The "Myth" of the "Dacian Falx" as a super weapon

[Paullus Scipio]

Diegis wrote:

This are armoures and helmets used by Dacians, from both archeological discoveries and imagery from Traian build monuments. They wasnt depicted wearing them for probably 2 reasons
1- to not confuse the viewer (especialy since the Column was quite big and hard to watch closely, and many watchers was "civilians") who might dont understand well who's who betwen Romans and Dacians if all was armoured
2- to show the superiority of Romans over the "barbarians"

Ofcourse probably not all Dacians was equiped with armoures and helmets, but a fair amount was for sure, the professional troops under king command and the nobles for ex.

You post a mish-mash of images which are evidence of precisely nothing - you don't even tell the readers what they are supposed to be !!....this is NOT the way to present a case or evidence. As Dan Howard has pointed out on another thread, iconography on its own tells us very little. You don't even tell us what these images are supposed to represent, and in some cases the images are completely irrelevant ( the two images of helmets for example are from Thracian tombs (probably) and are circa 400 BC. They are certainly not "Dacian, 1 C AD".)

To deal with them in detail (numbering top to bottom):-
1. and 2. are depictions of the 'trophy' base of Trajan's column - we don't know who this armour belongs to - probably Roxalani since no Dacians are shown in armour on the column itself. Just possibly belonging to Dacian chieftains - but the helmet styles and decoration are 'Eastern' and more typical of Sarmatians.
3. and 9. fanciful drawings of equipment from the base of the column.
5. A coin showing a trophy, but no armour or helmet - implying like the column itself that Dacians were unarmoured. Of the seventeen or more types of coin referring to victory over Dacia, six or so show 'trophies' - not one of them shows Dacians in armour, or Dacian armour as part of a trophy
4. and 6. Thracian helmets circa 400 BC. Nothing to do with Dacians 1 C AD.
7. I have no idea what this crude helmet is supposed to be and you don't even give us a hint!! - it doesn't look 1/2 C AD. More like much later ( if authentic).
8. Part of Scene LXXVIII showing 'Victory/Nike' with trophies either side at the conclusion of the First War - one shows no armour like the previous coin, the other (to the right of 'Victory') is this one - since the Roxalani took part in this First War and are shown defeated, this particular trophy could just as easily represent victory over them, and the unarmoured one victory over the Dacians.
10. What appears to be suspiciously intact bronze mail - if authentic could be anything.


The images of the 'tropaeum' carved on the base of Trajan's column are also useless, because they represent a jumble of weapons from Dacians, Roxolani Sarmatians and Bastarnae sources. In order to draw any possible conclusions, we need other evidence to support these images - thus the images from Adamklissi allow us to guess that it is probable that the 'two-handed choppers' are trophies from Bastarnae,( from the three ethnic groups represented) who are also associated with 'two-handed choppers' (this time "rhomphaia") by Valerius Flaccus writing in the 1 C AD. In this instance shields are also referred to, as in almost every example of Thracians illustrated with "rhomphaia". What we don't know is whether Valerius Flaccus is describing past events, or possibly confusing the old "rhomphaia" with the contemporary Bastarnae use of the "falx".

The question of whether Dacians used armour during Trajan's wars, and to what extent, or not, is simply not known at present, though there is evidence of Dacian mail for an earlier period ( see below). This sort of statement is the purest speculation with no proper evidence:-

Ofcourse probably not all Dacians was equiped with armoures and helmets, but a fair amount was for sure, the professional troops under king command and the nobles for ex.

What 'professional' troops? Roman deserters? These would not be let anywhere near the King for fear of assasination attempts - Decebalus tried this very thing against Trajan. Evidence for 'professional troops'?
"a fair amount for sure"? There is absolutely no, nil, zero evidence for this !!!! On the contrary,the iconography we have - the column and the many coins show NO armour at all.
The only armoured troops on the Dacian side actually shown in armour on the column are Sarmatian Roxalani, and not one Dacian, not even King Decebalus, has armour or even a helmet. In fact the 'capwearers'/nobles are shown on the column wearing their Phrygian caps even in battle. This, taken on its own would suggest that the body armour and helmets depicted on the 'tropaeum' base are possibly all Roxalani gear, and that only the shields ( which bear similar patterns on base and column) and perhaps some swords are truly Dacian, but we have no way of knowing for sure - because we might expect from analogies with other similar peoples (e.g. Thracians) that the chiefs and nobles might have had helmets etc BUT I don't know of any archaeological finds that might support such a thing for this date ( e.g. tomb finds or similar from around Sarmizegetusa dateable to the 1/2 C AD). You may well be right that the Dacians on the column itself are shown as unarmoured and in a standard form of dress as a form of 'ethnic identifier', but without further evidence we simply can't know.....

