Roman Towns in Dacia

See this text in

Political structures before the Romans

The first contacts between the Daco-Getic tribes from the North of Danube and Rome date back to the 2^nd century B.C. when Roman policy on the lower Danube was yet undecided. In the 1^st century B.C., Burebista, the chief of a stronger tribe, managed to impose his authority on other tribes and than to subdue the Greek cities from the western coast of the Black Sea; he also advanced to the Middle Danube, defeating the Celtic tribes of the Boii and the Teurisci. Burebista is the founder of a local state structure which Strabon refers to as αρχή (arhé). He is called in a Greek inscription from Dionysopolis "the first and the greatest king from Tracia". His involvement in the Civil War from Rome on Pompeius’s side determined Caesar to plan an expedition against the Dacians after the defeat of his enemy at Pharsalos but in 44 B.C. the Roman dictator was assassinated and it seems that Burebista shared his fate in the same period. Strabon informs us that the Dacian Kingdom was divided first in four fractions and later in Augustus’s time in five parts. The most powerful of those units must have been the one situated in Transylvania and Banat, centered in the mountains of South-Western Transylvania where the royal residence from Sarmizegetusa was located. This political entity consolidated its power in the second half of the 1^st century A. D. during the reign of the emperor Domitianus when a written source calls it regnum Decibali regis Dacorum, meaning "the kingdom of Decebalus , king of the Dacians". The war of Domitianus against the Dacians proved the difficulty of conquering their kingdom and of transforming it into a Roman province. Even after the victory of Tettius Iulianus from AD 88 the only possible solution for the Empire was to give Decebalus the title of Rex amicus populi Romani. This was understandable for the Empire because this time its foe was not a tribal confederation but a kingdom similar to the former Kingdoms of Macedonia and Pontus; furthermore, Decebalus had proven military and strategic abilities which made him comparable with Mithridates. His newly received political status, that of Rex amicus, was equivalent to that of Tiridates, the king of Armenia in Nero’s time.

Trajan’s Dacian war finally led to the transformation of Dacia into a Roman province. In this epoch, two centuries later than the defeating of the Celts and Germans from Gaul, Britain, or Germany, the local Dacian society had risen above the tribal status, reaching the state stage which neither the Celts nor the Germans had the opportunity of reaching in Antiquity. One of the consequences of this evolution was the abolition by the Dacian kings, most probably by force, of the clans’ structure and of the tribal elites. In other words this meant for the Romans the inexistence in the new province of Dacia of the main social partner, the indigenous elite, which was familiar from the experience of organizing the other provinces. The lack of local aristocracy in Dacia is indicated also by the absence of local monetary series. Under these circumstances, the native communities were easily deprived of their land and pushed to the periphery, the mountainous and less productive areas of the province. Thus it becomes clear that the Romans didn’t use the method of changing old tribes into new civitates because their dialogue partner, the local elite, was missing. Under these circumstances it is perfectly understandable why out of the 4000 Latin inscriptions from Roman Dacia none mentions any civitates. They seem to have been absent in the province.

The founding of the Roman towns

It is obvious that given the absence of civitates, the capitals of such entities were also inexistent. Thus, the emergence of towns must be seen under a completely different perspective. The indigenous communities played no part in the founding of the Roman urban settlements, which were without exception placed on new locations, unoccupied in the Late Iron Age. The Roman epoch determined in Dacia a radical change of the habitat type. The main factors of the urbanization were the Roman colonists brought by Trajan, infinitas copias hominum ex toto orbe Romano, as Eutropius says – and the Roman army. In Trajan’s time the veterans colony Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa (for details see The Creation of Provincial Structures theme) was the only town in the province.

Under Hadrian’s rule Napoca, Drobeta and Romula received the juridical status of municipia. The first one, municipium Aelium Napocensium, evolved from an agglomeration of Roman civilian colonists arrived in the early years of the province, most probably a vicus (for details see The Emergence of Vici theme). Municipium Aelium Drobetense emerged from the first Roman settlement on the Dacian territory and it is strongly connected to the existence of the bridge over Danube and the auxiliary fortress from the Northern shore. Although the civilian settlement is virtually unknown from the archaeological point of view, we cannot ignore the polygonal wall which fosters the auxiliary fortress and the civilian settlement spread on approximately 50 hectares. This topographical clue proves the fact that the town evolved from the military vicus in the vicinity of the garrison.

