Burebista unites the Dacian tribes and forges the most powerful kingdom in Europe, leading to both collaboration and conflict with the Roman Republic.

The map below shows Buresbista’s kingdom as well as the extent of Roman expansion in the region in 44 BCE. Keep in mind that the centre of Burebista’s power was in the southwestern Carpathian Mountains, the area just before the mountains turn south to meet the Danube River; his authority wasn’t uniform throughout the realm, and the farther you got from this power centre, the more autonomous the peoples under his command were.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to A history of Romania.

Season 1, Episode 4: Burebista

Last episode, we introduced the Dacians living in and around the Carpathian Mountains and began exploring their unique, thriving civilization.

Dacian society centred around fortified towns led by tribal chiefs. Over the 3^rd and 2^nd centuries BCE, these settlements, which the Dacians called davae, gradually formed stronger links between each other. Merchants transported goods between davae and established secure commercial routes, chiefs of smaller settlements put themselves under the protection of more powerful leaders, and sometimes, these more powerful leaders intimidated and subjugated their neighbours to bring them under their control. The result was the emergence of confederacies made up of several tribes that traded with each other during peacetime and fought alongside each other in war. By the beginning of the 1^st century BCE, the Dacians had coalesced into four large tribal confederacies in and around the Carpathian Mountains.

We have no historical sources from the Dacians themselves since their society didn’t use writing. However, we do have quite a bit of archeological evidence as well as the writings of Strabo, a Greek historian who was born about 20 years after the facts he relates.

The most powerful Dacian confederacy was located in the southwestern Carpathian Mountains. Inside its borders was a holy site for the Getae and Dacians, who shared the same religion. They believed that their supreme god, Zalmoxis, had died as a man and come back to life as a deity, a story which we explored in the first episode of this season. The religious importance of this site contributed to the prestige of the Dacian confederacy which controlled it, and helped it to stand above the others.

Strabo mentions that a man named Burebista became the ruler of this tribal confederacy at the same time as Sulla became dictator of Rome, in 82 BCE. We lack an accurate timeline, but we know that, once he came to power, Burebista used his army – and the threat of his army – to subjugate and intimidate the other three Dacian confederacies into pledging allegiance to him.

Once he united all tribes under his personal rule, Burebista removed the nobles who had opposed him, rewarded those that had willingly come to his side, and installed military commanders loyal to him in different regions who could act as representatives of his central authority.

During his reign, Burebista had a crucial collaborator: the high priest Deceneus. In his youth, Deceneus had been sent to Egypt by the previous high priest of the Dacians to study philosophy, astronomy, botany, and how to read omens from the gods. When he came back to his native land in the Carpathian Mountains, he was revered for his immense knowledge and became high priest himself.

By this time, the Dacians had been united under the leadership of Burebista, and Deceneus became his closest advisor; the two men seem to have shared the same unifying vision for the tribes under their control. Deceneus used his religious authority over the tribal chiefs to bring them into alignment with the wishes of their overall leader. He also educated the nobility and formed a class of priests whom he directed to build sanctuaries throughout the land and venerate different divinities.

Though we lack details, the best estimate is that it took Burebista and Deceneus around 20 years to unite the Dacians of the Carpathian Mountains into a single tribal union. We don’t know how the Dacians referred to themselves at this time, but Strabo calls Burebista “king,” and I’ll use the same term since it roughly fits his position.

Once he had secured his hold on power, Burebista directed the energy of his people against external enemies, and his first target were the Celts. As you may remember, the Celts arrived on the Transylvanian Plateau inside the arc of the Carpathian Mountains in the 4^th century BCE. They conquered the Dacians in the region; some of these natives fled to the mountains while others remained and learned to live with their new rulers. Burebista wanted to recover these lost lands so, in the 60s BCE, he gathered his army and undertook the first external campaign of his reign.

