Editing Dacians (section)

==Identity and distribution==
{{Disputed section|date=October 2018}}
North of the Danube, Dacians occupied{{when|date = October 2013}} a larger territory than Ptolemaic Dacia,{{Clarify|need to explain exactly what Ptolemaic Dacia is – the area shown as Dacian in Ptolemy's maps? They aren't mentioned until later in the article|date=July 2012}} stretching between Bohemia in the west and the [[Dnieper]] [[waterfall|cataracts]] in the east, and up to the [[Pripyat River|Pripyat]], [[Vistula]], and [[Oder]] rivers in the north and northwest.{{sfn|Pârvan|1926|p=279}}{{better source needed|date = October 2013}} In 53 BC, [[Julius Caesar]] stated that the Dacian territory{{clarify|date = November 2013}} was on the eastern border of the [[Hercynian forest]].{{sfn|Mountain|1998|p=59}} According to Strabo's ''[[Geographica]]'', written around AD 20,{{sfn|Strabo|Jones|Sterrett|1967|p=28}} the Getes (Geto-Dacians) bordered the [[Suevi]] who lived in the [[Hercynian Forest]], which is somewhere in the vicinity of the river Duria, the present-day [[Váh]] (Waag).{{sfn|Abramea|1994|p=17}} Dacians lived on both sides of the Danube.{{sfn|Dio|2008|loc=Volume 3}}{{sfn|Papazoglu|1978|p=67}} According to [[Strabo]], Moesians also lived on both sides of the Danube.{{sfn|Papazoglu|1978|p=434}} According to [[Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa|Agrippa]],{{sfn|Pârvan|1926|p=221|ps=: Agrippa comments "Dacia, Getico finiuntur ab oriente desertis Sarmatiae, ab occidente flumine Vistula, a septentrione Oceano, a meridie flumine Histro. Quae patent in longitudine milia passuum CCLXXX, in latitudine qua cogitum est milia passuum CCCLXXXVI"}} Dacia was limited by the Baltic Ocean in the North and by the Vistula in the West.{{sfn | Schütte| 1917 | p=109 }} The names of the people and settlements confirm Dacia's borders as described by Agrippa.{{sfn|Pârvan|1926|p=221|ps=: Agrippa comments "Dacia, Getico finiuntur ab oriente desertis Sarmatiae, ab occidente flumine Vistula, a septentrione Oceano, a meridie flumine Histro. Quae patent in longitudine milia passuum CCLXXX, in latitudine qua cogitum est milia passuum CCCLXXXVI"}}{{sfn | Schütte| 1917 | pp=101 and 109 }} Dacian people also lived south of the Danube.{{sfn|Pârvan|1926|p=221|ps=: Agrippa comments "Dacia, Getico finiuntur ab oriente desertis Sarmatiae, ab occidente flumine Vistula, a septentrione Oceano, a meridie flumine Histro. Quae patent in longitudine milia passuum CCLXXX, in latitudine qua cogitum est milia passuum CCCLXXXVI"}}

===Linguistic affiliation===
{{Main|Dacian language}}
{{See also|Davae|List of Dacian towns}}
{{Indo-European topics}}

The Dacians and Getae were always considered as Thracians by the ancients (Dio Cassius, Trogus Pompeius, [[Appian]], Strabo and Pliny the Elder), and were both said to speak the same [[Thracian language]].{{sfn|Treptow |1996|p=10}}{{sfn|Ellis|1861|p=70}} The linguistic affiliation of Dacian is uncertain, since the ancient [[Proto-Indo-European language|Indo-European]] language in question became extinct and left very limited traces, usually in the form of place names, plant names and personal names. Thraco-Dacian (or Thracian and Daco-Mysian){{which|date=November 2013}} seems to belong to the eastern (satem) group of Indo-European languages.{{why|date=November 2013}}{{sfn|Brixhe|2008|p=72}} There are two contradictory theories: some scholars (such as Tomaschek 1883; Russu 1967; Solta 1980; Crossland 1982; Vraciu 1980) consider Dacian to be a Thracian language or a dialect thereof. This view is supported by R. G. Solta, who says that Thracian and Dacian are very closely related languages.{{sfn | Fisher | 2003 | p=570}}{{sfn|Rosetti |1982|p=5}} Other scholars (such as Georgiev 1965, Duridanov 1976) consider that Thracian and Dacian are two different and specific Indo-European languages which cannot be reduced to a common language.{{sfn|Duridanov|1985|p=130}} Linguists such as [[Edgar Charles Polomé|Polomé]] and [[Radoslav Katičić|Katičić]] expressed reservations{{clarify|date=November 2013}} about both theories.{{sfn|Polomé|1982|p=876}}

