Dacia[edit]

Main articles: Celts in Transylvania, Dacians, Dacia, Domitian's Dacian War, and Trajan's Dacian Wars

The sanctuaries of the ancient Dacian Kingdom capital, Sarmizegetusa Regia

The Dacians, who are widely accepted to be the same people as the Getae, with Roman sources predominantly using the name Dacian and Greek sources predominantly using the name Getae, were a branch of Thracians who inhabited Dacia, which corresponds
with modern Romania, Moldova, northern Bulgaria, south-western Ukraine, Hungary east of the Danube river and West Banat in Serbia.[10]

The earliest written evidence of people living in the territory of present-day Romania comes from Herodotus in Book IV of his Histories, which was written in c. 440 BC; He writes that the tribal union/confederation of the Getae were defeated by
the Persian Emperor Darius the Great during his campaign against the Scythians, and describes the Dacians as the bravest and most law-abiding of the Thracians. [11]

The Dacians are the most law-abiding and the bravest of the Thracians. They believe they are immortal, forever living in the following sense: they think they do not die and that the one who dies joins Zalmoxis, a divine being.

— Herodotus

The Dacians spoke a dialect of the Thracian language but were influenced culturally by the neighbouring Scythians in the east and by the Celtic invaders of Transylvania in the 4th century.

Due to the fluctuating nature of the Dacian states, especially before the time of Burebista and before the 1st century AD, the Dacians would often be split into different kingdoms thus having different rulers, known rulers of the Dacians include: Charnabon, king of the
Getae as mentioned by Sophocles in Triptolemus in the 5th century BC, Cothelas, father of Meda of Odessa in the 4th century BC,[12] Rex Histrianorum, ruler in Histria, mentioned by Trogus Pompeius and Justinus in 339 BC, Dual in the 3rd century BC, Moskon in
the 3rd century BC,[13] Dromichaetes in the 3rd century BC,[14] Zalmodegicus around year 200 BC,[15][16] Rhemaxos also around year 200 BC,[17][18] Rubobostes before 168 BC,[19] Zoltes after 168 BC,[20] Oroles in the 2nd century BC,[21] Dicomes in the 1st century BC,
[22]
 Rholes in the 1st century BC,[23] Dapyx in the 1st century BC,[24] Zyraxes in the 1st century BC,[25] Burebista between 82 BC – 44 BC,[26] Deceneus between 44 BC and around 27 BC,[27] Thiamarkos between 1st century BC and 1st century AD, Dacian king
(inscription "Basileys Thiamarkos epoiei"), [28] Cotiso between c. 40 BC and c.9 BC,[29] Comosicus between 9 BC and 30 AD,[30] Scorilo between c. 30 AD and 70 AD[30] Coson in the 1st century AD,[31] Duras between c. 69 AD to 87 AD,[31] Decebalus between 87 AD to
106 AD,[32] Dacia becomes a province of the Roman Empire in 106 AD, conquered by Emperor Trajan, however the Free Dacians outside of the Roman Empire remain independent, Pieporus, king of Dacian Costoboci in the 2nd century AD (inscription),[33][34] possibly
Tarbus in the 2nd century AD as Dio Cassius mentioned him without specifying his origin, some authors consider a possible Dacian ethnicity.[35][36]

The Dacia of King Burebista (82–44 BC) stretched from the Black Sea to the source of the river Tisa and from the Balkan Mountains to Bohemia.[37] During that period, the Geto-Dacians conquered a wider territory and Dacia extended from the Middle Danube to the
Black Sea littoral (between Apollonia and Olbia) and from present-day Slovakia's mountains to the Balkan mountains.[38] In 53 BC, Julius Caesar stated that the lands of the Dacians started on the eastern edge of the Hercynian Forest (Black Forest). [39] After
Burebista's death, his kingdom split in four states, later five.

As for the southern part of Germany beyond the Albis, the portion which is just contiguous to that river is occupied by the Suevi; then immediately adjoining this is the land of the Getae, which, though narrow at first, stretching as it does along the Ister on its southern
side and on the opposite side along the mountain-side of the Hercynian Forest (for the land of the Getae also embraces a part of the mountains), afterwards broadens out towards the north as far as the Tyregetae; but I cannot tell the precise boundaries.

— Strabo

Geto-Dacians inhabited both sides of the Tisa river prior to the rise of the Celtic Boii and again after the latter were defeated by the Dacians under the king Burebista.[40] It seems likely that the Dacian state arose as a tribal confederacy, which was united only by
charismatic leadership in both military-political and ideological-religious domains.[40] At the beginning of the 2nd century BC (before 168 BC[41]), under the rule of king Rubobostes, a Dacian king in present-day Transylvania, the Dacians' power in the Carpathian
basin increased after they defeated the Celts, who held power in the region since the Celtic invasion of Transylvania in the 4th century BC.

