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Emperor Trajan (98-117 e.Kr.) Mi 3267

Trajan Column in Rome Mi 3268

King Decebal of Dacia Mi 3269

The first ethnically definable inhabitants in Romania were the Getae, a Thracian people. Along the Black Sea coast also Greek colonists founded cities like Tomis (Constanta) and Callatis (Mangalia) in the 6th and 5th century BC. The Persian King Dareios ran into the Getae north of the Danube in 514 BC, and we know that the Getae organized a powerful kingdom already from the 2nd century BC. Roman writers like Ceasa, Horats and Tacitus called them Dacians. They had their first days of glory under Burebista ca. 80-44 BC. The Getae created a flourishing independent culture with elaborate ceramics and advanced metallurgy as well as distinctive architecture.

The Roman Emperor Trajan defeated the Dacian King Decebal and conquered most of present day Romania 101-06 AD. The new Province of Dacia was intensely colonised by immigrants from the Adriatic and Italy. The reliefs on the Trajan column in Rome and the sculptures of Adamklissi show the native Dacians in clothing similar to current Romanian national costumes
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The Danube bridge of Emperor Trajan with Roman legionnaires Mi 461

Pressure from Germanic people from the north and the "free Dacians" outside the province, forced Emperor Aurelian in 271-75 to retreat south of the Danube with the Roman army and administration. In the past 250 years, however, there had been a thorough melting of the native Dacians and the Roman immigrants, giving the country a Daco-Roman charater, of which the modern Romanian language is the best proof.

During the following centuries Romania was exposed to steady waves of invasions that inhibited the economic and political development of the Daco-Roman population. With the exception of the Slavonic invasion, however, they had minimal effect on the ethnical status of the population. The Goths were driven out by the Huns (376-454), while the East-Gemanic Gepidians stayed in Transylvania until 567, when they were crushed by the Avar and the Langobards. In the 7th century Slavic tribes settled in Moldavia and Walachia, were gradually assimilated by the Daco-Roman population and left strong traces in the language. Turko-tartaric rider nomads also ravished the country; from the 6th to the 8th century the Avar, in the 10th and 11th century the Petchenegs, from the 11th to tthe 13th centry the Cumans, while the Madjars which settled on the Hungarian plains at the end of the 10th centry tried to expand their realm towards the east. In the 11th century Transylvania was conquered by the Hungarian kings, and the small Roman principalities there were eliminated. From the end of the 12th century to 1541 Transylvania was subject to the Hungarian kingdom.
 

Next: Medieval Principalities