The Dacians are generally considered to have been Thracian speakers, representing a cultural continuity from earlier Iron Age communities loosely termed Getic,{{sfn|Peregrine|Ember|2001|p=215}} Since in one interpretation, Dacian is a variety of Thracian, for the reasons of convenience, the generic term ‘Daco-Thracian" is used, with "Dacian" reserved for the language or dialect that was spoken north of Danube, in present-day Romania and eastern Hungary, and "Thracian" for the variety spoken south of the Danube.{{sfn|Price|2000|p=120}} There is no doubt that the Thracian language was related to the Dacian language which was spoken in what is today Romania, before some of that area was occupied by the Romans.{{sfn|Renfrew|1990|p=71}} Also, both Thracian and Dacian have one of the main satem characteristic changes of Indo-European language, *k and *g to *s and *z.{{sfn | Hainsworth| 1982 | p=848}} With regard to the term "Getic" (Getae), even though attempts have been made to distinguish between Dacian and Getic, there seems no compelling reason to disregard the view of the Greek geographer Strabo that the Daci and the Getae, Thracian tribes dwelling north of the Danube (the Daci in the west of the area and the Getae further east), were one and the same people and spoke the same language.{{sfn|Price|2000|p=120}}

Another variety that has sometimes been recognized is that of [[Moesian]] (or Mysian) for the language of an intermediate area immediately to the south of Danube in Serbia, Bulgaria and Romanian Dobruja: this and the dialects north of the Danube have been grouped together as Daco-Moesian.{{sfn|Price|2000|p=120}} The language of the indigenous population has left hardly any trace in the anthroponymy of Moesia, but the toponymy indicates that the Moesii on the south bank of the Danube, north of the Haemus Mountains, and the Triballi in the valley of the Morava, shared a number of characteristic linguistic features{{specify|date=November 2013}} with the Dacii south of the Carpathians and the Getae in the Wallachian plain, which sets them apart from the Thracians though their languages are undoubtedly related.{{sfn|Polomé|1983|p= 540}}

Dacian culture is mostly followed through Roman sources. Ample evidence suggests that they were a regional power in and around the city of [[Sarmizegetusa Regia|Sarmizegetusa]]. Sarmizegetusa was their political and spiritual capital. The ruined city lies high in the mountains of central Romania.<ref>National Geographic,  Hubble at 25, April 2015,  Story by Andrew Curry,  p.128.</ref>

[[Vladimir I. Georgiev|Vladimir Georgiev]] disputes that Dacian and Thracian were closely related for various reasons, most notably that Dacian and Moesian town names commonly end with the suffix ''-[[Dava (Dacian)|DAVA]]'', while towns in [[Thrace]] proper (i.e. South of the [[Balkan mountains]]) generally end in ''-PARA'' (see [[Dacian language]]). According to Georgiev, the language spoken by the ethnic Dacians should be classified as "Daco-Moesian" and regarded as distinct from Thracian. Georgiev also claimed that names from approximately Roman Dacia and Moesia show different and generally less extensive changes in Indo-European consonants and vowels than those found in Thrace itself. However, the evidence seems to indicate divergence of a Thraco-Dacian language into northern and southern groups of dialects, not so different as to qualify as separate languages.{{sfn | Crossland|Boardman| 1982 | p=838}} Polomé considers that such lexical differentiation ('' -dava'' vs. ''para'') would, however, be hardly enough evidence to separate Daco-Moesian from Thracian.{{sfn|Polomé|1982|p=876}}