A kingdom of Dacia also existed as early as the first half of the 2nd century BC under King Oroles. Conflicts with the Bastarnae and the Romans (112–109 BC, 74 BC), against whom they had assisted the Scordisci and Dardani, greatly weakened the resources of
the Dacians. The Roman historian Trogus Pompeius wrote about king Oroles punishing his soldiers into sleeping at their wives' feet and doing the household chores, because of their initial failure in defeating the invaders. Subsequently, the now "highly motivated"
Dacian army defeated the Bastarnae and king Oroles lifted all sanctions.[42]

Top: territories controlled by the Dacian king, circa 50 BC Bottom: territories controlled by the Dacian king, circa year zero

Burebista (Boerebista), a contemporary of Julius Caesar, ruled Geto-Dacian tribes between 82 BC and 44 BC. He thoroughly reorganised the army and attempted to raise the moral standard and obedience of the people by persuading them to cut their vines and
give up drinking wine.[43] During his reign, the limits of the Dacian Kingdom were extended to their maximum. The Bastarnae and Boii were conquered, and even the Greek towns of Olbia and Apollonia on the Black Sea (Pontus Euxinus) recognized Burebista's
authority. In 53 BC, Caesar stated that the Dacian territory was on the eastern border of the Hercynian Forest.[39]
Burebista suppressed the indigenous minting of coinages by four major tribal groups, adopting imported or copied Roman denarii as a monetary standard. [40] During his reign, Burebista transferred Geto-Dacians capital from Argedava to Sarmizegetusa Regia.[44]
[45]
 For at least one and a half centuries, Sarmizegetusa was the Dacians' capital and reached its peak under King Decebalus. The Dacians appeared so formidable that Caesar contemplated an expedition against them, which his death in 44 BC prevented. In the
same year, Burebista was murdered, and the kingdom was divided into four (later five) parts under separate rulers.

One of these entities was Cotiso's state, to whom Augustus betrothed his own five-year-old daughter Julia. He is well known from the line in Horace (Occidit Daci Cotisonis agmen, Odes, III. 8. 18).

The Dacians are often mentioned under Augustus, according to whom they were compelled to recognize Roman supremacy. However they were by no means subdued, and in later times to maintain their independence they seized every opportunity to cross the
frozen Danube during the winter and ravaging the Roman cities in the province of Moesia, which was under Roman occupation.

Although the Getae and Daci once attained to very great power, so that they actually could send forth an expedition of two hundred thousand men, they now find themselves reduced to as few as forty thousand, and they have come close to the point of yielding
obedience to the Romans, though as yet they are not absolutely submissive, because of the hopes which they base on the Germans, who are enemies to the Romans.

— Strabo

In fact, this occurred because Burebista's empire split after his death into four and later five smaller states, as Strabo explains, "only recently, when Augustus Caesar sent an expedition against them, the number of parts into which the empire had been divided was
five, though at the time of the insurrection it had been four. Such divisions, to be sure, are only temporary and vary with the times".

During the War of Actium, King Cotiso found himself courted by the two Roman antagonists, Octavian and Mark Antony. Cotiso was in a strong position to dictate terms of any alliance to either of the conflicting parties. Octavian/Augustus worried about the frontier
and possible alliance between Mark Antony and the Dacians, and plotted an expedition against Dacia around 35 BC. Despite several small conflicts, no serious campaigns were mounted. King Cotiso chose to ally himself with Mark Antony. According to Alban
Dewes Winspear and Lenore Kramp Geweke he "proposed that the war should be fought in Macedonia rather than Epirus. Had his proposal been accepted, the subjection of Antonius might have been less easily accomplished."[46]

A 19th century depiction of Dacian women

Geto-Dacian Koson, mid 1st century BC

According to Appian, Mark Antony is responsible for the statement that Augustus sought to secure the goodwill of Cotiso, king of the Getae (Dacians) by giving him his daughter, and he himself marrying a daughter of Cotiso.[47] According to Suetonius, Cotiso refused
the alliance and joined the party of Mark Antony.[48] Suetonius (LXIII, Life of Augustus) says Mark Antony wrote that Augustus betrothed his daughter Julia to marry Cotiso (M. Antonius scribit primum eum Antonio filio suo despondisse Iuliam, dein Cotisoni Getarum
regi) to create an alliance between the two men. This failed when Cotiso betrayed Augustus. Julia ended up marrying her cousin Marcus Claudius Marcellus. According to Cassius Dio, the story about the proposed marriages is hardly credible and may have been
invented by Mark Antony as propaganda to offset his own alliance with Cleopatra.[48]

After Augustus's victory in the civil wars, the Romans punished the Dacian ruler, who was apparently defeated in battle around 25 BC.[49] In an ode dedicated to his protector, Horace advises him not to worry about Rome's safety, because Cotiso's army has been
crushed. [50] In his account of his achievements as emperor, the Res Gestae, Augustus claimed that the Dacians had been subdued. This was not entirely true, because Dacian troops frequently crossed the Danube to ravage parts of Pannonia and Moesia.[51] He may
have survived until the campaign of Marcus Vinicius in the Dacian area c.9 BC. Vinicius was the first Roman commander to cross the Danube and invade Dacia itself. Ioana A. Oltean argues that Cotiso probably died at some point during this campaign. He may
have been killed in the war.[52] According to Jordanes Cotiso was succeeded by Comosicus, about whom nothing is known beyond the name.[52]

