The so-called Free Dacians (Romanian: Dacii liberi) is the name given by some modern historians to those Dacians[1] who putatively remained outside, or emigrated from, the Roman Empire after the emperor Trajan's Dacian Wars (AD 101-6). Dio Cassius named them Dakoi prosoroi (Latin: Daci limitanei) meaning "neighbouring Dacians".[2]
A population of Dacians existed on the fringes of the Balkan Roman provinces, especially in the eastern Carpathian Mountains, at least until about AD 340. They were responsible for a series of incursions into Roman Dacia in the period AD 120-272, and into the Roman Empire south of the Danube after the province of Dacia was abandoned by the Romans around AD 275.
Traditional paradigm
According to many scholars, amongst the Free Dacians were refugees from the Roman conquest, who had left the Roman-occupied zone, and some Dacian-speaking tribes resident outside that zone, notably the Costoboci and the Carpi in SW Ukraine, Moldavia and Bessarabia. The refugees may have joined these resident peoples.[3][4] Through proximity with the Roman province of Dacia, the Free Dacians supposedly became Romanised and adopted the Latin language and Roman culture. Despite this acculturation, the paradigm holds that the Free Dacians were irredentists, repeatedly invading the Roman province in attempts to recover the refugees' ancestral land. They were unsuccessful until the Roman province was abandoned by the emperor Aurelian in AD 275. After this, the Free Dacians supposedly liberated the Roman province and joined the remaining Romano-Dacians to form a Latin-speaking Daco-Roman ethnic group that were the forebears of the modern Romanian people.[3]
Validity of paradigm
Left panel: Rural Dacian families are forced to leave their homes, taking their livestock (sheep, cattle and goats) with them, as the last garrisons of Dacian forts, including the one in the background, surrender to the Romans (shown on previous panel). Right panel: Roman emperor Trajan (r. 98-117) (on podium, centre) congratulates his victorious troops. Detail from Trajan's Column, RomeMap showing the eastern border of the Roman Dacia in the 2nd-3rd centuries, the Limes Transalutanus
There is substantial evidence that large numbers of ethnic Dacians continued to exist on the fringes of the Roman province of Dacia. During Trajan's Dacian Wars in AD 102 and AD 106, enormous numbers of Dacians were killed or taken into slavery. It also appears that many indigenous Dacians were expelled from, or emigrated from, the occupied zone. Two panels of Trajan's Column depict lines of Dacian peasants leaving with their families and animals at the end of each war.[5]
Furthermore, it appears that the Romans did not permanently occupy the whole of Decebal's kingdom. The latter's borders, many scholars believe, are described in Ptolemy's Geographia: the rivers Siret in the east, Danube in the south, Thibiscum (Timiş) in the west and the northern Carpathian Mountains in the north.[6] But the eastern border of the Roman province was by AD 120 set at the Limes Transalutanus ("Trans-Olt Frontier"), a line to the just east of the river Aluta (Olt), thus excluding the Wallachian plain between the limes and the river Siret. In Transylvania, the line of Roman border-forts seems to indicate that the eastern and northern Carpathians were outside the Roman province.[7]
The unoccupied sections of Decebal's kingdom are likely to have been inhabited predominantly by ethnic Dacians, although according to Ptolemy, the northernmost part of the kingdom (northern Carpathians/Bukovina) was shared by non-Dacian tribes: the Anartes and the Taurisci, who were probably Celtic,[8] and the Germanic Bastarnae are also attested in this region.[7] Furthermore, some areas were occupied after 106 by nomadic Sarmatian tribesmen, most likely a minority ruling over the sedentary Geto-Dacian majority e.g. Muntenia (eastern Wallachia), which was ruled by the Roxolani Sarmatians and possibly also northern Moldavia, which was under the Costoboci, a dacian tribe.[9] But there are no reports of Sarmatians controlling the remaining unoccupied region of Decebal's kingdom between the Transylvanian border of the Roman province and the Siret, i.e. the eastern Carpathians, and it is therefore in these mountain valleys and foothills that the politically independent Free Dacians were most likely concentrated, and presumably where most of the refugees from the Roman conquest escaped to.[citation needed]