Again, details are extremely scarce in our sources, but the war between the Dacians and the Celts must’ve taken several years. Burebista brought his united army out of the mountains and onto the plateau, routed the Celtic warriors, pillaged their lands, looted their coins, cattle, and grains, and expelled the Celtic population from the region, driving it west. The Dacians that had been, until then, under Celtic rule were integrated into Burebista’s kingdom, which gained a huge swath of territory.

The Dacians now bordered the Germanic peoples to their west which were led by Ariovistus. You may recognize that name from Julius Caesar’s commentaries. Ariovistus was a powerful king that would lead his people west towards Gaul, but would be blocked in his migration by Caesar. At this point in history though, his people were still in their native land near the Dacians, but the two peoples would not come into conflict. Burebista didn’t want to expand westwards, and the Germans posed no threat.

Plus, he hadn’t finished with the Celts, since some of their tribes had settled south of the Danube River and were still neighbours of the Dacians. Wanting to completely eliminate the threat posed by them, Burebista crossed the Danube, attacked the Celtic tribes living south of it, and dispersed them. The Dacian king also used the opportunity to plunder the Roman province of Macedonia and bring loot to his commanders and warriors.

“Roman province of Macedonia?” I hear you ask. Yes, the Romans had arrived in the Balkans, and we need to take a short detour to explain the new situation in the region.

In the two centuries since Dromichaetes repulsed Lysimachus, the Mediterranean world had changed tremendously. The Romans had started as an insignificant city-state on the Italian peninsula, then grew their power through determination, resilience, inventiveness, and luck, and after six centuries of expansion, they had conquered most of the Mediterranean and were now moving towards the Danube.

In 74 BCE, the Roman province of Macedonia, which was centred in the territory of the old kingdom of the same name, was raided by Celtic and Dacian tribes. The governor of the province pushed them back across the Danube, but didn’t dare cross the river since the land beyond it was completely unknown to the Romans, and he didn’t want to risk his legions.

Nearby, on the coast of the Black Sea, the Greek cities had allied themselves with Mithridates, who was the ruler of a kingdom in Anatolia and an enemy of the Romans. While Burebista was uniting the Dacians and fighting the Celts, the Romans were fighting Mithridates and advancing up the Black Sea coast. By 71 BCE, they had conquered all the Greek cities there, installed Roman garrisons in them, and stopped them from minting local coins. The governor of the Roman province of Macedonia was put in charge of them, and imposed heavy taxes and duties.

The Greek cities, along with the Getae and the Scythians living in the area, all chafed under Roman occupation. Instead of enduring Roman rule, these factions made a pact and decided to revolt together. In 62 BCE, the combined forces of the Greeks, Getae, and Scythians met the Roman army in front of the walls of Istria and defeated it. The Romans suffered one of their most humiliating losses up to that point, as the coalition forces captured Roman legionary standards and took them as trophies to a Getic settlement in the north.

Though repulsed from the region, the Romans didn’t counterattack, since their energies were consumed by the unrest growing in their Republic. For the moment, the Romans would remain where they were in Macedonia.

By 60 BCE, Burebista was finishing his campaigns against the Celts and looking for his next goal. For centuries, local Getic rulers had had trading contacts with the Greek cities on the coast of the Black Sea and were attracted by their prosperity. Burebista was no different, and he wanted to absorb them into his kingdom before they fell into Rome’s sphere of influence again.

In 55 BCE, Burebista gathered his warriors and set out on campaign along the Black Sea coast. He began with the northern Greek city of Olbia near the Bug River in modern-day Ukraine. He demanded tribute from them and, when they refused, he attacked, conquered the city, tore down its walls, and burned it to the ground. A Greek historian named Dion Chrysostomos would visit the city 150 years later and recount how it still bore the scars of that sack: some of its buildings were still not repaired, and the people who lived in Olbia did so in a much smaller area than the former city.

