Dacia: A Contested Empire

Dacia the Contested Empire
Isaac C. Lopez
University of Texas at San Antonio
May 10, 2007
edited October 18, 2015











The empire that has come to be known as Dacia or Getae-Dacia was at
its peak just before its conquest by the Romans at the beginning of the
second century A.C.E., occupying the land that is now Romania, from the
mouth of the Danube River to the Austrian Alps in the west to the plateau
of Eastern Gall and the steppe country of the Dobruja in the east.[i] The
Dacians were a Thracian people whose empire was forged in the cradle of the
Carpathian Hungaro-Romanian Bronze Age and reached its peak at the end of
the late Iron Age, known as La Tène, by the influence of the Celts that
came to inhabit the lands, bringing with them the knowledge of iron
working. Dacia's decline and conquest at the hands of the Roman Emperor
Trajan came during the beginning stages of the European Feudal Age. Some
scholars say that Getae was the Greek appellation for the peoples and Dacia
was Roman. It could be that the names are both Iranian in origin.[ii] It is
believed that the Dacians inhabited the Carpathians from as early as the
middle of the second millennium B.C.E.[iii]
Many peoples came to occupy Dacia throughout the ages, bringing with
them a diversity of influences as evidenced by the archaeology of the
region. Passionate, and oftentimes exaggerated Romanian scholar Romulus
Seisanu describes the greatness of the Dacian Empire:"The Getae, or Dacians
engaged in many wars of defense or conquest, both against the barbarian
neighboring tribes, whom they subdued and compelled to live in peace, and
against the Egyptians, the Persians, the Macedonians, and the Romans."[iv]
Indeed, Romanian Studies Professor S. Mehedinti describes the area that was
once Dacia as a hub lying in the center of many diverse cultures such as
Greece, the Balkans, Arabic tribes to the East and various northern
Germanic barbarian tribes to the north. It was "the last change of
direction in the course of the Danube before it flows into the sea," "the
gateway of the invaders," and quoting an anonymous Romanian chronicler,
"was placed in the way of all evil comings."[v] The earliest archaeology
reveals similarities to western European Bronze Age artifacts such as those
of the Italics in pottery and other artistry. Later archaeology reveals
more Eastern influence such as the curved swords of the Arabian lands,
during the Scythian invasions of the Hallstatt Period, or early Iron Age.
The discussion of the origins of the Dacian people is a question of
import to Romanians of today because various ethnic groups would lay claim
to being the heirs of this empire, and thus somehow to the region. It may
be difficult to study an empire in such circumstances as much of the
scholarship surrounding who the true Dacian people were carries with it
great political consequences. Modern Romanian scholars seem to prefer the
Dacian people be linked more closely to ancient Western European peoples
than Arabic peoples. Another hotly debated issue surrounding Dacia is what
exactly happened to them after the Roman conquest. Many modern Hungarian
and German scholars would say that the people of Dacia actually evacuated
the area when the Roman Emperor Aurelius recalled the Roman officials from
Dacia in 275 A.C.E. Whole towns in a great migration abandoned the Danubian
lands and went elsewhere, leaving the ancestors of the Hungarians behind
and making them the rightful ethnic heirs to Romania. Modern Romanian
scholars would say this is absurd, and that no such thing is possible, that
modern Romanians are the heirs of Dacia.
Early Dacia: The People of the Carpathian-Danube
Bronze hoards and vessels uncovered in the Carpathian-Danube region
of about 1000 B.C.E link the Dacian people with those of Bohemia and
Hungary. The collected lectures of Vasile Parvan, a leader in
archaeological excavations of the Carpathian-Danube and a professor of
Bucharest University in Romania in the earlier part of the twentieth
century, inform much of my research of this time period. He describes: "The
main characteristics of the industrial products of Dacia are derived from
the west rather than from the east. In other words, there is a more clearly
marked connection with the west of Central Europe, including Northern
Italy, than there is with Eastern and Southern Europe or Asia Minor."[vi]
Metallic vases and hemispherical cauldrons link this area with that of
Northern Italy, where it is believed that the Carpatho-Danubian people
enjoyed extensive trade routes with the Villanovan people, one of the
earliest Iron Age cultures identified in particular with cremation and
burial urns.[vii]
Around 1600 B.C.E. the Scythian people from what is now Iran, began
migrating West toward Southern Russia, and by 800 B.C.E. the Carpathian-
Danube areas as evidenced by tombs, vases, and some swords unearthed there.