For a previous period, 2 -1 C BC, there is evidence of equipment from Warrior graves from Hunedoara valley in Transylvania. Mostly the graves usually contain a spearhead and the typical curved 'sica' fighting knife around 10.3-30 cm long.Belt buckle remains and pottery are other common grave goods. A number of 'La tene' type celtic swords have also been found, but only fragments of up to ten shields in Dacian contexts. One grave did contain the goods of a 'richer' individual, including a possible horse bit, as well as remains of a horse and a pig. Of significance here is that weaponry remains consisted of:-

a) Chain mail shirt made of iron, cut into small fragments, probably with a chisel, as one can notice traces of cuts on one, two, three or four of sides of the pieces preserved, and only a small part of the remains, folded, were put in the nook (Fig. 5;12). The chain mail fragments were not placed on the dead at the time of the cremation, as the chain mails preserved their initial shape, which means they were not exposed to strong fire; the traces of cremated bones on some of the chain mail fragments are the result of their being deposited in nook over the still hot cremated horse and pig bones. The chain mails are short and round (D = 5.5-6mm, W. thread = 1.5mm), both in plane and in section, and the weaving is one widespread at the time
b) Iron shield umbone. There are relatively many pieces (over 40), but very small, and their features (shape, thickness, number of layers, folding technique) mean they are from an umbones, probably hemispherical, or from the connection and attaching elements of the shield (rivets, edge) (Fig. 4/1; 6/1, 2, 13, 16; 11/11). Although the umbone fragments are very small, including those from the item’s curvature, meaning it is very difficult to approximate its diameter, we believe it is around 10 cm).
c) Helmet (?). There are a few iron-sheet fragments, from a single sheet, that stick together, including one with a hinge, which could constitute an attaching element between the calotte and the mobile cheek-piece of a helmet.
d) Bridle bit (?). One has found a few fragments, including something that could be the end of a bridle (Fig. 4/5; 6/4), a potential indication of a bridle bit, which would make sense, given that the deposit includes horse bones.
There are also several small iron fragments, whose piece of origin is very difficult to identify.
What is interesting is that all the items had been fragmented and only parts of them were deposited in the nook, together with remains from the still-smoking fire. Since burnt horse and pig bones were found in the deposit, perhaps the fire remains are from their cremation.

This suggests that in the 2-1 C BC at least, wealthy/noble warriors could have mail. There are also other finds of mail in tombs elsewhere in Dacia:-

Chain mail shirts, such as the one on C70D7, were found in the Dacian tumuli from Cugir-T2 (Cri?an 1980, p. 81-87), Pope?ti-T2, T3 and T4, Radovanu, Poiana-Gorj and Cet??eni (Vulpe 1976, p. 201, 208, fig. 15/1, 18/6-8), namely both in south-western Transylvania and in Oltenia or Walachia, in tombs from the second half of 2nd c.-1st c. BC. Many instances from 2nd - 1st c. BC were found in tombs of the Panaghiurski Kolonii group from north-western Bulgaria (Torbov 2004, p. 57-69). Also, on the upper Tisa, in the necropolis from Zemplin, Tumulus 3, cremation tomb 78, belonging to an adult, one has found a chain mail shirt (Budinský-Kri?ka, Lamiová-Schmiedlova 1990, p. 255, fig. 20a-b); the inventory is that of a Dacian warrior from the last decades of 1st c. BC . Since the chronology and diffusion of this type of item for the Celts and Dacians were recently discussed by Aurel Rustoiu (2006, p. 49-52), we believe there is no point in delving on them....

Note however that mail is not at all common - as we would expect for such an expensive item.

This is where you might add something useful to this question of Dacian armour in the Trajanic Wars period. Evidence of Dacian armour for this period may exist in the archaeological reports of the various forts excavated which surround Sarmizegetusa - e.g Costesti, Blidaru, Piatra Rosie, Caplana and Banita and the defences of Sarmizegetusa itself...or lesser known examples such as Anines-Virfu lui Hulpe. The Romanian archaeologists H and C. Daicoviciu were involved in these excavations in the '50's and '60's, and presumably you are able to access the reports ( in Romanian). There is also probably more work done since then. Of course, the finding of armour fittings would have to be dateable to the 'pre-destruction' layers so as to rule out their belonging to subsequent Roman garrisons. ( e.g. the finding at Piatra Rosie of a celtic 'La Tene' type sword from below the destruction layer - contra your earlier claim that Dacians had abandoned the use of such swords before the Trajanic Wars.)

Incidently, it appears that Decebalus in both wars, sensibly avoided open battle with the Romans ( other than, perhaps his defeat at Tapae, which he may have learned from) - for we know of no decisive battles - and wisely concentrated his defence of Dacia on mountainous forts/strongholds/citadels - like other Thracian peoples. It is these all but impregnable mountain fortresses that took time for the Romans to take which account for the campaigns, not any particular resistance in the field. Even so, the first war may have lasted but one campaigning season, and the second two. The Dacians, clearly lightly armed like the Gauls or Germans, had no more success in the field in the long term than these peoples against heavily armed Legionaries and Auxiliaries ( beyond initial success perhaps due to surprise and Roman overconfidence by Fuscus in Domitian's Dacian War).