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

[diegis]

Sheesh! Again with the insults! I can assure you that I know as much about ancient Dacia as most people,having studied ancient history for over 40 years, and certainly enough to know that the version of "Greater Dacia" that you propose and hint at is not supported by the evidence ( only by those with a romanticised view of a supposed 'Dacian heritage')....yet again you post a load of inaccurate speculations, unsupported by any evidence except for "wiki" excerpts which have nothing to do with the subject matter !! :roll: :roll:

I apologize if i ofended you, i just understanded from your previous post that Adamclisi was closer to Peucini then to Dacian Kingdom borders, and that Schytia Minor was inhabited back then by Peucini or so. If you didnt said that, sorry if i offended you. As well i didnt have time and mood to search for Dio Cassius exact words (or those historians quoted there), if you dont believe what he said aboute those Getae local kings, you can search for him, but i never saw anybody saying it wasnt like that

To begin with you should take the use of the word "king" in various Roman authors with a grain of salt for it is often used of quite small tribal rulers - and those references merely refer to the 'splintered' groups following Burebista. The whole region was inhabited by peoples of Thracian/ Getic stock, with the related Dacian peoples to their west. These areas were over-run ( and ruled by) migrant peoples so that in the first century AD the areas north of Roman Moesia/Danube were ruled by Roxalani Sarmatians and Celto/Germanic Bastarnae ( and specifically Peucini along the Danube and at it's mouth). Your errors are many, but to give just one example, the Roxalani were never ruled by Burebista or any other Getae or Dacian King. It is true that Burebista weakened the Bastarnae, which in turn allowed the Roxalani to move south and west into the Wallachian plain, but when this latter occurred in the first half of the 1st C AD, Burebista ( now a modern legend in Romania) had been long dead! The result of the Roxalani invasion was that allegedly 100,000 'Trans-Danubians' ( i.e. Dacian and Getae peoples) fled across the river and were allowed to settle in Roman Moesia between AD 62 and AD 66....but I don't have either the time or the inclination to discuss your inaccurate version of the history of this time and place.

Yes, they was "tribal kings" if you wish. And yes, we already agree that Peucini was located north of Danube Delta. Roxolani was located probably north-west of them, and Bastarnae in north. Dacian tribe of Tyragetae was located north east of them (later will be mentioned too Costoboci and Carpi in the same areas, thats why i said those tribes was sandwiched betwen Dacian ones). And yes, they had some attacks in south too, but those "transdanubians" was relocated by Romans (dont have time now to search but is gived even the name of Roman commander who did that) to weaken the pressure of "barbarians" from the north, they wasnt refugees. And during Decebalus time those Wallachian plains was part of his kingdom, and Roxolani was his allies, fighting as auxiliars in Dacian army

I'm not going to bother arguing about who is shown in the metopes either - here are a couple of the last ones, one showing Dacian prisoners and the other Bastarnae - I'll just leave it to the viewer to decide which is which and who the 'chopper wielders' resemble......I wish I could post better resolution but the limit of 512 kb here is ridiculously low..... note that the Roman soldier in undress and the single prisoner figure both wear 'paenula' type cloaks, and anyone can see they are not 'shirts' as Diegis calls them.

Same images at a better resolution can be saw on wikipedia, in fact i even posted some of them comparatively. I still didnt saw any source (as some serious historians) saying that isnt any Dacian in the fight images depicted there. And, is hard to sat who's who looking at the full dress peoples, then at the half dressed ones. Only things to make a clear distinction is the "germanic hair knot" (for Bastarnae) and the cap (or bare head without that knot) for Dacians.

Strange, then, that typical 'La Tene' celtic straight swords appear on the trophy base of the column....but perhaps they are Roxalani or Bastarnae weapons? :lol: :lol:

I think Sarmatian (and even Dacian) heavy cavalry used such long right type of swords, yes (as Roman cavalry used Spatha). What i wanted to say is that infantry didnt use it anymore probably. I agree is not a 100 % sure thing, but since archeological discoveries didnt produce much of such swords (not even as much as Falxes i think, and usualy considerated from BC period), neither are observed clearly on the Column (or Tropaeum Traiani), they was probably out of use or in limited use (just for some cavalry units).