It was at this time that the people of Dacia were in the midst of the
Hallstatt Period (early Iron Age), a time that came to a halt with the
waves of Scythian invaders. Artifacts of this period in Dacia do not
compare with "the magnificence of the Scythian tombs of South
Russia,"[viii] a fact which attests to the Scythian presence in Dacia not
being so strongly felt. The Scythians, arriving at a time when Dacia was
already "heavily influenced by the forms of the first Iron Age as it
developed in Italy and the Alpine lands . . . put a stop to these relations
with the West."[ix] This came at an unfortunate time, since this was the
time that Transylvania had "reached its highest point of artistic
development before the Scythian invasion."[x]
The Scythians did not succeed in "conquering" Dacia, but inhabited
various pockets of the region, influencing the culture, but also causing
conflict. The Scythian people were nomadic bowmen whose military technology
was not as advanced as the more agriculturally experienced Dacians, already
masters at using the bow and arrow on horseback. "Nevertheless their
constant plunderings combined with the nomadic nature of their life to
disturb and impoverish, during the next few centuries"[xi] served to
diminish the inertia with which Dacia had been flourishing culturally in
preceding centuries. The Scythians effectively delayed the advancement of
Dacia's participation in the Hallstatt period, only to be continued once
again through the influence of the Celts later on. This could be considered
a Time of Troubles for the Dacians because it was through these constant
battles that "the nobles . . . suffered heavily. They were for the most
part either killed in battle, or reduced to serfdom or else to the status
of the free commoners."[xii] However, "north Thracian nobility did not
disappear completely. It was merely being reorganized, for in the La Tène
period we shall see it once again in all its ancient power and
glory."[xiii] It is during this period of Scythian occupation that
archaeologists uncovered Dacian yataghans, or curved daggers that are
identifiably Persian in origin, which is evidence of the influence of the
Scythian people. Curved daggers such as these are trademark weapons of the
East.
The Dacian people were a Thracian people, as mentioned in Homer's
Iliad and the Odyssey and mentioned by Herodotus as "the second-most
numerous people in the part of the world" known by him.[xiv] "Virgil [in
The Aeneid] mentions that the Agathyrsi [the Scythian-Thracian-Dacian
people] used to paint their bodies." [xv] Indeed, it was around the sixth
century, a "very rich, and on the whole, fairly peaceful" time in Dacia,
when the Greeks arrived.[xvi] The Scythian chieftains of the region "even
regarded it as very fashionable to become thoroughly Hellenized," though
the "prosperity of this little Greek world of the Black Sea coast depended
to a very great extent upon the individual caprice of the Scythian rulers
of the hinterland."[xvii] All of these foreign lords remained in the region
of Dacia, but Parvan points out that the Dacians which "had settled down
long since, accepted the rule of these lords of the Steppe, though they
were ultimately to succeed in denationalizing them."[xviii]
The Celts
By the fourth century there was a great influx of Celtic people
throughout the lands of Dacia. This was the peak of Dacian civilization,
and the La Tène period (late Iron Age). Indeed, Parvan says that "one might
well maintain that Dacia had become completely Celtic."[xix] "Alexander the
Great, King of Macedonia, also made an expedition against the Getae of the
Danube region" around the fourth century B.C.E., but "great conqueror
though he was, Alexander was nevertheless obliged to retreat."[xx]
This was also the period of the famous king Burebista. "The Getic
king Burebista should stand out above all others. His period was precisely
that of the fine Dacian La Tène III, and only his power and his wealth can
adequately account for the monumental greatness of an effort of which even
the Romans themselves would scarcely have been capable."[xxi] Burebista
(rule 82-44) is known for unifying the Thracian people, conquering the
Celts of the Ukraine region, nationalizing the ones within the Dacian
empire, but most of all for siding with Pompey against Julius Caesar, which
inspired the ire of Caesar. During his reign, the Dacian Empire covered
more land than the Austro-Hungarian Empire of 1914, extending from "sources
of the Danube in the west to the Black Sea and the Bug River in the east,
and from the northern Carpathians to the gorges of the [Balkans] to the
south."[xxii]
Parvan describes the Dacian dwelling places of this period:
