Dacians

The Dacians ( Lat. Daci, Gr. Dákai) were an Indo-European people, the ancient inhabitants of Dacia (located in the area in and around the Carpathian mountains and east of there to the Black Sea), present-day Romania and Moldova, parts of Sarmatia (mostly in eastern Ukraine) and Scythia Minor in southeastern Europe (Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria). They spoke the Dacian language, believed related to Thracian, but were influenced culturally by the neighbouring Scythians and by the Celtic invaders of the 4th century BC. Encyclopedia Britannica online, Dacia. The Dacians (tribe) were known as Geton (plural Getae) in Greek writings, and as Dacus (plural Daci) and also Getae in Roman documents; also as Dagae and Gaete—see the late Roman map Tabula Peutingeriana. Strabo states that the original name of the Dacians was "daoi", which could be explained with a possible Phrygian cognate "daos", meaning "wolf". This assumption may be supported by the fact that one of the Dacian standards, the Dacian Draco, 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.

Mythological foundation

Origins and ethnogenesis

In absence of written historical records, the origins of the Dacians (and Thracians) remain obscure. Evidence of proto-Thracians or Proto-Dacians in the prehistoric period depends on remains of material culture. It is generally proposed that a proto-Dacian or proto-Thracian people developed from a mixture of indigenous peoples and Indo-Europeans from the time of Proto-Indo-European expansion in the Early Bronze AgeHoddinott, p. 27. when the latter, around 1500 BC, conquered the indigenous peoples.Casson, p. 3..We speak of proto-Thracians from which during the Iron AgeThe Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 3, Part 1: The Prehistory of the Balkans, the Middle East and the Aegean World, Tenth to Eighth Centuries BC by John Boardman, I. E. S. Edwards, N. G. L. Hammond, and E. Sollberger,1982,page 53,"... Yet we cannot identify the Thracians at that remote period, because we do not know for certain whether the Thracian and Illyrian tribes had separated by then. It is safer to speak of Proto-Thracians from whom there developed in the Iron Age ..."(about 1000 BC) as Dacians & Thracians begin developing as we cannot identify Thracians during the Bronze age.