In the 16th century a large number of gold coins were discovered in hoards in Romania. They were patterned after Roman coins, with a depiction of a Roman consul accompanied by lictors apparently copied from coins issued by Marcus Junius Brutus. The coins
bore the name "Coson" or "Koson" written in Greek lettering. Theodor Mommsen argued that Koson was probably a Dacian ally of Brutus, since the imagery was taken from Brutus's coins. Recent scholars have argued that he is very likely to be identical to Cotiso,
since "Cotiso[n]" is an easy transcription error for Coson. Horace always spells the name with an "n" at the end.[53] Ioana A. Oltean, however, argues that Coson and Cotiso are different people, suggesting that Cotiso was Coson's successor.[52]

Jordanes refers to Burebista as king of Dacia, but then goes on to discuss a high priest called Dicineus who taught the Dacians astronomy and whose wisdom was revered. He then says that "after the death of Dicienus, they held Comosicus in almost equal honour,
because he was not inferior in knowledge. By reason of his wisdom he was accounted their priest and king, and he judged the people with the greatest uprightness. When he too had departed Coryllus ascended the throne as king of the Goths [Getae] and for forty
years ruled his people in Dacia."[54]

King Scorilo was Comosicus' successor and may have been the father of Decebalus. The Roman historian Jordanes lists a series of Dacian kings before Decebalus, placing a ruler called "Coryllus" between Comosicus and the independently attested Duras, who
preceded Decebalus as king. Coryllus is supposed to have presided over a long peaceful 40-year rule, however, the name Coryllus is not mentioned by any other historian, and it has been argued that it "is a misspelling of Scorilo, a relatively common Dacian name".
[55]
 On this basis, Coryllus has been equated with the Scorilo named on an ancient Dacian pot bearing the words “Decebalus per Scorilo”. Though far from certain, this has also been translated as "Decebalus son of Scorilo". If so, this might mean that Decebalus was
the son of Scorilo, with Duras possibly being either an older son or a brother of Scorilo.[56] A Dacian king (dux Dacorum) called Scorilo is also mentioned by Frontinus, who says he was in power during a period of turmoil in Rome.[57] From this evidence and references
to Dacian kings elsewhere, it is suggested that Scorilo probably ruled from the 30s or 40s AD through to 69–70. [57]

The Dacians regularly raided into Roman territory in Moesia. The emperors Tiberius and Caligula solved this problem by paying protection money to the Dacians in the form of annual subsidies. This policy appears to have coincided with the reign of King Scorilo.
Scorilo's brother was apparently held captive for a period in Rome, but was released in exchange for a promise that the Dacians would not intervene in Rome's volatile power-politics.[58] During the reign of Emperor Nero, troops were withdrawn from the Dacian
border, leaving the empire vulnerable. When Nero was overthrown in 69, the empire was plunged into turmoil in the Year of Four Emperors. The Dacians appear to have tried to take advantage of the situation to launch an invasion of Moesia in alliance with the
Sarmatian Roxolani. The invasion was ill-timed. Licinius Mucianus, a supporter of Vespasian, was advancing with an army through Moesia towards Rome to overthrow Vitellius. The Dacians unexpectedly encountered his forces and were pushed back, suffering a
major defeat. Scorilo appears to have died around this time, perhaps during the campaign. [59]
The sanctuaries in the ruined Sarmizegetusa Regia, the capital of ancient Dacia

King Duras ruled between the years AD 69 and 87, during the time that Domitian ruled the Roman Empire. He was one of a series of rulers following the Great King Burebista. Duras' immediate successor was Decebalus. Duras may be identical to the "Diurpaneus"
(or "Dorpaneus") identified in Roman sources as the Dacian leader who, in the winter of 85, ravaged the southern banks of the Danube, which the Romans defended for many years. Many authors refer to him as "Duras-Diurpaneus". [60][61][62] Other scholars argue that
Duras and Diurpaneus are different individuals, or that Diurpaneus is identical to Decebalus.[63]

The Roman governor of Moesia, Oppius Sabinus, raised an army and went to war with the Dacians following the Dacian (Getae) raids into Roman territory.[64] Diurpaneus and his people defeated and decapitated Oppius Sabinus. When news of the defeat reached
Rome, the citizens became fearful that the conquering enemy would invade and spread destruction further into the Empire. Because of this fear, Domitian was obliged to move with his entire army into Illyria and Moesia, the latter of which was now split into Upper
and Lower regions. He ordered his commander Cornelius Fuscus to cross the Danube.[64]

The Dacians were pushed back across the Danube, but Fuscus suffered a crushing defeat when ambushed by "Diurpaneus". At this point, the probably elderly Duras seems to have ceded power to Decebalus. Duras' concession of leadership was made peacefully.
He continued to live in one of the palaces in Sarmizegetusa while serving as an advisor to Decebalus.

King Decebalus ruled the Dacians between AD 87 and 106. The frontiers of Decebal's Dacia were marked by the Tisa River to the west, by the trans-Carpathians to the north and by the Dniester River to the east.[65] His name translates into "strong as ten men".

