Henry Fanshawe Tozer

“ During the early period of the Roman empire the Thracian kings were allowed to maintain an independent sovereignty, while acknowledging the suzerainty of Rome, and it was not until the reign of Vespasian that the country was reduced to the form of a province. ”

“ The north-eastern portion of the ^Egean, owing to its proximity to the coast of Thrace, was known as the Thracian Sea, and in this were situated the islands of Thasos, Samo thrace, and Imbros.
There is no sufficient evidence to determine the ethnological affinities of the Thracian race. Their language has perished, and the information respecting them which has come down to us hardly furnishes more than material for conjecture, so that the most that we can affirm on the subject is that they belonged to the Indo-European family. ”

“ The greater part of the country is hilly and irregular, though there are considerable plains; but besides Rhodope two other tolerably definite chains intersect it, one of which descends from Hsemus to Adrianople, while the other follows the coast of the Euxine at no great distance inland. One district in the extreme north-west of Thrace lay beyond the watershed that separates the streams that flow into the ^Egean from those that reach the Danube: this was the territory of Sardica, the modern Sophia. In the later Roman period two main lines of road passed through the country. ”