Roumania Past and Present by James Samuelson (lightweight ebook reader .TXT) 📖

by Aurelian,[102] affords little to interest the reader. Dacia was, so to speak, the outwork of the Empire which served to hold the barbarians at bay during its 'decline and fall;' and the country was more prosperous than during the period of its independence, when the tribes were constantly at war with one another and there was no settled government. That the attitude of the barbarians was threatening even a few years after the death of Trajan is, however, more than probable, for his immediate successor, Hadrian, contemplated withdrawing his legions, and destroyed the bridge across the Danube, 118 or 120 A.D. Some writers, indeed, attribute this act to his jealousy of Trajan, others to his hatred of Apollodorus, the architect; but most probably the cause assigned by Dion Cassius, that it was to prevent its being used by the barbarians for making inroads into Moesia, was the true one.[103] During the reigns of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius for about half a century, the barbarians were kept in check, although even during that period they had managed to encroach upon the Roman territory.

At the beginning of the third century, however, the Roman hold on Dacia began to be very precarious, and we approach the time when the dark veil of the so-called barbarian ages is drawn over the history of Europe. That the Roman emperors had to contend, with very varying fortunes, with barbarous tribes is certain, and that their arms were still frequently successful is proved by the erection of fortresses and towns, named after their emperors, on the borders of their possessions. For example, Caracalla defeated certain barbarous hordes about A.D. 212, and assumed the name of 'Geticus,' but whether the conquered tribes were Dacians or Goths is uncertain.

A few years later the Quadi and Marcomanni made inroads into Western Dacia, but they were held in check by the proconsul Varus, who built a tower or fort in close proximity to Trajan's bridge, of which the ruins are still visible to travellers on the Danube, and which has given its name to the modern town of Turnu-Severin. But the Goths, a people of Scandinavian origin, had been for some time previously drawing nearer to the borders of the Roman Empire. Between the beginning of our era and the end of the second century they had spread themselves, associated with the Vandals, in the direction of the Carpathians and the Ukraine, and in the reign of the Emperor Philip (243-249) they made irruptions into Moesia. In that of Decius they invaded the Roman territory a second time under a chief, Cniva, and, after defeating the Romans and compelling the emperor to flee, they took and sacked Philippopolis. Shortly afterwards Decius met them again, but he was again defeated and slain. The barbarians then retired with their plunder.

The next event of importance was the defeat of the Goths (about 268 or 269[104]) by Marcus Aurelius Claudius. They had once more entered Roman territory, had overrun Moesia and Illyria, and were approaching the capital; it was therefore found necessary to raise a powerful army and drive them over the frontier. This time they were defeated with great slaughter at Naissos in the Balkans and elsewhere, and were then driven across the Danube. Marcus Aurelius, who took the name of 'Gothicus,' describes the fate of the enemy in these terms: 'We have annihilated 320,000 Goths, and have sunk two thousand of their ships. Everywhere rivers are covered with their shields, all the banks with their swords and spears, whilst the fields are sown with their bones. The roads are indistinguishable; much baggage is taken. We have captured so many women that every soldier is able to possess two or three of them.'[105] And yet, notwithstanding this decisive victory of Marcus Aurelius, his successor Aurelian found himself very shortly afterwards in deadly conflict with these same Goths, and his contests were so doubtful in their results that he was glad to make a treaty of peace with them and leave them in undisturbed possession of Trajan's Dacia. That he decided to withdraw the Roman legions (about 270 or 275 A.D.) from Dacian territory, that he offered protection to all colonists who were prepared to follow them across the Danube, and that a new colony, called Dacia Aureliani, was founded along the south bank of the Danube: these are uncontradicted facts. But when we come to enquire into the details of the withdrawal and the composition of the remaining population, we find such a conflict of authorities that it is impossible to come to a definite conclusion. Nay, not only do the historians differ from one another in regard to the conditions under which Aurelian evacuated Dacia Trajana, or Dacia north of the Danube, but in some cases they even contradict themselves, and, after a careful perusal and comparison of the statements of many of them, we are quite disposed to accept the opinion expressed by our own historian Gibbon, who, after saying that Aurelian withdrew the Roman legions from Dacia and offered the alternative of leaving to those colonists who were disposed to follow him, adds:--

'The old country of that name (Dacia) detained, however, a
considerable number of its inhabitants who dreaded exile more than
a Gothic master. These degenerate Romana continued to serve the
Empire whose allegiance they had renounced by introducing amongst
their conquerors the first notions of agriculture, the useful arts,
and the convenience of civilisation. An intercourse of commerce and
language was gradually established between the opposite banks of
the Danube, and after Dacia became an independent State it often
proved the firmest barrier of the Empire against the invasions of
the savages of the north. A sense of interest attached these more
settled barbarians to the alliance of Rome, and a permanent
interest very frequently ripens into sincere and useful
friendship.'[106]

