Dacians

a group of North Thracian tribes. According to ancient authors, such as Strabo, Caesar, and Pliny the Elder, they occupied the territory north of the Danube to the spurs of the Carpathian Mountains, that is, mainly the territory of modern Transylvania. In the middle of the first century B.C., the Dacians and the tribes of the Getae united under the leadership of D. Burebistas and spread their power over the tribes of the right bank of the Danube and over several West-Pontic cities of Greece. But the union was shaky and soon disintegrated. The Dacian union achieved its greatest power at the end of the first century A.D. under Decebalus. At this time classes were already relatively well developed among the Dacians, and according to some scholars a slave-owning state had already formed. From the first century B.C. through the first century A.D., under the emperors Augustus, Nero, and Domitian, the Romans undertook a series of campaigns against the Dacians. In wars in 101–102 and 105–106, during the reign of Emperor Trajan, the Dacians lost their independence, and their country became the Roman province of Dacia.

Since the 1950’s Rumanian archaeologists have been excavating Dacian fortresses and settlements in the Orastie Mountains.