Dacians

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Dacians

The Dacians (Lat.

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
Daci, Gr.

Medieval Greek

Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek , is a cover term for all forms of the Greek language that were spoken and written during the time of the Byzantine Empire....
Dákai) were an Indo-European

Indo-European

Indo-European may refer to:* Indo-European languages* Indo-European people, peoples speaking an Indo-European language** Aryan race, a 19th-century term for Indo-European speakers...
people, the ancient inhabitants of Dacia

Dacia

In ancient geography, Dacia was the land of the Dacians. It was named by the ancient Greeks "Getae". Dacia was a large district of East-Central Europe, bounded on the north by the Carpathian Mountains, on the south by the Danube, on the west by the Tisia or Tisza, on the east by the Tyras or Dniester, now in eastern Moldova....
(located in the area in and around the Carpathian mountains and east of there to the Black Sea), present-day Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located in Southeastern Europe Central Europe, North of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian Mountains, bordering on the Black Sea....
and Moldova

Moldova

Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east and south....
, parts of Sarmatia

Sarmatia

Sarmatia or Sarmatian can refer to:* the land of Sarmatians, western Scythia as described by many classical authors, such as Herodotus in the 5th century BC...
(mostly in eastern Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south....
) and Scythia Minor

Scythia Minor

Scythia Minor, "Lesser Scythia" was in ancient times the region surrounded by the Danube at the north and west and the Black Sea at the east, corresponding to today's Dobrogea, with a large part in Romania and a very smal part in Bulgaria....
in southeastern Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
(Romania and Bulgaria

Bulgaria

The state of Bulgaria , Scientific transliteration Balgarija, officially the Republic of Bulgaria has played a significant role in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe for over fourteen centuries....
).

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Encyclopedia

The Dacians (Lat.

Latin

Medieval Greek

Indo-European

Dacia

Romania

Moldova

Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east and south....
, parts of Sarmatia

Sarmatia

Sarmatia or Sarmatian can refer to:* the land of Sarmatians, western Scythia as described by many classical authors, such as Herodotus in the 5th century BC...
(mostly in eastern Ukraine

Ukraine

Scythia Minor

Europe

Bulgaria

Dacian language

The Dacian language was spoken by the ancient inhabitants of Dacia. It belongs to the Indo-European languages language family.Dacian is often considered to be a dialect of the same language as Thracian language or to be a separate language from Thracian but closely related to it....
, believed related to Thracian

Thracian language

The Thracian language was the Indo-European language spoken in ancient times by the Thracians in South-Eastern Europe....
, but were influenced culturally by the neighbouring Scythians and by the Celtic invaders of the 4th century BC.

History

The first mention of the Dacians is in Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
sources, but classical authors are unanimous in considering them a branch of the Getae

Getae

The Getae was the name given by the Greeks to several Thracian tribes that occupied the regions south of the Danube, in what is today northern Bulgaria, and north of the Lower Danube, in Romania....
, a Thracian people known from Greek

Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
writings. Strabo

Strabo

Strabo was a Ancient Greeks history, geography and philosophy....
specified that the Daci are the Getae who lived in the area towards the Pannonian plain

Pannonian Plain

The Pannonian Plain is a large plain in Central Europe that remained when the Pliocene Pannonian Sea dried out. It is a geomorphology subsystem of the Alpide belt....
(Transylvania

Transylvania

Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountains, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term frequently encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical regions of Crisana, Maramures, and Banat....
), while the Getae proper gravitated towards the Black Sea coast (Scythia Minor

Scythia Minor

Burebista

Burebista is widely considered to be the greatest king of Dacia. He ruled between 82 BC and 44 BC. He unified the Thracian population from Hercynia in the west, to the Bug river in the east, and from the northern Carpathians to Dionysopolis....
(ruled 82 - 44 BC). The capital of the kingdom was the city of Argedava (also called Sargedava in some historical writings) situated close to the river Danube

Danube

The Danube is the longest river in the European Union and Europe's second longest river after the Volga.The river originates in the Black Forest in Germany as the much smaller Brigach and Breg River rivers which join at the eponymously named German town Donaueschingen, after which it is known as the Danube and flows eastwards for a distance...
.

Greek geographer Strabo claimed that the Dacians and Getae once had been able to muster a combined army of 200,000 men during Strabo's era (i.e. the time of Roman emperor Augustus (sole rule 30 BC - 14 AD).

The Roman Emperor Trajan

Trajan

Marcus Ulpius Nerva Traianus, commonly known as Trajan , was a Roman Emperors who reigned from 98 until his death in 117. Born Marcus Ulpius Traianus into a nonpatrician family in the Hispania Baetica province , Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian, serving as a general in the Roman army along the Limes G...
(ruled 97 - 117 AD) decided to conquer the Dacian kingdom, partly in order to seize its vast gold mines. But it took him two major wars (the Dacian Wars), one in 101-102 AD and the other one in 105-106 AD.

