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

[diegis]

You post a mish-mash of images which are evidence of precisely nothing - you don't even tell the readers what they are supposed to be !!....this is NOT the way to present a case or evidence. As Dan Howard has pointed out on another thread, iconography on its own tells us very little. You don't even tell us what these images are supposed to represent, and in some cases the images are completely irrelevant ( the two images of helmets for example are from Thracian tombs (probably) and are circa 400 BC. They are certainly not "Dacian, 1 C AD".)

To deal with them in detail (numbering top to bottom):-
1. and 2. are depictions of the 'trophy' base of Trajan's column - we don't know who this armour belongs to - probably Roxalani since no Dacians are shown in armour on the column itself. Just possibly belonging to Dacian chieftains - but the helmet styles and decoration are 'Eastern' and more typical of Sarmatians.
3. and 9. fanciful drawings of equipment from the base of the column.
5. A coin showing a trophy, but no armour or helmet - implying like the column itself that Dacians were unarmoured. Of the seventeen or more types of coin referring to victory over Dacia, six or so show 'trophies' - not one of them shows Dacians in armour, or Dacian armour as part of a trophy
4. and 6. Thracian helmets circa 400 BC. Nothing to do with Dacians 1 C AD.
7. I have no idea what this crude helmet is supposed to be and you don't even give us a hint!! - it doesn't look 1/2 C AD. More like much later ( if authentic).
8. Part of Scene LXXVIII showing 'Victory/Nike' with trophies either side at the conclusion of the First War - one shows no armour like the previous coin, the other (to the right of 'Victory') is this one - since the Roxalani took part in this First War and are shown defeated, this particular trophy could just as easily represent victory over them, and the unarmoured one victory over the Dacians.
10. What appears to be suspiciously intact bronze mail - if authentic could be anything.

OK, let me be more precisely then

1and 2- first images are from Traian Column, and i assume they are most probably Dacian. In fact Pausanias (greek geographer and historian from II century AD, who writed imediatly after Dacian Wars of Trajan) in his "Description of Greece 1.21.5-6" said about Sarmatians that :-" for the Sauromatae have no iron, neither mined by themselves nor yet imported. They have, in fact, no dealings at all with the foreigners around them. To meet this deficiency they have contrived inventions. In place of iron they use bone for their spear-blades, and cornel-wood for their bows and arrows, with bone points for the arrows. They throw a lasso round any enemy they meet, and then turning round their horses upset the enemy caught in the lasso.......Their breastplates they make in the following fashion. Each man keeps many mares, since the land is not divided into private allotments, nor does it bear any thing except wild trees, as the people are nomads.....Their hoofs they collect, clean, split, and make from them as it were python scales. Whoever has never seen a python must at least have seen a pine-cone still green. He will not be mistaken if he liken the product from the hoof to the segments that are seen on the pine-cone. These pieces they bore and stitch together with the sinews of horses and oxen, and then use them as breastplates that are as handsome and strong as those of the Greeks".
-more then that, the chainmail depicted there is confirmed by archeological discoveries from Dacian tombs
-so it is more sure that Dacians, as more advanced technological and military, to have those armours too (and in metal, if not the same style as Sarmatians). And since the Column represented mostly Dacians, and the war with them, the trophies are presumly representing mostly their stuff.
-4 and 6 - those are Getae-Dacian helmets, yes, from BC era, but is ilogical to think that Dacians renounced to wear helmets in AD era
-8 -it represent the victory over Dacians, since Traian took just the title Dacicus, and not Sarmaticus (he didnt bother to mention them among his victory titles, so they playeid a rather minor role in this wars)
-10 -is one of the mail shirts you mentioned too in your post, find in a Dacian tomb

The images of the 'tropaeum' carved on the base of Trajan's column are also useless, because they represent a jumble of weapons from Dacians, Roxolani Sarmatians and Bastarnae sources. In order to draw any possible conclusions, we need other evidence to support these images - thus the images from Adamklissi allow us to guess that it is probable that the 'two-handed choppers' are trophies from Bastarnae,( from the three ethnic groups represented) who are also associated with 'two-handed choppers' (this time "rhomphaia") by Valerius Flaccus writing in the 1 C AD. In this instance shields are also referred to, as in almost every example of Thracians illustrated with "rhomphaia". What we don't know is whether Valerius Flaccus is describing past events, or possibly confusing the old "rhomphaia" with the contemporary Bastarnae use of the "falx".