"The inhabitants of the Dacian villages of the La Tène
period lived in fairly small square houses (of dimensions of
approximately six feet by twelve), all crowded together. The
walls were constructed either of timber or, if near the Danube,
of reeds held together by rough mortar made of earth and built
exactly as in the Neolithic Age. The roofs were either of straw
or of reeds, while a ditch and palisade defended the house on
its most exposed side. As a general rule, these houses were
built on a promontory situated near a river or a lake and easy
to defend on the land side. The people burned their dead and
buried the ashes either in the neighborhood of the village or
under the actual houses in the village itself."[xxiii]
He continues:
"The villages are very small and hardly cover more than
from three and a half to five acres. The number of dwellings
cannot have been more than a hundred or so. It would be out of
place to speak of streets, for all we find are narrow and
irregular passages between the houses."[xxiv]
By looking at the particular construction and geographical
positioning of the fortresses of the Dacian Empir,e one can surmise the
greatness of the Dacian princes or peripheral ruling class, as well as
their capability of being centers for the accumulation of booty and great
riches.
"The mountain fortress of Southwest Transylvania . . . are
like a series of towers with concentric terraces rising up to
the summit, where the dwelling of the prince himself was
situated. This latter comprises one or more square towers, with
walls of as much as nine feet in thickness. The terraces, which
must have called for the application of an enormous amount of
labor to the rocky massif are themselves protected on the outer
side by palisaded earthworks"[xxv]
Archeology has discovered "axes, knives, swords, and lances of South-
eastern Dacia [which] frequently correspond with those of Illyria, and even
with those so far afield as Italy."[xxvi] The ax was a typical weapon of
this period because of its usefulness to the peasants as a tool as well. In
the Transylvanian Bronze age, there were bronze, copper, and gold axes
used. Unique to Dacia, as opposed to the West and in particular the Celts,
were curved knives and swords, shaped like scythes, obviously of Scythian
origin. "Celtic swords were quite well known in Dacia, but yataghans
[scythe-shaped swords] were nevertheless used in preference to
them."[xxvii] Another object that sets Dacia aside from the Celts and the
West is the dragon crest, which is comprised of wolf's head and serpent's
tail, very much in the style of the Arab cultures which often adorned their
artifacts with zoomorphic figures.
Dacian religion remained northern in character despite the Celtic
influences. "Their industrial art is geometric in design, even when they
adopt decorative patterns with animal heads. Their religion remains
aniconic and their supreme god is still the sole master of the clouded sky
whom they worship in caves or on high mountain peaks."[xxviii] This "god of
the hidden sky" they called Zalmoxis. Aniconically represented, that is
without zoomorphic or anthropomorphic imagery, but rather mathematical and
geometric shapes, the Dacian deity more closely resembled a Scythian deity
rather than those of the Celts. Nevertheless, like other lands of the
region that underwent Hellinization, many of the Greek gods were worshiped
at later periods, soon to be supplanted by Roman ones, such as the cult of
Cybele.[xxix] Zalmoxis, along with Dionysus, were particularly Thracian
deities that came to be honored among the larger pantheon of the Greeks and
Romans once imaged gods became customary for Dacian people.[xxx]
Roman Conquest
For years the Dacians managed to keep the Roman forces at bay, but
allowing many citizens to live within the boundaries of the empire. After
Burebista's aiding in the conspiracy against Julius Caesar, (who was also
assassinated through conspiracy at a later date), the exorbitant tributes
Decebalus, the last of the Dacian kings exacted from the Roman Empire, as
well as the many forts and growing army of Dacia, raised the fear and ire
of Emperor Trajan of Rome.[xxxi] Authorized by the Senate, Trajan engaged
in campaigns to subdue Dacia. "Trajan, who had led his best legions to the
Danube, was obliged to make two expeditions. The first . . . ended in a
peace which Decebalus violated. The second . . . ended in the final defeat
of the Dacians in the Roman conquest."[xxxii] This monumental conquest for
Emperor Trajan prompted his erecting the monumental achievement of Trajan's
column in Trajan's Forum, 30 meters high with a spiraling depiction of the
campaign and conquest of Dacia, pictorially depicting the conflict much
like a modern comic book.