The same military origin is attested for Romula, where we have two early earth and timber castella covered by the extending civilian settlement. Also in this case, the town seems to have evolved from a military vicus.

The second phase of Dacia’s urbanization took place during Marcus Aurelius’s reign. A new municipium appeared in the Partoş district of Alba Iulia, near the Mureş River. Its official name was municipium Aurelium Apulense, but it is better known today under the name of Apulum I.

The town originated in an agglomeration of colonists settled inside the earth and timber structure of an abandoned legionary fortress dating from Trajan’s epoch. It is possible that the settlement was a pagus of Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa before receiving urban status, but evidence to support this view are still missing. In the same period Napoca becomes colonia Aurelia.

During the reign of Commodus, Apulum I received the title of colonia Aurelia.

The high point of the urbanization process in Dacia is dated under Septimius Severus. As in other provinces with faithful legions during the civil war, he rewarded the fidelity of the two Dacian legions by giving municipal status to the canabae from Apulum (Apulum II usually referred to as Apulum II) and Potaissa. Soon Potaissa will reach the stage of colonia.

Under the same emperor new municipia emerged around other military centers like Porolissum, Dierna, Tibiscum, and Ampelum.

He is also the one who probably granted Drobeta, and, presumably, Romula the status of colonia.

After Septimius Severus, no important developments took place in the field of urbanization. Ulpia Traiana received the epithet of Metropolis, while Apulum I the one of Chrysopolis. It is possible that Apulum II and Romula became coloniae around 250 A.D. during Decius’s reign.

The creation of an increasing number of towns determined the diminishing of incomes for the older colonies. As compensation they received the status of ius Italicum, meaning juridical equality with the towns of Italy in what the spearing of taxes on land propriety is concerned. From Ulpian’s Digestae we know that in Dacia Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa, Apulum I, Napoca, and Potaissa were beneficiaries of ius Italicum. This compensation is likely to have been offered under the reign of Septimius Severus.

Construction Phases and Typical Buildings

Archeological knowledge of the towns from Roman Dacia is extremely limited. On one hand, the majority of them are covered by medieval and modern major settlements (Apulum I, Apulum II, Napoca, Potaissa, Drobeta, Dierna) and, on the other hand, the stage of research in other sites is embryonic (Porolissum, Tibiscum, Ampelum, Romula).

Few elements are known about the construction stages of the town Apulum I (“Partoş”): three phases of the fortification have been identified. The first one consists of a vallum made of typical murus caespiticius, with a V-shaped first defense ditch 2 meters deep. 17 m in front of the turf wall was a second defense ditch 2.40 meters wide and 1.30 meters deep. Second phase consisted of a turf wall raised above the first one and erected out of the earth extracted from the new ditches; the old ones had been filled. Finally, the third phase consisted of a new agger, a stone wall and two new ditches. During the second phase the perimeter had been enlarged. The fortification elements belonging to the first phase are centered on slightly raised plateau near Mureş River; they are typical for a military fortress. The fortified area was approximately 400 meters wide; its length is yet unknown. Based on this evidence we determined that the first phase can be identified with a legionary fortress from Trajan’s time, when inscriptions indicate the presence of two legions at Apulum, XIII Gemina and I Adiutrix. Second earth and timber enlarged phase corresponds to the raising of the civilian settlement emerged meanwhile over the abandoned fortress (the legion I Adiutrix was withdrawn from Dacia in AD 114 or 119) to the rank of municipium during the reign of Marcus Aurelius; the stone wall is assigned to the phase of colonia from Commode’s time.

Inside the fortification elements archaeological research are scarce. Six levels of habitation have been identified, the first three ones consisting entirely of wooden structures. The first level corresponds to the first phase of the fortification and it contains archaeological material dated to the end of the 1^st and the beginning of the 2^nd centuries A.D. such as North-Italian Samian pottery. The wooden constructions from the 2^nd and 3^rd levels of habitation have different orientation and plan than the ones from the first level. They belonged to the first civilian residents who settled on the perimeter of the abandoned fortress. Only the 4^th level appears to be connected with Marcus Aurelius’s municipium , while the last two mark its evolution.