After this first conquest, Burebista’s army marched south along the coast from one Greek city to the next. He conquered Tyras, Istria, Tomis, Callatis, Odessos, and Mesimvría, and treated them the same as Olbia. After looting them, he left behind a military garrison and imposed a tribute on the remaining inhabitants. Only two cities did not resist: Apollonia and Dionysopolis, who decided to peacefully open their gates, and so were spared.

By 49 BCE, Burebista’s campaign along the Black Sea coast was over. His kingdom now stretched from the Middle Danube to the mouth of the Bug River, and from the northern Carpathians to the Balkan Mountains. I’ve drawn a map of his realm on the website and linked it in this episode’s description.

Throughout these three decades of war, Burebista had not been idle at home. As his rule expanded, he ensured that he was surrounded by trusted advisors and subordinates. His immediate entourage included Dacian clergy like the high priest Deceneus; then tribal leaders which controlled the fortresses of his realm; and at least one ambassador, which was a foreigner. This was Akornion of Dionysopolis, one of the two Greek cities which had peacefully surrendered to the Dacians. Burebista gave Akornion the title of “one of the greatest and closest friends” – a title found in Hellenic courts at the time – and sent him on diplomatic missions.

Meanwhile, he also constructed fortifications in the southwestern Carpathian Mountains where his powerbase was located. Terrasses first had to be dug in the rock; limestone then had to be excavated from quarries and transported to the building sites; and finally, the stone blocks had to be carried up the mountains. These huge construction projects suggest that Burebista used compulsory labour from the various tribes under his command, since such works wouldn’t have been possible with just the local resources available to his own tribe. To help build these fortresses, the Dacian king also used experienced Greek artisans which he captured from the cities along the coast; archologists have found stone slabs with Greek letters on them which were meant to let the workers know where to place them in the building layout once they arrived on-site.

Though the Dacians had stone fortifications before Burebista, he ordered many more to be built, and upgraded older earth ditches and wood palisades to stone walls and towers. These fortifications were not only meant to defend against external threats, but also to project central authority, as Burebista placed trusted commanders in charge of these strongpoints.

The Dacian king’s power rested on his army. Our sources state that he could muster 200,000 warriors, which is a huge exaggeration, but shows the perception of just how large this Dacian army was. Its nucleus were the warriors personally linked to Burebista from his tribe, but the vast majority of the army came from tribute, as each tribe under his command was obligated to provide him a certain number of warriors.

Burebista’s impressive expansion was possible because Rome was preoccupied with internal affairs and had no time to deal with this growing barbarian power on its borders. The Roman Republic’s two most prominent men, Caesar and Pompey, had come to the limits of their power and had nowhere else to go but against each other.

Pompey sat ensconced in Rome at the head of state power, while Caesar had few allies in Italy, but commanded legions of experienced veterans in Gaul. In January of 49 BCE, as tensions came to a boiling point, Caesar marched his legions across the Alps and headed straight for Rome, surprising everyone with his boldness and speed.

Pompey had the support of almost the entire Roman world, but no legions ready to meet Caesar in battle; he needed time to gather his forces, so he retreated to Greece where he had a loyal base of support.

Always keen to spot an opportunity, Burebista sent Acornion, his Greek advisor and diplomat, to Pompey to see if they could help each other. In the summer of 48 BCE, the two men talked and agreed on an arrangement: Burebista would bring his large and experienced army to Pompey’s aid, while Pompey would recognize Burebista’s acquisition of the Greek cities along the Black Sea coast.

The two men were natural allies: when Pompey conquered the eastern Mediterranean for Rome, he had set up a series of autonomous client kingdoms allied to the Republic. Caesar, however, had shown his expansionist tendencies in Gaul, which meant that he would probably go to war against the Dacians at some point. By aligning himself with Pompey, Burebista had a better chance of maintaining his kingdom’s independence.