===Tribes===
{{Main|List of Dacian tribes}}
[[File:Roman Empire Map AlexanderFindlay1849.png|thumb|Roman era Balkans]]
An extensive account of the native tribes in Dacia can be found in the ninth tabula of Europe of Ptolemy's ''[[Geography (Ptolemy)|Geography]]''.{{sfn|Oltean|2007|p=46}} The Geography was probably written in the period AD 140–150, but the sources were often earlier; for example, Roman Britain is shown before the building of Hadrian's Wall in the AD 120s.{{sfn|Koch|2007|p=1471}} Ptolemy's Geography also contains a physical map probably designed before the Roman conquest, and containing no detailed nomenclature.{{sfn|Schütte|1917|p=88}} There are references to the [[Tabula Peutingeriana]], but it appears that the Dacian map of the Tabula was completed after the final triumph of Roman nationality.{{sfn|Schütte|1917|p=89}} Ptolemy's list includes no fewer than twelve tribes with Geto-Dacian names.{{sfn|Bennett|1997|p=47}}{{sfn|Pârvan|1926|p=250}}

The fifteen tribes of Dacia as named by Ptolemy, starting from the northernmost ones, are as follows. First, the [[Anartes]], the [[Teurisci]] and the Coertoboci/[[Costoboci]]. To the south of them are the Buredeense ([[Burs (Dacia)|Buri]]/[[Burs (Dacia)|Burs]]), the [[Cotenses]]/[[Cotini]] and then the [[Albocenses]], the [[Potulatenses]] and the [[Sense]], while the southernmost were the [[Saldenses]], the [[Ciaginsi]] and the [[Piephigi]]. To the south of them were [[Predasenses]]/Predavenses, the [[Rhadacenses]]/Rhatacenses, the [[Caucoenses]] (Cauci) and [[Biephi]].{{sfn|Oltean|2007|p=46}} Twelve out of these fifteen tribes listed by Ptolemy are ethnic Dacians,{{sfn|Pârvan|1926|p=250}} and three are Celts: Anarti, Teurisci, and Cotenses.{{sfn|Pârvan|1926|p=250}} There are also previous brief mentions of other Getae or Dacian tribes on the left and right banks of the Danube, or even in Transylvania, to be added to the list of [[Ptolemy]]. Among these other tribes are the [[Trixae]], [[Crobidae]] and [[Appuli]].{{sfn|Oltean|2007|p=46}}

Some peoples inhabiting the region generally described in Roman times as "Dacia" were not ethnic Dacians.{{sfn|Wilcox|2000|p=18}} The true Dacians were a people of Thracian descent. German elements (Daco-Germans), Celtic elements (Daco-Celtic) and Iranian elements (Daco-Sarmatian) occupied territories in the north-west and north-east of Dacia.{{sfn|Wilcox|2000|p=24}}{{sfn|Pârvan|1926|pp=222–223}}{{sfn|Wilcox|2000|p=18}} This region covered roughly the same area as modern [[Romania]] plus [[Bessarabia]] (Republic of [[Moldova]]) and eastern [[Galicia (Eastern Europe)|Galicia]] (south-west Ukraine), although Ptolemy places Moldavia and Bessarabia in ''Sarmatia Europaea'', rather than ''Dacia''.<ref>Ptolemy III.5 and 8</ref> After the [[Trajan's Dacian Wars|Dacian Wars]] (AD 101–6), the Romans occupied only about half of the wider Dacian region. The [[Dacia (Roman province)|Roman province of Dacia]] covered just western [[Wallachia]] as far as the ''[[Limes Transalutanus]]'' (East of the river ''Alutus'', or [[Olt River|Olt]]) and [[Transylvania]], as bordered by the Carpathians.<ref>Barrington Plate 22</ref>

