The Dacians: Rome\'s Greatest Enemy?

[diegis]

Well, we've been here before! But what evidence do these 'other historians' give? As I've said, most are quoting one another, and their quotes derive from much more cautious assessments. Trajan's Column shows six different legion shield designs. Epigraphy provides us with nine legions involved in the wars, but at least one was only a vexillation. That's all the evidence we have. Nothing suggests that the two new legions were raised prior to the Dacian wars.

Yes, and i agree we disagree on this

Yes, there were problems in Dacia in other eras. The 'free Dacians', Carpi and others may have been the same people as the Dacians of Trajan's era - we don't know for sure. Gothic origins are another matter again, and I know you have your own ideas about this!

Thats like saying Germanic Franks may have been the same people as the Germans of Arminius era but we don't know for sure.

Arguably! I would say the Persians were far more respected, and for much longer. The Gauls, in their day, caused more anxiety, the Jews more outrage and the Germans more dread. But in the era of Domitian and Trajan Dacia was indeed a prominent adversary - the wars there coincided with a major building program in Rome, which in turn left us with a great visual record, intended to glorify the emperors. As an established state with a relatively modern army, Dacia was treated differently to many other 'barbarian' polities - so there was a measure of respect, yes.

Persians maybe, Gauls, just when Rome was still a small city with just some agriculture land around. Jews and outrage, possible, but just because their "treasonous" action, nothing to really affect Rome. Germans, i doubt. Look what people considered Vegetius worthy to be taken as an example by decaying Roman legions:

http://www.sonshi.com/vegetius1-23.html

<<Men are not degenerated in point of courage, nor are the countries that produced the Lacedaemonians, the Athenians, the Marsians, the Samnites, the Peligni and even the Romans themselves, yet exhausted. Did not the Epirots acquire in former times a great reputation in war? Did not the Macedonians and Thessalians, after conquering the Persians, penetrate even into India? And it is well known that the warlike dispositions of the Dacians, Moesians and Thracians gave rise to the fable that Mars was born among them. To pretend to enumerate the different nations so formidable of old, all which now are subject to the Romans, would be tedious. >>

The death of Oppius Sabinus was in c.85, so before Domitian's assassination. We don't know if he was 'beheaded', of course! Just killed somehow. Domitian's assassination was an in-house affair involving palace staff and competing senators, and probably had little to do with foreign affairs. Domitian himself was very popular with the army, which would not have been the case if he was perceived to have failed in Dacia.

Compare Severus Alexander - ruler of a strong stable Roman state, popular with the senate, recently gained a qualified victory over Persia, but assassinated by his troops - apparently for paying off the Alamanni...

Let me say again what happened then. Domitian stoped the payment for Dacians. Decebalus led his army over Danube and bring havoc there, defeating the Roman troops and killing the governor. Domitian himself comes there brining troops from all over the empire (probably stopping Agricola in his conquering of Scotland too) and manage to push back the Dacian Army.
THen he send a retaliation expedition lead by Fuscus, the comander of Pretorian Guard and with 5-6 legions. This is defeated too and Romans lost probably the standard of Pretorian Guard (which normally should lead to the disbanding of the unit).
After the peace (where Decebalus even didnt bothered to go to sign, but he sent his brother to meet with Domitian) the conditions was that Romans would pay lots of money to Dacians and send them military instructors and engineers. However, Decebalus will keep the captured Romans standards, Roman prisoners and desertors and keep the Roman war machines captured.

Domitian will go back to Rome (without even meet Decebalus) and make a big victory parade with slaves dressed in Dacian clothes posing as war prisoners and gold from his own tresure as "war booty" from Dacia.

Now this was a huge humiliation for Romans, who was a very proud people and considered themselves above anyone in the world.

Same Paulus Orosius write:

<<I would like to tell in detail of the great battles fought by the Dacian king Diurpaneus against the general Fuscus, as well as of the extent of the Roman losses. But Cornelius Tacitus, who wrote an exhaustive history of these events, has declared that Sallustius Crispus and very many other authors established the practice of keeping silence about the number of the slain, and that he himself preferred to do likewise>>
<<Domitian, however, who was puffed up by the lowest form of vanity, held a triumph. Nominally this triumph celebrated his victory over the enemy, but in reality it celebrated the loss of his legions>>

Roman historians back then felt so humiliated that even agree among themselves to not write much about those battles and the amount of losses, or the number of Romans slained by Dacians

The Germans (collectively!) had been a problem since the 1st century BC, and continued to be so. The Severan empire was as large as Trajan's and the army larger - 'dusk' was a long time coming!

Same can be said about Getae/Dacians too. I already posted what Orosius said about Caesar and how he avoided the confrontation with Dacians in 1st BC. Same Caesar who doesnt have problems going against Ariovistus or going over Rhine.
About Severus, it was a matter of personal choice to conduct that war against Germans. He wasnt then too loved by the Roman soldiers, who killed him because they wanted to go to war and fight (so not so much afraid of Germans).
As funny note, the emperor who replaced Severus was Maximin Trax, of Getae/Thracian origin (first "barbarian" or "soldier emperor". And he did lead the legions up to northern Germania and defeated the tribes there. Archaelogical discoveries about that expedition was posted on this forum quite long ago