In Napoca, research made a decade ago established for the first time the stratigraphy of the Roman habitation. The buildings had three wooden phases and two stone ones, each with a sub-phase of repairs. The two first wooden stages consisted of huts and barracks; they corresponded to the first settlement, the vicus of the North-Pannonian colonists arrived during Trajan’s time. The third phase consisted of buildings with regular plan, earth and timber pillars and walls placed on stone foundations. The alignment of the buildings can be connected with the existence of a street network, hence with the appearance of the municipium. The walls of the buildings attributed to the first stone phase are parallel with the previous, wooden ones, marking the urban evolution.

Urban edifices in other towns of Roman Dacia besides the ones from Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa are scarcely researched. Some of the few examples we have are the headquarters of the consular governor of tres Daciae excavated in the 19^th century and a recently researched temple of Liber Pater in Apulum.

Several buildings have been surveyed in Napoca.

All in all, the majority of data we posses come from the epigraphic sources.

The urban population of Dacia

The onomastics, religion and material culture of the colonists indicate their diversity of origin: Italy, Illyricum, Thracia, Noricum, Pannonia, Germania, Moesia, Asia Mică, Africa, Syria, and Egipt. The majority of them came from western, Latin-speaking provinces; they were highly Romanized at the moment of their arrival in the new province. In Upper Dacia and Dacia Porolissensis from the first half of the 2^nd century A.D. the most relevant group of colonists, arrived here in Trajan’s epoch, had Norico-Pannonian origin. People from Eastern Pannonia are best represented in the western Dacia, a highly urbanized region. The analysis of the approximately 4,000 inscriptions shows the preponderance of the Latin speakers: only 40 texts are written in Greek and 7 in Palmyran. Out of the 3,000 appellations mentioned in these texts 74% are Italic or Latin, 14% - Greek or Oriental, 4% Illyrian, 4% Celtic or Germanic, 2% Thracian, and 2% Semitic. In Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa the percentage of Latin cognomina is of 76%, while in Apulum of 72%. This proves the Roman character of the towns from Dacia.

The initial population of Colonia Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa, which was founded by deductio, consisted of veterans recruited during Flavian age from Italy and the highly Romanized provinces of Hispania or Gallia Narbonensis. 76% of Roman cognomina are a percentage superior to many towns, even to Rome itself. Out of the 800 inscriptions found in Sarmizegetusa only 5 are written in Greek, while the rest are Latin.

Other groups of colonists formed urban agglomerations which would eventually develop into towns. The colonists who were Roman citizens formed communities of cives Romani, or veterani et cives Romani. There were also settlements inhabited mostly by peregrine, most of whom received Roman citizenship during the 2^nd century A.D.

Religion in the towns

Besides their role of economic and administrative centers, the towns were important midpoints of the spiritual life. The most important part of spirituality is represented by religion and the cult places. In Dacia 130 divinities have been determined either by epigraphic, artistic or archaeological means.

The most substantial archaeological and epigraphic information came from Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa, where a temple of Aesculap and Hygeia and another one of Liber Pater have been identified. A sacred are was identified in the same town, containing buildings, probably temples, conventionally referred to as EM 16, EM 17, EM 18, EM 19, EM 24, and EM 29. We also have the plan of the Mithraeum excavated in the 19^th century, which is unfortunately lost today, and the one of the Palmyran Goods. The temple of Nemesis was excavated near the amphitheatre. Outside Ulpia Traiana a temple of Liber Pater has been recently identified at Apulum. Information concerning the religious life of the rest of the Roman towns from Dacia comes from inscriptions only. Not only Greek and Roman, but also Oriental, Egyptian, Celtic and Germanic divinities are present.

Here is a list of them together with the town where they have been mentioned:

The residents of the Roman towns knew and appreciated the images of the Greek and roman mythology, as it is proven by two mosaics found in Ulpia Traiana. They depict "The choice of Paris" and "Priam asking for Hector’s corpse", both episodes of the Trojan cycle.

The divinities are well represented in art, especially through cult statues. The most remarkable pieces are the colossal statues, like the one of Jupiter from Apulum, which was destined to the central cella of the Capitoline Temple. From the same town we have the statue of Hecate triformis, while from a mithraeum from Potaissa – the head of a colossal statue of Mithras. A large statue of Priapus was discovered in Napoca. Middle sized statues and statuettes were usually brought by supplicants to temples. The most remarkable of them are the statue of Liber-Dionysos and the one of the Thracian god Zbelsurdos from Apulum and the statuettes of Nemesis from Ulpia Traiana, Napoca, and Apulum. The cultic relief, especially the ones used in the cults of Mithras and the Thracian Knight is also significant. Several of the small bronzes found in Dacia, like Jupiter fulminans from Potaissa created in Phidias’s style, Mercury from Potaissa or the maenad from Ulpia Traiana which follows the model of Scopas are quite remarkable.