When Trajan turned his attention to Dacia, it had been on the Roman agenda since before the days of Julius Caesar[66][67] when a Roman army had been beaten at the Battle of Histria.[68]

Two of the eight marble statues of Dacian warriors surmounting the Arch of Constantine in Rome.[69]

From AD 85 to 89, the Dacians under Decebalus were engaged in two wars with the Romans.

In AD 85, the Dacians had swarmed over the Danube and pillaged Moesia.[70][71] In AD 87, the Roman troops sent by the Emperor Domitian against them under Cornelius Fuscus, were defeated and Cornelius Fuscus was killed by the Dacians by authority of their
ruler, Diurpaneus.[72] After this victory, Diurpaneus took the name of Decebalus, but the Romans were victorious in the Battle of Tapae in AD 88 and a truce was drawn up .[73] The next year, AD 88, new Roman troops under Tettius Julianus, gained a significant
advantage, but were obligated to make a humiliating peace following the defeat of Domitian by the Marcomanni, leaving the Dacians effectively independent. Decebalus was given the status of "king client to Rome", receiving military instructors, craftsmen and
money from Rome.

To increase the glory of his reign, restore the finances of Rome, and end a treaty perceived as humiliating, Trajan resolved on the conquest of Dacia, the capture of the famous Treasure of Decebalus, and control over the Dacian gold mines of Transylvania. The
result of his first campaign (101–102) was the siege of the Dacian capital Sarmizegethusa and the occupation of part of the country. Emperor Trajan recommenced hostilities against Dacia and, following an uncertain number of battles,[74] and with Trajan's troops
pressing towards the Dacian capital Sarmizegethusa, Decebalus once more sought terms.[75]

Decebalus rebuilt his power over the following years and attacked Roman garrisons again in AD 105. In response Trajan again marched into Dacia,[76] attacking the Dacian capital in the Siege of Sarmizegethusa, and razing it to the ground, [77] the defeated Dacian
king Decebalus committed suicide to avoid capture. [78] In the following years, a new city was built on the ruins of the Dacian capital named Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa. With part of Dacia quelled as the Roman province Dacia Traiana.[79] Trajan
subsequently invaded the Parthian empire to the east. His conquests brought the Roman Empire to its greatest extent. Rome's borders in the east were governed indirectly in this period, through a system of client states, which led to less direct campaigning than in
the west.[80]

The weapon most associated with the Dacian forces that fought against Trajan's army during his invasions of Dacia was the falx, a single-edged scythe-like weapon. The falx was able to inflict horrible wounds on opponents, easily disabling or killing the heavily
armored Roman legionaries that they faced. This weapon, more so than any other single factor, forced the Roman army to adopt previously unused or modified equipment to suit the conditions on the Dacian battlefield. [81]

Some of the history of the war is given by Cassius Dio.[82] Trajan erected the Column of Trajan in Rome to commemorate his victory.[83]

Roman Dacia (106–275 AD)[edit]

Main article: Roman Dacia
Roman Dacia, between 106 and 271 AD.

Roman Dacia, also known as Dacia Felix, was organized as an imperial province on the borders of the empire. It is estimated that the population of Roman Dacia ranged from 650,000 to 1,200,000. The area was the focus of a massive Roman colonization. New
mines were opened and ore extraction intensified, while agriculture, stock breeding, and commerce flourished in the province. Roman Dacia was of great importance to the military stationed throughout the Balkans and became an urban province, with about ten
cities known and all of them originating from old military camps. Eight of these held the highest rank of colonia. Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa was the financial, religious, and legislative center and where the imperial  procurator  (finance officer) had his seat,
while Apulum was Roman Dacia's military center. The region was soon was settled by the retired veterans who had served in the Dacian Wars, principally the Fifth (Macedonia ), Ninth (Claudia), and Fourteenth (Gemina) legions.[84]

While it is certain that colonists in large numbers were imported from all over the empire to settle in Roman Dacia,[85] this appears to be true for the newly created Roman towns only. The lack of epigraphic evidence for native Dacian names in the towns suggests an
urban–rural split between Roman multi-ethnic urban centres and the native Dacian rural population. [85] On at least two occasions the Dacians rebelled against Roman authority: first in 117 AD, which caused the return of Trajan from the east,[86] and in 158 AD when
they were put down by Marcus Statius Priscus.[87]

Some scholars have used the lack of civitates peregrinae in Roman Dacia, where indigenous peoples were organised into native townships, as evidence for the Roman depopulation of Dacia.[88] Prior to its incorporation into the empire, Dacia was a kingdom ruled by
one king, and did not possess a regional tribal structure that could easily be turned into the Roman civitas system as used successfully in other provinces of the empire.[89]

