The story of season one is done and we have plenty to discuss: the legacy of the Dacians, Romanization in the provinces, contrasting historical theories, and what it all means for that greatest of unresolved questions — What are the origins of the Romanian people?

Transcript

Hello and welcome to A history of Romania.

Season 1, Episode 28: Misty myths

Last time, we concluded the chronological story of season one, which ended in 602. Today, we’ll dive into the first of two thematic episodes that will close out the season by discussing the significance of the events we’ve covered and their impact on Romanian self-identity. I’ve left these historical discussions for the end because one of the goals of this podcast is to experience history as the people at the time did: not knowing what will happen next. I didn’t want us to judge events based on what would happen in the future, like, “the Goths made a mistake in breaking their alliance with the empire because they were unprepared for the Hunnic invasion.” Just like us today, the people at the time didn’t know what the next year would bring or what repercussions their decisions would have. By keeping a shroud over the future, I hoped to help us enter the mindset of the people of the past. Yet now that we’ve experienced the full story of season one, it’s time to see how those events are perceived by people today.

The first half of season one is in many ways the story of the Dacians and the Romans because the majority of Romanians consider these two peoples to be their ancestors. At the National Military Museum for instance, there’s a bust of king Decebal next to emperor Trajan; as we know, these two leaders weren’t exactly friends, but many Romanians consider them both their forefathers; Decebal because his people developed the first indigenous civilization on the lands of present-day Romania, and Trajan because his people spoke Latin, from which the Romanian language developed.

The Dacians are often seen as having had a decisive impact on the character of the Romanian nation, similar to what the Gauls are to the French. As we’ve seen, this people created a unique and vibrant civilization, with dozens of large population centres called davae, a religion shepherded by “those who walk through smoke,” monumental astronomical calendars, and a capital nestled in the mountains. But some scholars overstate their impact and espouse an ideology called Dacianism. These scholars reject foreign influences in the formation of the Romanian people and argue that they are descended purely from the Dacians, who had a civilization superior to all others. Apparently, the Dacians created the first state in Europe, set down laws, adopted a monotheistic religion that influenced Christianity, and survived for centuries to form the ruling dynasties of the first Romanian states.

In truth, this ideology stems from an inferiority complex; you see, the first Romanian states formed in the 14^th century, so there’s a good thousand years of history involving migratory peoples in which there is no political formation with which the Romanians can identify. Dacianism provides a soothing solution to an insecure ego looking for a noble past, and it was especially loved by the Iron Guard, a fascist movement active before the Second World War, as well as by Ceaușescu’s totalitarian communist regime.

While I do think the Dacians are fascinating and should receive more visibility in general history, they weren’t superior to other peoples and they certainly didn’t develop in isolation. Celtic artisans, for instance, introduced the potter’s wheel to the Dacians; Egyptian wisemen taught botany, philosophy, astronomy, and divination to Dacian high priests; and of course, the Greeks enriched their culture through centuries of contact.

Trade between the two groups began in the 7^th century BCE when the first Greek colony was established near the mouth of the Danube. In exchange for agricultural produce, the Getae and Dacians received goods from the Mediterranean like olive oil and wine, as well as Greek-style vases and swords, which they copied in their own workshops. Eventually, the Getae and Dacians also began minting replicas of Macedonian coins using their own silver, marking the introduction of currency into their economy. When Burebista conquered the Greek cities on the coast of the Black Sea, he captured artisans and forced them to build fortifications around his capital; in the Carpathian Mountains, these artisans managed labourers provided by the Dacian king and helped develop the famous murus Dacicus. This emblematic fortification seen in Dacian settlements consist of huge, rectangular stone blocks arranged in two parallel walls with rocks and gravel filling the space between them; inspired by Greek designs, this layered wall was much better at absorbing shocks than a simple stone barrier. Burebista’s Greek prisoners might’ve also been employed in the Dacian capital of Sarmizegetusa; Hellenic building techniques such as tiles and clay pipes are present in the city, and the layout of its religious sanctuaries is reminiscent of Hellenic temples.