Hmm, i really doubt Bastarnae ever used a falx, which is clearly a Dacian weapon, pointed by pretty much all evidences. In fact i doubt that Bastarnae ever participated to this wars, and is a confusion betwen them and Burii, a possible germanic tribe bearing the same name with a Dacian one. As i said in the "wagon scene" from Column are represented mostly Dacians, and is located at Nicopolis ad Istrum, not at Adamclisi. Even the fact that Thracians used such sword as "romphaia" indicate that is much more likely that falx was a sword of Dacians-northern Thracians. But is possible to be gived to their foreign auxiliares too at some point, in some circumstances

The question of whether Dacians used armour during Trajan's wars, and to what extent, or not, is simply not known at present, though there is evidence of Dacian mail for an earlier period ( see below). This sort of statement is the purest speculation with no proper evidence:-

Well, it is quite logical to assume that Dacians used armour and helmets, and is no reason to not think that Falxmen, who didnt use shields, didnt use armour either. Quite contrary, this is very logical to assume that they used an armour, as a kind of protection instead of shield

What 'professional' troops? Roman deserters? These would not be let anywhere near the King for fear of assasination attempts - Decebalus tried this very thing against Trajan. Evidence for 'professional troops'?

Dacian army was a trained and organized one, despite the stereotypes about half naked, semi-civilized barbarians who charge as a disorganized mob, which might be true sometimes, but not in this case. For example in this image
http://www.mnir.ro/images/colectii/075-063b.jpg
apear Dacian flags, the usual dragon with a wolf head, and others similar with Roman "vexilla", meaning that Dacian army was organized in units around those flags, similar with Roman organization. After all Decebalus received lots of desertors and, during Domitian, military instructors, and Dacians learned for sure from them the Roman army organization and training style
In this image
http://www.mnir.ro/images/colectii/066-053b.jpg
you can see something as 3 catapults at the base of fortification, and 2 Dacians (comati) using a balista on top of that fortification. Here is more clear
http://gk.ro/sarmizegetusa/armata_daca/modiolus_st.jpg
A piece of that balista, called "modiolus" ( http://gk.ro/sarmizegetusa/armata_daca/modiolus.jpg ) was discovered inside of a Dacian fortress (if i remember correct one from Costesti).
See as well the weapon pointed out by Clodius Secundus (our fellow forumist)
So, this show that Dacian army was quite well organized and trained, and even in inferior number compared with Roman one, it was able to resist a quite very long time. If they was just simple "barbarians" running naked around the forest with some agricultural tools in their hands and charging indiscriminately they would be crushed in first battle, and Sarmisegetuza conquered in couple weeks from the begining of the first war

"a fair amount for sure"? There is absolutely no, nil, zero evidence for this !!!! On the contrary,the iconography we have - the column and the many coins show NO armour at all.
The only armoured troops on the Dacian side actually shown in armour on the column are Sarmatian Roxalani, and not one Dacian, not even King Decebalus, has armour or even a helmet. In fact the 'capwearers'/nobles are shown on the column wearing their Phrygian caps even in battle. This, taken on its own would suggest that the body armour and helmets depicted on the 'tropaeum' base are possibly all Roxalani gear, and that only the shields ( which bear similar patterns on base and column) and perhaps some swords are truly Dacian, but we have no way of knowing for sure - because we might expect from analogies with other similar peoples (e.g. Thracians) that the chiefs and nobles might have had helmets etc BUT I don't know of any archaeological finds that might support such a thing for this date ( e.g. tomb finds or similar from around Sarmizegetusa dateable to the 1/2 C AD). You may well be right that the Dacians on the column itself are shown as unarmoured and in a standard form of dress as a form of 'ethnic identifier', but without further evidence we simply can't know.....

The Column show armours and helmets, and that is backed by archeology too.

For a previous period, 2 -1 C BC, there is evidence of equipment from Warrior graves from Hunedoara valley in Transylvania. Mostly the graves usually contain a spearhead and the typical curved 'sica' fighting knife around 10.3-30 cm long.Belt buckle remains and pottery are other common grave goods. A number of 'La tene' type celtic swords have also been found, but only fragments of up to ten shields in Dacian contexts. One grave did contain the goods of a 'richer' individual, including a possible horse bit, as well as remains of a horse and a pig. Of significance here is that weaponry remains consisted of:-

