Rome in the Footsteps of an XVIIIth Century Traveller

You may wish to see a page on the reliefs of Colonna Traiana depicting the conquest of Dacia and a section on today's Romania with maps of the country first.
This page covers Dacia, the Last Frontier of Romanity, a temporary exhibition (November 2023-April 2024) at Museo Nazionale Romano - Terme di Diocleziano. Its exhibits come from a plurality of Romanian museums and they offer a great opportunity to gain some understanding of the ancient past of that country. Some of them were perhaps excessively restored.

(left/centre) Helmet from Banat region (Vth century BC) with silver decoration representing animals and horsemen (see also a stunning gold helmet of the same period); (right) bronze sword handle (VIth century BC) from Medgigia, Dobruja

This type of helmet was first produced in the Peloponnese (see a helmet at Tiryns) starting with the late VIIIth century BC. It then became a status symbol for the leaders of tribes in Thrace and generally in the Balkans. The helmet was found in the summer of 2003 in a sand quarry of the Timis River, a tributary of the Danube, in the Banat, the westernmost historical region of Romania. It was made from a sheet of bronze which is 2-3 mm thick. The cheek-plates as well as the forehead area are decorated with embossed silver figural motifs. On both cheek-plates we can distinguish the faded silhouettes of two horsemen. On the forehead, a hunting scene depicting a wild boar surrounded by two horsemen can be seen. The motifs decorating the helmet are commonly found in Greek, but also in Thracian art. The boar is often regarded as a masculine symbol, illustrating strength and virility, while hunting was seen as an aristocratic activity. The finding of the helmet in the streams of the Timis River suggests a sort of religious, maybe funerary ceremony, because the placing of objects in rivers, caves or springs was common in antiquity.
The decoration of the sword which was found in Dobruja, the easternmost region of Romania between the Danube and the Black Sea, shows similarities with Persian objects, because the region was occupied by Scythians and Sarmatians who were both ancient Iranian equestrian nomadic peoples who dominated the steppes from the northern shores of the Black Sea to the northern area around the Caspian Sea.

IIIrd century BC gold jewels: (left) diadem from Bunesti Averesti, Moldavia; (right) gold plaque for horse decoration from Iasi, Moldavia (the image used as background for this page shows another plaque)

The diadem was discovered in 1978 and it was recently depicted in a Romanian coin. It was decorated with five rosettes and two stylized lionesses or younger male lions coming out of a snake and with door knockers in their mouths. Similar gold crowns, but decorated with garlands, wreaths and gems were worn by the Macedonian kings.
Horses were of great importance to the nomadic tribes who moved from the steppes towards the Danube and their harnesses were a status symbol to which was given great importance (see another exhibit of the exhibition). It was not unusual for a great leader to be buried with his horse as a Longobard chief did at Cividale. Moldavia is the region at the sides of the River Prut (Latin Pyretus), the last great left tributary of the Danube; the river was navigable and it allowed trade and cultural contacts with the Greek settlements on the Black Sea.

Buzau hoard in Wallachia: Ist century AD jewels from the tomb of a Sarmatian woman

On setting out from the mouths of the Ister (Danube), all the nations met with are Scythian in general, though various races have occupied the adjacent shores; at one spot the Getae by the Romans called Daci; at another the Sarmatae (..) The higher parts, between the Danube and the Hercynian Forest, as far as the winter quarters of Pannonia at Carnuntum, and the borders of the Germans, are occupied by the Sarmatian Iazyges, who inhabit the level country and the plains. (..) The name "Scythian" has extended, in every direction, even to the Sarmatae and the Germans; but this ancient appellation is now only given to those who dwell beyond those nations, and live unknown to nearly all the rest of the world.
Pliny the Elder - The Natural History - Book IV - 25 - Bostock and Riley Ed.
The Scythians living north of the Danube were defeated by the successors of Alexander the Great in the late IVth century BC. Eventually they were subjugated by Sarmatian tribes who moved westwards. The latter joined forces with the Dacians in raiding Roman towns in Moesia, today's Bulgaria, and in opposing the Roman invasion of Dacia.

Exhibits from Sarmizegetusa Ulpia IIIrd century AD: (left) Emperor Decius; (right) Head of Medusa, perhaps a decorative addition to a statue

Sarmizegetusa was the capital of the Dacians and it was conquered by Trajan at the end of the Second Dacian War. A Roman garrison was stationed there, but Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augusta Dacica Sarmizegetusa, the capital of the new Roman province was founded some 30 km away. The city was settled by veterans and colonists from the Italian peninsula. Being the capital it had all the facilities of a Roman town and the status of colonia.
Very few portraits of Emperor Decius have been found, firstly because he ruled only two years and secondly because he persecuted the Christians and his memory was damned by them. He was however praised by the Romans of Sarmizegetusa, because in 250 he repelled an invasion of Goths and Carpi and given the titles of Dacicus Maximus and Restitutor Daciarum. The Goths were a confederation of tribes who moved from Scandinavia to the northern shores of the Black Sea. The Carpi, perhaps named after the Carpathian Mountains or vice versa, lived in the forests north of Roman Dacia.
The Head of Medusa was a popular charm against ills throughout the whole Roman Empire, from Tunisia to Turkey and England.