Beyond these material aspects, there were also cultural exchanges where the Getae, Dacians, and Greeks lived in close proximity, namely along the coast of the Black Sea. The Roman poet Ovid wrote how numerous Getae owned houses in the coastal colonies, and how their language influenced the pronunciation of the Greek spoken by the locals; the Getic language was also present in these cities, and Ovid even learned it and wrote poems in it. Some Greeks integrated the power structure of the Dacians, like Burebista’s ambassador Akornion of Dionysopolis, who helped negotiate with the wider Hellenic world. Though the Dacians didn’t have their own system of writing, they used Greek letters on tools and vases to designate their use, dimensions, and owners; and it’s possible that their clergy used the Greek alphabet for astronomical calculations.

When the Romans superseded the Greeks as the premiere power in the Balkans in the 1^st century BCE, the Dacians adopted cultural elements from them as well. The old Macedonian coins were replaced by Roman denarii, and luxury goods from Italy like jewellery, ointments, and perfumes made their way into elite homes; in Sarmizegetusa, archeologists even found a surgical kit containing a scalpel, tweezers, powders, and pots for medicines, hinting at how Dacian physicians were learning and adopting Roman medical techniques.

Numerous Dacians also learned to speak and write Latin in their dealings with Roman merchants and officials, as attested by the fact that king Decebal sent delegates with letters to the empire on multiple occasions. When the Dacians and Romans fell into conflict in the late 1^st century CE, the Dacians captured a great many weapons and prisoners, and in the peace treaty of 89 CE, Decebal successfully negotiated to receive specialized artisans from the empire. These craftsmen forged Roman swords, shields, and armour, and built battering rams, catapults, and ballistae for the Dacians. Decebal also paid deserters from the imperial army to instruct his troops in Roman formations and tactics, with the ultimate goal of creating an army modelled on the legions both in terms of equipment and training.

As such, the Dacians had begun to Romanize decades before they were conquered by the empire; part of this process was natural, with traders on either side exchanging goods and ideas, while another was directed, as Decebal sought to adopt Roman ways to strengthen his kingdom. The porousness of the Danube frontier helped immensely in this cultural exchange. It’s true, the great river had served as a natural barrier for centuries – from Darius setting it as the frontier of his empire to Alexander stopping at its banks to Decebal himself using it as a natural defense. But there had always been contact and movement between the two sides of the Danube. The trade routes established centuries before had inextricably linked the peoples of the Carpathian Mountains with those of the Mediterranean. There were, of course, connections with tribes living on the Pannonian Plain to the West and the forests leading to the Baltic Sea to the North and the steppes to the East – but the Dacians were determinedly focused on the South. The relationships they had built and maintained over generations – from commercial routes to diplomatic relations – pointed them towards the Roman world, and they looked to learn from it while preserving their independence.

That independence was of course lost in 106 CE after Trajan instigated two devastating invasions. This is where the opposite position to Dacianism comes into play; the Latinist stance argues that the entire Dacian people was exterminated and the Romans colonized an empty realm. This ideology was especially prevalent in the 19^th century as Latinist scholars tried to align Romania more closely with the Roman empire; like Dacianism, it too, stems from an inferiority complex. Romania at the time was a young state in a turbulent Europe, and the Latinists were trying to convince their neighbours of the nobility of the Romanian people which were purely descended from the glorious Romans.

But of course, as we’ve seen in episode 8, the Dacians weren’t exterminated. A huge number died during the conquest as warriors were killed in battle and families starved to death. Yet the Romans didn’t massacre this conquered people; they enslaved captured civilians and sent them to mines and gladiatorial shows, enrolled prisoners of war in auxiliary units, and left the rest of the population to work the land and pay taxes, and these Dacians adapted as best they could.

