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79-628: The Getae first appear in historical records as fierce opponents of the Persian invasion in 513 BC, as described by the early Greek historian Herodotus . They faded out of historical records during the Roman empire , when many appear to have become Romans while others north of the Danube where gradually overwhelmed by other peoples moving from the north and east towards the Roman frontier. The ethnonym Getae

158-604: A bridge of boats . Darius conquered large portions of Eastern Europe , even crossing the Danube to wage war on the Scythians . Darius invaded Scythia with his general Megabazus , where the Scythians evaded Darius's army, using feints and retreating eastwards while laying waste to the countryside, by blocking wells, intercepting convoys, destroying pastures and continuous skirmishes against Darius's army. Seeking to fight with

237-859: A in Thracian, has been disputed by Russu. A comparison of Georgiev's and Duridanov's reconstructed words with the same meaning in the two languages shows that, although they shared some words, many words were different. However, even if such reconstructions are accepted as valid, an insufficient quantity of words have been reconstructed in each language to establish that they were unrelated. According to Georgiev (1977), Dacian placenames and personal names are completely different from their Thracian counterparts. However, Tomaschek (1883) and Mateescu (1923) argue that some common elements exist in Dacian and Thracian placenames and personal names, but Polomé considered that research had, by 1982, confirmed Georgiev's claim of

316-609: A Greek doctor at the Persian court ca. 400 BC, wrote that before the invasion of Darius into the European Scythian lands a satrap of Cappadocia named Ariaramnes had crossed the Black Sea to the north, raiding the European Scythian regions with a fleet of thirty penteconters , returning with Scythian men and women, including the brother of a Scythian king. While some have supposed that the reason for Darius' invasions

395-784: A Thracian or Dacian word contained such a phoneme, a Greek or Latin transcript would not represent it accurately. Because of this, there are divergent and even contradictory assumptions for the phonological structure and development of the Dacian and Thracian languages. This can be seen from the different sound-changes proposed by Georgiev and Duridanov, reproduced above, even though these scholars agree that Thracian and Dacian were different languages. Also, some sound-changes proposed by Georgiev have been disputed, e.g., that IE *T (tenuis) became Thracian TA (tenuis aspiratae), and *M (mediae) = T : it has been argued that in both languages IE *MA (mediae aspiratae) fused into M and that *T remained unchanged. Georgiev's claim that IE *o mutated into

474-791: A clear onomastic divide between Thrace and Moesia/Dacia. Georgiev highlighted a striking divergence between placename-suffixes in Dacia/Moesia and Thrace: Daco-Moesian placenames generally carry the suffix -dava (variants: -daba , -deva ), meaning "town" or "stronghold". But placenames in Thrace proper, i.e. south of the Balkan mountains commonly end in -para or -pera , meaning "village" or "settlement" (cf Sanskrit pura = "town", from which derives Hindi town-suffix -pur , e.g., Udaipur = "city of Udai"). Map showing -dava/-para divide Georgiev argues that such toponymic divergence renders

553-599: A continuum of dangerous nomadic raiders. Furthermore, control of the Black Sea recognized no international divisions. The Persians and the Greeks (many of whom lived in the Persian Empire, while another number lived in the Greek colonies in what is nowadays southern Ukraine) had a common interest in seeking to control the source of Scythian exports of gold, grain, hides, and furs. As Fol and Hammond further state, Ctesias ,

632-411: A direct battle, and until he did so he did not have much reason to secure the conquered territories. The initiative still lay with him. As the tactics of evading Darius' army and scorched earth were continued by the Scythians, they had failed however completely, though Darius had failed too as still he wasn't able to bring it to a direct confrontation. He had conquered enough Scythian territory to force

711-535: A fortress at Tirizis (modern Kaliakra ). The Getae flourished especially in the first half of the 3rd century BC. By about 200   BC, the authority of the Getic prince, Zalmodegicus , stretched as far as Histria , as a contemporary inscription shows. Other strong princes included Zoltes and Rhemaxos (about 180   BC). Also, several Getic rulers minted their own coins. The ancient authors Strabo and Cassius Dio say that Getae practiced ruler cult , and this

790-611: A language closely related to Venetic and Phrygian but with a certain Daco-Moesian admixture. Venetic and Phrygian are considered centum languages, and this may mean that Georgiev, like many other paleolinguists, viewed Illyrian as probably being a centum language with Daco-Moesian admixture. Georgiev proposed that Albanian, a satemised language, developed from Daco-Moesian, a satemised language group, and not from Illyrian. But lack of evidence prevents any firm centum/satem classification for these ancient languages. Renfrew argues that

869-512: A unity of Getae and Dacians". Lucian Boia took a sceptical position, arguing the ancient writers distinguished among the two people, treating them as two distinct groups of the Thracian ethnos. Boia contended that it would be naive to assume Strabo knew the Thracian dialects so well, alleging that Strabo had "no competence in the field of Thracian dialects". The latter claim is contested, some studies attesting Strabo's reliability and sources. There

