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

[Paullus Scipio]

In this thread, I am hoping to demonstrate that the idea of a ‘Dacian two-handed falx’ as some sort of ‘super weapon’ is not supported by the evidence, such as it is, and in so doing, show the dangers of too much speculation theorised on too little hard fact, and how such speculation can lead to the building of a ‘Myth’.
In fact, I am hoping to demonstrate that the evidence actually suggests that the ‘two-handed chopper’ in question is neither exclusively Dacian, nor a ‘super-weapon’, and in fact is probably not a designed weapon at all, but rather an improvised one.

First, let us review the evidence, the main part of which seems to be:
1. Depiction of warriors on the Adamklissi monument of Trajan’s Wars ( 100-105 AD) using ‘two-handed choppers’ associated with a massacre amongst wagons. This scene is also depicted on Trajan’s column, though on the column no ‘two-handed’ choppers are seen. The ‘choppers’ do appear however on the ‘Tropaeum’ base along with Dacian and Sarmatian trophies, all shown life-sized as appears to have been customary on such ‘trophies’.
2. Two references to “Dacian Falxes” in later Roman writings – Cornelius Fronto ( 100-170 AD) and Papilius Statius ( late 1st C AD)
3. The finding of a few, but not many, blades of suitable size and form, all over Romania and Bulgaria, but several from the site of the former Dacian capital, Sarmizegethusa.
4. Depictions of curved blades on coins and monuments associated with Dacia.
Looking at the first, almost everything about the supposed “Dacian falx”( two-handed variety) stems from the depictions on the Adamklissi monument, a ‘Tropaeum/Trophy’ almost certainly erected by Trajan and dedicated to ‘Mars the Avenger’. On it, three distinct ‘ethnic groups’ are shown – one in tight trousers and belted knee-length tunics split at the sides, with some presumed to be chiefs on Trajan’s column wearing ‘phrygian’ style caps. These are also shown on Trajan’s column and are clearly Dacians. The second group wear long loose unbelted tunics below the knee and knee length riding type boots and are identifiable as Sarmatian Roxalani. The last, and most significant, are shown in looser trousers and are shown naked to the waist or with ‘celtic’poncho/paenula type cloaks. Some wear skull caps but most are shown with the typical ‘Germanic’ hair knot. They are clearly identifiable as the Celto-Germanic tribe of the Bastarnae. These three groups were allies and fought against Trajan. The weapons shown on the ‘trophy’ base of the column are clearly from all three peoples.
On the ‘metopes’ themselves, the “battle” shown in several scenes is of ONLY the Bastarnae people, defending themselves among their wagons, amidst their women and children, who are all massacred indiscriminately. These warriors, all of whom are either shown being killed, or dead, are the famous ‘two-handed chopper’ wielders and IFAIK, the only depiction anywhere of this ‘weapon’ being used. A few have shields and spears, and one what appears to be a club. This genocidal massacre ( for it is not a ‘battle’ since it involves women and children) may also be briefly alluded to on Trajan’s column where wagons and corpses appear as a background to a battle scene.

NOTE: No Dacian is shown anywhere, either on the Column, or at Adamklissi using a ‘two-handed chopper’, only the Bastarnae, and only on the Adamklissi monument. This latter is not erected anywhere near Dacia, but near the mouth of the Danube, south of the river in Roman territory, opposite the territory on the other side of the river of the Peucini, a Bastarnae tribe.

The second piece of evidence is the Roman writers;
Fronto says, "Trajan engaged the war with hardened soldiers, who despised the Parthians, our enemy, and who didn't care of their arrow blows, after the terrible wounds inflicted by the curved blades/swords of the Dacians."( falx Dacica)
Fronto, Principia Historiae, II
Publius Papilius Statius refers to the “falx” as the “symbol of the Getae” (Dacians) – but in what sense do these writers use the word?
Let us look at the meaning:
Falx
"diminutive. Falcla ( Greek: ????, ????????, dim. ?????????). A sickle; a scythe; a pruning-knife or pruning-hook; a bill; a falchion.
As ‘culter’ denoted a knife with one straight edge, ‘falx’ signified any similar instrument, the single edge of which was curved (???????? ????????; ?????? ????????; curvae falces; curvamine falcis ahenae; adunca falce). By additional epithets the various uses of the falx were indicated, and its corresponding varieties in form and size. Thus the sickle, because it was used by reapers, was called ‘falx messoria’; the scythe, which was employed in mowing hay, was called ‘falx foenaria’; the pruning-knife and the bill, on account of their use in dressing vines, as well as in hedging and in cutting off the shoots and branches of trees, were distinguished by the appellation of falx ‘putatoria’, ‘vinitoria’, ‘arboraria’, or ‘silvatica’, or by the diminutive ‘falcula’."