Some nobles had already defected before the fall of the kingdom. Facing Domitian in 89 CE and Trajan in 106 CE, these elites lost faith in their ability to win and offered their wealth and submission to the invaders to keep their lives and, hopefully, their lands. The vast majority of the Dacian population, not having the gold to secure their future, left the burned out davae which the imperial army had ravaged and began life anew. Yet they didn’t go far; when the Romans built cities in their new province, they did so next to the old Dacian davae since they were located on advantageous land with fertile fields and access to clean water; in effect, the Roman pattern of settlement in the region was modelled on the Dacian one. The best example of this is the capital of the imperial province which was located a day’s walk from the capital of the former Dacian kingdom. Though not immediately obvious, that is one way in which the Dacians influenced the Romans, and there are numerous others.

As soldiers and settlers swelled the colonies, the native population which had remained nearby found work as servants and labourers, and sold them food and goods; a fifth of all pottery found in the villages, rural estates, castra, and cities of the region were made by Dacians. Through this everyday contact, the native population passed on the names of their former davae; all the Roman cities of Dacia have Dacian names like Potaissa, Napoca, Apulum, and Sarmizegetusa. The only colony established with a truly Roman name – Romula – eventually became known as Malva, which was the name of the old nearby Dacian dava. The change from Romula to Malva was gradual, but within a century, it came to be used even in official texts, and one of the administrative divisions of the province became known as Dacia Malvensis. The names of rivers were also passed on, like Alutus, Crisius, and Marisus, while native plants became part of the Roman doctor’s toolkit; for instance, the physician Pedanios Dioscorides included Dacian herbs in his book De materia medica, an encyclopedia of medicinal plants which was used for 1,500 years.

In addition, the rich, gold-bearing mountains of Dacia fuelled the Roman economy for close to two centuries and numerous soldiers were raised from the provincial population, with Dacia providing more auxiliary recruits than any other province except Syria. Throughout their military service, these men learned Latin, familiarized themselves with Roman customs and laws, and, after a 25-year term of service, they came back to their families and villages as Roman citizens. Yet they also brought some of their native flair to the imperial army. Emperor Hadrian allowed auxiliary units to bear their traditional arms, meaning that the Dacian draco standard, depicting an animal with a serpent’s body and a wolf’s head, was flown in several Roman units. These men were also allowed to wield their traditional weapons, and in the Dacian case, that meant the falx, a double-handed curved sword often described as a war-scythe.

As we’ve seen in episode 11, the native Dacians were one of many ethnic groups in the province, as immigrants came from all over the empire to get a piece of land for themselves, and they all came to gradually adopt Roman ways. Of course, Romanization wasn’t quick nor uniform; it was more impactful in cities than in remote villages and took several generations. But some events accelerated the process, like the Marcomannic Wars of the 160s, during which the native population fought alongside imperial forces to defend their lives and belongings against barbarian invasions. Another accelerating event was emperor Caracalla granting citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire in 212, which put everyone on the same legal footing. The Dacians who had adopted Roman habits now acquired Roman rights as well.

Historians often term them “Daco-Romans,” but in our story, I opted to simply call them “Romans.” By the 3^rd century, being a Roman no longer meant you came from the Italian peninsula; it meant you followed imperial law and embodied Roman customs. In the same village, you could have a neighbour of Gaelic descent and one of Dacian descent, with both considering themselves equally Roman, a bit like an Irish American and an Italian American both recognizing their ancestry but professing the same primary identity. So I didn’t call these Romanized Dacians “Daco-Romans” because I didn’t want to foreground their ancestry, but rather their identity; and I think it’s fair to assume that, by the 3^rd century, they considered themselves Roman like any other provincial, both legally and culturally.

A crucial point in Romanian history occurs in 271 when the empire abandoned the province of Dacia. The controversy over the evacuation – which we explored in episode 15 – is whether the entire population of the province fled south of the Danube, or whether a portion of it remained in place north of the river. The reason why the question is important is because the Romanian people emerged from Romance-speaking communities in the Early Middle Ages, but we’re unsure where this happened; they could’ve formed north of the Danube from the Romanized communities who had remained behind, or they could’ve formed south of the Danube inside the empire, and later migrated north over the course of several centuries. The Danube is the key frontier in these debates since it’s the southern border of modern-day Romania, so the question really is, did the Romanians emerge inside the frontiers of their current nation-state, or did they emerge outside of it and later migrated on its territory?