Free Dacians are reported to have invaded and ravaged the Roman province in 214 and 218.[10][11] Several emperors after Trajan, as late as AD 336, assumed the victory title of Dacicus Maximus (" Grand Dacian "): Antoninus Pius (157),[12]Maximinus I (238),[13]Decius (250)[14]Gallienus (257),[15]Aurelian (272)[16] and Constantine I the Great (336).[17] Since such victory-titles always indicated peoples defeated, not geographical regions, the repeated use of Dacicus Maximus implies the existence of ethnic Dacians outside the Roman province in sufficient numbers to warrant major military operations into the early 4th century.[18] The permanent deployment of a massive Roman military garrison, normally of 2 legions and over 40 auxiliary regiments (totaling ca. 35,000 troops, or about 10% of the imperial army's total regular effectives), also implies a grave threat to Roman Dacia throughout its history, between 106 and 275.[19] There is substantial archaeological evidence of major and devastating incursions into Roman Dacia: clusters of coin-hoards and evidence of the destruction and abandonment of Roman forts.[20][full citation needed] Since these episodes coincide with occasions when emperors assumed the title Dacicus Maximus, it is reasonable to suppose that the Free Dacians were primarily responsible for these raids. [citation needed]
In 180, the emperor Commodus, whose reign lasted from 180 to 192, is recorded as having admitted 12,000 "neighbouring Daci", who had been driven out of their own territory by hostile tribes, for settlement in the Roman province.[21] Some scholars believe that the presence of the free Dacians is attested by the Puchov Culture in Slovakia and of the Lipiţa culture to the northeast of the Carpathians.[22] However, the identification of these cultures with ethnic Dacians is controversial, as mainstream scholarship considers Puchov as a Celtic culture. Other scholars have identified Lipiţa as Celtic, Germanic or Slavic. In any case, according to modern archaeological theory, material cultures cannot reliably prove ethnicity.[citation needed]
However, the identification of the Costoboci and Carpi as ethnic Dacian is far from secure.[23][24] Unlike the Dacians proper, neither group is attested in Moldavia before Ptolemy (i.e. before about. 140).[25] The Costoboci are, according to Mommsen, classified as a Sarmatian tribe by Pliny the Elder, who locates them near the river Tanais (southern river Don) in ca. AD 60, in the Sarmatian heartland of modern-day southern Russia, far to the east of Moldavia.[9] The ethno-linguistic affiliation of the Carpi is uncertain.[23] It has also been variously suggested that they were a Sarmatian, Germanic or Proto-Slavic group.[26] The contemporaneous existence, alongside Dacicus Maximus, of the victory-title Carpicus Maximus - claimed by the emperors Philip the Arab (247),[27] Aurelian (273),[16]Diocletian (297)[28] and Constantine I (317/8)[29] - suggests that the Carpi may have been considered ethnically distinct from the Free Dacians by the Romans.[citation needed]
The traditional paradigm is also open to challenge in other respects. There is no evidence that the peoples outside the province were Romanised to any greater extent than their non-Dacian neighbours, since the archaeological remains of their putative zone of occupation show no greater Roman influence than do other Chernyakhov culture sites elsewhere in the northern Pontic region; nor that the Free Dacians gave up their native tongue and became Latin-speakers.[30] In 271-5, when the Roman emperor Aurelian decided to evacuate Roman Dacia, its Roman residents are reported by ancient sources to have been deported en masse to the province of Moesia Inferior, a Roman territory south of the Danube.[31][32] These reports have been challenged by some modern scholars who, based primarily on archaeological finds, argue that many rural inhabitants of the Roman province, and even part of the urban population, with few links to the Roman administration or army, remained behind.[33] However, leaving behind the Romano-Dacian peasantry would have defeated the main purpose of the evacuation, which was to repopulate the Roman provinces south of the Danube, whose inhabitants had been decimated by plague and barbarians invasions,[31] and to bring back into cultivation the extensive abandoned lands (terrae desertae) in those provinces. These were also presumably the aims of Aurelian's contemporaneous resettlement in Roman Pannonia of a substantial section of the Carpi people that he defeated in 273.[32]