Identity and distribution

(left) accepts the surrender of a Dacian pileatus (kneeling) during his conquest of Dacia (AD 101-6). A member of the emperor's elite cavalry escort ( equites singulares Augusti, centre), which was exclusively recruited from non-citizen provincials ( peregrini), apparently acts as interpreter. Many of the Roman troops in this war, those recruited in Moesia and Thracia, could probably understand the Dacian language, which was closely related to their own native tongues, according to ancient geographers. Detail from Trajan's Column, Rome]] The linguistic affiliation of peoples in the ancient region of Dacia is uncertain and controversial, not least because the ancient Indo-European languages in question are extinct and have left very limited traces (in the form of placenames and personal names). It appears that the ethnic Dacians shared the same language as the Moesians on the South side of the Danube, spoken in the Roman provinces of Moesia Superior and Moesia Inferior.Dio LI.22.6-7 (The Moesian language was in turn equated by ancient geographers with the language of Mysia in Asia Minor).Strabo The Dacian/Moesian language, according to the Roman geographer Strabo, was in turn similar to the Thracian language.Strabo VII.3.2 This has given rise to the hypothesis that Thracian and Dacian were essentially the same language (the Daco-Thracian theory), and that the Dacians were simply Thracians who had migrated North of the Danube. But the modern linguist Vladimir Georgiev disputes that Dacian and Thracian were closely related for various reasons, most notably that Dacian and Moesian town names commonly end with the suffix -DAVA, while towns in Thrace proper (i.e. South of the Balkan mountains) generally end in -PARA (see map link). According to Georgiev, the language spoken by the ethnic Dacians should be classified as "Daco-Moesian" and regarded as distinct from Thracian.Georgiev (1960) 39-58 In either case, many of the emperor Trajan's troops in the Dacian Wars, the Moesians if not the Thracians also, would probably have understood the tongue of their Dacian adversaries. Hence the scenes on Trajan's Column showing the emperor receiving homage from captured Dacian chieftains with Roman auxiliary soldiers acting as interpreters.Trajan's Column Whatever the origin of the Dacian language, it is generally recognised that several peoples inhabiting the region generally described in Roman times as "Dacia" were not ethnic-Dacians.Wilcox (2000) This region covered roughly the same area as modern Romania plus Bessarabia (Rep. of Moldova) and eastern Galicia (SW. Ukraine) (although Ptolemy places Moldavia and Bessarabia in Sarmatia Europaea, rather than Dacia).Ptolemy III.5 and 8 After the Dacian Wars (AD 101-6), the Romans occupied only about half the wider Dacian region. The Roman province of Dacia covered just western Wallachia as far as the limes Transalutanus (East of the river Aluta, or Olt) and Transylvania, as bordered by the Carpathians.Barrington Plate 22 It is believed that most, if not all, the original tribes within what became the Roman zone (12 are listed in Ptolemy III.8) were ethnic-Dacian. The impact of the Roman conquest on these people is uncertain. One theory is that they were effectively eliminated, through war casualties and mass deportations at the hands of the Romans, and wholly replaced by Romanised Moesians, Thracians and Illyrians, both military and civilian. Alternatively, a substantial number may have survived in the province, although probably outnumbered by the Romanised immigrants.Millar (1970) In addition to the large numbers of Dacians deported into the empire as prisoners destined for the slave-markets, many were apparently expelled from the occupied zone at the end of each of the two Dacian Wars, or emigrated of their own accord: Trajan's Column depicts lines of Dacian peasants leaving with their families and animals. It is uncertain where these refugees found a home. According to the traditional paradigm, these people mingled with the existing allegedly ethnic-Dacian tribes beyond the Carpathians (the Costoboci and Carpi) to form the "Free Dacians" (Dacii liberi), i.e. Dacians not under Roman rule, a label invented by Romanian historians. On the fringes of the Roman zone, i.e. East and North of the Carpathian range, the ethnic picture was more mixed. Ptolemy lists the names of several tribes residing in these areas around AD 140. North of the Carpathians are recorded the Anarti, Teurisci and Costoboci.Ptolemy III.8 The Anarti (or Anartes) and the Teurisci were probably Celtic peoples: the Anarti, together with the Celtic Cotini are described by Tacitus as vassals of the powerful Quadi Germanic people;Tacitus G.43 Teurisci is probably a variant of Taurisci, a Celtic people of the eastern Alps). Only the Costoboci are widely believed to have been ethnic- Dacian. To the East of the Carpathians, in modern Moldavia and Bessarabia, Ptolemy lists (among several other minor tribes or sub-tribes) the Bastarnae, Peucini, Roxolani and Transmontani, as well as the Carpi themselves. The Bastarnae and Peucini were probably Germanic;Tacitus G.46 the Roxolani were Sarmatians; the Transmontani (literally "people over the mountains") have been identified with the Transiugitani, apparently a subdivision of the Germanic Quadi.Ammianus XVII.12.12 It is widely believed that the only significant ethnic-Dacian element in Moldavia were the Carpi.Millar (1970) Traditional Romanian historiography, followed by Millar, ascribes Dacian ethnicity to the Costoboci and Carpi. According to the traditional paradigm, the "Free Dacians" became Romanised in language and culture by proximity to the Roman province. In seeming self-contradiction, however, the paradigm also characterises the "Free Dacians", and the Carpi in particular, as Dacian irredentists, gallantly struggling to free the occupied zone from the Roman yoke. But the identification of the Costoboci and Carpi as ethnic-Dacian is far from secure. Neither group is attested in Moldavia before Ptolemy (i.e. before ca. 140). The Costoboci are classified as a Sarmatian tribe by Pliny the Elder, who locates them as residing around the river Tanais (southern river Don, S. Russia) in ca. AD 70, far to the East of Moldavia.Pliny VI.19 This suggests that the Costoboci may have migrated westwards during the period 70-140. An imperial-era funerary inscription found in Rome, dedicated by her grandchildren to "Zia, the Dacian wife of Piepor, king of the Costoboci" has been taken as "proof" of the Costoboci's Dacian ethnicity.CIL VI.1801 But it could equally be seen as indicating the exact opposite, since it would be unnecessary (and unusual) to note the wife's Dacian nationality if the Costoboci were themselves Dacian. As for the Carpi, their location before 140 is unknown. But if they were Dacian irredentists, it is difficult to understand why they apparently waited for 132 years (106-238) before challenging Roman rule in Dacia. A quote from the 6th-century Byzantine chronicler Zosimus referring to the καρποδάκαι (Latin: Carpo-Dacae or "Carpo-Dacians"), who attacked the Romans in the late 4th century, is seen as evidence of the Dacian ethnicity of the Carpi. But the term is ambiguous. While it could mean "the Dacian Carpi", it could equally signify "the Carpi and the Dacians" or "the Dacians from the Carpathians". The assumption of the victory-title Dacicus Maximus ("Totally Victorious over the Dacians") by the emperors Maximinus I (238), Decius (250) and Gallienus (257) after defeating barbarian armies which probably included Carpi is also not conclusive as such victories were scored against "Dacians" in general. The contemporary existence of a separate victory-title, Carpicus Maximus, assumed by Philip the Arab (247), may imply that the Carpi were seen as distinct from the Daci.CAH XII 90, 140 (notes 1 and 2) It is therefore possible that the Costoboci and/or the Carpi were not ethnic-Dacians, but were Sarmatian or Germanic groups as were most of their neighbours, and that they migrated to Moldavia at a late stage, around AD 100, perhaps taking advantage of the dislocations caused by the Roman conquest. If this was the case, it leaves open the question of where the remaining ethnic-Dacians recorded lived (together with the refugees from the Trajanic conquest). That substantial numbers of ethnic-Dacians continued to exist on the fringes of the Roman province is attested by Dio Cassius, who records that 18,000 were granted permission to settle within the province by the emperor Marcus Aurelius (r. 162-80).Dio The answer may be in the valleys of the Carpathian mountains. Only the southwestern section of this range fell within the Roman province. The eastern Carpathians lay outside it, as shown by the line of Roman forts in Transylvania, which runs along the foothills. The refugees may have joined their compatriots already inhabiting those valleys and formed semi-independent cantons.

