Dacian Army Talks?

[haeressiarch]

hi everyone!
i was looking whole web for 2 days (today is my 3rd day of research) to find some good examples of Dacian (Getai) wariors and their equipment. specially helmets and clothes. i've found only a little. does anone have any sources (specially illustrations, 'cuz i am graphician more than writer :oops: ) with good examples of Dacian warriors?
i am currently reading another book about them, but that probably won't help me alot

i am making a mod for total war game (for both RTW and M2TW) and my goal is to focus on most probable, close to the original as much as possble apearances of units. but my desire also is to gain some more knowledge about things i do

if anyone is interested here is our carthaginian army preview: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=206203

i was visiting this forum really often, and i've got the impression that passion and interest of many people here is worth to praise. somehow i also try to reinact history this way, so you will probably understand my motivation and concerns

please. if anyone knows something about dacian equipment, armors, weapons and clothing, please let me know.

kind regards

haeressiarch

[M. Demetrius]

There are at least two yahoo!groups that are Romanian/Dacian in focus. They might have info you can use.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Terra_Aeterna/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/romanfoes/

If that doesn't get you what you need, you can always search groups.yahoo.com for more specific information, and perhaps find a group or two that has information and sources that will help you.

Good luck!

[haeressiarch]

@ M. Demetrius

thank you very much ) P D
thanx again .

i still need their clothes...

btw. does anyone know did romans employed dacians or thracians as auxillia? are there any records in history about dacian warriors fighting under other nations colours? were they too proud to fight for other rulers? or were there any tribes that fought against their own brothers? i am really curious, and you guys are probably best informed

regards

haer

[gie]

Are you intristed in plates with warriors reconstructions or primary historical sources?

A good source is this site:
http://gk.ro/sarmizegetusa/
It is in Romanian laguage. It also has english version but this has a lot less pages so less info.

The army section index is at this page but it is Romanian language.
http://gk.ro/sarmizegetusa/armata_daca/


So in order to read by english speachers I use Google translate tool, click below for romanian text translated in english and browse every page and image:
[url:2jyjpqox]http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=n&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgk.ro%2Fsarmizegetusa%2Farmata_daca%2F&sl=ro&tl=en[/url]


I have about 75 plates with dacian warrior. they are historical reconstruction from historical books, other done by Romanian painters, from wargames plastic boxes and others.
Send me a PM if this is what you are looking for. I don't think I can post them because of copyright issues.

Good historical sources for dacian are

1. Adamclisi tropaeum traiani monument (This is actualy done by romans which took part in Dacian Wars)
2. Trajan's Column


About Your question some dacian have been fighting for romans :

[url:2jyjpqox]http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=n&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgk.ro%2Fsarmizegetusa%2Farmata_daca%2F&sl=ro&tl=en[/url]

l hope this helps you!

[haeressiarch]

@ gie

thank you! this helps alot ) D thank you so much!

[diegis]

@ M. Demetrius

thank you very much ) P D
thanx again .

i still need their clothes...

btw. does anyone know did romans employed dacians or thracians as auxillia? are there any records in history about dacian warriors fighting under other nations colours? were they too proud to fight for other rulers? or were there any tribes that fought against their own brothers? i am really curious, and you guys are probably best informed

regards

haer

Dacian units was present in Roman army, after Daco-Roman wars ended in 106 aC, most notable being the unit from Birdoswald fort, at Hadrian Wall in Britania, and is said as well that Roman cavalry took as battle flag, after Dacian wars, the Dacian "draco" ( the wolf head with serpent body ). As well, most of the soldiers of emperor Galerius was probably Dacians ( as can be see on his Triumphal Arch from Salonik ), Galerius himself being from Dacian origins ( Lactantius even wrote in "De mortibus persecutorum" if i am correct that he waned at some point to change the name of Roman empire in Dacian empire ). Anyway, there was as well a lot of rebelions in Roman province Dacia, and as well many invasions from so called "Free Dacians" ( some of them from tribes as Costobocii or Carpii ), who manage at some point, along Goths, to push back the roman empire border on Danube. There was as well fights betwen Dacian tribes, mostly because their warlike society and religion ( see what Vergilius and Julian the Apostate write about them ), but usualy not too strong, and occured mostly before Burebista unification ( who died anyway because the dacian aristocracy consider that he have too great power in state, something like Roman senators believed about Caesar ).

[Quintus Aurelius Lepidus]

hi everyone!

i am currently reading another book about them, but that probably won't help me alot

what book do you read? i'm interested in them too but i can't really find much lecture about it...

