Pre-Roman History
Dacia is an area in central Europe south of the Carpathian Mountains covering much of the region of Transylvania. The name is derived from the inhabitants themselves, called the Dacian people. They occupied land from the Carpathian to south of the Danube river. They were of Thracian descent and were similar to the Gatae, so much so that the historian Herodotus referred to the Dacians as a part of the tribe of Gatae.
The Dacians used a Thracian dialect but culturally were most influenced by the Scythians and the Celtic invaders. The sometimes used Greek coins, and around the 4th century BC, several Dacians appeared on the Athenian slave market, further proving that the Dacians had active trade with the Greeks. The first coins produced by the Dacians were imitations of silver coins of the Macedonian king Philip II and Alexander the great, however in the first century BC they replaced these coins with the silver denarii of the Roman Republic.
By the end of the 2nd Century BC, Dacian society had divided into two main classes: the aristocracy (or tarbostes), which consisted of the nobility and the priests, and the proletariat- agricultural peasants and cattle breeders. They also mined rich mines of silver, iron and gold. In terms of religion, Herodotus recorded that the Dacians (same as most Thracians) believed in immortality and regarded death as a change of country. Priests held a prominent position in society as the representative of the supreme deity and also as the king’s personal advisor.
Wars with Rome
The Dacians were part of an alliance that attacked Roman troops in 112, 109 and 75 BC. Around 60-50 BC, King Burebista unified and expanded the kingdom making it a regional power. He even defeated the Greek cities on the north coast of the Black Sea and expanded his kingdom beyond the Tisza River, north to modern day Slovakia and south of the Danube River. It’s likely that King Burebista offered assistance to Pompey in 49 BC and in 44 BC Caesar was planning an expedition against the Dacian Kingdom. However, Caesar was murdered that very same year and soon after that Burebista was also assassinated. After his death, Dacia split into four parts, but that didn’t stop their harassment of Rome. They even launched an invasion of Rome’s territory in 11 or 10 BC but Augustus’s generals pushed them back from the left bank of the Danube and left troops in the province of Moesia. After the legions left in Moesia were departed in 69 AD, Dacians captured a number of fortresses. Despite that, they were defeated and pushed back by Vespasian’s general Gaius Licinius Mucianus.
Dacians unified again under Decebalus and raided Moesia where they killed the provincial governor Oppius Sabinus in 85 AD. Emperor Domitian restored order the following year and tried to invade Dacia but invasion was a catastrophe for the Romans. Their commander Cornelius Fuscus was killed with a large part of his army. In 88 Rome won a battle in Tapae near the Iron Gate Pass but troubles broke out with some tribes to the west, so Domitian called for peace with the Dacian. In 101 AD Trajan invaded Dacia and in 102 the Dacian capital Sarmizegethusa was captured and a Roman garrison was left there. In 105 the war was renewed and ended in 106 with the fall of Dacia under Roman rule. Following this horrendous defeat, Decebalus committed suicide. Trajan captured enormous loot and the Dacian mines were immediately exploited. A Roman province Dacia Traiana was established with a consular legate consisting of two legions. In the time of Hadrian, the province was divided into Dacia Superior in Transylvania under praetorian legate (supported by a single legion at Apulm) and Dacia Inferior in Walachia, governed by a procurator. The territory was divided again in 159 by Antoninus Pius into three provinces: Dacia Porolissensis, Dacia Apulensis and Dacia Malvensis. In 168 AD Marcus Aurelius grouped them into a single military area. Germanic and Celtic kingdoms, particularly the Goths made a slow progression toward Dacia, and soon started making assaults on the province. Rome took these attacks hard, and in 271, the Emperor Aurelian abandoned the province. During the reign of Diocletian a number of fortifications were built in order to defend the border. In 336 AD, Constantine the Great had reconquered the province, but after his death, Rome abandoned Dacia again.