IIIrd century AD votive plaque portraying the god Silvanus and nine priestesses (from Sarmizegetusa)

The colonists from the Italian peninsula brought some religious traditions with them, including the worship of Silvanus, an ancient god of wood and fields. His usual iconography which can be seen in reliefs in Rome and Capua, portrays him as a naked mature man with a crown composed of grain ears, a bundle of grain in his left hand, a sickle in his right hand and a dog at his feet (see also a fine relief portraying Antinous as Silvanus). In the relief of Sarmizegetusa the god has a more Dacian aspect and he is accompanied by priestesses holding a crown, indicating that the original iconography of Silvanus was mixed with that of other deities. The inscription says that the votive relief was placed by M. Aurelius Valens, decurio of the colony, i.e. one of the ten magistrates who ruled the town.

IIIrd century AD relief portraying Mithra slaying the Bull (from Sarmizegetusa)

The worship of Mithra, a god of Persian origin, was very popular among the legionaries in Gaul, Britain, and along the Rhine and Danube borders. The reliefs depicting the symbolic slaying of a bull (the Taurus constellation) are very similar throughout the whole Empire with only very minor variations. The cult was reserved to initiates and it was a very secretive one. It was popular also at Ostia and in Rome where the mithraeum near Palazzo Barberini was decorated with frescoes which illustrate some of the ceremonies which took place in the narrow halls having the aspect of an underground cave where the initiates held their ceremonies.

IInd century AD statues: (left) Serapis (from Romula, Oltenia) and Jupiter Dolichenus (from Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania); (right) the snake-god Glycon from Tomis, Dobruja

Serapis is an example of religious syncretism, i.e. the blending of two beliefs (Greek and Egyptian) into a new one. The god had features of both Zeus and Osiris (see some statues at Villa Adriana and Toulouse). Emperor Hadrian in particular promoted the worship of Serapis (see a gigantic temple he built at Pergamum). Jupiter Dolichenus was another god of eastern origin who was worshipped by the legionaries along the Rhine and Danube borders.
The statue of a snake with a head having human features is the main evidence of a cult created in ca. 160 AD by Alexander of Abonoteichus (a port on the Black Sea near Amastri), who claimed to be the prophet of a snake-god, a new incarnation of Asclepius. Lucian of Samosata (a town in Commagene), a satirist, regarded Alexander as a charlatan and he ridiculed his teachings, but the worship of Glycon spread to many coastal regions around the Black Sea.

IInd or IIIrd century AD objects: (left) votive plaque perhaps portraying Nantosuelta, a local goddess associated with fertility and water from Gherla, Transylvania; (right) small flask depicting Pan, from Dobruja

The archaeological evidence of the cults practiced in Roman Dacia indicates that the worship of the traditional twelve gods who lived on Mount Olympus was rather limited. The Dacians rather combined some of their ancient gods with Greek/Roman ones. Nantosuelta was portrayed a Roman goddess and she was associated with Proserpine (Greek Kore/Persephone) who symbolized the return of Spring which allowed the trees to yield fruit and the herbs to grow.
Dionysus/Bacchus and the satyrs who followed him were depicted in a very large number of Roman sarcophagi, e.g. at Perge, and floor mosaics, e.g. in Tunisia. Pan had the aspect of a satyr, but he was a minor god who enjoyed taking a nap and "panic hour" is the supreme hour of light and silence. You may wish to see Pan being punished by Venus in a very fine statue from Delos.

IInd or IIIrd century AD artefacts: (left) applique portraying Victory from Sarmizegetusa; (right) ceremonial masks from Carsium, Dobruja (above) and Cincsor, Transylvania (below); greave from Giulesti, Wallachia, shield boss ("umbo") from Holmeag, Transylvania

Many of the exhibits are related to the military, including two masks which might have been worn at parades (see one found in Luxembourg) together with highly decorated helmets similar to those found at Xanten on the Rhine border and at Carnuntum. The greave and the shield boss most likely had the same purpose.

Fragment of the municipal law of Troesmis in Dobruja; the dot marks the line with the Latin name of the town "municipi M(arci) Aureli Antonini et L(ucii) Aureli Commodi Aug. Troesm(ensium)"

Troesmis was a Dacian town which was conquered by the Romans at the time of Emperor Tiberius in 15 AD. Trajan made it an important fortress by permanently relocating there a legion at the end of the Dacian wars. Troesmis became a municipium when Commodus was already co-ruler, but Marcus Aurelius was still reigning, thus between 177 and 180. The lengthy bronze inscription is less well carved than another one of the same period at Italica, but the use of the Latin language is generally correct. You may wish to see a bronze fragment of the foundation charter of a Roman town in Spain.