The impact of the Roman conquest on these people is uncertain. One hypothesis was that they were effectively eliminated. An important clue to the character of Dacian casualties is offered by the ancient sources Eutropius and Crito. Both speak about men when they describe the losses suffered by the Dacians in the wars. This suggests that both refer to losses due to fighting, not due to a process of extermination of the whole population.{{sfn | Ruscu | 2004 | p=78}} A strong component of the Dacian army, including the Celtic Bastarnae and the Germans, had withdrawn rather than submit to Trajan.<ref name="Wilcox 2000 27">Wilcox (2000)27</ref> Some scenes on Trajan's Column represent acts of obedience of the Dacian population, and others show the refugee Dacians returning to their own places.{{sfn | MacKenzie| 1986 | p=51}} Dacians trying to buy amnesty are depicted on [[Trajan's Column]] (one offers to Trajan a tray of three gold ingots).{{sfn| MacKendrick |2000|p=90}} Alternatively, a substantial number may have survived in the province, although were probably outnumbered by the Romanised immigrants.{{sfn|Millar|1981}} Cultural life in Dacia became very mixed and decidedly cosmopolitan because of the colonial communities. The Dacians retained their names and their own ways in the midst of the newcomers, and the region continued to exhibit Dacian characteristics.{{sfn | Bunson | 2002 | p=167}} The Dacians who survived the war are attested as revolting against the Roman domination in Dacia at least twice, in the period of time right after the Dacian Wars, and in a more determined manner in 117 AD.{{sfn | Pop | 2000 | p=22}} In 158 AD, they revolted again, and were put down by M. Statius Priscus.{{sfn | Denne Parker | 1958 | pp=12 and 19}} Some Dacians were apparently expelled from the occupied zone at the end of each of the two Dacian Wars or otherwise emigrated. It is uncertain where these refugees settled. Some of these people might have mingled with the existing ethnic Dacian tribes beyond the Carpathians (the Costoboci and Carpi).

After Trajan's conquest of Dacia, there was recurring trouble involving Dacian groups excluded from the Roman province, as finally defined by Hadrian. By the early third century the "Free Dacians", as they were earlier known, were a significantly troublesome group, then identified as the Carpi, requiring imperial intervention on more than one occasion.{{sfn | Wilkes | 2005 | p=224}} In 214 [[Caracalla]] dealt with their attacks. Later, [[Philip the Arab]] came in person to deal with them; he assumed the triumphal title Carpicus Maximus and inaugurated a new era for the province of Dacia (July 20, 246). Later both Decius and Gallienus assumed the titles Dacicus Maximus. In 272, Aurelian assumed the same title as Philip.{{sfn | Wilkes | 2005 | p=224}}

In about 140 AD, Ptolemy lists the names of several tribes residing on the fringes of the [[Roman Dacia]] (west, east and north of the Carpathian range), and the ethnic picture seems to be a mixed one. North of the Carpathians are recorded the Anarti, Teurisci and Costoboci.<ref>Ptolemy III.8</ref> The [[Anarti]] (or Anartes) and the Teurisci were originally probably Celtic peoples or mixed Dacian-Celtic.{{sfn|Pârvan|1926|pp=222–223}} The Anarti, together with the Celtic [[Cotini]], are described by [[Tacitus]] as vassals of the powerful [[Quadi]] Germanic people.<ref>Tacitus G.43</ref> The Teurisci were probably a group of Celtic [[Taurisci]] from the eastern [[Alps]]. However, archaeology has revealed that the Celtic tribes had originally spread from west to east as far as Transylvania, before being absorbed by the Dacians in the 1st century BC.{{sfn|Oltean|2007|p=47}}{{sfn|Pârvan|1926|pp=461–462}}

====Costoboci====
{{Main|Costoboci}}
The main view is that the ''[[Costoboci]]'' were ethnically Dacian.<ref>* {{harvnb|Heather|2010| p=131}}
*{{harvnb|Waldman|Mason|2006|p=184}}
* {{harvnb|Poghirc|1989| p= 302}}
* {{harvnb|Parvan |1928| pp= 184 and 188}}
*{{harvnb|Nandris|1976|p=729}}
* {{harvnb|Oledzki|2000| p= 525}}
* {{harvnb|Astarita|1983| p= 62}}</ref> Others considered them a Slavic or Sarmatian tribe.{{sfn | Hrushevskyi | 1997 | p=100}}{{sfn|Waldman|Mason|2006|p=184}} There was also a Celtic influence, so that some consider them a mixed Celtic and Thracian group that appear, after Trajan's conquest, as a Dacian group within the Celtic superstratum.{{sfn|Nandris|1976|p=729}} The Costoboci inhabited the southern slopes of the Carpathians.{{sfn | Hrushevskyi | 1997 | p=98}} Ptolemy named the Coestoboci (Costoboci in Roman sources) twice, showing them divided by the Dniester and the Peucinian (Carpathian) Mountains. This suggests that they lived on both sides of the Carpathians, but it is also possible that two accounts about the same people were combined.{{sfn | Hrushevskyi | 1997 | p=98}} There was also a group, the Transmontani, that some modern scholars identify as Dacian Transmontani Costoboci of the extreme north.{{sfn|Schütte|1917|p=100}}{{sfn|Parvan |Florescu |1982|p=135}} The name Transmontani was from the Dacians' Latin,{{sfn|Smith|1873|p=916}} literally "people over the mountains". Mullenhoff identified these with the Transiugitani, another Dacian tribe north of the Carpathian mountains.{{sfn|Schütte|1917|p=18}}

