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. This prophetic role of the Bessi in the cult has led many scholars to suggest that they may have initially represented a priestly-caste within the greater Satrae tribal group, and that membership into the community was intrinsically entwined with their cultic role and maintenance of the sanctuary of Dionysus. 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. The aforementioned tribal group was believed by Strabo to have been the same as that of the Bessi, which he also refers to by the name of
Tetrakomai. According to a modern reading of the sources, however, it is possible that the Tetrachoritai and other Thracian groups associated with the Bessi were originally smaller tribes that later became a part of a Bessian-led tribal conglomerate, on the other hand, it is also possible that the tribal designation of
Bessi (and its variations) later came to bear no true ethnic meaning and was applied by classical sources to a range of different Thracian tribes inhabiting the highlands of south-western Thrace. Likewise, the
Dii are believed to be related to the Bessi as
Pliny the Elder records the ethnonym
Diobessoi. Later in 184 or 183 BCE, the Bessi appear as among the Thracian tribes that were attacked by
Philip V of Macedon. The Macedonian king had managed to push into the valley of the Hébros and captured Philippopolis, installing a garrison which was later driven out by the Odrysians. The Bessi would achieve their greatest prominence in the historical record in their conflicts with the expanding Roman state and the formation of
Roman Macedonia in 146 BCE. 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]). A virtually identical statue is also noted as having been erected in
Europus. The disparate locations of these statues suggests that the conflict was geographically broad and also attests to the military mobility of the Bessi, the inscriptions also present a change in the presentation of the Bessi, who are depicted as the most notable among the Thracians. 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. In 29–8 BCE, the sacred sanctuary of Dionysus was taken from the Bessi by
Marcus Licinius Crassus and given to the Odrysians, rivals of the Bessi and allies of the Romans. In response, the priest Vologaesus rallied the Bessi in c. 15–1 BCE, and managed to win a number of military victories against the Odrysian nobles Rhascyporis and Rhoemetacles. This conflict further supports the thesis that the identity of the Bessi prior to complete Roman subjugation was strongly linked and rooted to the sanctuary of Dionysus, and that their rivalry with the neighbouring pro-Roman Thracians strengthened this tribal and geographic identity. According to Appian, the Bessi surrendered themselves to
Augustus. As a result of their opposition to the Romans, there was a shift in the depiction of the Bessi which emphasised their war-like and predatory natures. As such, Strabo refers to the tribe as being "called brigands even by the brigands". 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. The ethnonym of the Bessi became less associated with the core tribe and their original geographic location, it became an identity that was readily abstracted onto the inhabitants of the south-eastern Balkans. As a result of their conflicts with the Romans, a portion of the Bessi were forcibly resettled in the region of
Dobruja, with the poet
Ovid noting a community of Bessi living near
Tomis. 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. One explanation for the significant presence of the Bessi in the navy maintains that they were from the branch that had been resettled in Dobruja and thus had become accustomed to sailing; however, the fact that the Bessian sailors did not reach high ranks within the navy suggests that they likely had no prior experience in seafaring. Thus, it is possible that the presence of the Bessi can simply be attributed to a larger population size during the time of mass recruitment under
Nero and
Domitian, the latter of which was preparing for a
war in Dacia. However, traditional scholarship has argued that during the Roman period
Bessi became a synonym for all Thracians living south of the
Danube and thus the tribal name did not bear an ethnic meaning. Hence why the
Byzantine author
Kekaumenos wrote that the
Vlachs stem from the
Dacians and Bessi who had migrated from their homeland between the Danube and
Sava, and into
Epirus,
Macedonia, and
Hellas. The name
Bessi and its related variations appear across the Balkans, particularly during the Roman period.
Bessus is attested among the ancient locals of the area around modern
Pljevlja and
Prijepolje. It also appears in the Roman veteran legionary settlements of Scupi (
Colonia Flavia Aelia Scupi) and
Aprus (
Colonia Claudia Apri). In Dacia it appears in several sites, including
Sarmizegetusa Regia,
Banatska Palanka, and
Apulum. == Christianization ==