development of the eastern and central European provinces. For a variety of reasons, the urbanization of the North Balkans with its distinctly pastoral model of economy before the arrival of the Romans was much more limited than in neighbouring Pannonia or Noricum (modern Hungary and Austria), for
example; civilizational and cultural advancement in vast areas of modern Serbia, Bulgaria and Romanian Dobrogea in the first centuries AD was dependent primarily on the introduction and promotion of new forms of rural settlement in these regions. An extremely important role in this process, clearly stimulated by the Roman provincial administration, was played by the rural, as well as semi-urban vici . They changed the landscape and the economic status of a significant part of the Moesian provinces. It turned out that even after the Romans had settled, in the first century AD, large tribal groups of barbarians from beyond the Empire’s borders on the Lower Danube, these vast lands were still capable of accepting many new settlers, for example, from the overpopulated coasts of Asia Minor, creating for them an attractive perspective of profitable economic enterprises and practically universal development. All benefited from this situation, including the state, because with suitable taxing the population of the province ensured not only economic self-sufficiency, but also the security of supplies for the thousands of Roman soldiers stationed on the limes .

In the geographic and climatic conditions of Moesia, at least some of the vici and komai offered apparently an attractive alternative to urban life. The demography of many townships and villages stands in proof, the local population being composed of not only Thracians resettled from the south of modern Bulgaria already in the first years of Roman presence on the Lower Danube and Getae of local origin as well as resettled from beyond the Danube in the first century AD. Also making up the population of hese settlements were numerous veterans and civilians coming in mostly from the Greek-speaking lands of the Empire. Just as the cultural status of the western provinces was shaped foremost by the cities with their essential rural territories full of villas and vici, so on the Lower Danube the small rural vici and komai , much more distant from the cities and legionary bases than, for instance, in the German provinces or in Britain, played a much more important role. In the bilingual or trilingual (Greek, Latin and Geto -Thracian) quasi-municipal local communities, ethnic differences were gradually eradicated. With the coming of a new mentality and a largely new world outlook and system of values, this process led to the formation of a common, Roman-provincial culture. For veterans and other newcomers from culturally more advanced areas of the Empire settling in the Moesian villages, the vici were primarily a place where they could put into life their family plans or get wealthy.
For the native residents, the vici became a place for education, in languages, economy and technical know-how, as well as in self-government and the organization of a varied social, cultural and religiouslife. The specificity of these local communities within the greater cultural community of the northern provinces of the Roman Empire depended on the considerable input of the Greek-speaking element and a considerable variety of forms of social life.