DACIA: ROME’S NEMESIS
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The Carpathian Mountain area known as Dacia extended over parts of ROMANIA, TRANSYLVANIA, HUNGARY & PARTS OF AUSTRIA, SERBIA, & THE CZECH REPUBLIC. In the 4th Century BCE, Dacia, in thrall to the god Zamolxis, clashed and bred with Myceneans Macedonians (4th century BCE) & THRACIANS (3rd century BCE). In 513 BCE, Dacians fought Persian King Darius’ armies in the battles for Scythia (now Crimea, part of Russia & a part of Ukraine, now unlawfully occupied by Russia)
The Dacians, King BUREBISTA, created a stable kingdom that ruled most of the DANUBE DELTA. Rome took Dacia CE when the ruling Dacia King Decebalus died. In 271 CE, Roman Emperor Aurelian evacuated his troops & administrators from Dacia and founded DACIA AURELIANA, with its capital at Serdica in Lower Moesia. Goths, Slavs, and other nomads invaded the Dacian area and divided it between Transylvania, Wallachia, Moldova & Bessarabia.
In 334 BCE, ALEXANDER of Macedon beat the Dacian/Thracian/ Gatae, who allied themselves with the neighboring Triballi & raided the Macedonia of Alexander’s father, Phillip. Under their King SIRMUS, the Dacians sheltered on the isle of Peuke on the Danube. Alexander ferried his army across the Danube & beat Sirmus in 326 BCE. The Dacians killed 30.000 Macedonians, but General ZOPYRION led the Macedonians to victory over the Dacians, revenging Macedon’s defeat at Peuke.
Around 300 BCE, LYSIMACHUS (306-281 BCE), the new king of Thrace, annexed the Dacian territories of Wallachia north of the Danube. Thrace’s King DROMICHAITES defeated & jailed Dacian King Lysimachus’ son AGATHOCLES. Dromichaites set Agatholes free so relations between the two peoples would improve. Lysimachus was again defeated and taken prisoner, but the marriage between Dromichaites and Lysimachus’ daughter reinforced a peace treaty between the Dacians and Thracians.
Conflicts between the Dacians and the Greek colony of HISTRIA on the Black Sea (south of the mouth of the Danube river) during the 3rd- 2nd century BCE forced Histria to pay tribute to Dacia. In 250, 180, and 168 BCE, Perseus of Macedon hired 10,000 foot soldiers and as many horsemen from the Dacians.
The Dacian king Oroles attacked the Bastarnae Germans to Dacia’s east, into the plains of the middle reaches of the Mureș river, and fought the Bastarnae in 112-109 BCE, but again, they were repulsed, failing to weaken the Dacians’ power, which, on the contrary, increased, so much so that it is precisely at this time that we can discern the shift of the Daco-Getic power center from the plains of Wallachia to the heart of Transylvania.
THE KINGDOM OF DACIA IN THE FIRST CENTURY BCE: BUREBISTA AND THE ROMANS (60-44 BCE)
With the beginning of the new century, the Romans, busy fighting Scordisci and Dardanians, came to clash with their allies as well: the Dacians. Indeed, Florus recounts that in 74 BCE, the governor of Macedonia, Gaius Scribonius Curio, after defeating the Dardanians (for whose victory he deserved a triumph), “came as far as Dacia, but retreated frightened before the thick shadows of its forests.” He was perhaps the first among Roman generals to penetrate Dacia once he crossed the Danube.
In the first half of the first century BCE, a state arose on the territory of ancient Dacia, the main center of which was located in the southern Carpathians of Transylvania, in the area of the Orăștie massif, coming to encompass at the time of its most significant expansion the entire Dacian-Getic lineage. The formation of this early Dacian state was enhanced especially under the enlightened leadership of King Burebista, a contemporary of Gaius Julius Caesar, who restructured the internal order, wholly reorganized the army (which Strabo reports could field as many as 200,000 armed men), so much to raise the morale of these people, and expanded the limits of the kingdom to their highest peak.