Roman walls in Dacia

As per usual Roman practice, Dacian males were recruited into auxiliary units[90] and dispatched across the empire, from the eastern provinces to Britannia.[91] The Vexillation Dacorum Parthica accompanied the emperor Septimius Severus during
his Parthian expedition, [92] while the cohort I Ulpia Dacorum was posted to Cappadocia.[93] Others included the II Aurelia Dacorum in Pannonia Superior, the cohort I Aelia Dacorum in Roman Britain, and the II Augusta Dacorum milliaria in Moesia Inferior.[93] There are
a number of preserved relics originating from cohort I Aelia Dacorum, with one inscription describing the sica, a distinctive Dacian weapon.[94] In inscriptions the Dacian soldiers are described as natione Dacus. These could refer to individuals who were native
Dacians, Romanized Dacians, colonists who had moved to Dacia, or their descendants. [95] Numerous Roman military diplomas issued for Dacian soldiers discovered after 1990 indicate that veterans preferred to return to their place of origin;[96] per usual Roman
practice, these veterans were given Roman citizenship upon their discharge.[97]

In an attempt to fill the cities, cultivate the fields, and mine the ore, a large-scale attempt at colonization took place with colonists coming in "from all over the Roman world".[98] The colonists were a heterogeneous mix:[99] of the some 3,000 names preserved in
inscriptions found by the 1990s, 74% (c. 2,200) were Latin, 14% (c. 420) were Greek, 4% (c. 120) were Illyrian, 2.3% (c. 70) were Celtic, 2% (c. 60) were Thraco-Dacian, and another 2% (c. 60) were Semites from Syria.[100] Regardless of their place of origin, the
settlers and colonists were a physical manifestation of Roman civilisation and imperial culture, bringing with them the most effective Romanizing mechanism: the use of Latin as the new lingua franca.[99]

The first settlement at Sarmizegetusa was made up of Roman citizens who had retired from their legions.[101] Based upon the location of names scattered throughout the province, it has been argued that, although places of origin are hardly ever noted in epigraphs, a
large percentage of colonists originated from Noricum and western Pannonia.[102] Specialist miners (the Pirusti tribesmen)[103] were brought in from Dalmatia.[104]
Tarabostes on the Arch of Constantine

Although the Romans conquered and destroyed the ancient Kingdom of Dacia, a large remainder of the land remained outside of Roman Imperial authority. Additionally, the conquest changed the balance of power in the region and was the catalyst for a renewed
alliance of Germanic and Celtic tribes and kingdoms against the Roman Empire. However, the material advantages of the Roman Imperial system was attractive to the surviving aristocracy. Afterwards, many of the Dacians became Romanised (see also Origin of
Romanians). In AD 183, war broke out in Dacia: few details are available, but it appears two future contenders for the throne of emperor Commodus, Clodius Albinus and Pescennius Niger, both distinguished themselves in the campaign.

According to Lactantius,[105] the Roman emperor Decius (AD 249–251) had to restore Roman Dacia from the Carpo-Dacians of Zosimus "having undertaken an expedition against the Carpi, who had then possessed themselves of Dacia and Moesia".

Even so, the Germanic and Celtic kingdoms, particularly the Gothic tribes, slowly moved toward the Dacian borders, and within a generation were making assaults on the province. Ultimately, the Goths succeeded in dislodging the Romans and restoring the
"independence" of Dacia following Emperor Aurelian's withdrawal, in 275.

In AD 268–269, at Naissus, Claudius II (Gothicus Maximus) obtained a decisive victory over the Goths. Since at that time Romans were still occupying Roman Dacia it is assumed that the Goths didn't cross the Danube from the Roman province. The Goths who
survived their defeat didn't even attempt to escape through Dacia, but through Thrace.[106] At the boundaries of Roman Dacia, Carpi (Free Dacians) were still strong enough to sustain five battles in eight years against the Romans from AD 301–308. Roman Dacia
was left in AD 275 by the Romans, to the Carpi again, and not to the Goths. There were still Dacians in AD 336, against whom Constantine the Great fought.

The province was abandoned by Roman troops, and, according to the Breviarium historiae Romanae by Eutropius, Roman citizens "from the towns and lands of Dacia" were resettled to the interior of Moesia.[107] Under Diocletian, c. AD 296, in order to defend the
Roman border, fortifications were erected by the Romans on both banks of the Danube.[108]

Constantinian reconquest of Dacia[edit]

Dacia during Constantine the Great

In 328 the emperor Constantine the Great inaugurated the Constantine's Bridge (Danube) at Sucidava, (today Celei in Romania)[109] in hopes of reconquering Dacia, a province that had been abandoned under Aurelian. In the late winter of 332, Constantine
campaigned with the Sarmatians against the Goths. The weather and lack of food cost the Goths dearly: reportedly, nearly one hundred thousand died before they submitted to Rome. In celebration of this victory Constantine took the title Gothicus Maximus and
claimed the subjugated territory as the new province of Gothia.[110] In 334, after Sarmatian commoners had overthrown their leaders, Constantine led a campaign against the tribe. He won a victory in the war and extended his control over the region, as remains of
camps and fortifications in the region indicate.[111] Constantine resettled some Sarmatian exiles as farmers in Illyrian and Roman districts, and conscripted the rest into the army. The new frontier in Dacia was along the Brazda lui Novac line supported by Castra of
Hinova, Rusidava and Castra of Pietroasele.[112] The limes passed to the north of Castra of Tirighina-Bărboși and ended at Sasyk Lagoon near the Dniester River.[113] Constantine took the title Dacicus maximus in 336.[114] Some Roman territories north of the Danube
resisted until Justinian.

