The Brutal Conquest of Rome's Last Province
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 มิ.ย. 2024
- Trajan's conquest of Dacia marked the last major expansion of the Roman Empire. This video - shot on location in Romania - follows the devastating campaigns that made this rugged region into a province.
My video on the mysterious Tropaeum of Trajan at Adamclisi: • The Mysterious Trophy ...
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Chapters:
0:00 Domitian's war
1:04 The Dacian threat
1:47 The First Dacian War
2:50 Roman victory
3:30 Trajan's bridge
4:04 The Second Dacian War
4:53 The fall of Sarmizegetusa
6:23 Dacia becomes a province
7:16 The Tropaeum of Trajan at Adamclisi
It's pretty cool that we know it was Tiberius Claudius Maximus of the 7th legion that took the head of Decebalus because he bragged about it on his tombstone.
Decebalus killed himself.
@@dinoisback Yes, when roman cavalry caught up with him. Tiberius presented the dead king's head to Trajan.
I am Tiberius Maximus!
@@dinoisback And then the Romans found his body and decapitated him...
02:50 on his second invasion, Trajan is said to have had a feeling of Dacia vu.
Deja Vu
@@georgerichardson7728 dude look in the mirror, slap yourself, be ashamed!
@@georgerichardson7728☠️
You did not get it, did you?@@georgerichardson7728
Dang I didn't know parts of Trajan's bridge still exist
There are remains on both ends.
@@BlaBla-pf8mfso it’s not a bridge anymore
Destroy in 1850 by Austrian emperor
@@ruskibruski”parts”
Lady Frumpertons haberdashery still exists too
I was in Romania a couple months ago and planned to visit Sarmizegetusa Regia but ran out of time. It looks like a really unique site, different from the typical Roman city.
It was build by Dacians as cult centre, though it exact purpose is uncertain, as well what gods were worshipped there. Roman Sarmizegetuza Trajana is located in lowlands some 70 km away, and it resembles typical greco-roman city
I see, that explains it.
Highly recommend it if you have the chance another time. Went there 2 weeks ago and I was absolutely impressed. Very different from the Roman settlements. They are rebuilding the city as we speak, so I think in a few years would be a good time to visit and see more than you could have seen now.
@@Prosper661Regia wasn’t built by romans…the dacian religion before Eastern Orthodox Christianity was Zalmoxism.
Its why the city u saw was different type,it wasnt roman :)
After a couple of years of being subscribed to this channel, it is a pleasant surprise to see my motherland covered in one of his videos. Many thanks from Romania!
Moesia is also our home
Same, love learning about Romania from outside sources and not from a teacher who threatened us to beat us with a wooden ruler if we didn't know the years properly.
Romania is awesome - hello from America
We lived in Romania off and on for several years (over the last 20 years), and learned a lot about Trajan and early Romanian history while there.....loved it, wish we can go back soon!
@@InAeternumRomaMater dacia isnt moesia
Your channel breathes life into an oversaturated genre of Roman history. Don't stop my man, these are so interesting, I love them so much.
Your
lots of roman content are just surface level visual spectacles for the public which aren't very in depth. Entertainment for its own sake rather than historical truth as its goal.
Stoked that you had a chance to visit my country. Cheers from Romania and thank you for your years long effort to educate people on the Roman times.
🤡🦧🦧🦧
🤡🦧🦧🦧
thank you! I'm from Romania and I always considered the roman conquest to be a great untold story that should be told more often, so thank you very much for the video!
I'm Romanian too, what you talking about? Everyone knows about the Roman conquest of Dacia.
Dacian messenger after being turned away - "I guess Trajan just isn't a fun guy"
Romania especially Transylvania is a really hard place to conquer , it has the geography of a fortress
Well it was conquered by the Ottomans anyway, then Austro-Hungary (Transylvania, Banat, Bucovina), then much later the Soviet Union (Moldova)
It’s been conquered numerous times in History, I’d say it’s relatively easy to conquer compared to the Balkans itself.
