Decebalus’s Kingdom and the Wars with Rome (85–106)

After Burebista’s death, Dacian power was fragmented, but the centre in the Orăștie Mountains remained alive. At the end of the 1st century AD, King Duras yielded the throne to Decebalus, a ruler chosen around the year 87. His name means, according to some interpretations, “the strong” or “the brave.” The young king reorganized the army, strengthened the capital at Sarmizegetusa Regia and restored the political unity of the tribes. His state controlled Transylvania, Oltenia, part of the Banat and wide areas south and east of the Carpathians.

The conflict with Rome broke out under Emperor Domitian. The Dacians crossed the Danube in the winter of 85–86 and killed the governor of Moesia, Oppius Sabinus. The Romans answered with a campaign led by Cornelius Fuscus, who was defeated and killed in 86, probably in the Southern Carpathians, and the legion V Alaudae was annihilated. In 88, the general Tettius Iulianus won a victory at Tapae, near the Iron Gates of Transylvania. However, the Romans’ difficulties on the Rhine front led to a peace in 89 that was favourable to the Dacians.

By the peace of 89, Decebalus became a “client king” of Rome, that is, an ally, receiving money, craftsmen and specialists in construction and war machines. In reality, he kept his independence and used the help he received to strengthen his fortresses. This situation aroused Rome’s displeasure, especially after Trajan, a soldier-emperor and a gifted organizer, came to the throne in 98. Dacia, with its wealth of gold, silver, iron and salt, had become a strategic target, and the danger of a powerful state on the Danube could no longer be tolerated.

The first Dacian war took place in 101–102. Trajan crossed the Danube on a bridge of boats and won a hard-fought victory at Tapae in 101, then advanced toward the Dacian capital. Decebalus was forced to accept peace in 102: he lost part of his territory, surrendered his weapons and war machines, and recognized Roman sovereignty. Yet the king did not respect the terms and continued his preparations. Trajan’s answer was the construction, at Drobeta, of the stone bridge designed by the architect Apollodorus of Damascus, more than a kilometre long.

The second war, of 105–106, was decisive. The Romans besieged Sarmizegetusa Regia, which fell in the summer of 106, after its water supply was destroyed and the fortress set on fire. Decebalus fled into the mountains but, pursued by cavalry, killed himself to avoid capture, as Trajan’s Column shows. His head was taken to Rome. The Column, erected in 113 in Trajan’s Forum, is the principal pictorial record of these wars and an invaluable source on the dress, weapons and life of the Dacians. Sarmizegetusa Regia, the religious and political capital of the Dacians, was thus destroyed, and a Roman garrison took its place.