Approximately 2,200 religious epigraphic and sculptural monuments are known in Roman Dacia; the majority of them originated in urban areas. The percentage of the monuments dedicated to the classical, Greek and Roman pantheon is of 73%, comparable with the one of the Greek and Roman names in the inscriptions of the province (74%). Jupiter is the best represented from the 12 classical divinities (dii consentes), especially in Apulum and Potaissa. The most popular oriental god is Mithras. None of the epigraphic or figurative monuments of Dacia indicates the maintaining of indigenous Dacian divinities (Zalmoxis, Gebeleizis); furthermore, there is no clear evidence of an interpretatio Dacica for any of the classical gods or goddesses.

Ordo Augustalium, an association which revered Rome and the emperor, played an important part in the political and religious life of the towns. They are only mentioned in Ulpia Traiana, Apulum, Drobeta, Potaissa, and Napoca. Another political cult is the one for Domus Divina. The imperial cult was celebrated in Ulpia Traiana by a concilium Daciarum trium, presided by a sacerdos arae Augusti (coronatus Daciarum trium); this institution probably appeared during Severus Alexander’s reign, when it appeared in inscriptions. The task of this concilium was to express the fidelity of the province and its communities towards the Empire and the Emperor.

Conclusion

The 11 towns of Dacia are scattered inconsistently on the province’s territory. The western Transylvania and Banat are the most strongly urbanized areas. None of the towns was placed in the eastern part of Transylvania and only one, Romula, was located in Dacia Inferior. The explanation of this phenomenon is not only based on the superior economic resources of the western area but also on the fact that the same region represented the majority of the initial territory of the province: it is here where the massive influx of colonists from Trajan’s time took place and it is here where the imperial road over Danube traversed Dacia. Potaissa, Apulum II and even Colonia Ulpia Traiana demonstrate the importance of the military factor for the urbanization of the province; it is also possible that Drobeta, Dierna, and Porolissum evolved from military vici.

The speed of the process was high per ensemble. In Pannonia, where there were indigenous civitates, they came into existence under Claudius but reached the stage of municipia only in Hadrian’s time. The road from vicus to municipium was half century shorter in some cases in Dacia; here, the evolution started from settlements of Roman colonists and not from civitates which did not exist. What is more, none of towns of Dacia is placed on the site of a late Iron Age settlement.

The urbanization is the most spectacular transformation of Dacia after the Roman conquest. It is a central component of the process generally called Romanization. The urbanization enforced the Latin language, the Greek and Roman religion and the Roman mentality.

Abstract

In the 1^st century B.C. Burebista enforced his domination over the Dacian tribes and the Greek cities from the shore of the Black Sea. His control extended from these cities to the Middle Danube, but after his death the structure collapsed into smaller ones. The most important of them was centered on Orăştie Mountains. King Decebalus will originate in this center; he will be declared Rex amicus populi Romani as a sign of his power in the region after several fights with Domitian’s army. Emperor Trajan manages to defeat him and to transform his kingdom into a Roman province at the beginning of the 2^nd century A.D.

Since the centralized Dacian state had annihilated or weakened the local elite, there are no civitates in Roman Dacia; hence, the urbanization process is entirely based on the great number of colonists. Colonia Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa was founded first; soon after that, during the 2^nd century A.D. ten more towns were created: Napoca, Drobeta, Romula, Apulum I, Apulum II, Potaissa, Porolissum, Dierna, Tibiscum and Ampelum. Some of them would soon rise to the status of colonies, like Apulum I, Potaissa şi probabil Apulum II şi Romula. Another part will receive ius Italicum, like Sarmizegetussa, Apulum I, Napoca and Potaissa. The origins of these towns are either military (vici or abandoned forts), either civilian (communities of roman colonists).

The archaeological knowledge of these settlements is limited. The defense system of Apulum I is relatively well known, together with the existence of six construction phases for the inside buildings – three wooden ones, one mixed and two stone ones. In Napoca, the recently established stratigraphy shows the presence of a three wooden phases and two stone ones in the evolution of the town’s buildings. Few public buildings have been researched in Apulum and Napoca besides the edifices of Sarmizegetusa.