[Robert Vermaat]

Dacian units was present in Roman army, after Daco-Roman wars ended in 106 aC, most notable being the unit from Birdoswald fort, at Hadrian Wall in Britania,

References please?

and is said as well that Roman cavalry took as battle flag, after Dacian wars, the Dacian "draco" ( the wolf head with serpent body ).

That is incorrect. The Roman draco had a dragon head, not a wolf head. Also, there are plenty of examples of non-Dacian dracones to suggest that the influence came from other parts. My suggestion would be that the Dacians themselves took the draco from steppe peoples like the Scythians.

As well, most of the soldiers of emperor Galerius was probably Dacians ( as can be see on his Triumphal Arch from Salonik ),

references please? How can you see from that arch that the soldiers are of Dacian origin? I think this is a very bold claim. Please support evidence for it.

Galerius himself being from Dacian origins ( Lactantius even wrote in "De mortibus persecutorum" if i am correct that he waned at some point to change the name of Roman empire in Dacian empire ).

That is incorrect. Galerius was born in Dacia Ripensis near Sardica, which is now Sofia in Bulgaria. That's the later Roman province, not 'your' Dacia, you seem to confuse the two on more occasions.
His father was a peasant from Illyria and his mother from beyond the Danube (but no-one says that she was of dacian origins).

There was as well fights betwen Dacian tribes, mostly because their warlike society and religion ( see what Vergilius and Julian the Apostate write about them ),

Please give us references for where Vergilius (??) and Julian wrote those things.

[diegis]

OK, let see.

About Dacians at Birdoslwald first:

http://www.roman-britain.org/places/camboglanna.htm

And about the presence of Dacians in Roman Army:

http://www.freemanandsear.com/displaypr ... rodid=3111

And now about Galerius, and what was write by Lactantius in "De mortibus persecutorum"

"But the other Maximian (Galerius), chosen by Diocletian for his son-in- law, was worse, not only than those two princes whom our own times have experienced, but worse than all the bad princes of former days. In this wild beast there dwelt a native barbarity and a savageness foreign to Roman blood; and no wonder, for his mother was born beyond the Danube, and it was an inroad of the Carpi that obliged her to cross over and take refuge in New Dacia.

The mother of Galerius, a woman exceedingly superstitious, was a votary of the gods of the mountains. Being of such a character, she made sacrifices almost every day, and she feasted her servants on the meat offered to idols: but the Christians of her family would not partake of those entertainments; and while she feasted with the Gentiles, they continued in fasting and prayer. On this account she conceived ill-will against the Christians, and by woman-like complaints instigated her son, no less superstitious than herself, to destroy them.

Whatever, by the laws of war, conquerors had done to the conquered, the like did this man presume to perpetrate against Romans and the subjects of Rome, because his forefathers had been made liable to a like tax imposed by the victorious Trajan, as a penalty on the Dacians for their frequent rebellions.

And thus did he, once a Roman emperor, but now the ravager of Italy, retire into his own territories, after having afflicted all men indiscriminately with the calamities of war. Long ago, indeed, and at the very time of his obtaining sovereign power, he had avowed himself the enemy of the Roman name; and he proposed that the empire should be called, not the Roman, but the Dacian empire."

LACTANTIUS - OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE PERSECUTORS DIED

As you can see is clear he was from Dacian origin, at least he's mother was, even the fact she worshiped a "god of mountains" remember the old Zalmoxe supreme god of Dacians, who was worshiped usualy on the peak of the mountains, and, as you can see, he considered the Dacians as his forefathers and he try a revenge against Romans, because what Traian done in the past against his Dacians forefathers.

And this is an aproximate translation of Julian the Apostate writing, he put this word in Traian mouth, in his writing:

"We have conquered even these Getai ( Dacians ), the most warlike of all people that have ever existed, not only because of the strength in their bodies, but, also due to the teachings of Zalmoxis who is among their most hailed. He has told them that that in their hearts they do not die, but change their location and, due to this, they go to their deaths happier than on any other journey."

