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Romania The Getae
During the Bronze Age (roughly 2200 to 1200 B.C.),
ThracoGetian tribesmen engaged in agriculture and stock raising
and
traded with peoples who lived along the Aegean Seacoast.
Early in
the Iron Age, about 1200 B.C., pastoral activities began
to
dominate their economic life. Thraco-Getian villages,
which
consisted of up to 100 small, rectangular dwellings
constructed
from wood or reeds and earthen mortar with straw roofs,
multiplied
and became more crowded. Before the seventh century B.C.,
Greeks
founded trading colonies on the coast of the Black Sea at
Istria,
near the mouth of the Danube at Callatis (present-day
Mangalia),
and at Tomi (present-day Constanta). Greek culture also
made a deep
impression on the seacoast and riverbank Thraco-Getian
villages,
where the way of life developed more rapidly than in less
accessible areas. Toward the end of the seventh century
B.C.,
wheel-formed pottery began replacing crude hand-modeled
ware in the
coastal region. The use of Greek and Macedonian coins
spread
through the area, and the Thraco-Getae exchanged grain,
cattle,
fish, honey, and slaves with the Greeks for oils, wines,
precious
materials, jewelry, and high-quality pottery. By the sixth
century
B.C., this trade was affording the Thraco-Getian ruling
class many
luxuries.
Originally polytheistic nature-worshippers, the
Thraco-Getae
developed a sun cult and decorated their artwork with sun
symbols.
Herodotus, a Greek historian, reports that the Getae
worshipped a
god named Zalmoxis, a healing thunder god who was master
of the
cloudy sky; however they did not depict Zalmoxis in any
plastic
form. The people offered agricultural products and animals
as
sacrifices and also cremated their dead, sealed the ashes
in urns,
and buried them.
The Getae had commercial contact as well as military
conflicts
with many peoples besides the Greeks. The Roman poet,
Ovid, who was
exiled to Tomi, writes that for many years Getian
tribesmen would
steer their plows with one hand and hold a sword in the
other to
protect themselves against attacks by Scythian horsemen
from the
broad steppe lands east of the Dniester River. In 513 B.C.
Darius
the Great marched his Persian army through Getian
territory before
invading Scythia. Legend holds that when Philip of
Macedonia
attacked the Getae in the fourth century B.C., they sent
out
against him priests robed in white and playing lyres.
Philip's son,
Alexander the Great, led an expedition northward across
the Danube
in 335 B.C., and from about 300 B.C. Hellenic culture
heavily
influenced the Getae, especially the ruling class. Bands
of Celtic
warriors penetrated Transylvania after 300 B.C., and a
cultural
symbiosis arose where the Celts and Getae lived in close
proximity.
By about 300 B.C., the Lower Danube Getae had forged a
state
under the leadership of Basileus Dromichaites, who
repulsed an
attack by Lysimachus, one of Alexander the Great's
successors.
Thereafter, native Getian leaders protected the coastal
urban
centers, which had developed from Greek colonies. From 112
to 109
B.C. the Getae joined the Celts to invade Roman
possessions in the
western Balkans. Then in 72 B.C., the Romans launched a
retaliatory
strike across the Danube but withdrew because, one account
reports,
the soldiers were "frightened by the darkness of the
forests."
During the third and second centuries B.C., the Getae
began mining
local iron-ore deposits and iron metallurgy spread
throughout the
region. The ensuing development of iron plowshares and
other
implements led to expanded crop cultivation.
As decades passed, Rome exercised stronger influence on
the
Getae. Roman merchants arrived to exchange goods, and the
Getae
began counterfeiting Roman coins. In the middle of the
first
century B.C., the Romans allied with the Getae to defend
Moesia, an
imperial province roughly corresponding to present-day
northern
Bulgaria, against the Sarmatians, a group of nomadic
Central Asian
tribes. Roman engineers and architects helped the Getae
construct
fortresses until the Romans discovered that the Getae were
preparing to turn against them. Burebista, a Getian king
who
amassed formidable military power, routed the Celts,
forced them
westward into Pannonia, and led large armies to raid Roman
lands
south of the Danube, including Thrace, Macedonia, and
Illyria.
Burebista offered the Roman general, Pompey, support in
his
struggle against Julius Caesar. Caesar apparently planned
to invade
Getian territory before his assassination in 44 B.C.; in
the same
year Getian conspirators murdered Burebista and divided up
his
kingdom. For a time Getian power waned, and Emperor
Octavius
expelled the Getae from the lands south of the Danube. The
Getae
continued, however, to interfere in Roman affairs, and the
Romans
in turn periodically launched punitive campaigns against
them.
By 87 A.D. Decebalus had established a new Getian
state,
constructed a system of fortresses, and outfitted an army.
When
Trajan became Roman emperor in 98 A.D., he was determined
to stamp
out the Getian menace and take over the Getae's gold and
silver
mines. The Romans laid down a road along the Danube and
bridged the
river near today's Drobeta-Turnu Severin. In 101 A.D.
Trajan
launched his first campaign and forced Decebalus to sue
for peace.
Within a few years, however, Decebalus broke the treaty,
and in 105
A.D. Trajan began a second campaign. This time, the Roman
legions
penetrated to the heart of Transylvania and stormed the
Getian
capital, Sarmizegetusa (present-day Gradistea Muncelului);
Decebalus and his officers committed suicide by drinking
hemlock
before the Romans could capture them. Rome memorialized
the victory
by raising Trajan's Column, whose bas-reliefs show scenes
of the
triumph.
Data as of July 1989
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