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Roman's Dacian Wars: Domitian, Trajan, and Strategy on the Danube

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Roman's Dacian Wars: Domitian, Trajan, and Strategy on the Danube Feature Rome’s Dacian Wars: Domitian, Trajan, and Strategy on the Danube, Part I* I Everett L. Wheeler Abstract Two recent major monographs, one on the Dacian wars of Domi- tian and Trajan (Stefan) and another on ancient migrations from the Ukraine into the eastern Balkans (Batty, Rome and the Nomads) invite discussion and evaluation. A survey of the problematic literary and ar- chaeological sources (not least Trajan's Column) for the history of this area in the first and second centuries A.D. prefaces an evaluation of new archaeological evidence on Dacian defenses and innovative top- ographical identifications. The development of a Geto-Dacian state in Transylvania within the context of multiple ethnicities on the Lower and Middle Danube is discussed and use of new archaeological discover- ies to clarify narratives of the wars of 84–89, 101–102, and 105–106 is evaluated. Interpretations of scenes on Trajan's Column and the metopes of the Adamklissi monument remain controversial. he Roman conquest of Dacia (the ancient forerunner of modern Romania) has Tnot ceased to fascinate, as demonstrates the weighty tome here discussed—on my bathroom scale well over six pounds of arguments, photographs, maps, and *Part II of Everett Wheeler’s “Rome’s Dacian Wars: Domitian, Trajan, and Strategy on the Danube” will appear in the Journal of Military History 75, no. 1 (January 2011). Everett L. Wheeler, scholar in residence at Duke University received his A.B. from Indiana Univer- sity/Bloomington and a Ph.D. from Duke. He specializes in the history of military theory, ancient history, and Armenian-Caucasian studies. His extensive publications in ancient military history in- clude Stratagem and the Vocabulary of Military Trickery (1988), translation (with Peter Krentz) of Poly- aenus, Stratagems of War, 2 vols. (1994), and (ed.) The Armies of Classical Greece (2007). Besides regular participation in the International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies and the Lyon Congress on the Roman Army, he serves on the editorial board of Revue des Études Militaires Anciennes. The Journal of Military History 74 (October 2010): 1185–1227. Copyright © 2010 by The Society for Military History, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or trans- mitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing from the Editor, Journal of Military History, George C. Marshall Library, Virginia Military Institute, P.O. Drawer 1600, Lexington, VA 24450. Authorization to photocopy items for internal and personal use is granted by the copyright holder for libraries and other users registered with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), 121 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923 USA (www.copyright.com), provided the appropriate fee is paid to the CCC. ★ 1185 EVERETT L. WHEELER bibliography: Alexandre Simon Stefan, Les guerres daciques de Domitien et de Trajan: Architecture militaire, topographie, images et histoire, Collection de l’École Française de Rome 353 (Rome: École Française de Rome, 2005). A trio of general theses undergirds this mountain of archaeological and topographical detail: first, the people generally called Getae in Greek and Daci in Latin were not “barbar- ians” like their German or Sarmatian neighbors, but a strongly Hellenized state of some sophistication; second, the Emperor Domitian (r. 81–96 A.D.), the victim of hostile senatorial historiography and the propaganda of Trajan (r. 98–117), merits rehabilitation: in reality, Trajan only imitated and continued Domitian’s work in both the military and artistic spheres; third, Stefan’s massive assemblage and re- evaluation of archaeological data on the Dacian wars, combined with innovative use of aerial photography, permits new topographical interpretations of Roman campaigns and a reassertion of the historical accuracy of scenes on Trajan’s Col- umn. Proper appreciation of the author’s contentions, however, merits a prolegom- enon on the archaeological and historiographical difficulties of treating Rome’s Dacian wars, particularly as Stefan’s work spans the history of the Geto-Dacians from the late sixth century B.C. to the Roman annexation in 106 A.D., and a sub- sequent recent work has much to say on the context of these conflicts.1 1. R. Batty, Rome and the Nomads: The Pontic-Danubian Realm in Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), attempts to trace the history of migrations from the Ukraine into Ro- mania and Bulgaria (fifth century B.C.