This progress led to a significant demographic increase in the Dacian population, so much so that the number of settlements grew with great rapidity, and several new settlements sprang up during this period: from Popești to Cetățeni, Piatra Neamț, Pecica, Piatra Craivii, Capilna, Costești, and on to Tilișca. Of these newly established settlements, Costești, Piatra Craivii, and Capilna were fortified and located right in the center of the new state of Burebista. Other older sites, such as Răcătău and Slimnic, expanded their area and population wealth thanks to recent archaeological finds of various utensils.
Underlying this development was undoubtedly the progress in ironworking, but also the use of squared stone as a building material, agricultural progress (with iron plowshares for plows), mining (gold and silver in particular), carpentry (with the clearing of areas near settlements), and pottery (for which the potter’s wheel was introduced). Along with the development of the productive forces of the new Dacian state, trade with neighboring countries also intensified; in particular, numerous finely crafted Hellenistic-style objects were imported from the nearby Greek colonies on the Black Sea, such as vases, metal mirrors, bronze objects, amphorae, and the minting of geto-Dacian-style coins intensified (between 200 and 80 BCE).
The Roman world and the Dacian kingdom of Burebista in 49 BCE at the outbreak of the Roman civil war
Burebista, after reorganizing the state internally, reformed the army, creating a complex and solid system of fortifications in the Orăștie Mountains, around the capital, Sarmizegetusa Regia, and the center of the new state. In addition, the population increase and increased military strength led to a whole series of campaigns conducted in the years 60-48 BCE
in 61-60 BCE, the Dacian king turned toward Illyria and subdued the Scordisci people of the lower Sava river valley.
in 60-59 BCE, he subdued the entire Tisza river plain, taking his armies as far as Lake Balaton in present-day Hungary and perhaps as far as the Morava River, subduing the territories of Pannonia and putting the Celtic peoples of the Boii and Taurisci on the run. The result was that in 58 BCE, the Boii, who fled after the defeat, joined the migration of the Helvetians westward, which Gaius Julius Caesar succeeded in blocking in Gaul. At the same time, the Taurisci were forced to migrate to Noricum.
Around 55 BCE, he turned his armies eastward. After repeatedly defeating the Bastarnae Germans, he succeeded in occupying the Greek colonies on the coast of Pontus Euxinus, starting with Olbia on the Bug River, then falling Tyras on the Dniester River, later Histria (in Dobruja), Tomi, Odessos, Mesembria, and Apollonia.
Around 50-48 BCE. Burebista expanded his conquests to the foothills of the Balkan Mountains.
It is said that during the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, he attempted to take advantage of the situation by sending ambassadors to Pompey, to whom he would promise his military aid, in return probably for recognition of his conquests along the right bank of the Danube. However, before he could officially ally himself with the latter, Caesar defeated Pompey at Pharsalus in 48 BCE, thwarting any possible alliance of the Dacian king. On the contrary, it highlighted how dangerous the new kingdom formed in Transylvania could be for Rome.
The Dacians, in fact, after the successes of the last decade, appeared so formidable in the eyes of the Romans that Caesar himself had planned an expedition against them (perhaps also in revenge for the discourtesy suffered during the Civil War), which did not, however, take place because of the death of the Roman dictator on the Ides of March in 44 BCE.
Caesar conceived the idea of a long campaign against the Getae (meaning the Dacians of Burebista) and the Parthians. The Getae were a war-loving nation and a neighboring nation, who were to be attacked first. The Parthians were to be punished for the perfidy employed against Crassus.