Dacia had already been a subject of Rome since the reign of Claudius
around 46 A.C.E.[xxxiii] The Latinization process had begun already, and
after Dacia's final defeat in 106 A.C.E., Trajan sent imperial officials
and colonists to thoroughly Latinize the region. Even after Trajan's death
in 117 A.C.E. Dacia adopted the Latin language and became one of Rome's
strongest territories. By 275 A.C.E. Aurelius recalled the legions and
officials that had run Dacia under Roman rule, leaving Dacia to run
itself.[xxxiv] There are many reasons postulated for this. Around this time
Rome was in dire trouble trying to fight back its own invaders from the
north. Perhaps Rome also trusted in the thorough Latinization of the Dacian
lands, leaving them to their own devices.
The Latin Dacians that survived would be the ancestors of today's
Romanians, a people who's language is considered by some to be one of the
closest linguistically with Latin, with a mixture of Slavic etymology. "As
[Dacia] was a rich country," describes Romanian linguistic scholar Virgiliu
Stefanescu Draganesti, "it was quickly colonized by the Romans who brought
there a large number of colonists – as stated by historians – from all over
the Roman Empire, but chiefly from Rome and Italy, a fact proved by present-
day Romanian, which is a Romance language, closer to Latin than Portugues .
. . as well as French, Italian, Spanish, etc., and in very many respects
very close to Italian."[xxxv]
Some historians, mostly German and Hungarian, claim that the original
Dacians abandoned their land with Aurelius' evacuation of the Roman
officials in fear of the onslaught of barbarian invasions, traveling south
of the Danube. Coupled with this theory is the notion that modern Romanians
are not in fact the descendants of Dacian peoples. Seisanu's argument
against this theory stresses the hypothesis that Roman military did not
abandon the Dacian territories out of fear of the barbarians that were to
invade Dacia, but in order concentrate its efforts on Rome itself, in
urgent need of fortification in the face of its own barbarian invasions. He
says:
"It is obviously impossible that all the natives should have
left Dacia in this way. It is barely possible that some of the
inhabitants of the cities might have been able to follow the
legions across the Danube. But the peasants attached to the land
of their ancestors certainly remained where they were, whatever
the conditions of existence may have been and however insecure
may have been the country, exposed as it was to the barbarian
invasions. There is no example in antiquity or in modern times
of a sedentary population, living in the country of its
ancestors, abandoning en masse its homes, its cities, its
villages, its houses, its farm, all its wealth, out of fear of a
probable or possible invasion."[xxxvi]
Dacia as Empire
Dominic Lieven in Empire: the Russian Empire and its Rivals describes
two main schools of thought concerning what makes up an empire. The first,
put forward by Michael Doyle describes an empire along the lines of its
"relationship between [a] metropolitan core and colonial periphery, usually
viewed in terms of economic exploitation and cultural aggression, and
always in terms of political domination." The second emphasizes "the great
military and absolutist land empires, often linked to universalist
religions, which existed from antiquity into the twentieth
century."[xxxvii] Lieven goes on to include some of his own thoughts on
what makes up an empire such as significant cultural influence on the
periphery during that period and a cultural legacy that would stand the
test of time.
In light of these theories, the question can be raised: could Dacia
be considered an empire? And furthermore: in what ways? There are two
obvious and major difficulties in studying an empire such as Dacia. First,
it is such an ancient culture that the majority of knowledge we can glean
from this culture is through archaeology and the study of linguistics.