@@Etendard1708 the Ottomans didn't conquere it, they made Principality of Transylvania a vassal state with a high amount of autonomy because they knew how hard it would be to put down a revolt
@@InAeternumRomaMater well, Ottomans did not colonize Transylvania but they did colonize large portion of Romania. Transylvania was under Hungary & Austro-Hungarian empire instead.
@@Etendard1708 They didn't colonise Romania, (and you mean Wallachia and Moldavia). They had the same situation as Transylvania, they were under Ottoman suzerainity, but maintained autonomy, were allowed to have their own law, their own ruler their own religion and language with no problem whatsoever
Tragan probably also realized that the Dacians would only become an even greater threat the more time they had to build up their strenth using the Roman tribute.
The romans never paid tribute to the Dacians as far as I know. Just that the first roman campaign failed as the romans were ill prepared for the dacians who were strong and cunning warriors and used the knowledge of their own terrain (forrests, mountains, narrow passages) to ambush and eliminate the romans by surprise. The second time the romans came in force and wanted to occupy the land for its many riches not because it was a threat to the empire itself. Romans always invaded other lands to plunder, not because they were a threat. Yes, they were one of the most advanced and civil invaderz as they also built useful things (apeducts, bridges etc) and they brought their more advanced technologies into their provinces helping to improve the life of the ones who they conqured long-term. But let's not forget they took all the local gold and riches to the motherland Rome to have for their leaders. They also enslaved many people abd killed them into their arenas just for show / sport.
@@adelyna89 if they paid it was most likely a small sum , but still humiliating for a big empire to pay tribute to a medium sized province they could take in 3 days
Your tone of voice and cadence is perfect for background listening while I'm cleaning or working away. Not overly animated and not overly academic or ''boring''. And you sprinkle in enough detail without overdoing it. You've carved yourself out a nice niche of the Roman history corner of youtube 🙌
Im from Romania, each summer me and my family go in a village near the mountains where we have a old village house from 4 generations now near the fagaras mountains, in the old village cemetery there are very old tomb stones where people used for hunderts of years to sign them with the number XIII , people did this as a luck omen as the reason was forgotten with the passing of time, but my grandmother asked her grandmother at the time and found out that in the area there was a roman influence which remained trough time, the xIII Gemina legion - very interesing
Am crezut ca gemina s-a extins doar pana in teritoriile Albei , n-am stiut ca au ajuns pana acolo
@@roastedman8384 da,cse pare ca au ajuns si pe aici influentele.. oricum f interesant.
You have summoned all Romanians on english history internet to come on your channel
Finally the dacians! Wouldn't this make a good series? Just picture it! Wonderful mountain scenery, stone and wood fortresses, dacians and sarmatians fighting with romans, beautiful dacian women torturing soldiers, pagan rituals in honour of Zalmoxes ! The vikings are so overrated. We want new brave people! :) Thanks Garrett!
Wow, I've read about this site, but never seen pictures. The complex at Sarmizegetusa is an incredible calendar complex that reminds one of Stonehenge, especially the horseshoe shaped center in the largest temple.
The thing is, the complex was added wooden pillars and other such embellishments during communism, as decor for a 'historic' (complete with maize fields, nonexistent during ancient times) propaganda movie. They never took those down, as far as I know, so you'd be well advised to further check what is true ancient relic and what not, in regards to that site.
been to the place, yeah, a lot of what isn't describable as "big rock in ground" isn't original.. if it's standing, it was probably added later.
That goes for sarmisegetuza regia, the one depicted in the video. There's another location named simply "sarmisegetuza" which isn't in the mountains, it's a much larger sprawl, and, I believe, contains a lot more of the original stonework
Some people think the Roman empire was at it's greatest extent under Augustus, but the empire was at it's largest under Trajan bc of the Dacian conquest.
Conquering Dacia was the gratest victory Roman Empire had till that date. Trajan decreed 123 days of holydays through the whole Empire for celebrating this epic victory. The spoils of war were something out of this world, with hundreds of tones of gold shipped to Rome, and also the exploration of the richest gold mine in Europe ever, for more than 100 years. That's also why the greatest column was the wone depicting the Dacian wars.
I don't know who are you talking about when you say "some people" because at the time of Augustus Britannia wasn't even conquer and Roma still had a couple of client kingdoms that weren't under their direct rule.