Based on the account of [[Dio Cassius]], Heather (2010) considers that Hasding Vandals, around 171 AD, attempted to take control of lands which previously belonged to the free Dacian group called the Costoboci.{{sfn | Heather | 2010 | p=131}} Hrushevskyi (1997) mentions that the earlier widespread view that these Carpathian tribes were Slavic has no basis. This would be contradicted by the Coestobocan names themselves that are known from the inscriptions, written by a Coestobocan and therefore presumably accurately. These names sound quite unlike anything Slavic.{{sfn | Hrushevskyi | 1997 | p=100}} Scholars such as Tomaschek (1883), Schütte (1917) and Russu (1969) consider these Costobocian names to be Thraco-Dacian.{{sfn | Tomaschek | 1883 | p=407}}{{sfn | Schütte | 1917 | p=143}}{{sfn | Russu | 1969 | pp= 99,116 }} This inscription also indicates the Dacian background of the wife of the Costobocian king "Ziais Tiati filia Daca".<ref>VI, 1 801=ILS 854</ref> This indication of the socio-familial line of descent seen also in other inscriptions (i.e. Diurpaneus qui Euprepes Sterissae f(ilius) Dacus) is a custom attested since the historical period (beginning in the 5th century BC) when Thracians were under Greek influence.<ref>VI, 16, 903</ref> It may not have originated with the Thracians, as it could be just a fashion borrowed from Greeks for specifying ancestry and for distinguishing homonymous individuals within the tribe.{{sfn |Russu| 1967 | p=161}} Schütte (1917), Parvan, and Florescu (1982) pointed also to the Dacian characteristic place names ending in '–dava' given by Ptolemy in the Costoboci's country.{{sfn | Schütte | 1917 | p=101}}{{sfn | Parvan | Florescu| 1982| pp=142 and 152}}

====Carpi====
{{Main|Carpi (people)}}
The Carpi were a sizeable group of tribes, who lived beyond the north-eastern boundary of Roman Dacia. The majority view among modern scholars is that the Carpi were a North Thracian tribe and a subgroup of the Dacians.<ref>{{harvnb|Goffart|2006|page=205}}, {{harvnb|Bunson |1995|page=74}}, {{harvnb|MacKendrick| 2000|page=117}}, {{harvnb|Parvan| Florescu| 1982|page=136}}, {{harvnb|Burns |1991|pages=26 and 27}}, {{harvnb|Odahl |2004|page=19}}, {{harvnb|Waldman|Mason|2006|p=19}}, {{harvnb|Millar|1981}}</ref> However, some historians classify them as Slavs.{{sfn | Waldman | Mason| 2006 |page=129}}
According to Heather (2010), the Carpi were Dacians from the eastern foothills of the Carpathian range – modern Moldavia and Wallachia – who had not been brought under direct Roman rule at the time of Trajan's conquest of Transylvania Dacia. After they generated a new degree of political unity among themselves in the course of the third century, these Dacian groups came to be known collectively as the Carpi.{{sfn | Heather | 2010 |page=114}}
[[File:Captive dacian pushkin.JPG|thumb|upright|Dacian cast in [[Pushkin Museum]], after original in [[Lateran Museum]]. Early second century AD.]]

