The Dacians: Rome\'s Greatest Enemy?

[diegis]

@ diegis I skipped the first one and you will see why
Yes Varus did have less men the Lysimachus, but Dromichaetes outnumbered Lysimachus, whereas Varus outnumbered Arminius!
Varus did have military experience with the revolt in Judea(Lysimachus was certainly more experienced) and he was warned about the situation(as you pointed out) from Aminius father in law Segestes, not to mention he hardly could have failed to be aware of the locals dislike for the Romans, after all he was going to quell an uprising.

Yes, he was warned and rejected those warnings. That was much of his competence

And this is more of Seuthes doing, not Dromichaetes. Seuthes was able to convince Lysimachus to walk into a trap as did Arminius to Varus. That's it, end of story! No difference that both were led to a trap, which hardly enables you to call Dromichaetes a "Sun Tzi". Dromichaetes didn't perform any tactical feats of mention, just that his general, not himself but his general led Lysimachus into a trap.

Seuthes did was Dromichaetes asked him to do. His job was obviously much harder than that of Arminius. Seuthes was a foreigner, Arminius was a Roman citizen and officer.
Seuthes bring the Macedonians in the trap, following the plan of Dromichaetes, of course

Furthermore if you are to compare the armies, you have the typical citizen army of Lysimachus who was:

In the event, the army which finally faced Dromichaetes was clearly at its last gasp. Lysimachus sustained crushing losses: his personal surrender is variously ascribed to nobility or thirst! For Lysimachus’ reception by Dromichaetes and his subsequent release we are largely dependent on Diodorus XX.F.12. While part of this passage probably derives from Hieronymus, its reliability as a whole as evidence for the constitution of Dromichaetes’ ‘stat’ and his economic position is questionable. Pg.48

Lysimachus had no chance, as his men(citizen, not professional)were on the verge of dying from thirst and hunger were attacked by a foe who outnumbered Lysimachus. Now you have to wonder how intelligent Lysimachus was to allow his army to get into that situation of supply, where it is unlikely the Romans would have let that happen.

What on Earth are you talking about my friend? Lysimachus army was at its last gasp because of thirst and because was tired, hungry and affected by Getae raids. Lysimachus had no chance because Dromichaetes masterpiece battle plan to bring him in that situation.
And how the heck the Getae outnumbered those 100,000 Macedonians? You should see the propaganda betweent the lines my friend, that was a simple excuse to explain the lose.
Dromihete ruled over a tribal union in south Dacia, maybe 10 times smaller then later Burebista empire. Which had a posibility to call in army 200,000 warriors. How do you think Dromihete was able to bring 150,000 lets say?
Just few years after this disaster (Macedonians lost another battle with Dacians few years before) Lysimachus was able to defeat Demetrius Poliorcetes and Pyrrhus of Epirus (the new Alexander), ones of the most brilliant comanders of that era, and take for himself Macedonia from them. What kind of soldoers you think he had, and what kind of comander you think he was?

Now comparing Arminius who was facing a numerically superior and professional army led the Romans into an elaborate trap, which did kill most of the Romans. Does this make Arminius a "Sun Tzu", hardly, but his Germani accomplished much more then Dromichaetes did as far as the battle goes.

:grin: sorry, they didnt acomplished even half as Dromichaetes, are you for real? A part of Romans escaped (sure, a small part), he was in a much better position to foul Varus, a sort of incompetent comander as compared with Lysimachus, and Roman army was few times smaller then MAcedonian army (which was totally anihilated, no one escaped).
And Dromihete was the king of some tribal union in southern Dacia, Arminius was the leader of all Germanic tribes (except Marcomani). Then Arminius end killed by his own people who rushed to surender to Romans. Dromihete instead ended with some new teritories, taking Lysimachus daughter as wife and make Hellenistc armies to never dare come here again

Politically I would call it even, as Tacitus seems to hint at that the massacre of Varus was pretty much the end of any dream of conquering Germania.
For Dromichaetes he received land and an ally. So yea pretty much even politically, certainly a win for the Germani and Arminius militarily.

Except it was not the end. How can you forget Germanicus is beyond my understanding. Germania wasnt transformed in a province because Tiberius didnt want that. And because didnt worth it enough for the Roman empire, too little benefits or profit to be made there. Make it in an area ruled by client kings was cheaper for them. If problems, they will send some legions again and again. Even in infamous III rd century, see Maximinus Trax

No this is the evidence: Domitian was building up forces in Moesia which would not have gone unnoticed by Decebalus. Paraphrasing Dio, he states that large numbers were killed by the Romans in which that Decebalus was considered conquered. That is the evidence, what you put forth was simple supposition based completely on wishful thinking. It is as the professionals say, Decebalus was crushed by Tettius Julianus and came pleading to Domitian.

Of course it wasnt unoticed. The problem was that Dacian professional army was obviously much smaller compared with Roman one. So a large part was made by part time warriors. Who can't stay permanently in the army, but they was needed to go home, work the fields, raise cattles, made ceramica, weapons or tools, whatever. And they was called to reinforce the ranks of the smaller profesional army when was needed
This is when Tettius took profit and make his raid in autumn, the harvest season when most people was occupied (Dacian war seasons seem to be mostly in summer and winter when the work on the fields and such was stoped, they was among the only ones back then making large military operations in winter).
So he met just a little Dacian army made of parts of local garrisons and whatever part time warriors was able to show up at Tapae. He didnt conquered anything as he didnt faced the main Dacian army and I doubt that battle was more then a tactical clash with little importance.

It is mentioned in passing by Dio Cassius, but not by any of those who mentiond (about Roman battles with Dacians) "the large armies lost" or "perished with large forces".
I think Cassius take that from imperial propaganda of Domitian, who made a huge succes from a simple raid ended with a rather minor clash at Tapae, followed by Romans retreat. Except Roman official propaganda the other authors didnt bothered to talk much about this success (if we can call it like this, as it was just a tactical victory in a raid)
Domitian knew he is in trouble (he lost next year to Marcomani precisely because he keep most of the troops at the border with Dacia, fearing a new invasion) so rushed to Decebauls to ask for peace. And Roman empire ended in a humilitaing position, with no clear victory but with big defeats, with llost standards still in enemy hands, paying a huge tribute and having the emperor too humiliated as dealing with smaller ranks Dacians, as Decebalus didnt even bothered to meet Domitian. The situation was similar with some foreign kings dealing just with Roman governors or generals, not with the emperor.
Some said that this humiliation was one of the reasons that lead to Domitian assasination later