We don’t have conclusive evidence either way, as scholars can point to historical, archeological, and linguistic evidence to support either side. The debate could’ve remained confined to scholarly circles, but has grown virulent due to nationalism. You see, at the very end of the 9^th century, the Hungarians arrived in Europe and conquered Transylvania and the surrounding Carpathian Basin, which they ruled for a millennium. The population of that region was quite diverse, but eventually the Romanians became the single largest ethnic group in Transylvania; they accounted for more than half of the populace, though they didn’t have the same rights as the ruling Hungarians and struggled for centuries to improve their standing. As a result of the First World War, the Romanians conquered Transylvania from the Hungarians, and the region has remained a part of Romania ever since, with a slight interruption during the Second World War. Now, nationalists on both sides argue that Transylvania rightfully belongs to them.

Hungarian nationalists maintain that there were no Romanians living in the region when they conquered it, and that the Romanians only later migrated there from south of the Danube; as such, they were there first and the land rightfully belongs to them. Romanian nationalists contend that their ancestors, the Romance-speaking communities descended from the Dacians and Romans, were living in Transylvania when the Hungarians arrived; as such, they were there first and the land rightfully belongs to them.

You can perhaps see how the events of season one are crucial to this debate: to justify their positions, nationalists on both sides have offered different versions of the fate of the Dacians and of the Roman abandonment of Dacia.

Scholars known as immigrationists expounded the view that is now widely accepted in Hungarian academia: they argue that the Romans exterminated the Dacians and colonized a virgin land, and that when they were forced to abandon Dacia, every provincial was evacuated south of the Danube; the land was thus completely deserted and overrun by successive migratory peoples, like the Goths, Huns, Gepids, and Avars – until the Hungarians stopped this endless cycle by conquering the region and successfully keeping it. In the immigrationist view, the Romanians developed south of the Danube and migrated northwards into Transylvania over the course of centuries only after the Hungarians had arrived there.

In the official version of Romanian academia, known as the theory of continuity, the Dacians survived the conquest and were thoroughly Romanized over the span of several generations; then, when the imperial authorities abandoned Dacia, a majority of the population remained behind and built relationships with the migratory peoples which subjugated them. The land wasn’t wiped clean; rather, there was continuous habitation from the time of the Dacians to that of the Romans to that of the Romanized people which became the ancestors of the Romanians. According to this view, the Romanians emerged north of the Danube and are native to Transylvania.

These debates began in the 17^th century when scholars could only rely on written sources and oral history, and we’ve seen how those can be vague and interpreted in completely opposite ways. However, archeological discoveries over the last century have decisively proven that there was no break in habitation following the conquest of the kingdom nor the abandonment of the province of Dacia; after both events, a large number of people did in fact survive and stay behind. But that doesn’t settle the debate, because archeology can’t tell us the ethnicity of the people who stayed behind. Immigrationists can argue that yes, the Dacians did survive the conquest, but they weren’t Romanized; and yes, some Romans stayed behind, but they lost their culture and were assimilated by the migratory peoples who ruled them; so, you can still make the argument that the Romanians developed south of the Danube and later migrated north.

When we talk about the emergence of the Romanians as a people, what we’re really concerned with is the formation of the Romanian language; though that isn’t the only factor in how Romanians identify themselves, it is the most essential one. The Romanian language developed from Vulgar Latin and persisted as a Romance language in the Balkans surrounded by other tongues; the Romanians have a certain pride in this distinction, which is why language is such an important factor in their conception of themselves.  So, while archeological evidence shows that people continued to live north of the Danube, the real question is whether these communities continued to speak Latin – a question we can’t answer by only looking at objects in the ground.

