Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/2

 DAGIA. the heart of their ooautiy: in the phum of Bessa- nbU (Ji rdr VerUp ifnifdoy Strab. p. 305) his re- treat was cut off, and he, with all hia army, had to aorrender. Lysimachna, hovreyer, waa set free, and the generosity of Dromichaetes, the native Idrg, foond a {dace among all the collectors of anecdotes. (Stimb. p. SOS ; Plut Demetr, 39, 52 ; Polyaen. viL 5 ; camp. Pans. L 9. § 5.) It is probable that the Dacian prince obtained a large treasnre, either from the fonder of the camp, or the ransom of his prisoo- ers, as on two separate occaaions, once in 1545, and again rather mors than twenty ybars since, many thoosand gdd coins were fbond near Thordaj some of them bearing the name of Lysimachns, and others with the epigraph KO^N. (Paget, Eungcuy and Tramylvania, vol. ii. p. 105.) When the Gauls occupied Eastern Europe, the Getae were involved in war with that people. (Justin, zxvi § 3.) They were defeated, and were ioAd in great numbers for skives to the Athenians, who had formerly obtiuned their supplies finom Phxygia and Caria, as is shown by Aristophanes and the elder comedians; while, after this period, the names of Davus (Dacna and Davus are convertible forms) and Geta appear as the names of sbves in the writers of the New Comedy and their Roman imitator Terence. (Strab. p. 304 ; Menu de. VAcad. des Inter, vol. xxv. pp. 34, foil.; Niebuhr, KUdn, Sekrijt pp. 352-~398; Schafarik, Slao. AlL vol. L p. 469.) - It ia not known why and when the Getae changed their name to that of Daci. The ancients are unani- BOOS in considering them as identical (Plin. iv. 12; Pans. L 12. §4; Dion Cass. li. 67; Appian, Praef. o. 4; Justin, zzxii. 3. § 16), though Strabo (p. 304; comp. Senec. NaL Quaut. 1) distinguishes them by saying that the Getae occupied the district towards Pontus and the E., the Daci that towards Germania and the sources of the later. Curio, the first Roman general who advanced in these regions as fiur N. as the Danube, was afraid to attack Dada. (Flor. iil 4. § 6.) According to some, Julius Caesar, in the extensive schemes of conquest they assign to him, had meditated the invasion of Dacia. (Suet JuL 44.) The native prince Boerebistas, a con- temporary of Augustus, and a man of great capacities, ▼entur^i to cross the Ister, and, by ravaging Thrace, and exterminating the people of the Boii and the Taurisci, had increased the power of the Getae to such extent as even to cause terror to the Bmnans. (Strab. pp. 298, 303.) In b. c. 10, Augustus sent Lentulus to attack their king Cotisa The Romans appear to have marched up the valley of the Marotj but the expedition had no practical results. (Flcr. iv. 12. § 19; Strab. p. 304; Dion Cass. liv. 36; Hot. CamL iiL 8, 18; Suet OcL2,) Ovid, in his exile, has given a picture of the Getae, with aU their repulsive features, set off by the horrors of the in- clement climate. The poet, however, learnt their /'language (TritL v. 12, 68, ex Pont iiL-i^, and oompowd a song of triumph for Augusras in the rude tongue of his barbarian neighbours (ex Font iv. 13, 23). The only specimens of this ancient language are in the names (tf men and places, and in particidar words scattered through the writers of Greece and Rome, or preserved by lexicographers, such as Hesychius and Suidas. Adelung (MUhridat, vol ii. p. 344) has collected many of these words and terminations of words, such as the local ending in datfUj which frequentiy occurs among Dadan towns. From this period the Dadaos were engaged DACIA 748 in frequent wars with the Rranans. Fortune in- clined to neither side, till at last they obtained, under their king Decebalus, so decided an advantage over the weakness of Domitian as to reduce that emperor to accept a peace, accompanied by the most disgrace- ful conditions, and, among othen, the payment of a yearly tribute to Dacia. A fuU account of these two campaigns of Domitian is given in the Viet, of Biog, art. Decthalut. When Tngan assumed the imperial purple, he prepared to restore to its bright- ness the tanuahed honour of the empire, and hixnself headed the expedition against Dada. In a. d. 101, Trajan left Rome, and passing through Pannooia, and crossing the Thnu, followed the course of the MaroB into Transylvania. His first great battle was on the Croe^fidd near Thorda, The Moldo-Wal- lachian peasant still calls the battle field by the name "iVorf de TVajfon " (Pratum Trajani); a re- markable instance of the tenacity of a people's recd- lections. For other curious examples of the hcxiour in which the modem inhabitants hold the memory of the conqueror of Decebalus, see Refsue dee deux Mondesj vol. xxL p. 1 10. Decebalus broke the humiliating conditions to which he had been subjected; but Dada was doomed to become a Roman province, and in A. D. 104 Tn^an, who had assumed the title of Dadcus, set out on his second campaign. The em- peror, who was now better acquainted with the geo- graphy of the country, chose a nearer route, and me by wluch he might at once reach the capital of the enemy. On thiB occasion he crossed the Danube bdow the Iron Gate, where his fiunous bridge was afterwards built, and sending one part of his army along the Aluta, he himself followed the valley which now leads from Oreova by Mehadia and Karaneebe* over the Iron Gate pass — the deep mountain gorge which, standing at tbe entrance of Transylvania, has been alternately contested by Dadan, Roman, Chris- tian, and Moslem. Taking this route, he marched direct upon the capital Sarmiz^thusa. The Dadans, unable any longer to defend thdr capital, set fire to it, and fled to the mountains. Decebalus, finding it impoedble to escape his pur- suera, stabbed himself, and many of his followen committed suidde, to avdd subjection to the Ro- mans. Dion Casdns (Ixviii. 6 — 14) has given the history qH this famous war ; but the Column of Trajan at Rome, upon which the chief events of the two cam- paigns are minutdy figured, fonns the best oommen- taiy on this final victory of Rome, whichCaniniua the poet (Plin. Ep, viii. 4. § 1) had proposed to narrate in verse as an eternal monnment to the illustrious Trajan. (Paget, Hungary and TVofuy/wmta, voL ii. p. 107 ; Fabretti, de Column. Traj. ; Mannert, Ree Traj.adDamA.geetae; Engel, Comm, de Exped, Trc^. qd DamA. ; Franke, Zw Getckich, Trajantf pp. 66—141.) Dada now became a Roman province, and reodved its definite political boundary; on the W. it was bounded by the Tysia, which divided it finom tbe lazyges Metanastae; on the N. by the Mens Car- patus; to the E. its limits were the Hierasus, up to its confluence with the Ister; while on the S. it was separated from Moesia by the Danube. (PtoL iii. 8. § 4.) The whole drcumfiBrence was calculated by Eutropios (viii. 2) at 1000 M. P., but this is below the mark, aa it contained what is now the Banat of Temsivdr, Eungary E. of the 7%etfs, the whole of TraneylvaniOj the Bvbowmoj the S. point of (ro- Uday MofdemaW. i3£ the PrtUh, and the whole of Sb4