Burebista
Burebista was the king of the Getae and Dacian tribes from 82/61BC to 45/44BC. He was the first king who successfully unified the tribes of the Dacian kingdom, which comprised the area located between the Danube, Tisza, and Dniester rivers, and modern day Romania and Moldova. In the 7th and 6thcenturies BC it became home to the Thracian peoples, including the Getae and the Dacians. From the 4thcentury to the middle of the 2ndcentury BC the Dacian peoples were influenced by La Tène Celts who brought new technologies with them into Dacia. Sometime in the 2ndcentury BC, the Dacians expelled the Celts from their lands. Dacians often warred with neighbouring tribes, but the relative isolation of the Dacian peoples in the Carpathian Mountains allowed them to survive and even to thrive. By the 1stcentury BC the Dacians had become the dominant power.
From 61 BC onwards Burebista pursued a series of conquests that expanded the Dacian kingdom. The tribes of the Boii and Taurisci were destroyed early in his campaigns, followed by the conquest of the Bastarnae and probably the Scordisci peoples. He led raids throughout Thrace, Macedonia, and Illyria. From 55BC the Greek cities on the west coast of the Black Sea were conquered one after another. These campaigns inevitably culminated in conflict with Rome in 48BC, at which point Burebista gave his support to Pompey. This in turn made him an enemy to Julius Caesar, who decided to start a campaign against Dacia. This plan fell through in 44BC when Caesar was assassinated. Burebista himself was assassinated in a plot by the Dacian aristocracy at around the same time.
After Burebista's death, the empire he had created broke up into smaller kingdoms. From the reign of Tiberius to Domitian, Dacian activity was reduced into a defensive state. The Romans abandoned plans of mounting an invasion against Dacia. In 86AD the Dacian king, Decebalus, successfully re-united the Dacian kingdom under his control. Domitian attempted a hasty invasion against the Dacians that ended in disaster. A second invasion brought peace between Rome and Dacia for nearly a decade, until Trajan became emperor in 98AD. Trajan also pursued two conquests of Dacia. The first, in 101–102AD, concluded in a Roman victory. Decebalus was forced to agree to harsh terms of peace, but did not honour them, leading to a second invasion of Dacia in 106AD that ended the independence of the Dacian kingdom.
Early references
Only few ancient sources on Burebista survive: Strabo: Geographica 7.3.5, 7.3.11 and 16.2.39 ; Jordanes: Getica67 ; a marble inscription found in Balchik, Bulgaria, which represents a decree by the citizens of Dionysopolis about Akornion and another inscription found in Nesebar.Dacian kingdom
The area roughly located between the Danube, Tisza and Dniester riversapproximately coinciding with modern-day Romaniabecame home to a varied group of Thracian peoples, including the Getae and Dacians, sometime around the 7th to 6thcenturies BC. The Getae and Dacians are related but distinct peoples that are sometimes treated as a single group under the name of Geto-Dacians. The Getae and the Dacians shared many cultural and linguistic similarities. Living in the lower Danube basin, the Getae were able to establish regular trade with the Greek cities along the coast of the Black Sea. The Dacians were located in the Carpatho-Danubian basin along the southern border of the Carpathian Mountains. This relative geographic isolation allowed the Dacians to survive catastrophic strugglesoften with the Getaeand thrive to become the dominant tribe by the 1stcentury BC.Before Burebista's rule, the Dacians had experienced a succession of kings through the period 450 to 60BC. The kings included Dromichaetes, Oroles, and Rubobostes in the 3rd and 2ndcenturies BC. From the 4thcentury BC to the 2ndcentury BC the LaTène Celts of the Danube, Alpines, and Balkans influenced the Dacian culture. LaTène material culture was found in the central and north-west regions of Dacia. The development of a LaTène-based economy in the 3rd and 2ndcenturies BC allowed the consolidation of political power through tribal unions. Such regional unions were found among both the Transylvanian Dacians under the rule of Rubobostes and the Moldavian and Muntenian Getae in Argedava.
It is from the LaTène that the Dacians were introduced to the potter's wheel, superior metal-working techniques, and probably a tradition of minting coins. In homes were found a combination of Celtic and Dacian pottery, and certain Celtic-style graves contain Dacian style vessels. This suggests a sort of co-existence and fusion between the cultures. Sometime after around 150BC, however, evidence of LaTène culture peters out, around the same time the Dacian culture began to mature, as evidenced by population and economic growth. Under Rubobstes the authority of the Dacians appears to have increased, thus ending the dominance of the Celtic culture, and leading to the Celts being expelled from the area or merging into the culture, or both. There is archaeological evidence to suggest that relations between Dacians and Celts living in the areas north and west of Dacia continued. Painted ceramics of late LaTène-style have been found in Dacian sites in west and central Dacia. Some of these ceramics were imported while others were made by Dacian potters imitating Celtic style. A stable monarchy, however, only developed when Burebista became king. Burebista's accession came with the expulsion of Celts around 60BC when his forces moved through to the middle Danube region, and with the support of the religious establishment and leaders in Dacia which brought around a stricter moral code in the Dacian kingdom. Around this time the pottery of the Dacian style began appearing in Celtic settlements in Central Europe, including the area covered by the former Yugoslavia, especially in Gomolava, Yugoslavia, and Budapest, Hungary.
Reign of Burebista
Date of ascension
The exact date that Burebista came to reign over the Dacians is debated among scholars; University of Illinois professor Keith Hitchins gave a starting date for Burebista's reign of 82BC, while historian Matthew Bunson, and authors John Middleton and Michael Schmitz suggest a starting date around 61–60 BC. The historian John Koch states that Burebista founded an empire sometime during the 1stcentury BC and that around 61BC Burebista expelled the Celts and moved into the middle Danube.Development of Burebista's polity
This alliance was probably a weakly centralized state, with a military organization similar to that of the Hellenistic kingdoms. The exact degree of centralization is a matter of debate, with archaeologists such as Kris Lockyear denying the existence of a state, saying the archaeological evidence shows regional diversity and only a few region-wide trends. Others, such as historian Alexandru Diaconescu, dispute this and conclude that there was a centralized political structure.In the Orăștie Mountains, Burebista built a system of stone fortifications on high ground; the most important of such hill forts are located today in the villages of Costești, Blidaru, Piatra Roșie, and Bănița. These citadels, which exhibited Greek military architecture, coupled with the presence of Burebista and his armed forces, served to secure the Dacian people internally.