The population of Dacia’s towns has been estimated based on indirect data, like the number of seats inside the town’s amphitheatre. The most reasonable figures indicate a number of 10,000 inhabitants in Napoca in Septimius Severus’s time – 15,000-20,000 for Sarmizegetusa and 20,000-30,000 for Potaissa. The origin of the colonists is very diverse, but the majority of 74% are, as their names indicate it, Latin speakers. The percentage rises to 76% in Sarmizegetusa’s case.

The towns were also important religious centers. Several temples have been excavated, mainly in Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa. What is more, numerous inscriptions attest a large variety of Greek and Roman, but also Oriental, Egyptian, Celtic and Germanic divinities. The artistic expression of these believes is to be found in the mosaics, the colossal statues, the votive statues and statuettes. The Greek and Roman divinities are predominant (74%); the most worshipped Oriental god is Mithras. The official cult was represented in Dacia by ordo Augustalium and concilium Daciarum trium.

Ten out of the eleven towns from Roman Dacia are located in the western, better developed, half of the province while only one is situated in the south-east. The urbanization process in Dacia was a very rapid one. It was one of the main components of the Romanization of the province.

Text: Coriolan Opreanu, Mihaela Mihalachi

Maps and illustrations: Mihaela Mihalachi, Coriolan Opreanu

Bibliography

Ardeţ, A. Le municipe romain de Tibiscum, in La politique edilitaire dans les provinces de l’Empire romain II eme-IV eme siecles après J. C., Cluj-Napoca, 1993, p. 83-88.

Ardevan, R., Viaţa municipală în Dacia romană, Timişoara, 1998.

Bărbulescu, M., Potaissa.Studiu monografic, Turda, 1994.

Cociş, S. Voişan, V., Paki, A., Raport preliminar privind cercetările arheologice din str. V. Deleu în Cluj-Napoca, in ActaMN, 32, 1, 1995, p. ?

Daicoviciu H., Alicu D., Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augusta Dacica Sarmizegetusa, Bucureşti, 1984.

Dana, D. Les Daces dans les ostraca du désert oriental de l’Egypte. Morphologie des noms daces, in ZPE, 143, 2003, p. 166-186.

Diaconescu, Al., The towns of Roman Dacia: an overview of recent archaeological research, in Roman Dacia. The making of a provincial society (eds. W. S. Hanson, I. P. Haynes), JRA, Suppl. Ser., 56, Portsmouths, Rhode Island, 2004, p. 87-142.

Eck, W., Lobüscher T., Ein neuer Stadtplan der Colonia Ulpia Traiana Dacica Sarmizegetusa, in ZPE, 137, 2001, p. 263-269.

Opreanu C. H., Legio I Adiutrix in Dacia. Military Action and its place of garrison during Trajan’s reign, in Roman Frontier Studies XVII (ed. N. Gudea), Zalău, 1999, p. 571-584.

Opreanu C. H., Relationship of forts to town origins in Roman Dacia, in Army and Urban Development in the Danubian Provinces of the Roman Empire (H. Ciugudean, V. Moga), Alba Iulia, 2000, p. 79-89.

C. Opreanu, Colonisation et acculturation en Dacie. Les mécanismes de l’intégration dans le monde romain, in Orbis antiquus. Studia in honorem Ioannis Pisonis (eds. L. Ruscu, C. Ciongradi, R. Ardevan etc.), Cluj-Napoca, 2004, p. 651-661

Piso I. Die soziale und ethnische Zusammensetzung der Bevölkerung in Sarmizegetusa und in Apulum, in Prosopographie und Sozialgeschichte. Studien über Metodik und Erkenntnis möglichkeit der kaiserzeitlichen Prosopographie. Kolloquium Köln 24-26 Nov. 1991 (ed. W. Eck), Köln- Wien-Weimar, 1993, p. 315-335.

Piso I., Le territoire de la Colonia Sarmizegetusa, in EphemerisNapocensis, 5, 1995, p. 63-82.

Rusu A., Alicu D., Templele romane din Dacia I., Deva, 2000.

Tudor D, Oraşe, târguri şi sate în Dacia romană, Bucureşti, 1968.