Also, it wasn't only the conquest of Dacia but the conquest of Scotland(the low lands more specifically), and also Georgia, Crimea and Irak.
Trajan also conquered a large part of Parthia
It's a pretty well known established fact that the zenith of Rome's territorial expansion was in Trajan's reign and not Augustus'
I started thinking about the column. So many intricate pictures that are so high on the column, surely no one could see them from the ground. But then it struck me. The column has likely filled its purpose. To tell the history of this conquest for decades to come! I mean, we are still talking about it roughly 1900 years later!
It was surrounded by the libraries with multiple levels, climb the levels and you are at the same level all the way up.🗽🏪
Damn it sure feels really cool, as a Romanian, to see content about Dacia from you, considering I learnt a lot about it in school
You are Dacians and you are Romans. That's got to feel cool.
Dacia when it wasnt slavic
@@BringBackCyrillicBGso when was Dacia slavic. Dacia was part of the Thracians area and the slavic people were a branch of the Thracians... Never opposite.
@@ionelghiorghita688 Dacia is slavic since 5th century after christ or even earlier
@@BringBackCyrillicBGObvious you know a wrong story 😂 and you never was in Romania. It's nothing slavic in Romania except the Russian secret services agents.
One of the advantages dacians had over romans was their use of allied sarmatian heavy cavalry. These were excellent horsemen from the steppes with both horse and warrior covered in scale armor. The men also had sturdy helmets. This type of cavalry was adopted by romans as cataphracts. The sarmatian type helmet now called by historians as the spangenhelm was widely used by romans and successor states, variants stayed in use in Europe until the High Middle Ages.
From the dacians romans adopted the draco standard which eventually became the most used roman military standard in the Late Empire. Sarmatians also had draco standards but the roman style resembles the dacian one.
Well, we lost anyway, didn't we? Instead of making gold bracelets, cups, pottery, study the universe, and store multiple hundereds of tonnes of gold, Decebal could have paid for a gigantic army and won the battle, keeping Dacia's strenght. That could have speared us of over a millenia of suffering and delayed development... that was a huge loss for us and a huge gain for Rome, wich thrived on our gold for about 150 years. Btw, 6 of the first ships filled with gold that were heading to Rome sink somewhere on the way because they were overfilled. They are still out there somewere on the bottom of the sea, in case anyone is interested😅
Q: Well, we lost anyway, didn't we?
A: You did not exist then, the Dacians were other people speaking another language that the present-day Wallachians do not even understand.
@laconically The languages were not very different. When Trajan came, even though they found the Dacian language funny, they didn't need a translator. Some historians estimate that Latin language had Tracian roots, just like the Dacian one. The difference was that the Latin language was separated by the Tracian much earlier.
Most Indo-European languages are mutually comprehensible at some basic level such as mother, brother, sister but, the Dacian names cannot be explained from Latin and contrariwise. Moreover, Dacian was a satem language, whereas Latin is a centum one. Which means that Latin and Thracian both did not even exist when such separation took place.
@@Roma_Aeterna_SPQRHow did we lose exactly? Both Romans and Dacians are our ancestors. Romanians come Daco-Romans, not Dacians.
I Just finished listening to your newest book on Audio. Super well paced, and the subtle humor at times is great. I recommend to anybody.
Very glad you enjoyed it!
@@toldinstone 🤡🦧🦧🦧
The Dacian Wars were quite nasty. It took the Roman Legions at the height of their power and led by one of the empire's best military minded emperors to subdue Dacia.
Good news everyone the Dacia Video is here
Anyway, I had lasagne for dinner.
lol
I was looking for Dacia car review. Looks like they were murdered by Romans?
@@DaDaDo661Dacia❌
Î.A.P✅
Such a pleasure, these videos. Thanks.
toldinstone is why men think about the Roman Empire. Great job!
Calm, concise, and interesting, as always. Wonderful to see the footings of the approach on that bridge, I wonder if, building it, they knew it wasn't going to last. After all, they knew perfectly well about floods and the like.
As always with every of your films, THANK YOU!!!