History

Archaic period

Classical period

The first mention of the Dacians is in Roman sources, but classical authors are unanimous in considering them a branch of the Getae, a Thracian people known from Greek writings. Strabo specified that the Daci are the Getae who lived in the area towards the Pannonian plain ( Transylvania), while the Getae proper gravitated towards the Black Sea coast ( Scythia Minor). The Dacian kingdom reached its maximum extent under king Burebista (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. 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).Strabo, Geographia Book 7, chapter 13. , Deva, Romania, Romania]] The Roman Emperor Trajan (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 (101 AD). The Dacian king, Decebalus, 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 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 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 and Carpi remained outside the Roman empire in what the Romans called Dacia Libera (Free Dacia). Roman Dacia was evacuated by the Romans under emperor Aurelian (ruled 271-5 AD). Lucius Domitius Aurelianus (Aurelian) made this decision on account of barbarian pressures on the Empire there (Carpi, Visigoths, Sarmatians, Asding Vandals) - the lines of defense needed to be shortened, and Dacia was deemed not important enough to Rome to remain militarized with the current resources available.

Hellenistic period

Roman rule

Roman Dacia, also Dacia Traiana or Dacia Felix, was a province of the Roman Empire (106-271/275 AD). Its territory consisted of eastern and southeastern Transylvania, the Banat, and Oltenia (regions of modern Romania). Dacia was from the very beginning organized as an imperial province and remained so throughout the Roman occupation. It was one of the empire’s Latin provinces; official epigraphs attest that the language of administration was Latin. Historians’ estimates of the population of Roman Dacia range from 650,000 to 1,200,000. Roman authority of Thracia rested mainly with the legions stationed in Moesia. The rural nature of Thracia's populations, and distance from Roman authority, certainly inspired the presence of local troops to support Moesia's legions. Over the next few centuries, the province was periodically and increasingly attacked by migrating Germanic tribes. The reign of Justinian saw the construction of over 100 legionary fortresses to supplement the defense. Thracians in Moesia and Dacia were Romanized while those within the Byzantine empire were their Hellenized descendants that had mingled with the Greeks.

War

The history of Dacian warfare spans from ca. 10th century BC up to the 2nd century AD in the region defined by Ancient Greek and Latin historians as Dacia. It concerns the armed conflicts of the Dacian tribes and their kingdoms in the Balkans. Apart from conflicts between Dacians and neighboring nations and tribes, numerous wars were recorded among Dacian tribes too.

Religion

Zalmoxis,GebeleïzisHdt. 4.94,Their belief in their immortality is as follows: they believe that they do not die, but that one who perishes goes to the deity Salmoxis, or Gebeleïzis, as some of them call him., Darzalas, two other important gods of the DaciansHarry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898),(Zalmoxis) or Zamolxis (Zamolxis). Said to have been so called from the bear's skin (zalmos) in which he was clothed as soon as he was born. He was, according to the story current among the Greeks on the Hellespont, a Getan, who had been a slave to Pythagoras in Samos, but was manumitted, and acquired not only great wealth, but large stores of knowledge from Pythagoras, and from the Egyptians, whom he visited in the course of his travels. He returned among the Getae, introducing the civilization and the religious ideas which he had gained, especially regarding the immortality of the soul. Herodotus, however, suspects that he was an indigenous Getan divinity ( Herod.iv. 95) and Thracians. Zibelthiurdos (also Zbelsurdos, Zibelthurdos) like Zeus it is said he too was the wielder of lightning and thunderbolts. Derzelas (also Darzalas) was a chthonic god of health and human spirit's vitality.