In the first war, Trajan invaded Dacia by crossing the river Danube by means of a boat-bridge and inflicted a crushing defeat on the Dacians at the Second Battle of Tapae

Second Battle of Tapae

The Battle of Tapae was the decisive battle of the first Dacian Wars, in which Roman Emperor Trajan defeated the Dacian King Decebalus's army. Other setbacks in the campaign delayed its completion until 102....
(101 AD). The Dacian king, Decebalus

Decebalus

Decebalus or "The Brave One" was a king of Dacia and is famous for fighting three wars and negotiating two interregnums of peace without being eliminated against the Roman Empire under two emperors....
, was forced to sue for peace. Trajan and Decebalus then concluded a peace which was highly favourable to the Romans. The peace agreement required the Dacians to cede some territory to the Romans and to demolish their fortifications. Decebalus' foreign policy was also restricted, as he was prohibited from entering into alliances with other tribes.

However, both Trajan and Decebalus considered this peace only a temporary truce, and readied themselves for renewed war. Trajan had Greek engineer Apollodorus of Damascus construct a stone bridge over the Danube river, while Decebalus secretly plotted alliances against the Romans. In 105, Trajan crossed the Danube river and besieged Decebalus' capital, Sarmizegetusa

Sarmizegetusa

Sarmizegetusa was the most important Dacian military, religious and political centre. Erected on top of a crag 1,200 metres high, the fortress was the core of the strategic defensive system in the Orastie Mountains , comprising six citadels....
but the siege failed because of Decebalus' allied tribes. But Trajan was an optimist. He returned with a newly constituted army and took Sarmizegetusa by assault. Decebalus fled into the mountains hoping to assemble a new army, but he was cornered by pursuing Roman cavalry troopers and committed suicide. The Romans took his head and right hand to Trajan, who had them displayed in the Forum at Rome. Trajan's Column

Trajan's Column

Trajan's Column is a monument in Rome raised in honour of the Roman Empire emperor Trajan and constructed by the architect Apollodorus of Damascus at the order of the Roman Senate....
in Rome was constructed to celebrate the conquest of Dacia.

A large part of Dacia then became a Roman province with a newly-built capital at Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa (40 km away from the site of Old Sarmizegetusa, now razed to the ground). The tribes Daci Magni (Great Dacians), Costoboci

Costoboci

The Costoboci were a Dacian tribe, which lived in the areas known today as Maramures and south-western Ukraine. Archeologically speaking, they are identified with the Lipita culture....
and Carpi

Carpians

The Carpi or Carpiani were a Dacian tribe that were located, between not later than ca. 100 and until at least ca. 400 AD, in the central eastern Carpathian Mountains, and in what is today central Moldavia ....
remained outside the Roman empire in what the Romans called Dacia Libera (Free Dacia). Roman Dacia was evacuated by the Romans under emperor Aurelian

Aurelian

Lucius Domitius Aurelianus , known in English as Aurelian, Roman Emperor , was the second of several highly successful "soldier-emperors" who helped the Roman Empire regain its power during the latter part of the third century and the beginning of the fourth....
(ruled 271-5 AD). However, by then the tribes of Free Dacia had been Romanised.

Name

The Dacians

Dacians

The Dacians were an Indo-European people, the ancient inhabitants of Dacia , present-day Romania and Moldova, parts of Sarmatia and Scythia Minor in southeastern Europe ....
(tribe) were known as Geton (plural Getae) in Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
writings, and as Dacus (plural Daci) and also Getae in Roman

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
documents; also as Dagae and Gaete—see the late Roman map Tabula Peutingeriana
Tabula Peutingeriana

The Tabula Peutingeriana is an itinerarium showing the cursus publicus, the road network in the Roman Empire. The original map of which this is a unique copy was last revised in the fourth or early fifth century....
. Strabo

Strabo

Strabo was a Ancient Greeks history, geography and philosophy....
states that the original name of the Dacians was "daoi", which could be explained with a possible Phrygian

Phrygian language

The Phrygian language was the Indo-European language of the Phrygians, a people from Thrace who later migrated to Asia Minor.Inscriptions...
cognate "daos", meaning "wolf". This assumption may be supported by the fact that one of the Dacian standards, the Dacian Draco

Dacian Draco

The Dacian Draco was the standard of the ancient Dacian military. It had a wolf head with the mouth open, with a balaur body, made out of bronze and it ended with some linen stripes....
, had a wolf's head. Phrygii was another cognate used within the region, and in later times, some Roman auxiliaries recruited from the area were referred to as Phrygi. Their capital was not Argedava near the Danube, but Sarmizegetusa, in the Sureanu mountains, in the Romanian Western Carpathians.