a) Chain mail shirt made of iron, cut into small fragments, probably with a chisel, as one can notice traces of cuts on one, two, three or four of sides of the pieces preserved, and only a small part of the remains, folded, were put in the nook (Fig. 5;12). The chain mail fragments were not placed on the dead at the time of the cremation, as the chain mails preserved their initial shape, which means they were not exposed to strong fire; the traces of cremated bones on some of the chain mail fragments are the result of their being deposited in nook over the still hot cremated horse and pig bones. The chain mails are short and round (D = 5.5-6mm, W. thread = 1.5mm), both in plane and in section, and the weaving is one widespread at the time
b) Iron shield umbone. There are relatively many pieces (over 40), but very small, and their features (shape, thickness, number of layers, folding technique) mean they are from an umbones, probably hemispherical, or from the connection and attaching elements of the shield (rivets, edge) (Fig. 4/1; 6/1, 2, 13, 16; 11/11). Although the umbone fragments are very small, including those from the item’s curvature, meaning it is very difficult to approximate its diameter, we believe it is around 10 cm).
c) Helmet (?). There are a few iron-sheet fragments, from a single sheet, that stick together, including one with a hinge, which could constitute an attaching element between the calotte and the mobile cheek-piece of a helmet.
d) Bridle bit (?). One has found a few fragments, including something that could be the end of a bridle (Fig. 4/5; 6/4), a potential indication of a bridle bit, which would make sense, given that the deposit includes horse bones.
There are also several small iron fragments, whose piece of origin is very difficult to identify.
What is interesting is that all the items had been fragmented and only parts of them were deposited in the nook, together with remains from the still-smoking fire. Since burnt horse and pig bones were found in the deposit, perhaps the fire remains are from their cremation.

This suggests that in the 2-1 C BC at least, wealthy/noble warriors could have mail. There are also other finds of mail in tombs elsewhere in Dacia:-

Chain mail shirts, such as the one on C70D7, were found in the Dacian tumuli from Cugir-T2 (Cri?an 1980, p. 81-87), Pope?ti-T2, T3 and T4, Radovanu, Poiana-Gorj and Cet??eni (Vulpe 1976, p. 201, 208, fig. 15/1, 18/6-8), namely both in south-western Transylvania and in Oltenia or Walachia, in tombs from the second half of 2nd c.-1st c. BC. Many instances from 2nd - 1st c. BC were found in tombs of the Panaghiurski Kolonii group from north-western Bulgaria (Torbov 2004, p. 57-69). Also, on the upper Tisa, in the necropolis from Zemplin, Tumulus 3, cremation tomb 78, belonging to an adult, one has found a chain mail shirt (Budinský-Kri?ka, Lamiová-Schmiedlova 1990, p. 255, fig. 20a-b); the inventory is that of a Dacian warrior from the last decades of 1st c. BC . Since the chronology and diffusion of this type of item for the Celts and Dacians were recently discussed by Aurel Rustoiu (2006, p. 49-52), we believe there is no point in delving on them....

Note however that mail is not at all common - as we would expect for such an expensive item.

Yes, as i said it wasnt probably all the army armoured, just nobles and king troops probably, the ones who formed the permanent army and who was professional soldiers

Incidently, it appears that Decebalus in both wars, sensibly avoided open battle with the Romans ( other than, perhaps his defeat at Tapae, which he may have learned from) - for we know of no decisive battles - and wisely concentrated his defence of Dacia on mountainous forts/strongholds/citadels - like other Thracian peoples. It is these all but impregnable mountain fortresses that took time for the Romans to take which account for the campaigns, not any particular resistance in the field. Even so, the first war may have lasted but one campaigning season, and the second two. The Dacians, clearly lightly armed like the Gauls or Germans, had no more success in the field in the long term than these peoples against heavily armed Legionaries and Auxiliaries ( beyond initial success perhaps due to surprise and Roman overconfidence by Fuscus in Domitian's Dacian War).

There are several open battles with Romans, there are couple in the first war, not just the one from Tapae (who was one of the biggest in ancient times), and there is the counteratack in Moesia with 2 big battles at Nicopolis ad Istrum and Adamclisi. Even in the second war there are couple Dacian counteratacks, in fact Decebal start the war attacking Roman fortresses. Fact is that both wars was about one year long, and knowing that Dacian capital Sarmisegetuza was at around 150 km from roman borders, show a rytm of Roman advance as, let say 0.5-1 km/day, and this in condition in which they had the biggest army ever used against a foreign enemy (Traian draw troops from all over the empire, Britania/Scotland border, Germania, Orient, and lots of irregular troop beside the legionars and auxiliars, already a big number massed in Moesia since Domitian), had the numerical superiority (quite a huge numerical superiority in second war), and ofcourse the technological superiority.
So i think Dacians was quite a very tough enemy, and Falx played a role too in this, even if as i said, peoples counted more then the weapons itself