Victohali, Taifals, and Thervingians are tribes mentioned for inhabiting Dacia in 350, after the Romans left. Archeological evidence suggests that Gepids were disputing Transylvania with Taifals and Tervingians. Taifals, once independent from Gothia became
federati of the Romans, from whom they obtained the right to settle Oltenia.

In 376 the region was conquered by Huns, who kept it until the death of Attila in 453. The Gepid tribe, ruled by Ardaric, used it as their base, until in 566 it was destroyed by Lombards. Lombards abandoned the country and the Avars (second half of the 6th century)
dominated the region for 230 years, until their kingdom was destroyed by Charlemagne in 791. At the same time, Slavic people arrived.

The Hellenic chronicle could possibly qualify to the first testimony of Romanians in Pannonia and Eastern Europe during the time of Attila,[115][116][117] implying that the formation of Proto-Romanian (or Common Romanian) from Vulgar Latin started in the 5th century.[118]
[119]
 The poem Nibelungenlied from the early 1200s mentions one "duke Ramunc of Wallachia"[120] in the retinue of Attila the Hun.[121][122] The words "torna, torna fratre"[123] (return, return brother) recorded in connection with a Roman campaign across the Balkan
Mountains by Theophylact Simocatta and Theophanes the Confessor evidence the development of a Romance language in the late 6th century.[124] The words were shouted "in native parlance" [125] by a local soldier in 587 or 588.[124][126] The 11th-century Persian
writer, Gardizi, wrote about a Christian people "from the Roman Empire" called N.n.d.r, inhabiting the lands along the Danube. [127] He describes them as "more numerous than the Hungarians, but weaker".[127] Historian Adolf Armbruster identified this people as the
Romanians. [127] Hungarian historiography identifies this people as the Bulgarians.[128]
Name[edit]
Main article: Getae § Getae and Dacians

The Dacians were known as Geta (plural Getae) in Ancient Greek writings, and as Dacus (plural Daci) or Getae in Roman documents, [130] but also as Dagae and Gaete as depicted on the late Roman map Tabula Peutingeriana. It was Herodotus who first used
the ethnonym Getae in his Histories.[131] In Greek and Latin, in the writings of Julius Caesar, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder, the people became known as 'the Dacians'.[132] Getae and Dacians were interchangeable terms, or used with some confusion by the Greeks.[133]
[134]
 Latin poets often used the name Getae.[135] Vergil called them Getae four times, and Daci once, Lucian Getae three times and Daci twice, Horace named them Getae twice and Daci five times, while Juvenal one time Getae and two times Daci.[136][137][135] In AD
113, Hadrian used the poetic term Getae for the Dacians.[138] Modern historians prefer to use the name Geto-Dacians.[132] Strabo describes the Getae and Dacians as distinct but cognate tribes. This distinction refers to the regions they occupied. [139] Strabo and Pliny
the Elder also state that Getae and Dacians spoke the same language.[139][140]

By contrast, the name of Dacians, whatever the origin of the name, was used by the more western tribes who adjoined the Pannonians and therefore first became known to the Romans.[141] According to Strabo's Geographica, the original name of the Dacians
was Δάοι "Daoi".[142][143] The name Daoi (one of the ancient Geto-Dacian tribes) was certainly adopted by foreign observers to designate all the inhabitants of the countries north of Danube that had not yet been conquered by Greece or Rome.[132][132]

The ethnographic name Daci is found under various forms within ancient sources. Greeks used the forms Δάκοι "Dakoi" (Strabo, Dio Cassius, and Dioscorides) and Δάοι "Daoi" (singular Daos).[144][142][145][a][146][143] The form Δάοι "Daoi" was frequently used according
to Stephan of Byzantium.[137]

Latins used the forms Davus, Dacus, and a derived form Dacisci (Vopiscus and inscriptions).[147][148][149][150][137]

There are similarities between the ethnonyms of the Dacians and those of Dahae (Greek Δάσαι Δάοι, Δάαι, Δαι, Δάσαι Dáoi, Dáai, Dai, Dasai; Latin Dahae, Daci), an Indo-European people located east of the Caspian Sea, until the 1st millennium BC. Scholars have
suggested that there were links between the two peoples since ancient times.[151][152][153][137] The historian David Gordon White has, moreover, stated that the "Dacians ... appear to be related to the Dahae".[154] (Likewise White and other scholars also believe that the
names Dacii and Dahae may also have a shared etymology – see the section following for further details.)