Almost at the same time, Burebista was also assassinated, the victim of a plot by part of the tribal aristocracy, and the kingdom divided into four (or perhaps five) parts, ruled by different rulers. The powerful Dacian kingdom thus lost the power of the last two decades and was certainly less dangerous to the neighboring Roman Empire. This allowed Rome to “shelve,” for the time being, the Dacian danger for over a century until Domitian-Trajan. Thanks mainly to Jordanes and other ancient literary sources, the succession of Dacian kings after the death of Burebista in Transylvania, with Deceneus, perhaps from 44 to 27 BCE, then Comosicus, Corillus (who reigned for as many as 40 years), some kings whose names are not known, then again Scorilus (father of Decebalus) around the 1860s, Duras-Diurpaneus (perhaps brother of Scorilus, who reigned probably from 68-69 to 87) and finally Decebalus (from 87 to 106);
in the Wallachian plain Dicomes (at the time of the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE), who may have been succeeded by Coson, in Banat and Oltenia, Cotiso from the time of Augustus, and in Dobruja, Rholes, then Dapyx and finally Zyraxes.
Finally, although Dacia’s unity shattered with Burebista’s death, during the first century, it went on to recompose itself around the central core of the Orăștie Mountains, never losing the religious unity of all its Geto-Dacian peoples.
In the Trojan War, Dacians were on the side of Troy.
After clashing first with the Macedonians (4th century B.C.) and then with the Thracians (3rd century B.C.) in the 1st century BCE, the Dacians established, under King Burebista, a stable autonomous kingdom. Upon the death of the great ruler, however, his kingdom dissolved; a fluid situation ensued, with numerous clashes with the Roman Empire, which had meanwhile reached the southern borders of Dacia. In 101 CE, Emperor Trajan launched a campaign to conquer the area, which ended in 106 with the death of King Decebalus and establishing a new province (see Roman Dacia). However, Roman rule already came to an end in the 3rd century, when the limes was returned to the Danube. Later invaded by Goths, Slavs, and other nomadic peoples, with the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, Dacia ceased to be understood as a unitary region, and its territory was broken up between Transylvania, Wallachia, Moldova, and Bessarabia.
FIRST POLITICAL ENTITIES IN THE REGION (6th to 2nd centuries BCE)
It is to Herodotus that the first indications of the indigenous population of Dacia are due. In fact, he described the population of the Getae of Dobruja, who, in 514 BCE, clashed against the armies of Darius I of Persia.
Before he reached the Istrus, he first subdued the Getae, who believed themselves immortal. The Thracians occupying the city of Salmydessus and inhabiting beyond Apollonia and the city of Mesambria, called Scirmiades and Nipsei, had surrendered without a fight to Darius: instead, the Getae turned to stubborn resistance but were immediately subdued, despite being the most valiant and the most righteous of the Thracians.
In 334 B.C., the Getae were attacked and soundly beaten by the Macedonian armies of Alexander the Great, for they had allied themselves with the neighboring Triballi, who in previous years had carried out several raids against the Macedonia of Philip, father of the great Macedonian leader. Alexander passed Mount Hemo, pursued them & forced the Triballi into battle near the mouth of the Lyginus River near the Danube. Once beaten, their king, Sirmus, found refuge on the island along the Danube of Peuce (now Peuke). The Macedonian leader, determined to give these peoples a show of strength, ferried across the Danube river, moved with his armies into Oltenia, and, clashing against an army of 10,000 infantrymen and 4,000 Getae horsemen, succeeded in beating them and subduing these peoples inhabiting ancient Dacia.
In 326 B.C.E., the fortunes were reversed, and this time, the Getae beat the Macedonian armies, commanded by the general named Zopyrion, on the Gotic steppe south of Bessarabia. While returning from the failed siege of Olbia on the Black Sea, the Macedonian general met his death along with an army of as many as 30,000 soldiers. The Getae had thus succeeded, eight years later, in avenging their previous defeat.