Extinction of ethnicity and language

See also Dacian language, Thracian language. The ancient languages of these people had already gone extinct and their cultural influence was highly reduced due to the repeated barbaric invasions of the Balkans by Celts, Huns, Goths, and Sarmatians, accompanied by persistent Hellenization, Romanisation and later Slavicisation. The ethnic contribution of the Thracian and Daco- Getic population, who had lived on the territory of modern Romania and Bulgaria has been long debated among the scientists during the 20th century. A 2004 genetic study has concluded that it can just be supposed that these peoples would have been able to contribute to the foundation of the Romanian modern genetic pool, but more mtDNA sequences from Thracian individuals are needed in order to perform a complex analysis. Paleo-mtDNA analysis and population genetic aspects of old Thracian populations from South-East of Romania Cardos, G., Stoian V., Miritoiu N., Comsa A., Kroll A., Voss S., Rodewald A., p. 246.

Physical characteristics

Xenophanes described Thracians as having blue eyes and red hair."Men make gods in their own image; those of the Ethiopians are black and snub-nosed, those of the Thracians have blue eyes and red hair." Xenophanes of Colophon: Fragments, Xenophanes, J. H. Lesher, University of Toronto Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8020-8508-3, p. 90. Nevertheless academic studies have concluded that Thracians had physical characteristics typical of European Mediterraneans. According to Dr. Beth Cohen, Thracians had "the same dark hair and the same facial features as the Ancient Greeks."Cohen (2000). In 2004, genetic analysis comparing DNA samples of ancient Thracian fossil material from southeastern Romania with individuals from modern ethnicities place Italian, Albanian and Greek individuals in closer genetic kinship with the Thracians than Romanian and Bulgarian individuals.Cardos, G., Stoian V., Miritoiu N., Comsa A., Kroll A., Voss S., Rodewald A., p. 246. " Computing the frequency of common point mutations of the present-day European population with the Thracian population has resulted that the Italian (7.9 %), the Alban (6.3 %) and the Greek (5.8 %) have shown a bias of closer genetic kinship with the Thracian individuals than the Romanian and Bulgarian individuals (only 4.2%)."

Famous individuals

This is a list of several important Dacian individuals or those of partly Dacian origin.

Zalmoxis, a semi-legendary social and religious reformer, eventually deified by the Getae & Dacians and regarded as the only true god.
Zoltes
Burebista was a king of Dacia between 70 BC - 44 BC who united under his rule Thracians in a large territory, from today's Moravia in the West, to the Bug river ( Ukraine) in the East, and from Northern Carpathians to Southern Dionysopolis.The Greeks considered him the first and greatest king of Thrace.Dacia: Land of Transylvania, Cornerstone of Ancient Eastern Europe by Ion Grumeza,2009,page 54,"The Greeks were so impressed with his achievements that they named him 'the first and greatest king of the kings of Thracia'"
Decebalus, a king of Dacia ultimately defeated by the forces of Trajan.
Diegis, was a Dacian chief, general and brother of Decebalus, and his representative at the peace negotiations held with Domitian (89 C.E.).
Galerius, Roman Emperor who affirmed his Dacian roots to such an extent that "he had avowed himself the enemy of the Roman name; and he proposed that the empire should be called, not the Roman, but the Dacian empire" Lactanius, De mortibus persecutorum, IX, 1; XXVII, 9; FHDR: II, 4, 6.
Flavius Aetius, often called " the last of the Romans", DacianJordanes, Getica, 176; Merobaudes, Carmina, iv, 42-43, and Panegyrici, ii, 110-115, 119-120; Gregory of Tours, ii.8; Zosimus, v.36.1; Chronica gallica 452, 100. Cited in Jones, p. 21. and Roman origin

Archaeology

Legacy

Middle Ages

Early Modern usage

In Nationalism

References

Sources

Dacia: Land of Transylvania, Cornerstone of Ancient Eastern Europe by Ion Grumeza,2009
Rome's Enemies (1): Germanics and Dacians (Men at Arms Series, 129) by Peter Wilcox and Gerry Embleton,1982
Diegis Razvan
Chronicle of the Roman Emperors by Chris Scarre, 1995
The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire by Edward N. Luttwak, 1976
A History of Rome to A.D. 565 by Boak & Sinnigen, 1965

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