I want to note that this debate doesn’t only involve Romanian and Hungarian scholars, as there are numerous international experts who have contributed to the discussion, and linguists have a lot to add to the topic. Admittedly, I need to do a lot more research before I can talk about their field in any detail. But briefly, linguists generally agree that the Romanian language was shaped by communities both north and south of the Danube during its formation. Their conclusions aren’t unanimous or certain, but both banks of the river seem to have had an influence.

In the future, maybe some other field besides history, archeology, and linguistics will develop which will allow us to study the past in more detail than we could ever imagine, and give us the “truth” about where the Romanian people formed. But unfortunately, it’s just as likely that we may never know for certain; these events occurred so long ago and in a period which has left so few traces that the best we can do at the moment is offer theories. Based on who is advocating for these ideas and to what end, these theories are more like foundation myths, shrouded in mist and emotionally charged. The birth of a people will always be mythologized, because origins are an inherent part of a group’s identity and how they present themselves.

For my part, I think the most likely theory as to the origin of the Romanians is that of admigration. First espoused by the historian Dimitrie Onciul, this theory rejects both the immigrationist and the continuity theses and proposes a compromise: the idea is that the descendants of the Dacians and Romans who remained north of the Danube mingled with the Romanized population from south of the river who gradually migrated northwards, thus creating the Romanian people. I believe this makes the most sense not because I’m looking for the middle point between two extremes, but because the evidence I’ve encountered while researching for this podcast suggests that the Dacians survived the conquest and were Romanized; that a substantial part of the Roman population of Dacia chose to remain behind; that the migratory peoples who settled next to them didn’t have the cultural draw nor the political power to assimilate them; that Romanized communities continued to live and maintain a distinct identity along the Danube into the Middle Ages; and that the two banks of the river had strong links and influenced each other. Instead of placing the formation of the Romanian people exclusively north of the Danube or exclusively south of it, this theory states that they developed in a region that straddled both banks of the river.

Though I think admigration is the most likely theory, I’m not espousing it as the “truth,” and I remain open to changing my mind as I learn more. Whether the Romanians developed north or south of the Danube isn’t the most important factor in my view. Obviously, it would be amazing to know the answer from a purely historical perspective. But the key point for me regarding the formation of the Romanians is the very fact that they formed in the Balkans; as dozens of new ethnic groups arrived and emerged in the region, they maintained their identity as a Romance people, even though they were separated from their Romance cousins in the West.

In discussing these origins, I’m also not looking to settle the debate on whether Transylvania belongs to the Romanians or the Hungarians. The very question comes from a nationalist mindset, and to answer it is to accept a nationalist framework: the argument goes that if the ancestors of an ethnic group lived in a region, then their descendants have a right to it, regardless of how much time has passed or what events have transpired since. But we can’t justify current borders by appealing to the past; if that were the case, Mussolini would’ve been justified in conquering all the former lands of the Roman empire, from Scotland to Syria; you can always find a historical reason to change borders through force.

But what our world looks like today must be based on current realities and the self-determination of people. And the reality is that most people living in Transylvania today consider themselves Romanian and want to be a part of Romania; and there’s an equally important reality that a considerable minority of those living in Transylvania consider themselves Hungarian, and their rights must be acknowledged and upheld. If the ethnic makeup of the region changed, then it would be up to those people to decide how they want to organize their communities and what polity they want to join or create.

Throughout the course of this podcast, and especially in putting together these thematic episodes, I was greatly influenced by the historian Lucian Boia, whose ideas deeply resonated with me. He put it best when he said: “It is natural that each nation should respect and love its history, but it is an illusion, which can become dangerous, that history has already marked out the road which we must continue to follow. The responsibility for today is ours, not our ancestors’; we cannot build the future by looking at the past.”

Next time, we’ll tackle some other crucial topics which deserve our attention: Christianity’s legacy north of the Danube, the Romanization of barbarian nations, and plenty more. I’ll see you in two weeks.