Lol, imagine sending a message to the Emperor of Rome via Mushroom.
Turn back? That dude's trippin', man.
I'm absolutely fascinated by this. Even with the limitation contemporary tech, it sound like an exercise in choosing just about the most inconvenient and short lived format available.
@@jonathanj8303 Dried mushrooms are pretty sturdy, and don't rot.
@@johngalt97 You have a point but I still maintain that several other, more convenient and equally long lasting, formats existed. Most of which wouldn't tempt the messenger to flavour a stew with them.
Likely designed intentionally to fade, so it couldn't be used as evidence against them.
I recommend two well made Roumanian - Italian movies on that theme " Dacii" and "Columna". You will enjoy it, epic battle scenes, great cast of excellent European actors
Love the work you do, I'm not on your level when it comes to your past of historical studies but you drove me to post my passion on TH-cam. Your videos are awesome.
"The fate of the fungus is unknown"
The greatest mystery of the Ancient World.
Great video man. I hope you had pleasant time in Romania. I actually live some few hundred meters away from whats left of the bridge on the Romanian side. :)
The reason Dacians retreated at Tapae was that a storm started during the battle, and Dacians interpreted the thunders as their god being angry with them.
Dacia didn’t stop at the Prut River but actually went beyond the Dniester
That was during Burebista, not Decebalus. There's no geographer saying that Dacia extended beyond Tyras during those times of Decebalus
"The fate of the fungus...is unknown." I was not expecting this level of suspense about a mushroom, but I assume it ended up as part of that night's dinner.
As a Romanian, I’d like to thank you for this video. Both Trajan and Decebalus are seen as founding fathers of Romania.
As a Romanian im telling you, you suck! you have no clue about history but u run ur mouth.
Trajan conquered less than 14% of South Dacia, everywhere else around there were still free dacians, which kept raiding and atacking roman legions another 160 years after the Decebalus death.
The reason Romans left Dacia is because they couldnt take any longer the harrasment of Dacian tribes
Romans would have not leave all the gold and salt from Dacia if they would have a choice.
Ironic since it's Cuza whose persona united the two disparate provinces that first became Romania. Trajan conquered Dacia and Decebalus was unwise to provoke the zenith of the roman empire.
@@postblitz Cuza may have united the two Romanian regions, but Trajan and Decebalus sowed the seeds of the Romanian people. Without the latter two, there would never have been a Romanian people, and therefore, a Romanian country to unite.
Traian founding father, broo is the second cringe comment i see posted by you. He founded nothing. He came and killed the people and took all the gold and silver because that's what he needed and after a short time Romans left the province.
@@f_society9151 Speaking of cringe, have you looked at what you’ve written? Romanians are descendants of the Romans “bro”. The country is called Romania for a reason. Maybe you should study some Romanian history before commenting.
"The fate of the fungus...is unknown" 🤣
As a Romanian thank you for this
Eyyy, this is the episode Romanians were waiting for!
Why ? to learn that there were many peoples who lived in these regions before the arrival of the Latinized Illyrians from the 13th century to repopulate these regions decimated by the Mongol-Tatar wars?
Keep dreaming my dude, Transylvania is still ours 😘@@magyarhungarianchannel5555
@@calinnilie Hi brother
Why are you talking specifically about Transylvania? I didn't mention the subject. I have no problem with that, I am not a nationalist or separatist. I am simply saying what archaeological evidence, historical witnesses, period documents, linguistic studies and genetics have proven that the Romanians originated from Illyria.. I think there is no point in inventing a fictitious Dacian origin, or in falsifying history. Furthermore, the Dacians were described as tall blond with blue eyes and did not speak Latin! as long as the Romanian leaders respect the culture and language of the Hungarian, Székely and Csángo populations of Transylvania,in the center of romania ,everything will be fine peace to the multi-ethnic Romanian people...
🇭🇺🍻🇷🇴
Was just poking fun at you guys, don't worry, I'm far from a nationalist either and I want Romanians, Hungarians, and all our Balkan cousins to peacefully and fruitfully coexist 🇭🇺🍻🇷🇴@@magyarhungarianchannel5555
@@magyarhungarianchannel5555 romanians arent related to illiryans, in fact, illiryans are related to thracians and yk, romanians are connected to dacians and thracians and so its also connected to illiryans.
