ROM0052 – The Dacian Wars

The Dacian Wars: Trajan’s Conquest of the Last Great Barbarian Kingdom

101-106 AD. In two devastating campaigns separated by a brief and uneasy peace, the Emperor Trajan completes the most significant Roman conquest since Caesar’s Gallic Wars. The target is Dacia — a powerful kingdom north of the Danube, centered on the Carpathian mountains in what is now Romania, ruled by the formidable king Decebalus. The Dacian Wars would add the last great continental province to the Roman Empire and the gold of Dacian mines to the Roman treasury — funding, among other things, Trajan’s Forum and Column in Rome.

Decebalus and the Dacian Challenge

Decebalus was no ordinary barbarian chieftain. He had already defeated Roman armies under Domitian and extracted a humiliating peace that included Roman engineers and technicians being sent to Dacia to strengthen its fortifications. His kingdom possessed sophisticated hilltop fortresses — the davae — built with a unique construction technique using timber-laced stone walls, and a warrior aristocracy of tarabostes (the nobility) supported by the comati (the free men). His army included Roman-trained infantry, Sarmatian cataphracts, and the fearsome Dacian falx — a curved slashing weapon capable of reaching over the top of a Roman shield to strike the head or shoulders.

Trajan’s response was methodical and overwhelming. The first campaign (101-102 AD) broke Dacian military power and forced Decebalus to accept humiliating terms. When Decebalus immediately began rebuilding, Trajan returned in 105 AD. Sarmizegetusa, the Dacian capital, fell after a siege. Decebalus, rather than submit to a Roman triumph, cut his own throat. His head was brought to Rome and displayed on the Capitoline steps.

Dacia was organized as a Roman province. The story of the campaigns was carved in spiral relief on Trajan’s Column in Rome — 2,500 figures depicting the conquest in extraordinary detail, one of the greatest artistic achievements of the ancient world and our primary visual source for the Roman army of the early 2nd century.

The Original Artwork by Giuseppe Rava

This original Roman military art print by Giuseppe Rava — historical illustrator for Osprey Publishing since 2007 — captures the drama of the Dacian Wars with the meticulous accuracy that defines every work by the Maestro. Roman legionaries and Dacian warriors, the unique military equipment of both sides faithfully reconstructed from Trajan’s Column and archaeological finds.

The print is produced as a limited edition, individually numbered and hand-signed by Giuseppe Rava, SRA3 format (45×32 cm / 17.7×12.6 in), on premium fine art paper. Available worldwide with international shipping — essential for collectors of Roman Imperial history.