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Dacia
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In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians. Dacia had in the middle the Carpathian Mountains and was bounded approximately by the Danubius river, in Greek sources Istros (the Danube) or, at its greatest extent, by the Haemus Mons (the Balkan Mountains) to the south–Moesia (Dobrogea), a region south of the Danube, was a core area where the Getae lived and interacted with the Ancient Greeks–Pontus Euxinus (the Black Sea) and river Danastris, in Greek sources Tyras (the Dniester) to the east (but several Dacian settlements are recorded in part of area between Dniester and Hypanis river (the Bug), and Tisia (the Tisza) to the west (but at times included areas between Tisa and middle Danube). It thus corresponds to modern countries of Romania and Moldova, as well as smaller parts of Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, and Ukraine.
Dacians and Getae, were North Thracian tribes.[1] Dacian tribes had both peaceful and military encounters with other neighboring tribes, such as Celts, Ancient Germanics, Sarmatians, and Scythians, but were most influenced by the Ancient Greeks and Romans. The latter eventually conquered, and linguistically and culturally assimilated the Dacians. A Dacian Kingdom of variable size existed between 82 B.C. until the Roman conquest in 106 A.D. The capital of Dacia, Sarmizegetusa, located in modern Romania, was destroyed by the Romans, but its name was added to that of the new city (Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa) built by the latter to serve as the capital of the Roman province of Dacia.
Name
The Dacians, situated north of the lower Danube in the area of the Carpathians and Transylvania, are the earliest named people from the present territory of Romania. They are first mentioned in the writings of Ancient Greeks, in Herodotus (Histories Book IV XCIII - "[Getae] the noblest as well as the most just of all the Thracian tribes") and Thucydides (Peloponnesian Wars, Book II - "[Getae] border on the Scythians and are armed in the same manner, being all mounted archers").[2] Later the Dacians were mentioned in the Roman documents (Caesar's De Bello Gallico, Book VI 25,1 - "The Hercynian Forest [...] stretches along the Danube to the areas of the Daci and Anarti"), and also under the name Geta (plural Getae). Strabo in his Geography, Book VII 3,12 tells about the Daci-Getae division "Getae, those who incline towards the Pontus and the east, and Daci, those who incline in the opposite direction towards Germany and the sources of the Ister". In Strabo's opinion, the original name of the Dacians was "daoi", which Mircea Eliade in his De Zalmoxis à Genghis Khan explained with a possible Phrygian cognate "Daos", the name of the wolf god. This assumption is enforced by the fact that the Dacian standard, the Dacian Draco, had a wolf head. The late Roman map Tabula Peutingeriana indicates them as Dagae and Gaete.
Much later, in the Late Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church used on a few occasions the term Dacia to denote Scandinavia or Jutland, and refer to several royalty from northern Europe as "of Dacia". As the term did not catch and was disused soon after its (re)introduction, normally there is no confusion with the usage of the original.
Geography
Towards the west Dacia may originally have extended as far as the Danube, where it runs from north to south at Waitzen (Vác). In the 1st century B.C., at the time of the Dacian Kingdom of Burebista, Julius Caesar in his De Bello Gallico (book 6) speaks of the Hercynian forest extending along the Danube to the territory of the Dacians.
In the 2nd century A.D., after the Roman conquest, Ptolemy puts the eastern boundary of Dacia Trajana (the Roman provice) as far east as the Hierasus (Siret) river, in modern Romania. Roman rule extended to almost all Dacian area; it however did not extend to what later became known as Maramureş, to the parts of the later Principality of Moldavia east of the Siret and north of the Upper Trajan Wall, as well as to areas in modern Ukraine, except the Black Sea shore.
The extent and location of the geographical entity Dacia varied in its three distinct historical periods (see History, below);
- The Dacia of King Burebista (82–44 BC), stretching from the Black Sea to the Adriatic and from the Balkan Mountains to Bohemia[3]. After Burebista's death, his kingdom split in four states, later five.
Note: Strabo in his Geography written between 20 BC - 23 AD [4]:
"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"
- The Roman province Dacia Trajana, established by the victors of the Dacian Wars during 101–106 AD, initially comprised only the regions known today as Banat, Crişana, Oltenia, Transylvania, and was subsequently gradually extended to Muntenia and parts of Moldavia, while Dobruja and Budjak belonged the Roman province of Moesia.
- The later Roman province Dacia Aureliana, organized inside former Moesia Superior after the retreat of the Roman Army from Dacia during the reign of emperor Aurelian during 271-275; reorganised as Dacia Ripensis (as military province) and Dacia Mediterranea (as civil province)[5].
Culture