Thanks for your hard work Gerry! 👍
Ordering the new book. Thanks for the great content.
great video. loved the covered topic
I love Dacia. ❤️
Especially Dacia Traiana, full with beautiful fortresses. Roma Invicta💯
Keep up the awesome job, Garrett 👍
"The fate of the fungus is unknown." 😄I suspect that, as is ever the case, the messenger bearing bad news was killed - in this case, eaten.
So fascinating!
Thx for covering this topic
Great video and enjoyed funny notes!!! Thankfully
I said it in the past and I'll say it again: I friggin LOVE this channel!
If you're ever having a bad day, just remember that your parents could have named you Longinus.
Great video. The To-Do list had me laughing
1:28 Thanks for the wallpaper
💯💯
Thank you Garrett !!
Wow, trajan's eyes really glowed red? s/
Awesome video! Thank you! :)
An excellent video and an excellent Channel !
The fungus they wrote the message on was Ganoderma applanatum. However, the bract fungus isn't known for being very durable. The message usually disappears after a few weeks or months. But if you make a nice nature scene on one, your mom will surely display it on the table at Thanksgiving.
that's so sweet
Wonderful information
It’s kinda funny but I checked you out after your appearance on forehead fables haha and instantly got hooked. Thanks for all these incredible videos
Grand!
I just bought the book. It feels good to support a historian such as yourself.
"The fate of the fungus is unknown." One of the, if not the, greatest mystery of the ancient world.
It was all about money, not retribution. With the spoils of war from Dacians , Trajan revigorated the economy of roman empire for decades, offered 165 days of games for free for all roman citizens , build the Forum and so many other things. Imagine the quantities of the treasure... And in respect for them he did what no other roman ruler did, he erect statues of Dacians, presenting them not as prisoners , but in dignifying postures . You can see one of them in Giardino di Boboli in Florence
Love this channel
This was a great video. I hope to one day hear a retelling of the conquest of Dacia, but with Draculas.
We gotta bring back using mushrooms to send messages
Caesar had plans to fight Dacia because their king agreed to terms with Pompey.
I like how you've made sure to explain that we don't know what happened to the mushroom that was given to Trajan
There is a large carving of the (imagined, I presume) face of Decebalus on a gigantic rock in Romania, the largest of its kind in Europe. It was completed in the early 2000s. It was paid for not by the Romanian government, but by a wealthy businessman.
Yep. And it looks kinda cool 😅
When Trajan first started his campaign into Dacia he had to pass through the Iron Gates to enter it. When he lost the first battle against Dacians there my man decided to just carve a path through the cliffs which exists to this day.
I am afraid the coin of Trajan shown in this video is not a silver denarius but a bronze sestertius
Fun fact… Trajan is mentioned in the Romanian anthem.
Good video todinthestone
Title error; Dacia was not Romes last aquired province.
Great topic that gives a good summation on an important but not well understood conquest. Really liked the shots of what remains of the piers of Trajan's bridge (which was 2/3rds of a mile in length?), as well as of Costesti, the Dacian fortress. Not sure Trajan was in need of military laurels though as mentioned in 1:39 - seems Nerva adopted him because of his reputation/popularity with the military as a whole.
With regards to the Dacians, supposedly even Julius Caesar viewed them as a potential threat that had to be neutralized when mobilizing his armies on the Adriatic before his assassination. As mentioned in the narration here, the Dacians proved a problem for Domitian and some hapless governor or two in the Balkans. Interestingly enough, the Danube frontier and Dacia would be threatened frequently from about AD 167 onwards, only a little more than 60 years after the end of the 2nd Dacian Wars. Seems the lower Danube and lands south of the arch of Carpathian mountain was just a rough, expensive place for the Romans, as the 3rd century crises would demonstrate.
Didn't expected to be in Romania! If you're still here, maybe we can meet!
Unfortunately, I'm back home now
Hey, thanks for showing this important part of Romania's past. As a running joke in Romania, we didn't have a mother and a father but two fathers, Traian and Decebal.