IInd and IIIrd century AD tombstones from Tomis, a major port in Dobruja: (left) inscription: Farewell Kallistos, son of Midas! This monument was erected by his wife, Marcia, daughter of Marcus and his daughter Kalliste; (right) Skyrtos the Dacian, a "retiarius"

WINTER IN TOMIS
If anyone there still remembers exiled Ovid,
if my name's alive in the city now I'm gone,
let him know that, beneath the stars that never
touch the sea, I live among the barbarian races.
The Sarmatians, a wild tribe, surround me, the Bessi
and the Getae, names unworthy of my wit!
While the warm winds still blow, the Danube between
defends us: with his flood he prevents war.
And when dark winter shows its icy face,
and the earth is white with marbled frost,
when Boreas and the snow constrain life under the Bears,
those tribes must be hard-pressed by the shivering sky.
Ovid - Tristia - Book III.X - translation by A. S. Kline
The two tombstone inscriptions were written in Greek, because much of the coast of the Black Sea was settled by Greek colonists who founded numerous ports as early as the VIIth century BC. Tomis was conquered by the Romans in 29 BC.
The tombstone of Kallistos depicts the dead and his family at a funerary banquet, a very popular subject (see examples in Germany and Lebanon), which goes back to the ancient Greeks (see a tomb at Paestum).
The inscription tells us that Skyrtos won six fights before being killed (see the fight between a retiarius and a gladiator in a relief at Trieste and in a floor mosaic in Germany). What puzzles many experts in ancient gladiatorial combats is the four pronged dagger which Skyrtos holds in his right man; rather than a retiarius he might have been an anti-retiarius who used that weapon to cut through the net of his opponent. See a tombstone of a gladiator who won six fights in Asia Minor or a relief in Rome which portrays a gladiator who won at least twelve fights against a retiarius.

IInd or IIIrd century AD objects from "Apulum" (Alba Iulia), Transylvania: cremation urn with a decoration of theatrical masks, amber Eros riding a goose (see a floor mosaic at Villa del Casale in Sicily) and jewels

Apulum was initially a legionary fortress but over time it became the largest Roman town in Dacia, thanks to its central position and its proximity to gold mines; similar to Troesmis it became a municipium at the time of Marcus Aurelius. In the XIXth century Alba Iulia, the medieval town which was founded on the site of Apulum, was regarded as the moral capital of the Romanians. On December 1, 1918 the representatives of the Romanian communities of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire declared the union of their territories with the Kingdom of Romania.

Early IVth century Christian items from Dobruja

In 271-274 Emperor Aurelian gradually relocated the Roman legions out of Dacia to the territories south of the Danube, recognizing that the defence of that province was no longer possible, given the continuous pressure of the Goths and the Carpi.
Dobruja, the region with Tomis and Troesmis was located south of the Danube and it continued to be ruled by the Romans. A few years later Diocletian redesigned the administrative structure of the Empire and Dobruja became Scythia Minor, a province detached from Moesia, which eventually was part of the Eastern Roman Empire.
The partition of this historical region between Romania and Bulgaria in the XXth century was a very contentious issue; today its southern districts belong to Bulgaria and its northern ones to Romania.

IVth century AD hoard from Pietroasele, Wallachia: (left) a patera, a round ceremonial dish; (right) a large eagle-headed fibula encrusted with semi-precious stones

The hoard was found in 1837; the reliefs on the dish portray followers of Dionysus or Orpheus inside a vineyard; they surround a three-dimensional goddess in the centre. The eagle-headed fibula is a typical jewel of the Goths, but the dish can hardly be thought to have been made by them. One of the most credited opinions suggests that it was a gift made by the Romans, perhaps by Emperor Valens to a leader of the Visigoths. Large and finely decorated silver dishes have been found in England and they are thought to have been gifts too.

Vth century AD silver oinochoe (a wine jug) with Dionysiac subjects from Tauteu, Bihor, North-Western Transylvania outside the border of Roman Dacia: (left) drunken Silenus (see him in a sarcophagus at Lyon); (right) Marsyas playing the double flute (see his contest with Apollo in a floor mosaic in Tunisia)

This finely decorated silver jug indicates that there were trade or diplomatic relations between the Roman Empire and the territories outside it. This occurred also along the Rhine border, e.g. at Nida (Frankfurt).

Vth century AD objects from Wallachia

In 376 Emperor Valens agreed to the Visigoths' request to settle south of the Danube border in the hope that they could provide him with cheap mercenary troops. As a matter of fact they soon got control of Moesia so that cultural and trade ties between the territories south and north of the Danube were severed, yet some objects were still decorated with Roman/Greek motifs in the Vth century.

Ostrogothic jewels (Vth century) see similar Visigothic jewels

Return to The Reliefs of Colonna Traiana or see a section on today's Romania.