Around 300 BCE, the new king of the Thracians, Lysimachus (306-281 BCE), decided to invade and annex the Getaean territories of Wallachia north of the Danube. He entrusted his armies to his son Agathocles, who, however, was beaten and taken prisoner by the Getaean king Dromichaites, who was eventually persuaded to let the Thracian king’s son go free in the hope that relations between the two peoples would improve. Despite the geta king’s soothing gesture, Lysimachus decided to invade the enemy country again, meeting with fresh failure. The Thracian king was again defeated and taken prisoner, and only thanks to the indulgence of the king of the Getae was he allowed to live and set free. The Getae, however, got advantageous terms in the newly concluded peace treaty, achieving a solid bond between the two peoples, thanks in part to the marriage between Dromichaites and Lysimachus’ daughter.
During the 3rd to 2nd century BCE, news became scarcer. However, a few conflicts between the kings of the Getae and the Greek colony of Histria on the Black Sea (south of the mouth of the Danube River) are known, where the latter paid the consequences of the clash so severely that it was forced to pay regular tribute to the kings of the Getae (episodes in 250 BCE and 180 BCE And again in 168 B.C., Perseus of Macedon attempted to hire as many as 10,000-foot soldiers and as many horsemen from among the Getae. However, the exaggerated cost demanded by the Transdanubian mercenaries, a total of 150,000 gold pieces, deprived the Macedonian king’s army of a sizable allied force crucial to the impending clash with the Romans near Pydna.
Literary sources begin to mention the Dacians as a population inhabiting the interior of the Carpathian mountain arc from the beginning of the second century BCE. Pompeius Trogus tells of the conflict that led the then Dacian king, Orioles, to beat back and repel an incursion of Bastarnae Germans, who had attempted to penetrate from the east into the fertile plains of the middle reaches of the Mureș river. A new conflict with the Bastarnae occurred in 112-109 BCE. Still, again they were repulsed, failing to weaken the power of the Dacians, which on the contrary increased, so much so that it is precisely at this time that we can discern the shift of the Daco-Getic power center from the plains of Wallachia to the heart of Transylvania.
THE KINGDOM OF DACIA IN THE FIRST CENTURY BCE: BUREBISTA AND THE ROMANS
BUREBISTA’S DACIA (60-44 BCE)
At the beginning of the new century, the Romans, busy fighting Scordisci and Dardanians, came to clash with their allies as well: the Dacians. Indeed, Florus recounts that in 74 BCE, the governor of Macedonia, Gaius Scribonius Curio, after defeating the Dardanians (for whose victory he deserved a triumph), “came as far as Dacia, but retreated frightened before the thick shadows of its forests.” He was perhaps the first among Roman generals to penetrate Dacia once he crossed the Danube.
In the first half of the first century BCE, a state arose on the territory of ancient Dacia, the main center of which was located in the southern Carpathians of Transylvania, in the area of the Orăștie massif, coming to encompass at the time of its most significant expansion the entire Dacian-Getic lineage. The formation of this early Dacian state was enhanced especially under the enlightened leadership of King Burebista, a contemporary of Gaius Julius Caesar, who restructured the internal order, wholly reorganized the army (which Strabo reports could field as many as 200,000 armed men), so much to raise the morale of these people, and expanded the limits of the kingdom to their highest peak.
This progress led to a significant demographic increase in the Dacian population, so much so that the number of settlements grew with great rapidity, and several new settlements sprang up during this period: from Popești to Cetățeni, Piatra Neamț, Pecica, Piatra Craivii, Capilna, Costești, and on to Tilișca. Of these newly established settlements, Costești, Piatra Craivii, and Capilna were fortified and located right in the center of the new state of Burebista. Other older sites, such as Răcătău and Slimnic, expanded their area and population wealth thanks to recent archaeological finds of various utensils.
Underlying this development was certainly the progress in ironworking, but also the use of squared stone as a building material, agricultural progress (with iron plowshares for plows), mining (gold and silver in particular), carpentry (with the clearing of areas near settlements), and pottery (for which the potter’s wheel was introduced). Along with the development of the productive forces of the new Dacian state, trade with neighboring countries also intensified, in particular, numerous finely crafted Hellenistic-style objects were imported from the nearby Greek colonies on the Black Sea, such as vases, metal mirrors, bronze objects, amphorae, and the minting of geto-Dacian-style coins intensified (between 200 and 80 BCE).