By the end of the first century AD, all the inhabitants of the lands which now form Romania were known to the Romans as Daci, with the exception of some Celtic and Germanic tribes who infiltrated from the west, and Sarmatian and related people from the east.[134]

Mythology[edit]

Dacian Draco as from Trajan's Column

Mircea Eliade attempted, in his book From Zalmoxis to Genghis Khan, to give a mythological foundation to an alleged special relation between Dacians and the wolves:[155]

 Dacians might have called themselves "wolves" or "ones the same with wolves",[156][155] suggesting religious significance. [157]

 Dacians draw their name from a god or a legendary ancestor who appeared as a wolf.[157]

 Dacians had taken their name from a group of fugitive immigrants arrived from other regions or from their own young outlaws, who acted similarly to the wolves circling villages and living from looting. As was the case in other societies, those young
members of the community went through an initiation, perhaps up to a year, during which they lived as a "wolf".[158][157] Comparatively, Hittite laws referred to fugitive outlaws as "wolves".[159]

 The existence of a ritual that provides one with the ability to turn into a wolf.[160] Such a transformation may be related either to lycanthropy itself, a widespread phenomenon, but attested especially in the Balkans-Carpathian region, [159] or a ritual imitation of
the behavior and appearance of the wolf.[160] Such a ritual was presumably a military initiation, potentially reserved to a secret brotherhood of warriors (or Männerbünde).[160] To become formidable warriors they would assimilate behavior of the wolf, wearing
wolf skins during the ritual.[157] Traces related to wolves as a cult or as totems were found in this area since the Neolithic period, including the Vinča culture artifacts: wolf statues and fairly rudimentary figurines representing dancers with a wolf mask.[161]
[162]
 The items could indicate warrior initiation rites, or ceremonies in which young people put on their seasonal wolf masks.[162] The element of unity of beliefs about werewolves and lycanthropy exists in the magical-religious experience of mystical solidarity
with the wolf by whatever means used to obtain it. But all have one original myth, a primary event.[163][164]

Carpi and Costoboci[edit]

Main articles: Carpi (people) and Costoboci

The Carpi were a sizeable group of tribes, who lived beyond the north-eastern boundary of Roman Dacia. The majority view among modern scholars is that the Carpi were a North Thracian tribe and a subgroup of the Dacians.[165] However, some historians classify
them as Slavs.[166] According to Heather (2010), the Carpi were Dacians from the eastern foothills of the Carpathian range – modern Moldavia and Wallachia – who had not been brought under direct Roman rule at the time of Trajan's conquest of Transylvania Dacia.
After they generated a new degree of political unity among themselves in the course of the third century, these Dacian groups came to be known collectively as the Carpi.[167]
Dacian cast in Pushkin Museum, after original in Lateran Museum. Early second century AD.

The ancient sources about the Carpi, before 104 AD, located them on a territory situated between the western side of Eastern European Galicia and the mouth of the Danube.[168] The name of the tribe is homonymous with the Carpathian mountains. [169] Carpi and
Carpathian are Dacian words derived from the root (s)ker- "cut" cf. Albanian karp "stone" and Sanskrit kar- "cut".[170][171] A quote from the 6th-century Byzantine chronicler Zosimus referring to the Carpo-Dacians (Greek: Καρποδάκαι, Latin: Carpo-Dacae), who
attacked the Romans in the late 4th century, is seen as evidence of their Dacian ethnicity. In fact, Carpi/Carpodaces is the term used for Dacians outside of Dacia proper.[172] However, that the Carpi were Dacians is shown not so much by the form Καρποδάκαι
in Zosimus as by their characteristic place-names in –dava, given by Ptolemy in their country. [173] The origin and ethnic affiliations of the Carpi have been debated over the years; in modern times they are closely associated with the Carpathian Mountains, and a good
case has been made for attributing to the Carpi a distinct material culture, "a developed form of the Geto-Dacian La Tene culture", often known as the Poienesti culture, which is characteristic of this area.[174]

The main view is that the Costoboci were ethnically Dacian.[175] Others considered them a Slavic or Sarmatian tribe.[176][177] There was also a Celtic influence, so that some consider them a mixed Celtic and Thracian group that appear, after Trajan's conquest, as a
Dacian group within the Celtic superstratum.[178] The Costoboci inhabited the southern slopes of the Carpathians.[179] Ptolemy named the Coestoboci (Costoboci in Roman sources) twice, showing them divided by the Dniester and the Peucinian (Carpathian)
Mountains. This suggests that they lived on both sides of the Carpathians, but it is also possible that two accounts about the same people were combined. [179] There was also a group, the Transmontani, that some modern scholars identify as Dacian Transmontani
Costoboci of the extreme north.[169][180] The name Transmontani was from the Dacians' Latin,[181] literally "people over the mountains". Mullenhoff identified these with the Transiugitani, another Dacian tribe north of the Carpathian mountains. [182]

Based on the account of Dio Cassius, Heather (2010) considers that Hasding Vandals, around 171 AD, attempted to take control of lands which previously belonged to the free Dacian group called the Costoboci.[183] Hrushevskyi (1997) mentions that the earlier
widespread view that these Carpathian tribes were Slavic has no basis. This would be contradicted by the Coestobocan names themselves that are known from the inscriptions, written by a Coestobocan and therefore presumably accurately. These names sound
quite unlike anything Slavic.[176] Scholars such as Tomaschek (1883), Shutte (1917) and Russu (1969) consider these Costobocian names to be Thraco-Dacian.[184][185][186] This inscription also indicates the Dacian background of the wife of the Costobocian king "Ziais
Tiati filia Daca".[187] This indication of the socio-familial line of descent seen also in other inscriptions (i.e. Diurpaneus qui Euprepes Sterissae f(ilius) Dacus) is a custom attested since the historical period (beginning in the 5th century BC) when Thracians were under
Greek influence. [188] It may not have originated with the Thracians, as it could be just a fashion borrowed from Greeks for specifying ancestry and for distinguishing homonymous individuals within the tribe.[189] Shutte (1917), Parvan, and Florescu (1982) pointed also
to the Dacian characteristic place names ending in '–dava' given by Ptolemy in the Costoboci's country.[190][191]

