Thracian tribes in Scythia Minor

The Thracian tribe Bessoi are spoken of in Herodotus (vii, III, 22) as if they were a religious sect or subdivision of the larger Thracian trib e of Satrai—Βησσοί δὲ τῶν Σατρέων εἰσὶ οἱ προφητεύοντες τοῦ ἱροῦ (on Pangaion). Whether they were of wider distribution in the fifth-century B.C. is not known, but in the time of Livy and Pliny they seem to have been considered a large tribe. According to Pliny they lived on the left bank of the Strymon, which naturally includes their Pangaean settlement, while Strabo places them slightly further inland on Haimos—τὸ πλέον τοῦ ὄρους νέμονται τοῦ Αἵμου—and even on its northern slopes along the upper waters of the Hebros. We are thus able to identify them as being in their original home until the early years of our era. They were subdued by M. Lucullus in 72 B.C., and later by C. Octavius in 60 B.C. In 29-28 B.C. M. Licinius Crassus handed their sanctuary to the care of the Romanophil Odrysai.