The Roman world and the Dacian kingdom of Burebista in 49 BCE at the outbreak of the Roman civil war
Burebista, after reorganizing the state internally, reformed the army, creating a complex and solid system of fortifications in the Orăștie Mountains, around the capital, Sarmizegetusa Regia, and the center of the new state. In addition, the population increase and increased military strength led to a whole series of campaigns conducted in the years 60-48 BCE
in 61-60 BCE, the Dacian king turned toward Illyria and subdued the Scordisci people of the lower Sava river valley.
in 60-59, he subdued the entire Tisza river plain, taking his armies as far as Lake Balaton in present-day Hungary and perhaps as far as the Morava river, subduing the territories of Pannonia and putting the Celtic peoples of the Boii and Taurisci on the run. The result was that in 58 BCE the Boii, who fled after the defeat, joined the migration of the Helvetians westward, which Gaius Julius Caesar succeeded in blocking in Gaul, while the Taurisci were forced to migrate to Noricum.
around 55 he turned his armies eastward & after repeatedly defeating the Bastarnae Germans, he succeeded in occupying the Greek colonies on the coast of Pontus Euxinus, starting with Olbia on the Bug River, then fell Tyras on the Dniester River, later Histria (in Dobruja), Tomi, Odessos, Mesembria and Apollonia.
Around 50-48, Burebista expanded his conquests to the foothills of the Balkan Mountains.
It is said that during the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, he attempted to take advantage of the situation by sending ambassadors to Pompey, to whom he would promise his military aid, in return probably for recognition of his conquests along the right bank of the Danube. However, before he could officially ally himself with the latter, Caesar defeated Pompey at Pharsalus in 48 BCE, thwarting any possible alliance of the Dacian king. On the contrary, it highlighted how dangerous the new kingdom formed in Transylvania could be for Rome.
The Dacians, in fact, after the successes of the last decade, appeared so formidable in the eyes of the Romans that Caesar himself had planned an expedition against them (perhaps also in revenge for the discourtesy suffered during the Civil War), which did not, however, take place because of the death of the Roman dictator on the Ides of March in 44 BCE.
Caesar conceived the idea of a long campaign against the Getae (meaning the Dacians of Burebista) and the Parthians. The Getae are a war-loving nation and a neighboring nation, who were to be attacked first, the Parthians were to be punished for the perfidy employed against Crassus.
Almost at the same time, Burebista was also assassinated, the victim of a plot by part of the tribal aristocracy, and the kingdom divided into four (or perhaps five) parts, ruled by different rulers. The powerful Dacian kingdom thus lost the power of the last two decades and was certainly less dangerous to the neighboring Roman Empire. This allowed Rome to “shelve”, for the time being, the Dacian danger for over a century, until Domitian-Trajan. Thanks mainly to Jordanes and other ancient literary sources, the succession of Dacian kings after the death of Burebista is known:
in Transylvania, with Deceneus (Burebista’s collaborator) perhaps from 44 to 27 B.C., then Comosicus, Corillus (who reigned for as many as 40 years), some kings whose names are not known, then again Scorilus (father of Decebalus[17]) around the 1860s, Duras-Diurpaneus (perhaps brother of Scorilus, who reigned probably from 68-69 to 87) and finally Decebalus (from 87 to 106);
in the Wallachian plain Dicomes (at the time of the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE), who may have been succeeded by Coson, in Banat and Oltenia, Cotiso from the time of Augustus, and in Dobruja, Rholes, then Dapyx and finally Zyraxes.
It seems, finally, that although the unity of Dacia shattered with the death of Burebista, during the first century it went on to recompose itself around the central core of the Orăștie Mountains, although it never lost the religious unity of all its Geto-Dacian peoples.
In the Trojan war, Dacians were on the side of Troy.