Dacia (ancient world)

(Rumania)

A large country north of the Lower Danube, centering on the high plateau of Transylvania (completely encircled by mountains), but extending in a wider sense westward to the river Pathisus or Tisia (Tisza, Theiss), eastward to the Hierasus (Sereth), and northward to the vicinity of the Vistula. A people of Thracian stock, with German and Sarmato-Scythian components, who came under Celtic influence in the fourth century BC, the Dacians developed the gold, silver and iron mines of the Carpathians. `The Dacians keep to the mountains,’ observed Florus; they tended upland, circular sheepfolds in the high Carpathian pastures, and the shape of these sheepfolds was echoed in the sanctuaries of their towns. These included complex stone calendrical monuments based on their observations as pastoralists and incorporated their system for marking these observations.

Eager to assimilate more advanced techniques and customs, the Dacians traded with the Hellenistic Greeks (who confused them with another Thracian people, the Getae), and imported their wine. In association with other tribal groups, they fought against Roman generals before and after the end of the second century, but first became a major power under Burebista (c 60), who united their various elements and enforced his domination beyond the Pathisus and as far as Thrace and the Euxine (Black) Sea, where the Greek coastal cities came forcibly under his control. Provoked by Burebista's offer of assistance to his enemy Pompey the Great, Julius Caesar, we learn from Suetonius, was planning a large-scale operation against him at the time of his murder. Burebista, too, died soon afterward, and his empire broke up; but Octavian (the future Augustus) sought a marriage alliance with one of his successors, Cotiso, before his civil war against Antony (31–30). In 14 Cnaeus Cornelius Lentulus destroyed the Getic (Geto-Thracian, Geto-Dacian) settlements in the southeastern part of the country.

After continuing from time to time to make assaults upon the Roman frontiers, the Dacians were reunited under Decebalus, who heavily defeated two of Domitian's generals (AD 85–86). The emperor improved his situation by a victory at Tapae (in southwest Transylvania, west of the Dacian capital Sarmizegethusa), but was obliged (by an internal crisis) to come to an agreement, under which he recognized Decebalus as a client ruler. Provoked, however, by his independent conduct, Trajan reduced the Dacians and their allies and conquered Transylvania and the Banat in the First and Second Dacian Wars (101/2, 105), graphically depicted on the spiral frieze of the Column in his forum at Rome. This was the last Roman conquest to bring massive financial gains, derived from enormous booty and the rapid exploitation—assisted by new roads—of the country's gold mines, centered on Ampelum (Zlatna); wooden writing tablets have been found in the mining district at Alburnus Minor (Roşia Montana). In 119/20 Hadrian divided the conquered area into two provinces, Upper Dacia (comprising Transylvania with a western extension; its capital was at Apulum [Alba Julia]) and Lower Dacia (Wallachia [Oltenia and Muntenia], garrisoned by auxiliaries, with its capital at Romula Malva [Reşca], so that the new province came to be known as Dacia Malvensis). However, c 124—or at least before 133, as the discovery of an inscription has indicated—Upper Dacia was further subdivided into a pair of provinces, Apulensis and Porolissensis (to the north), with their capitals at Apulum and Napoca (Cluj) respectively. A massive immigration into Dacia from other provinces swelled the new cities, and there was also an influx of trained miners. During the German Wars under Marcus Aurelius (c 168), the three provinces were constituted a single military area.