And Gibbon, who had read and studied the works of Eutropius and his successor Vopiscus, as well as other more recent historians, gives us further details of the negotiations that took place between Aurelian and the Goths, which remove any doubts as to the accuracy of his views. Aurelian treated with the barbarians after a battle had been fought which was by no means adverse to the Roman arms, and he stipulated with the Goths that they should contribute an auxiliary force of 2,000 men to the Roman army. He moreover secured a large number of hostages, being the sons and daughters of Gothic chiefs, whom he sent to Rome to be educated. He adds, concerning the constitution of the province north of the Danube: 'This various colony which filled the ancient province, and was insensibly blended into one great nation, still acknowledged the superior renown and authority of the Gothic tribe, and claimed the fancied honour of Scandinavian origin.'[107]

But this is not all. The great historian, whose views can only be rejected on what we may call a political or partisan theory, believed the Roman colonists to have been industrious agriculturists; for when he speaks, in another place, of the temptations which led the wandering Goths in the first instance to cast longing eyes upon Dacia, he says: 'But the prospects of the Roman territory were far more alluring, and the fields of Dacia were covered with a rich harvest, sown by the hands of an industrious , and exposed to be gathered by a warlike people.'[108]

In bringing the history of the Roman occupation of Dacia to a close, we have therefore to acknowledge that, far from being inhabited by the scum of the earth as Carra supposed, the country was at first in the hands of an industrious, though probably a sparse peasantry, and, as Gibbon has said, 'only those who had nothing to lose accompanied the Roman army,' leaving the remainder, a large body of industrious Daco-Roman agriculturists, ruled over by a tribe of warlike barbarians. What these and their posterity suffered, will be seen from the narrative in our next chapter.

[Illustration: DACIAN TROPHIES. (FROM TRAJAN'S COLUMN.)]

[Footnote 97: According to certain writers, Transylvania was Dacia mediterranca ; the Banate, D. ripensis ; and Roumania, D. transalpina ; but Smith ( Geography , 'Dacia') gives those names to divisions of Moesia after the withdrawal of the Romans from Dacia; and later historians mate no reference to the divisions. Dicrauer (p. 103) only refers to one or two leading colonies, and Roesler (p. 45) says that Trajan did not subdivide his conquest at all, but that under Antoninus Pius (168 A.D.) there existed three non-political divisions: D. Apulensis , D. Porolissensis , and D. malvensis. Gibbon (chap. i. pp. 7 and 8) gives what he calls 'the natural boundaries,' and says the province was about 1,300 miles in circumference.]

[Footnote 98: Neigebaur (p. 43) gives a list of twenty-eight towns known (and many doubtful ones) in Trajan's Dacia, built during the Roman occupation. Of these the ruins of some still remain, and on the site of others modern towns have been built, whose names vary but little from the Roman appellations, e.g. Zernes, now Cernetz; Caracalla, Karakal; Castra Severum, Turnu Severunul (where there is an old Roman tower); Ardeiscus, Ardeish or Ardges; Pallada, Berlad; Kallatia, Galatz; Thermæ ad Medias, Mehadia.]

[Footnote 99: Carra, p. 3.]

[Footnote 100: As in the case of Britain; see Smith, Geography , article 'Colonia.']

[Footnote 101: Carra takes his account from Eutropius, who says (Book VIII. cap. 6): 'Trajan, when he conquered Dacia, transferred thither from all parts of the Roman Empire considerable numbers of men to till the fields and live in the towns. For by its long war under Decebalus Dacia had been exhausted of its men.' he says nothing of the 'scum of the towns.' But in Book IX. cap. 15, Eutropius, in speaking of the Roman withdrawal from Dacia under Aurelian, says: 'He took the Romans away from the cities and fields of Dacia, and planted them in the middle of Moesia.']

[Footnote 102: Smith (Dacia) says it was evacuated between 270 and 275 A.D. Neigebaur and other German as well as French writers name years between these two, the edict of Aurelian being dated, it is said, 274 A.D.; whilst Roesler (pp. 60-51) believes that the actual withdrawal of the Roman army did not take place until 280 A.D.]

[Footnote 103: lxviii. 13. He says (after describing the bridge in glowing terms): 'Trajan, fearing lest, when the Ister was frozen, the Romans on the farther bank should be attacked, built it in order to afford an easy passage for the troops; Adrian, on the other hand, apprehensive that the barbarians, after having overcome those who guarded it, would find it an easy means of penetrating into Moesia, demolished the upper portion of it.']

[Footnote 104: Freeman ( General Sketch of European History ) says 269-270 A.D.]

[Footnote 105: Trebellius Pollio. Gibbon sets down the number of Goths slain at 50,000.]

[Footnote 106: Vol. ii. p. 17. The other writers here referred to are Pic, Roesler, Paget, Petermann, &c.]

[Footnote 107: Ibid.]

[Footnote 108: Vol. i. p. 330.]


CHAPTER X.

FROM THE EVACUATION OF DACIA BY AURELIAN (ABOUT 274 A.D.) TO THE END OF THE BARBARIAN RULE (ABOUT THE CLOSE OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY).

The 'Barbarians'--Brief mention of them by Roumanian
historians--The Goths--Their settlement in Dacia--Defeat by