Ultimate fate
The latest secure mention of the Free Dacians in the ancient sources is Constantine I's acclamation as Dacicus Maximus in 336. For the year 381, the Byzantine chronicler Zosimus records an invasion over the Danube by a barbarian coalition of Huns, Sciri and what he terms Karpodakai, or Carpo-Dacians.[34] There is much controversy about the meaning of this term and whether it refers to the Carpi. However, it certainly refers to the Dacians, and most likely means the "Dacians of the Carpathians".[35] However, it is uncertain whether this term constitutes reliable evidence that the Dacians were still a major force at this time. Zosimus is regarded as an unreliable chronicler by a single scholar[citation needed] and has been criticised by one scholar as having "an unsurpassable claim to be regarded as the worst of all the extant Greek historians of the Roman Empire...it would be tedious to catalogue all the instances where this historian has falsely transcribed names, not to mention his confusion of events...".[36] It is accepted that the Zosimus quote proves the continued existence in 381 of the Dacians as a distinct ethnic group.
The Bastarnae and Peucini were two ancient peoples who between 200 BC and 300 AD inhabited areas north of the Roman frontier on the Lower Danube. The Bastarnae lived in the region between the Carpathian Mountains and the river Dnieper, to the north and east of ancient Dacia. The Peucini occupied the region north of the Danube Delta.
This article covers the history and bibliography of Romania and links to specialized articles.
Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians, its core in Transylvania, stretching to the Danube in the south, the Black Sea in the east, and the Tisza in the west. The Carpathian Mountains were located in the middle of Dacia. It thus roughly corresponds to the present-day countries of Romania, as well as parts of Moldova, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Ukraine.
Moesia was an ancient region and later Roman province situated in the Balkans south of the Danube River, which included most of the territory of modern eastern Serbia, Kosovo, north-eastern Albania, northern parts of North Macedonia, Northern Bulgaria, Romanian Dobruja and small parts of Southern Ukraine.
Sarmizegetusa Regia, also Sarmisegetusa, Sarmisegethusa, Sarmisegethuza, Ζαρμιζεγεθούσα (Zarmizegethoúsa) or Ζερμιζεγεθούση (Zermizegethoúsē), was the capital and the most important military, religious and political centre of the Dacians before the wars with the Roman Empire. Erected on top of a 1200 m high mountain, the fortress, comprising six citadels, was the core of a strategic defensive system in the Orăștie Mountains.
The Dacians were the ancient Indo-European inhabitants of the cultural region of Dacia, located in the area near the Carpathian Mountains and west of the Black Sea. They are often considered a subgroup of the Thracians. This area includes mainly the present-day countries of Romania and Moldova, as well as parts of Ukraine, Eastern Serbia, Northern Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary and Southern Poland. The Dacians and the related Getae spoke the Dacian language, which has a debated relationship with the neighbouring Thracian language and may be a subgroup of it. Dacians were somewhat culturally influenced by the neighbouring Scythians and by the Celtic invaders of the 4th century BC.
Decebalus, sometimes referred to as Diurpaneus, was the last Dacian king. He is famous for fighting three wars, with varying success, against the Roman Empire under two emperors. After raiding south across the Danube, he defeated a Roman invasion in the reign of Domitian, securing a period of independence during which Decebalus consolidated his rule.
The Carpi or Carpiani were a Dacian tribe that resided in the eastern parts of modern Romania in the historical region of Moldavia from no later than c. AD 140 and until at least AD 318.