The ancient sources about the Carpi, before 104 AD, located them on a territory situated between the western side of Eastern European Galicia and the mouth of the Danube.{{sfn|Pârvan|1926|p=239}} The name of the tribe is homonymous with the Carpathian mountains.{{sfn | Schütte | 1917 |page=100}} Carpi and Carpathian are Dacian words derived from the root ''(s)ker''- "cut" cf. Albanian ''karp'' "stone" and Sanskrit ''kar''- "cut".{{sfn | Russu | 1969 |pages=114–115}}{{sfn | Tomaschek | 1883|page=403}}
A quote from the 6th-century Byzantine chronicler [[Zosimus (historian)|Zosimus]] referring to the [[Carpo-Dacians]] (Greek: Καρποδάκαι, Latin: ''Carpo-Dacae''), who attacked the Romans in the late 4th century, is seen as evidence of their Dacian ethnicity. In fact, Carpi/Carpodaces is the term used for Dacians outside of Dacia proper.{{sfn | Goffart | 2006|page=205}}
However, that the Carpi were Dacians is shown not so much by the form Καρποδάκαι in [[Zosimus (historian)|Zosimus]] as by their characteristic place-names in –''dava'', given by Ptolemy in their country.{{sfn | Minns | 2011 |page=124}} The origin and ethnic affiliations of the Carpi have been debated over the years; in modern times they are closely associated with the Carpathian Mountains, and a good case has been made for attributing to the Carpi a distinct material culture, "a developed form of the Geto-Dacian La Tene culture", often known as the Poienesti culture, which is characteristic of this area.{{sfn| Nixon| Saylor Rodgers|1995|p=116}}

===Physical characteristics===
[[File:AdamclisiMetope34.jpg|thumb|upright|Roman monument commemorating the Battle of Adamclisi clearly shows two [[Gigantism|giant]] Dacian warriors wielding a two-handed falx]]
Dacians are represented in the statues surmounting the [[Arch of Constantine]] and on [[Trajan's Column]].{{sfn | Westropp | 2003 | p=104}} The artist of the Column took some care to depict, in his opinion, a variety of Dacian people—from high-ranking men, women, and children to the near-savage. Although the artist looked to models in Hellenistic art for some body types and compositions, he does not represent the Dacians as generic barbarians.{{sfn | Clarke | 2003 |p=37 }}

Classical authors applied a generalized stereotype when describing the  "barbarians"{{mdash}}Celts, Scythians, Thracians{{mdash}}inhabiting the regions to the north of the Greek world.{{sfn|Oltean|2007|p=45}} In accordance with this stereotype, all these peoples are described, in sharp contrast to the "civilized" Greeks, as being much taller, their skin lighter and with straight light-coloured hair and blue eyes.{{sfn|Oltean|2007|p=45}} For instance, [[Aristotle]] wrote that "the Scythians on the Black Sea and the Thracians are straight-haired, for both they themselves and the environing air are moist";<ref>{{Cite web |last=Aristotle |author-link=Aristotle |year=2001 |title=Hair (V.3.) |url=http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=AriGene.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20121215105634/http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=AriGene.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all |archive-date=2012-12-15 |access-date=2014-01-11 |website=De Generatione Animalium (Translated by Arthur Platt) |publisher=Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library}}</ref> according to [[Clement of Alexandria]], [[Xenophanes]] described the Thracians as "ruddy and tawny".{{sfn|Oltean|2007|p=45}}<ref>{{Cite web |last=Clement of Alexandria |author-link=Clement of Alexandria |title=The heathens made gods like themselves, whence springs all superstition (VII.4.) |url=http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/clement-stromata-book7.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020613005004/http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/clement-stromata-book7.html |archive-date=2002-06-13 |access-date=2014-01-11 |website=The Stromata, or Miscellanies |publisher=Early Christian Writings}}</ref> On Trajan's column, Dacian soldiers' hair is depicted longer than the hair of Roman soldiers and they had trimmed beards.{{sfn | Waldman | Mason | 2006| p=208}}

Body-painting was customary among the Dacians.{{specify|date = October 2013}} It is probable that the tattooing originally had a religious significance.{{sfn | Bury | Cook |Adcock|Percival Charlesworth| 1954 |p=543 }} They practiced symbolic-ritual tattooing or body painting for both men and women, with hereditary symbols transmitted up to the fourth generation.{{sfn|Oltean|2007|p=114}}