So in other words a “falx” is ANY curved blade and is a generic word, not specifically meaning a ‘two-handed chopper’ at all. That the Dacians used a curved sword, single handed and with a shield, is not in doubt and will not be further discussed here. The Roman writers associate a ‘curved blade’, not a ‘two-handed chopper’ with the Dacians, and that is not at issue.

Now let us turn to the ‘weapon’ itself. Nowadays, few people realise the great array of agricultural tools and hand implements that were in common use in the past. The reader is invited to examine the attachment and determine which of them are weapons and which agricultural tools. No’s 1,3,5 and 7 and 8 are weapons, right? Wrong! As most may realise, it is a trick question ! ALL are agricultural tools. That includes number 5 which the astute reader will recognise as a ‘typical’ two-handed “Dacian Falx”.

When it comes to hand-tools for dealing with vegetation, Man uses scythes and sickles to deal with thin-stemmed or grass-type plants, then ‘leaf cutters’, ‘pruning knives’ ‘bill-hooks’, ‘slashing/splashing hooks’ and various other names for ‘hedging tools’ used to clear brush, coppicing, and trim vines,hedges and branches, and finally ‘woodsman’s two handed axes’ to deal with the thickest plant stems of tree trunks.
No.1 is in fact an Italian hedging bill or tree pruner,n o.2 a scythe, no.3 has no sharp blade and is a ‘sod-buster’ used for breaking clumps of earth, no.4 a fork, and no. 5 – the “Dacian falx”- is a leaf-cutter/ pruning hook/bill hook. No.2 is a single handed leaf-cutter, and no.s 7&8 are cheap common woodsman’s axes with shapes that date back to the bronze age !

We can now deal with the third piece of evidence, the archaeological examples of blades. In Romania, it is no surprise that blades should be found around Sarmizegetusa, since that is where archaeology is concentrated, and where the culture was suddenly terminated by Trajan. So no surprise that most Romanian examples have been excavated here. Elsewhere, where culture continued, the ‘bill-hooks’, like “Murphy’s shovel” had first handle replaced from time to time, then blade, until they rusted away – but embarrassingly for the “Dacian Falx”/two handed chopper adherents, such blades do in fact turn up all over, so much so that one Romanian commentator has hypothesised that these two-handed “Dacian Falxes” were ‘exported’ to Sarmatian, Celtic and other lands because examples turn up there also!

No.5 is in fact a 19C example from Sweden ! In fact, variants of the so-called “Dacian Falx” are a common agricultural tool found Europe-wide, and indeed similar tools are world-wide!!!

Turning to the fourth piece of evidence, not one of the coin or monument evidence pieces shows an unequivocal ‘two-handed’ chopper associated with Dacia, but rather the single-handed variety. In particular we have a dedication stone from Birdoswald fort, dedicated by “Hadrian’s own First Cohort of Dacians” which depicts the “Falx Dacica” quite clearly as a single-handed curved sword.

So what can we conclude? The evidence suggests:-
1. The only people depicted using the ‘two-handed chopper’ are the doomed Peucini/Bastarnae, victims of genocide by the Romans. ( if it was a ‘super weapon’, why was it not shown in use by the Romans, who were quick to adopt superior foreign equipment, or in use by anyone else for that matter?)

2. The ‘two-handed chopper’ is in fact a common Europe-wide agricultural tool, not exclusive to Dacia at all, and used as an improvised weapon by the Bastarnae.

3. All depictions of the “Dacian Falx” in coins and monuments in the Roman world show a single-handed curved sword – the ‘sica’ - which is commonly accepted as characteristic of Thracian/Getic/Dacian peoples.

All subsequent ideas – e.g. that the ‘two handed chopper’was unique to Dacia, or a ‘super-weapon’ used by Dacians close to the King ( a sort of Royal Guard) , or some sort of Dacian ‘national weapon’ are demonstrably incorrect.

The most plausible explanation of the two-handed weapon shown exclusively on the Adamklissi monument is that it was an agricultural implement, used briefly as an improvised weapon by a Bastarnae tribe subject to Roman genocide, and which then disappeared from history…….

There is much more, but this post is already too long, and I shall add evidence in response to the doubtless outraged supporters of the idea of the two-handed falx as “Dacian Super-Weapon”......... :lol: :lol: :lol: .

What is more, this idea is not new, nor is it mine alone. Jim Webster published the idea that the 'Dacian falx/two handed chopper' was no more than a common agricultural implement as long ago as 1982 in "Slingshot", the magazine of the Society of Ancients, and I am indebted to this article for the attached illustration.