Archaeology attests to the fact that the region that was once called Dacia
maintained a culture in the midst of many various invasions and
colonizations, such as the Villanovans, Scythians, Greeks, and Celts up
until the time of the Roman conquest, and then various other barbarians
after that. Whether the Dacians maintained control and to what degree
throughout these waves of invasion is left to some speculation. The second
difficulty in studying such an empire is the extreme bias on the part of
modern historians to write Dacian history according to their own political
agendas. Linguistics attests to the fact that the Romanians were obviously
thoroughly Latinized, and that pre-Latin Dacian must have been some sort of
Indo-European language related to that of other Thracian peoples.
As mentioned previously, Seisanu describes how Dacians "engaged in
many wars of defense or conquest." Mehedinti describes Dacia as a cultural
hub, that though it did not control the periphery cultures as proposed by
Doyle, it somehow became the receptacle of the various cultural ideals. In
fact, it is a recurring theme throughout my research that Dacia quickly
assimilated other cultures, and by no means was a religious absolutist
empire as described by Lieven's second model. The Dacians adopted many
cultural traits of the Villanovans, such as their cremation practices; the
Scythians, including the yataghan, animal-like art designs, geometric
depictions of God; from the Greeks various gods, and from the Romans the
Latin language.
During the La Tène period do we perhaps see Dacia as a more suitable
candidate for being an empire. Under Burebista and the preceding kings,
Dacia held a vast region, conquered and subdued the Celts of the Ukraine,
nationalized the diverse peoples within, and maintained very powerful
princedoms fortified within rich and lavish mountain fortresses. Another
great testimony to Dacia's greatness is the fact that Rome feared Dacia and
had such difficulty in finally conquering the land. After years of
negotiations, trade, even making them subjects, it took two campaigns to
finally subdue Dacia at the hands of Trajan. I will not attempt to draw a
conclusion as to whether or not the Hungarian and German scholars are
correct in proposing that the Dacians abandoned the lands after Aurelius'
recall of Roman officials in 275 A.C.E, or that the Romanian scholars are
justly outraged at the preposterousness of such a notion, but the fact that
such a heated debate exists bears testimony to the fact that Dacia's
cultural influence and political importance bear bear grave implications on
the national identity of diverse groups. This is perhaps the greatest
argument in defense of Dacia's import as an empire and cultural legacy for
future generations.
Bibliography
Draganesti, V. St. Romanian Continuity in Dacia. Miami Beach, FL Romanian
Historical Studies, 1986
Lieven, Dominic. Empire: The Russian Empire and its Rivals. New Haven and
London, Yale University Press. 2000.
Mehedinti, S. What is Transylvania? Miami Beach, FL. Romanian Historical
Studies, 1986.
Parvan, Vasile. Dacia. Westport, CT. Greenwood Press. 1979.
Seisanu, Romulus. Rumania. Miami Beach, FL. Romanian Historical Studies.
1987.
Turcan, Robert. The Cults of the Roman Empire. Malden, MA. Blackwell
Publishing, 1992.
-----------------------
[i] Parvan, pg 1
[ii] Parvan pg 84
[iii] Parvan pg 84
[iv] Seisanu pg 10
[v] Mehedinti pg 19
[vi] Parvan pg4
[vii] Parvan pg 18
[viii] Parvan pg 39
[ix] Parvan pg 49
[x] Parvan pg 57
[xi] Parvan pg 67
[xii] Parvan pg 73
[xiii] Parvan pg 73
[xiv] Herodotus Book 5 qtd in Parvan pg 74
[xv] Seisanu pg 9
[xvi] Parvan pg 75
[xvii] Parvan pg 86
[xviii] Parvan pg 75
[xix] Parvan pg 115
[xx] Seisanu pg 11
[xxi] Parvan pg 121
[xxii] Seisanu pg 12
[xxiii] Parvan pg 115
[xxiv] Parvan pg 116
[xxv] Parvan pg 119
[xxvi] Parvan pg 122
[xxvii] Parvan pg 124
[xxviii] Parvan pg 140
[xxix] Turcan pg 65
[xxx] Parvan pg 140
[xxxi] Seisanu pg 13
[xxxii] Seisanu pg 13
[xxxiii] Seisanu pg 16
[xxxiv] Seisanu pg 17
[xxxv] Draganesti pg 7
[xxxvi] Seisanu pg 24
[xxxvii] Lieven pg 25