[diegis]

About Dacian Army, before 106 AC, it was composed usualy by cavalry and infantry, a 1 to 3 ratio ( we know that from Appian, who wrote about the 1 day expedition of Alexander the Great against Getae ( Dacians ) from north of Danube and from diferent battle flags from Traian Column ), with archer cavalry, scythian style, using even poisoned arrows ( qute from Ovidius ), and being the only one army who used war machines beside "greek-roman world" and chinese in far east. They was good at sieges too, even before extensive contacts with Romans, see the conquest of Olbia or Histria, greek fortified cities from Black Sea coast, by Burebista, or attacks against Roman forts in south of Danube ( Moesia ). Infantry was well armed with swords ( and not just curved swords, but gladius type too ), battle axes, spears, chain mail, shields, battle knives, etc., and contrary some spread views with naked barbarians, they was very well organized, and trained, includind Roman type too, in the Decebal times. The religion played anyway an important role in Dacian society, and in their way to see war, life and death, the society was centered on the religion of Zalmoxis, and was a kind of militarized society. It was a religion who preached imortality, death and life afther death in a much better place, a religion who praise much more death then life ( a southern Dacian tribe, crobizii, even feel sorry when a child was born, feel sorry for him because come on this world, and was happy and make a party when someone died, and consider he/she go to a much better place. Dacians was the only one who have voluntary human sacrifices too, as chosing the best of the best from the young warriors to be send to Zamolxe, the supreme god, and tell him what the peoples need, and that was the greatest honour for the "choosen one", and he was happy to do that, not forced. They haved anyway another kind of sacrifices, of prisoners, a kind of head hunting cult, in the honor of a war god ( asimilated with Mars, Vergilius said about "the old Mars Gradivus who protect the Getic fields" ), who haved a bloody cult ( this is writed by Jordanes as well, and can be see on Traian Column as well, with heads of killed Romans put on stakes on walls of a Dacian fortress ).

[diegis]

http://www.fectio.org.uk/articles/draco9.jpg

This is a Dacian battle flag from Traian Column, called "draco" by Romans. As you can see beside it there is a body armour and some shields captured from Dacians.

http://www.fectio.org.uk/articles/draco10.jpg

http://www.fectio.org.uk/articles/draco15.jpg

This are representations from Galerius Arch, with the same "draco" flag used by his soldiers now, soldiers wearing the same type of armour as the Dacian one from Traian Column.

http://www.fectio.org.uk/articles/draco_decius1.jpg

This is a coin of emperor Decius, with a person wearing a draco, and having write "Dacia".

As well, the draco first representation was on a piece of Dacian ceramic dated around 400 BC, and the cult of wolf existed since neolithic in Dacian area ( acording with Mircea Eliade, one of the most known historian of religions ), so is much probably that draco to be take by the Iranians ( schtyans, sarmatians, even persians ) from Dacians and not otherwise.

[Robert Vermaat]

I asked you for references about Dacians in the Roman army, 'most noticable at Birdoswald':

OK, let see. About Dacians at Birdoslwald first:
http://www.roman-britain.org/places/camboglanna.htm

So, that is one cohort of Dacians at Birdoswald, the cohors I aelia Dacorum, which appeared at Camboglanna after c. 200 AD, almost a century after Dacia was conquered. Just one. Not exactly proof of Dacian units entering the Roman army after the conquest. As we have seen in many other cases, the name of this unit can originate from the province, instead of the ethnic group, as you insist.

And about the presence of Dacians in Roman Army:
http://www.freemanandsear.com/displaypr ... rodid=3111

That's a coin. So what? The shapes seen on the coin are only claimed to be Dacian falx. If you are basing your claim of 'dacian units entering the Roman army' on these vague shapes, I can sefely reject that claim. Please come up with something solid.

Next you claimed that Galerius was of Dacian descent:

And now about Galerius, and what was write by Lactantius in "De mortibus persecutorum"

Yes, his mother was born beyond the Danube. And? Does that make her a Dacian woman?
That stuff about him being an enemy to the Roman name is just what it looks like - gossip and bad talk. Of course this very Roman emperor was not an enemy of the Romans. The claim that he supposedly would have the empire renamed as the Dacian empire is too silly to take serious (and no-one in his time seems to have done so, indeed): it's a clear case of political blackening an opponent.

As you can see is clear he was from Dacian origin, at least he's mother was, even the fact she worshiped a "god of mountains" remember the old Zalmoxe supreme god of Dacians, who was worshiped usualy on the peak of the mountains, and, as you can see, he considered the Dacians as his forefathers and he try a revenge against Romans, because what Traian done in the past against his Dacians forefathers.

I see no evidence whatsoever that galerius was of Dacian origins. His mother was a non-Roman, but no-one says that her mountain god was the Dacian mountain god. Apart from that political gossip (if you start taking that sort opf sources literally you also have to believe that Justinian was really the devil :lol: ) I have found no evidence that galerius was really a Dacian who wanted to crush the Romans. that sounds like a bad novel or a Hollywood movie. What it is not for sure is 'clear proof'.

