Dacia ( DAY-shə; Latin: [ˈdaːki.a]; Ancient Greek: Δακία) was the land inhabited by the Dacians, its core in Transylvania, stretching to the Danube in the south, the Black Sea in the east, and the Tisza in the west. The Carpathian Mountains were located in the middle of Dacia. It thus roughly corresponds to present-day Romania, as well as parts of Moldova, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland and Ukraine.
A Dacian kingdom that united the Dacians and the Getae was formed under the rule of Burebista in 82 BC and lasted until the Roman conquest in AD 106. As a result of the wars with the Roman Empire, after the conquest of Dacia, the population was dispersed, and the capital city, Sarmizegetusa Regia, was destroyed by the Romans. However, the Romans built a settlement bearing the same name, Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetuza, 40 km away, to serve as the capital of the newly established Roman province of Dacia. A group of "Free Dacians" may have remained outside the Roman Empire in the territory of modern-day Northern Romania until the start of the Migration Period.
The Dacians are first mentioned in the writings of the Ancient Greeks, in Herodotus (Histories Book IV XCIII: "[Getae] the noblest as well as the most just of all the Thracian tribes") and Thucydides (Peloponnesian Wars, Book II: "[Getae] border on the Scythians and are armed in the same manner, being all mounted archers").
The extent and location of Dacia varied in its three distinct historical periods (see below):
The Dacia of King Burebista (82–44 BC) stretched from the Black Sea to the river Tisza. During that period, the Getae and Dacians conquered a wider territory and Dacia extended from the Middle Danube to the Black Sea littoral (between Apollonia and Pontic Olbia) and from the Northern Carpathians to the Balkan Mountains. After Burebista's death in 44 BC, Dacia plunged into internal strife, resembling a civil war, as his unified kingdom split into several rival states. The constant power struggle weakened Dacia, but the Dacians remained a significant force, frequently making incursions into Roman territory. Stability was only restored when Duras and later Decebalus managed to reunite the kingdom.
Strabo, in his Geography written around AD 20, says:
As for the southern part of Germany beyond the Albis, the portion which is just contiguous to that river is occupied by the Suevi; then immediately adjoining this is the land of the Getae, which, though narrow at first, stretching as it does along the Ister [Danube] on its southern side and on the opposite side along the mountain-side of the Hercynian Forest (for the land of the Getae also embraces a part of the mountains), afterwards broadens out towards the north as far as the Tyregetae; but I cannot tell the precise boundaries
On this basis, Lengyel and Radan (1980), Hoddinott (1981) and Mountain (1998) consider that the Geto-Dacians inhabited both sides of the Tisza river prior to the rise of the Celtic Boii. The hold of the Dacians between the Danube and the Tisza was tenuous. However, the archaeologist Parducz argued for a Dacian presence west of the Tisza dating from the time of Burebista. According to Tacitus (AD 56–117) Dacians bordered Germania in the south-east, while Sarmatians bordered it in the east.Although Strabo and Caesar notes that the Dacians reached the Hercynian Forest, Germania and beyond, Strabo still indicates their borders as the middle Danube and the northwestern Carpathians. This suggests that, while they exerted influence over more distant regions, they did not formally annex them. This also helps explain why some maps depict regions such as Bohemia or Pannonia as falling under Dacian territory or influence. However, most academic maps concentrate on formally annexed areas, as regions of temporary control or mere influence are inherently imprecise and difficult to define.
In the 1st century AD, the Iazyges settled west of Dacia, on the plain between the Danube and the Tisza rivers, according to scholars’ interpretation of Pliny text: “The higher parts between the Danube and the Hercynian Forest, as far as the winter quarters of Pannonia at Carnuntum, and the plains and level country of the German frontiers, are occupied by the Sarmatian Iazyges, while the Dacians whom they have driven out hold the mountains and forests as far as the river Tisza.”
Starting with AD 85, Dacia was once again reunified under King Decebalus. Following an incursion into Roman Moesia, which resulted in the death of its governor, Gaius Oppius Sabinus, a series of conflicts between the Romans and Dacians ensued. Although the Romans gained a major strategic victory at Tapae in AD 88, Emperor Domitian offered the Dacians favourable terms, in exchange for which Roman suzerainty was recognised. However, Emperor Trajan restarted the conflicts in AD 101-102 and then again in AD 105–106, which ended with the annexation of most of Dacia and its reorganisation as a Roman Province, Dacia Felix.
Written a few decades after Emperor Trajan's Roman conquest of parts of Dacia in AD 105–106, Ptolemy's Geographia included the boundaries of Dacia. According to the scholars' interpretation of Ptolemy (Hrushevskyi 1997, Bunbury 1879, Mocsy 1974, Bărbulescu 2005) Dacia was the region between the rivers Tisza, Danube, upper Dniester, and Siret. Mainstream historians accept this interpretation: Avery (1972) Berenger (1994) Fol (1996) Mountain (1998), Waldman Mason (2006).
Ptolemy also provided a couple of Dacian toponyms in south Poland in the Upper Vistula (Polish: Wisla) river basin: Susudava and Setidava (with a manuscript variant Getidava). This could have been an "echo" of Burebista's expansion. It seems that this northern expansion of the Dacian language, as far as the Vistula river, lasted until AD 170–180 when the migration of the Vandal Hasdingi pushed out this northern Dacian group. This Dacian group, possibly the Costoboci/Lipița culture, is associated by Gudmund Schütte with towns having the specific Dacian language ending "dava" i.e. Setidava.
After the Marcomannic Wars (AD 166–180), Dacian groups from outside Roman Dacia had been set in motion. So too were the 12,000 Dacians "from the neighbourhood of Roman Dacia sent away from their own country". Their native country could have been the Upper Tisa region, but other places cannot be excluded.
The later Roman province Dacia Aureliana, was organized inside former Moesia Superior after the retreat of the Roman army from Dacia, during the reign of emperor Aurelian during AD 271–275. It was reorganized as Dacia Ripensis (as a military province) and Dacia Mediterranea (as a civil province).
Ptolemy gives a list of 43 names of towns in Dacia, out of which arguably 33 were of Dacian origin. Most of the latter included the added suffix "dava" (meaning settlement, village). But, other Dacian names from his list lack the suffix (e.g. Zarmisegethusa regia = Zermizirga). In addition, nine other names of Dacian origin seem to have been Latinised.
The cities of the Dacians were known as -dava, -deva, -δαυα ("-dawa" or "-dava", Anc. Gk.), -δεβα ("-deva", Byz. Gk.) or -δαβα ("-dava", Byz. Gk.), etc. .
In Dacia: Acidava, Argedava, Buridava, Dokidava, Carsidava, Clepidava, Cumidava, Marcodava, Netindava, Patridava, Pelendava, *Perburidava, Petrodaua, Piroboridaua, Rhamidaua, Rusidava, Sacidava, Sangidava, Setidava, Singidava, Tamasidava, Utidava, Zargidava, Ziridava, Sucidava – 26 names altogether.
In Lower Moesia (the present Northern Bulgaria) and Scythia minor (Dobrudja): Aedeba, *Buteridava, *Giridava, Dausadava, Kapidaua, Murideba, Sacidava, Scaidava (Skedeba), Sagadava, Sukidaua (Sucidava) – 10 names in total.