environs of Pella.^85 Pikoulas has also investigated roads in the area of
Mount Pangaion, partly for comparative purposes, including the possible
routes of the Persian‘royal road’.^86 East of the Strymon, more than a
century of work on Roman roads in the east Balkan area has been
collated and developed by Mitko Madjarov, whose synthesis includes
important remarks about routes throughout the region prior to the
Roman network. In the Thracian Plain, as in Rhodope, there is plentiful
evidence of the kinds of routes that preceded the formal planning of the
Roman network. In the central plain, there is in many cases a close
enough correspondence between the location of Iron Age sites and the
lines of Roman roads to indicate the probable routes that existed, even
when actual roads cannot be identified with certainty, particularly in
view of changes in the bed of the River Hebros (Maritsa) dating to this
very period.^87
In Rhodope, there were three principal road routes to the Aegean,
which have been studied with considerable confidence on the ground—a
western one, from Bessapara (Sinitovo), west of Philippopolis, to Dospat,
branching thence either westwards to Nicopolis ad Nestum and south to
Philippoi, or south via Dospat in the direction of Drama; a central road,
due south of Philippopolis, passing the Persenk peak (2,074 m), through
modern Smolyan to the Drama plain; and an eastern road, through
Assenovgrad and the Topolovo defile, past the peak of Sini Vruh
(1,537 m), where it bent westwards in the vicinity of the Iron Age sites
of Pavelsko and Luki, to resume a southerly course through Momchil-
grad, in the direction of Abdera. All of these roads superseded earlier
Iron Age routes through Rhodope.^88 In the higher mountain ranges these
undoubtedly became mule tracks rather than roads.
Perhaps the most intriguing questions about roads focus on the
references to the waiving of taxes on road traffic, as stipulated in the
Pistiros inscription found as Asar dere, near Vetren, central Bulgaria (ll
20 – 21:ôݺåÆ ŒÆôa ôaò ›äïfò ìc ðæÞóóåØí), and to the granting of safe
conduct for the goods transported, with theemporitaihaving sole right
to open and close their vehicles (ôaò ±ìÜî/[Æò]ŒÆd Iíïߪåت ŒÆd ŒºåßåØí).(^85) Pikoulas 2007; cf. Pikoulas 2001; Edessa: Chrysostomou 2008; Pella: P. Chrysostomou
1990, 220 andfig. 226.
(^86) Pikoulas 2001, 190–2; see further Ch. 6.
(^87) Madzharov 2009, 87–124 (Bessapara to Augusta Traiana, via Philippopolis and
Karasura); cf. Tonkova 2000, 140–2; for changes in the geomorphology of the River Hebros:
Domaradzki inPistiros I, 32 – 3 andfig. 1.18; Chiverrell and Archibald 2009.
(^88) Madzharov 2009, 256–320 with numerous illustrations, esp. 265–9 for pre-Roman
routes; cf. Bouzek inPistiros et Thasos,41–4 andfig. 3; Nekhrizov and Mikov 2000, 161–70;
the eastern route has been identified with that taken by Alexander the Great in 335bc.
Regionalism and regional economies 225