The Thracians were a deeply religious people; this is attested not merely by ancient writers but also by the many votive monuments found in the former Thracian provinces, dating chiefly from the second to the fourth centuries. Rostovtzeff was justified in remarking some years ago that ‘in the Roman period, Thrace experienced a religious renaissance; in cities and villages there sprang up hundreds of shrines of Greek type, which were filled with votive offerings after the Greek pattern; yet the Thracians worshipped their divinities in native fashion, and kept their festivals with mystic-orgiastic ritual’.