–fourth century A.D.). Although supplementing Stefan’s tome, Batty’s disappointing work suffers inter alia, as this paper’s commentary will document, from factual errors and out-of-date or omitted bibliography (e.g., ignorance of A. Suceveanu and A. Barnea, La Dobroudja Romaine [Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedica, 1991]; and A. Alemany, Sources on the Alans: A Critical Compilation [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2000]). His curious pronounce- ments about Roman policy on the Lower Danube derive exclusively from a very limited (cherry- picked?) knowledge of the literature on Roman strategy (discussed in Part II of this article). For other (and less tendentious) recent surveys of Roman archaeology on the Danube, although not comprehensive and somewhat disappointing from a military historian’s perspective, see J. Wilkes, “Recent Work along the Middle and Lower Danube,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 11 (1998): 231–97; and Wilkes, “The Roman Danube: An Archaeological Survey,” Journal of Ro- man Studies 95 (2005): 124–225. Footnotes to this discussion, modestly updating Stefan’s fifty-nine double-columned pag- es (705–63) of bibliography through 2003, alert readers to important work available in North American and Western European libraries without attempting to be comprehensive. Stefan at- tests the prolific production of Romanian scholars, including many works generally inaccessible outside Romania, and often adds his own twist to other excavators’ ideas, properly cited in his footnotes. His fuller documentation will not be reproduced. Full bibliographical citations for all ancient sources will not be given; English translations of most are available in the Loeb Classi- cal Library series. The following abbreviations appear: AE=L’Année épigraphique (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1888-); ILS=H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, 3 vols. in 5 (Ber- lin: Weidmann, 1892–1916). Apologies are owed to the Editor, whose patience in awaiting this paper and toleration of its length are exemplary. 1186 ★ THE JOURNAL OF The Dacian Wars of Domitian and Trajan I The skills of siegecraft, engineering, and logistics required to penetrate the sophisticated and extensive Dacian defenses of the Carpathians probably exceeded those of the more famous sieges of the Jewish War (66–70 A.D.) and certainly involved much larger forces on both sides. Although the Dacian conflicts of Domi- tian (84–89) and Trajan (101–102, 105–106) lack a Josephus’s detailed narrative, the spades of Romanian archaeologists, active for over a century, have compensated for sparse literary sources by unearthing much of the Dacian fortification system and providing clues to the campaigns. Above all (quite literally), Roman victory required capture of the Dacian capital, Sarmizegethusa Regia (modern Gradishtea Muchelelui)—no small feat for operations at an elevation of nearly 1,000 meters in the heart of the southern Carpathians’ Orashtie Mountains. The capital lies on a narrow ridge, which peaks at Muncel (elevation 1,563.5 meters) and whose sheer slopes plunge into the Alb and Godeannul Rivers on its northern and southern sides respectively. Built on fourteen man-made terraces with additional habitation extending along the ridge for 2 kilometers to the west and about 1 kilometer to the north, Sarmizegethusa’s massive fortifications, exploiting every topographical advantage, enclosed an urban area of over three acres.2 But only half of the capital’s urban space has even been explored, much less dug. Extensive forestation, greater today than in Antiquity, has impeded understanding this site besides many others of these wars. Moreover, the potholes of treasure-hunters as early as the Napole- onic era, seeking fabled “Dacian gold,” and the discontinuity of Romanian excava- tions, often with different working assumptions, have complicated discerning the site’s pristine state. Not least, the Romans, true masters of wiping cities off the face of the earth, as modern investigators of Hellenistic Corinth and Carthage (both destroyed in 146 B.C.) can verify, left little behind. These factors render Sarmizege- thusa Regia an archaeological nightmare. Dacian accomplishments and Romania’s Roman heritage play a significant role in Romanian national pride—perhaps even more so than with the popular notions of Roman Britain or Roman Germany, spawning antiquarianism and cos- tumed wargamers acting out their fantasies. In 1980, when Romania hosted the International Congress of Historical Sciences in Bucharest, the regime of Nicolae Ceaucescu simultaneously celebrated 2,050 years of a Romanian national state, taking 70 B.C. as a firm date (the real date in the first or second quarter of the first century B.C. is hazy) for Burebista’s creation of a Dacian empire, extending from Ukrainian Olbia on the Black Sea south to the Bulgarian Haemus Mountains (modern Stara Planina), and as far west as modern Slovakia.3 More recently (28 2. Stefan’s work dwarfs I. Oltean’s (Dacia: Landscape, Colonisation and Romanisation [Lon- don: Routledge, 2007]) minimalist view of Sarmizegethusa Regia:
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