Physical characteristics[edit]

Roman monument commemorating the Battle of Adamclisi clearly shows two giant Dacian warriors wielding a two-handed falx

Dacians are represented in the statues surmounting the Arch of Constantine and on Trajan's Column.[69] The artist of the Column took some care to depict, in his opinion, a variety of Dacian people—from high-ranking men, women, and children to the near-savage.
Although the artist looked to models in Hellenistic art for some body types and compositions, he does not represent the Dacians as generic barbarians. [192]

Classical authors applied a generalized stereotype when describing the "barbarians"—Celts, Scythians, Thracians—inhabiting the regions to the north of the Greek world.[193] In accordance with this stereotype, all these peoples are described, in sharp contrast to the
"civilized" Greeks, as being much taller, their skin lighter and with straight light-coloured hair and blue eyes.[193] For instance, Aristotle wrote that "the Scythians on the Black Sea and the Thracians are straight-haired, for both they themselves and the environing air
are moist";[194] according to Clement of Alexandria, Xenophanes described the Thracians as "ruddy and tawny".[193][195] On Trajan's column, Dacian soldiers' hair is depicted longer than the hair of Roman soldiers and they had trimmed beards.[196]
Body-painting was customary among the Dacians.[specify] It is probable that the tattooing originally had a religious significance.[197] They practiced symbolic-ritual tattooing or body painting for both men and women, with hereditary symbols transmitted up to the fourth
generation.[198]

Religion[edit]
Dacian religion was considered by the classic sources as a key source of authority, suggesting to some that Dacia was a predominantly theocratic state led by priest-kings. However, the layout of the Dacian capital Sarmizegethusa indicates the possibility of co-
rulership, with a separate high king and high priest.[40] Ancient sources recorded the names of several Dacian high priests (Deceneus, Comosicus and Vezina) and various orders of priests: "god-worshipers", "smoke-walkers" and "founders".[40] Both Hellenistic and
Oriental influences are discernible in the religious background, alongside chthonic and solar motifs.[40]

According to Herodotus' account of the story of Zalmoxis or Zamolxis,[131] the Getae (speaking the same language as the Dacians and the Thracians, according to Strabo) believed in the immortality of the soul, and regarded death as merely a change of country.
Their chief priest held a prominent position as the representative of the supreme deity, Zalmoxis, who is called also Gebeleizis by some among them.[131][199] Strabo wrote about the high priest of King Burebista Deceneus: "a man who not only had wandered
through Egypt, but also had thoroughly learned certain prognostics through which he would pretend to tell the divine will; and within a short time he was set up as god (as I said when relating the story of Zamolxis)." [200]

Votive stele representing Bendis wearing a Dacian cap (British Museum)

The Goth Jordanes in his Getica (The origin and deeds of the Goths), also gives an account of Deceneus the highest priest, and considered Dacians a nation related to the Goths. Besides Zalmoxis, the Dacians believed in other deities, such as Gebeleizis, the god
of storm and lightning, possibly related to the Thracian god Zibelthiurdos.[201] He was represented as a handsome man, sometimes with a beard. Later Gebeleizis was equated with Zalmoxis as the same god. According to Herodotus, Gebeleizis
(*Zebeleizis/Gebeleizis who is only mentioned by Herodotus) is just another name of Zalmoxis.[202][131][203][204]

We have conquered even these Dacians, the most warlike of all people that have ever existed, not only because of the strength in their bodies, but, also due to the teachings of Zamolxis who is among their most hailed. He has told them that in their hearts they do
not die, but change their location, and, due to this, they go to their deaths happier than on any other journey.

— Emperor Trajan

Another important deity was Bendis, goddess of the moon and the hunt.[205] By a decree of the oracle of Dodona, which required the Athenians to grant land for a shrine or temple, her cult was introduced into Attica by immigrant Thracian residents,[b] and, though
Thracian and Athenian processions remained separate, both cult and festival became so popular that in Plato's time (c. 429–13 BC) its festivities were naturalised as an official ceremony of the Athenian city-state, called the Bendideia.[c]

Known Dacian theonyms include Zalmoxis, Gebeleïzis and Darzalas.[206][d] Gebeleizis is probably cognate to the Thracian god Zibelthiurdos (also Zbelsurdos, Zibelthurdos), wielder of lightning and thunderbolts. Derzelas (also Darzalas) was a chthonic god of health
and human vitality. The pagan religion survived longer in Dacia than in other parts of the empire; Christianity made little headway until the fifth century.[207]