The Tropaeum Traiani or Trajanic Trophy is a monument in Roman Civitas Tropaensium, built in AD 109 in then Moesia Inferior, to commemorate Roman Emperor Trajan's victory over the Dacians, in the winter of 101–102, in the Battle of Adamclisi. Before Trajan's construction, an altar existed there, on the walls of which were inscribed the names of the 3,000 legionaries and auxilia (servicemen) who had died "fighting for the Republic"..
The Dacian Wars were two military campaigns fought between the Roman Empire and Dacia during Emperor Trajan's rule. The conflicts were triggered by the constant Dacian threat on the Danubian province of Moesia and also by the increasing need for resources of the economy of the Empire.
The Costoboci were a Dacian tribe located, during the Roman imperial era, between the Carpathian Mountains and the river Dniester. During the Marcomannic Wars the Costoboci invaded the Roman empire in AD 170 or 171, pillaging its Balkan provinces as far as Central Greece, until they were driven out by the Romans. Shortly afterwards, the Costoboci's territory was invaded and occupied by Vandal Hasdingi and the Costoboci disappeared from surviving historical sources, except for a mention by the late Roman Ammianus Marcellinus, writing around AD 400.
The Burs were a Dacian tribe living in Dacia in the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D., with their capital city at Buridava.
Porolissum was an ancient Roman city in Dacia. Established as a military camp in 106 during Trajan's Dacian Wars, the city quickly grew through trade with the native Dacians and became the capital of the province Dacia Porolissensis in 124. The site is one of the largest and best-preserved archaeological sites in modern-day Romania. It is 8 km away from the modern city of Zalău, in Moigrad-Porolissum village, Mirsid Commune, Sălaj County.
The Carpathian Tumuli culture is the name given to an archaeological culture which evolved in the parts of the Carpathian Mountains between the end of the 2nd and end of the 4th century AD. It was less vast than the area occupied by the Lipiţa culture, encompassing today's Pokuttya, Maramureş, Bucovina and to a lesser extent, Northwest Moldova.
The history of Dacian warfare spans from c. 10th century BC up to the 2nd century AD in the region defined by Ancient Greek and Latin historians as Dacia, populated by a collection of Thracian, Ionian, and Dorian tribes. 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 Dacians too.
Potaissa was a castra in the Roman province of Dacia, located in today's Turda, Romania.
Roman Dacia was a province of the Roman Empire from 106 to 271–275 AD. Its territory consisted of what are now the regions of Oltenia, Transylvania and Banat. During Roman rule, it 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. It was conquered by Trajan (98–117) after two campaigns that devastated the Dacian Kingdom of Decebalus. However, the Romans did not occupy its entirety; Crișana, Maramureș, and most of Moldavia remained under the Free Dacians.
The Antiquity in Romania spans the period between the foundation of Greek colonies in present-day Dobruja and the withdrawal of the Romans from "Dacia Trajana" province. The earliest records of the history of the regions which now form Romania were made after the establishment of three Greek towns—Histria, Tomis, and Callatis—on the Black Sea coast in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. They developed into important centers of commerce and had a close relationship with the natives. The latter were first described by Herodotus, who made mention of the Getae of the Lower Danube region, the Agathyrsi of Transylvania and the Sygannae of Crişana.
The German and Sarmatian campaigns of Constantine were fought by the Roman Emperor Constantine I against the neighbouring Germanic peoples, including the Franks, Alemanni and Goths, as well as the Sarmatian Iazyges, along the whole Roman northern defensive system to protect the empire's borders, between 306 and 336.
Garašanin, Milutin V., Benac Alojz (1973) “Actes du VIIIe congrès international des sciences préhistoriques” International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences
Holder (Paul) (2003): Auxiliary Deployment in the Reign of Hadrian
1 Dacian kingdoms succeeding Burebista's state and preceding Decebalus' state
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