| Scorilo | |
|---|---|
| Dacian king | |
 Symbols of the Dacian kingdom | |
| Reign | 1st century AD |
| Predecessor | Comosicus? |
| Successor | Duras? |
Scorilo (died maybe c. 70) was a Dacian king who may have been the father of Decebalus. Evidence for his life and reign is fragmentary.
A Dacian king (dux Dacorum) called Scorylo is also mentioned by Frontinus, who says he was in power during a period of turmoil in Rome. [1]
The Roman historian Jordanes lists a series of Dacian-Getic kings before Decebalus, placing a ruler called "Coryllus" between Comosicus and Dorpaneus. Coryllus is supposed to have presided over a long peaceful 40-year rule. [2] Modern scholars sometimes equate this otherwise unknown successor Dorpaneus with the king Duras attested in other sources. [3] The name Coryllus is not mentioned by any other historian as well, and it has been argued that it "is a misspelling of Scorilo, a relatively common Dacian name". [4]
On this basis, the Coryllus mentioned by Jordanes has been equated with the Scorylo mentioned by Frontinus. It has been further speculated that this ruler is also named on an ancient Dacian pot bearing the latin stamp inscription “Decebalus per Scorilo”. Though far from certain, this has also been translated as "Decebalus son of Scorilo". [5] 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. [6]
From this evidence and references to Dacian kings elsewhere, it has been suggested that Scorilo ruled from the 30s or 40s AD through to 69-70. [1]
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. During the reign of Nero, troops were withdrawn from the Dacian border, leaving the empire vulnerable.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. These events could maybe have coincided with the reign of Scorilo [7] who is, however, not mentioned in the ancient sources on these events.
The Romanian state was formed in 1859 through a personal union of the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. The new state, officially named Romania since 1866, gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877. During World War I, after declaring its neutrality in 1914, Romania fought together with the Allied Powers from 1916. In the aftermath of the war, Bukovina, Bessarabia, Transylvania, and parts of Banat, Crișana, and Maramureș became part of the Kingdom of Romania. In June–August 1940, as a consequence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and Second Vienna Award, Romania was compelled to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union and Northern Transylvania to Hungary. In November 1940, Romania signed the Tripartite Pact and, consequently, in June 1941 entered World War II on the Axis side, fighting against the Soviet Union until August 1944, when it joined the Allies and recovered Northern Transylvania.
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 present-day 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. As a Roman domain Moesia was administered at first by the governor of Noricum as 'Civitates of Moesia and Triballia'. It 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 was the capital and the most important military, religious and political centre of the Dacians before the wars with the Roman Empire. Built on top of a 1200 m high mountain, the fortress, consisting of six citadels, was the core of a strategic and 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.
Burebista was the king of the Getae and Dacian tribes from 82/61 BC to 45/44 BC. He was the first king who successfully unified the tribes of the Dacian kingdom, which comprised the area located between the Danube, Tisza, and Dniester rivers, and modern day Romania and Moldova. In the 7th and 6th centuries BC it became home to the Thracian peoples, including the Getae and the Dacians. From the 4th century to the middle of the 2nd century BC the Dacian peoples were influenced by La Tène Celts who brought new technologies with them into Dacia. Sometime in the 2nd century BC, the Dacians expelled the Celts from their lands. Dacians often warred with neighbouring tribes, but the relative isolation of the Dacian peoples in the Carpathian Mountains allowed them to survive and even to thrive. By the 1st century BC the Dacians had become the dominant power.
Cotiso, Cotish or Cotison was a Dacian or Getic king who apparently ruled the mountains between Banat and Oltenia. Horace and Florus call him a Dacian; Suetonius calls him king of the Getae. Florus wrote in his account of Roman history that Cotiso and his armies used to attack towards south when the Danube froze.
Domitian's Dacian War was a conflict between the Roman Empire and the Dacian Kingdom, which had invaded the province of Moesia. The war occurred during the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian, in the years 86–88 AD.
Comosicus was a Dacian king and high priest who lived in the 1st century BC. The only reference to Comosicus is a passage in the writings of the Roman historian Jordanes.
Duras, also known as Duras-Diurpaneus, was king of the Dacians between maybe AD 69 and 87, during the time that Domitian ruled the Roman Empire. Duras' immediate successor was Decebalus.
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.
Argidava was a Dacian fortress town close to the Danube, inhabited and governed by the Albocense. Located in today's Vărădia, Caraș-Severin County, Romania.
Aedava was a Dacian settlement located south of the Danube in Moesia. In his De Aedificiis, the 6th century AD historian Procopius placed Aedava on the Danubian road between Augustae and Variana. He also mentioned that Emperor Justinian restored the damaged portion of the town defenses.
Dava was a Geto-Dacian name for a city, town or fortress. Generally, the name indicated a tribal center or an important settlement, usually fortified. Some of the Dacian settlements and the fortresses employed the Murus Dacicus traditional construction technique.
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.
This section of the timeline of Romanian history concerns events from Late Neolithic until Late Antiquity, which took place in or are directly related with the territory of modern Romania.
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 Battle of Histria, c. 62–61 BC, was fought between the Bastarnae peoples of Scythia Minor and the Roman Consul Gaius Antonius Hybrida. The Bastarnae emerged victorious from the battle after successfully launching a surprise attack on the Roman troops; Hybrida escaped alongside his cavalry forces leaving behind the infantry to be massacred by the Bastarnian-Scythian attackers.
The history of Dacia comprises the events surrounding the historical region roughly corresponding to the present territory of Romania and Moldova and inhabited by the Getae and Dacian peoples, with its capital Sarmizegetusa Regia.
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