Acornion returned to the Dacian king, who was pleased with the deal. The Dacian army was preparing to march when news came that Caesar had engaged Pompey in battle at Pharsalus – and won. Soon afterwards, Pompey had fled to Egypt, where he was assassinated on arrival. These events happened so quickly that Burebista didn’t even have the time to intervene in the civil war, so he kept his forces in his kingdom and his eyes on the horizon. Having made an ally of Pompey, he had made an enemy of Caesar, and at some point, a confrontation was inevitable.

It took Caesar a few years to defeat all his enemies in the civil war, but by 44 BCE, he was the most powerful man in the Mediterranean world – and he wanted more. Having conquered Gaul, explored Britannia, and crossed into Germany, Caesar now set himself the goal of defeating Rome’s greatest enemy: the Parthians. But first, he had to deal with the barbarian threat on his borders posed by the Dacians.

The plan was to assemble his army and conquer Burebista’s lands on his way to the Parthian empire. He had made his fame by defeating another barbarian power in Gaul; how hard could it be to do it again? Caesar ordered his army of sixty thousand infantry and ten thousand cavalry to assemble in Macedonia, just south of Burebista’s realm. But as he was making plans to leave Rome in March of 44 BCE, Caesar was assassinated by aristocrats afraid of his rising power. His assassins then fell to infighting, and the plan to invade the Dacian kingdom dissipated.

The Dacians had escaped Caesar’s ambitions, but their own ruler wasn’t going to rule much longer. The rich and powerful nobility of formerly independent tribal confederacies resented Burebista’s centralization of power. With the ruler of the Romans now dead and their state once again fallen into civil war, the Dacian nobility felt that Rome didn’t pose a threat and that they no longer needed to band together to defend themselves; they could go their separate ways and regain their regional power and privileges.

After hearing news of Caesar’s death, a group of Dacian nobles formed a conspiracy and, later in 44 BCE, they assassinated Burebista. No great civil war followed; the nobles simply dispersed and retook control of their former holdings. Burebista’s kingdom splintered into the four tribal confederacies that had existed before he had united them, and the Dacians lost control of the territories he had conquered south of the Danube as well as of the Greek cities along the coast of the Black Sea. The Dacian kingdom, the most powerful force in Europe besides the Roman state, was now gone.

Burebista had ruled for 38 years and in that time had transformed his peoples’ lives and brought them once again into direct contact with the biggest players on the Mediterranean stage.

Some Romanian historians, especially nationalist ones, have argued that Burebista’s realm should be considered a state. His kingdom did collect taxes in kind, undertook collective community works, and combined tribal forces into a unified army, but I don’t think it’s accurate to say that it functioned like a state. It didn’t have crystallized institutions like the Roman Republic, and is better seen as a union of autonomous tribes working on collective endeavours under the leadership of a skilled ruler. For me, Burebista’s Dacian kingdom is best compared to the Gallic kingdom led by Vercingetorix in this same period.

I also want to note that, if you read more on this subject, you might see historians mention that Burebista ruled the Geto-Dacians, which is a term that combines the Getae and Dacians into a single group. I’ve decided to keep referring to the Getae and Dacians as distinct entities for two reasons. The first is that we don’t have evidence that these two peoples united into a single ethnic group. The second is that, if we refer to them as one group, we imply that Burebista’s realm was somehow ethnically homogenous, which was not the case; Burebista ruled an amalgam of peoples – Dacians, Getae, Greeks, and even some German and Scythian tribes on the fringes of his kingdom – and all these peoples didn’t coalesce into a single, unified cultural society; they merely collaborated.

As his death shows, Burebista hadn’t turned his kingdom into a state with solid institutions that could outlast him; he was the man holding the realm together, and as soon as he died, his subjects were happy to go their separate ways.

Burebista and Caesar had come within weeks of starting a war, and their people were spared by both their deaths. However, we will soon see another great Dacian leader and another great Roman ruler come into conflict, and this second time, destiny will not avert disaster. But we must spend an episode to set up the stage before we get to that story. So join me in two weeks as we look at how Dacian civilization evolved over the next century, and how it interacted with the colossus on its borders.