Perfect time to think about the Roman Empire
Such a good video - Rome total war did the Dacians dirty
Early game is hard but theyre pretty good once they get going
Decabolis I would like my Braveheart DVD back , or I’m telling Rome
It would be awesome if you could do a video on what living in the ruins of Rome during the 6th century would have been like. The empty city, surrounded by the Roman ruins, etc.
🤡
For anyone interested in Roman and Dacian history and warfare I strongly recommend Schwerpunkt's videos series, also the content on Trajan is pretty important in that regard
Dacia is bigger than is showed in thumbnail , though , thank you for the video , very well made , I didn't know a few things. ❤❤❤❤🎉🎉
Dacians / Dacii is a good, big scale 1967 movie, made by Romanians mostly in Romania.
It is communist propaganda
@@FantasticDiesel Yeah, you are definitely right
Trajan, the mightiest of all princeps.
"They ambushed the Roman army in a narrow pass, killing the general and many men" Where've I heard this before
Living on just the other side of the Carpathians, (actually about 50km from Przeworsk as it happens) I can't help wondering... slightly relieved, perhaps, that the Romans didn't really give much of a hoot, although I suspect this area was tantamount to a vasal state.
Okay, I do have a question. Its not actually related ot the video but... Its at the beginning after the intro like around 0:22
Why is it that EVERY war picture I see, there's that one guy who is giving you that angry face pointing at the enemy looking at you every time? Like... I don't get why that is the case. Is it supposed to be an artist form of "immersion" as if you were at that battle as a fellow brother in the conflict or
That's probably the reason as you stated below. The interesting part is that the picture is done to show a battle between the Roman's and Dacian's
cool!
Brutal !
“History is written by the victors”
谢谢
Two off topic ADHD things: those guys fishing the Danube at Trajan’s bridge made me curious! I wanna fish the Danube I love to fish!😅 And also Moesia on the map… all I could think about was that lady/actress/musician Brandy that had her sitcom TV show ‘Moesha’ that I watched when I was young and I had such a huge boyhood crush on her
these videos are wonderful, thank you for sharing them good sir
you should probably give Dave his Braveheart DVD back.
Civis romanus natus dacus salutes you!
Foolish of Decebalus to defy the Romans that last time - he knew their might. Though understandable.
The Dacia car company is Romanian so i'm wondering do they still think of themselves as Dacians?
Just the smartest. Others are brainwashed, and others are allogeneic.
Sometimes ! I will like that my country to have the name Dacia , back !
@@ionelghiorghita688 No smart romanian consider himself as dacian, only idiots.
Hell no we don't think of ourselves as Dacian! We are Roman first. We were part of the Roman Empire and speak a Latin language. We have nothing to do with Dacians but since the Dacians lived on our territory, some like to pretend that they still matter for symbolic reasons. Only traitors and fringe lunatics who have no education want to change the name of our country after a car. It is Romania forever!
not sure about Romania, but if you come to eastern Serbia, there's a boat tour on the Denube you can take to Trajan's tablet, where the bridge once stood
@@userAndrew5 ...some minor corrections. Trajan tablet marked the military road carved in the bank of Danube, road that end at the bridge. And now, that road is sunk deep beneath the lake of Iron Gates hydro plant. Trajan tablet was salvaged by cutting it out of stone and relocating it some 20 m higher in 1960's, when Iron Gates hydro plant was built.
If you search for old photos of Iron Gates, you can still see that old road and Trajan tablet on it's original position.
I always love your videos 👍 they are so interesting. I work in the auction industry and sell art, antiques, rare things etc. and iv always wonderd did the ancients have antiques or collectable items and if so what where they. I read in university sone paintings went for big money back then like today but just wondering if you have any info where i can do some research. Reading Pliny Natural History you can tell the romans had an appreciation for history, objects and the world aroumd them. Do you know of any items selling for high amounts like todays auctions or collectables industry back then? By this i dont mean just common comoodities like silk which i know was in demand. I mean rare things like the items that where stolen from Alexander's tomb etc.
3:19 What sort of artillery did they have back then? catapults?