[Robert Vermaat]

There was as well fights betwen Dacian tribes, mostly because their warlike society and religion ( see what Vergilius and Julian the Apostate write about them ),

Please give us references for where Vergilius (??) and Julian wrote those things.

I still have seen no references for these.

[Robert Vermaat]

http://www.fectio.org.uk/articles/draco9.jpg
This is a Dacian battle flag from Traian Column, called "draco" by Romans. As you can see beside it there is a body armour and some shields captured from Dacians.

And so it is. But apart from my compliments for having found this image on my website (my thanks), it's not a Roman draaco, and therefore, what does it prove about tyour claim that Roman dracos had wolf heads?

http://www.fectio.org.uk/articles/draco10.jpg
http://www.fectio.org.uk/articles/draco15.jpg
This are representations from Galerius Arch, with the same "draco" flag used by his soldiers now, soldiers wearing the same type of armour as the Dacian one from Traian Column.

One, the first image is not from the Arch of Galerius, it's another image from Trajan's Column.
Two, although I agree that it's very possible that the Roman cavalry took up the use of the draco from the Dacian army, that does by no means indicate that Dacian soldiers had entered the Roman army or that the Roman draco was the same as the Dacian wolf head draco.
Three, I see soldiers on the Arch of Galerius wearing a lorica squamata. That is not 'Dacian' armour, it's universal, worn already by ancient Middle eastern armies.

http://www.fectio.org.uk/articles/draco_decius1.jpg
This is a coin of emperor Decius, with a person wearing a draco, and having write "Dacia".

Indeed, Decius, not Dacia. So where is the wolf's head on that object?

As well, the draco first representation was on a piece of Dacian ceramic dated around 400 BC, and the cult of wolf existed since neolithic in Dacian area ( acording with Mircea Eliade, one of the most known historian of religions ), so is much probably that draco to be take by the Iranians ( schtyans, sarmatians, even persians ) from Dacians and not otherwise.

I don't dispute any wolf cults in Dacia, but so far you have not proven one bit that the Romans used wolf head dracos. Your claim that every culture using the draco supposedly could have taken this from the Dacians is too simplistic to even bother to repeat. It sounds too much like a nationalist claim and has no scientific reasoning behind it. If you are going to continue making such claims, please provide proof, not images with yet more unsubstantiated claims and interpretations.

[diegis]

Salut Valerius

Well, here we go again. First, i didnt know thats your site, good for you, i find it searching randomly on net. Anyway, for presence of Dacian units in Roman Army, especialy on Britania, not just Birdoswald but Chester / Deva ( remember me the Romanian Deva city, from former Dacian "dava" ) or Vindolanda too, please search for writings of Robin Birley ( unfortunately didnt find anything to post here from the net, just something in Romanian, but i am sure you can find more or more easy there ), he is a kind of the leading authority in Hadrian Wall, and havd a lot of researches done, including about Dacian units. Such units was used in Orient too, but dont have time now to search for. Anyway, not sure if i understand, you deny the presence of Dacians in Roman Army ? As well, the presence of Dacians on Marcus Aurelius Column and on Galerius arch ( even if you may disagree ) show they was present there, and as well the coins are representing most likely as was presented previous ( i dont think the person who haved or the one who buyed the coin didnt know whats about talking ), including the one with a person wearing a "draco" and where is clearly write DACIA around it, i am not sure if you look to the coin, i suppose no, i can't explain otherwise.

About Galerius, are you kidding ? No offence, but i trust more a source from that era, rather than your own opinions that look silly or bad talking. At least, it is no doubt he was from Dacian origin ( and is not the only one, it is as well Licinius, or Regalianus, who ever pretend is from Decebal family ). If you wish to not believe he wanted to change the name of the Empire in Dacian empire, thats your problem, like that we can disbelieve everything we dont like from that, saying it was write just for fun, and is not true, but that is the only evidences we have from that era..

About "draco", i didnt said every culture take it from Dacians, i said is more probably that Iranians take it from them, but you said as well that is more probably to be take by Dacians from Scythians ( as well, without any prouve ), and i present my opinion, with some references ( archeological discoveries ) The fact that "draco" appear in Roman Army after Traian wars, and after presence of Dacian units there too can give an idea. And the fact that the head didnt look always as an exact replica of wolf as Dacians ones, didnt mean it wasnt inspired by the Dacian draco.