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948-1059: Is an extinct language generally believed to be a member of the Indo-European language family that was spoken in the ancient region of Dacia . The Dacian language is poorly documented. Unlike Phrygian , which is documented by c. 200 inscriptions, only one Dacian inscription is believed to have survived. The Dacian names for a number of medicinal plants and herbs may survive in ancient literary texts, including about 60 plant-names in Dioscorides . About 1,150 personal names and 900 toponyms may also be of Dacian origin. A few hundred words in modern Romanian and Albanian may have originated in ancient Balkan languages such as Dacian (see List of Romanian words of possible Dacian origin ). Linguists have reconstructed about 100 Dacian words from placenames using established techniques of comparative linguistics , although only 20–25 such reconstructions had achieved wide acceptance by 1982. There

1027-642: Is any god but their own. Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia mentions a tribe called the Tyragetae , apparently a Daco-Thracian tribe who dwelt by the river Tyras (the Dniester ). Their tribal name appears to be a combination of Tyras and Getae ; see also the names Thyssagetae and Massagetae . The Roman poet Ovid , during his long exile in Tomis , is asserted to have written poetry (now lost) in

1106-457: Is confirmed by archaeological remains. In 72–71 BC Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus became the first Roman commander to march against the Getae. This was done to strike at the western Pontic allies of Mithridates VI , but he had limited success. A decade later, a coalition of Scythians , Getae, Bastarnae and Greek colonists defeated C.   Antonius Hybrida at Histria . This victory over

1185-556: Is generally considered that the two groups were related to a certain degree; the exact relation is a matter of controversy. Strabo, as well as other ancient sources, led some modern historians to consider that, if the Thracian ethnic group should be divided, one of this divisions should be the " Daco-Getae ". The linguist Ivan Duridanov also identified a " Dacian linguistic area " in Dacia , Scythia Minor , Lower Moesia , and Upper Moesia . Romanian scholars generally went further with

1264-578: Is no reason to disregard Strabo's belief that the Daci and the Getae spoke the same language. Boia also stressed that some Romanian authors cited Strabo indiscriminately. A similar position was adopted by Romanian historian and archaeologist G. A. Niculescu , who also criticized the Romanian historiography and the archaeological interpretation, particularly on the "Geto-Dacian" culture. In his opinion, Alexandru Vulpe saw ancient people as modern nations, leading

1343-406: Is not so significant as to rank them as separate languages. According to Georg Solta (1982), there is no significant difference between Dacian and Thracian. Rădulescu (1984) accepts that Daco-Moesian possesses a certain degree of dialectal individuality, but argues that there is no fundamental separation between Daco-Moesian and Thracian. Renfrew (1990) argues that there is no doubt that Thracian

1422-524: Is now the Balkans , Ukraine , and southern Russia . The Scythians managed to avoid a direct confrontation with the Persian army due to their mobile lifestyle and lack of any settlement (except Gelonus ), while the Persians suffered losses due to the Scythians' scorched earth tactic. However, the Persians conquered much of their cultivated lands and damaged their allies, forcing the Scythians to respect

1501-454: Is related to the Dacian which was spoken in modern-day Romania before that area was occupied by the Romans. However, all these assertions are largely speculative, due to the lack of evidence for both languages. Polomé (1982) considers that the evidence presented by Georgiev and Duridanov, although substantial, is not sufficient to determine whether Daco-Moesian and Thracian were two dialects of

1580-433: Is scholarly consensus that Dacian was a member of the Indo-European family of languages . These descended, according to the two leading theories of the expansion of IE languages, from a proto-Indo-European tongue ("PIE") that originated in an urheimat ("original homeland") in S. Ukraine/ Caucasus region ( Kurgan hypothesis ) or in central Anatolia ( Anatolian hypothesis ). According to both theories, Indo-European reached

1659-528: Is ultimately based on the testimony of several Greco-Roman authors: most notably the Roman imperial-era historian and geographer Strabo, who states that the Dacians, Getae , Moesians and Thracians all spoke the same language. Herodotus states that "the Getae are the bravest and the most just amongst the Thracians", linking the Getae with the Thracians. Some scholars also see support for a close link between

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1738-468: Is very different from that of Thracian; the vowel change IE *o > *a recurs and the k-sounds undergo the changes characteristic of the satem languages. For the phonology of Thracian, Georgiev uses the principle that an intelligible placename in a modern language is likely to be a translation of an ancient name. Georgiev (1977) also argues that the modern Albanian language is descended from Dacian, specifically from what he called Daco-Moesian or Daco-Mysian,

1817-510: The Zaths , may have been the Getae and/or Jats. More recent authors, like Tadeusz Sulimirski , Weer Rajendra Rishi , and Chandra Chakraberty, have also linked the Getae and Jats. Less credible, however, are parallel claims by Alexander Cunningham that the Xanthii (or Zanthi ) and Iatioi  – mentioned by Strabo, Ptolemy and Pliny – may have been synonymous with

1896-610: The Celts over the Rhine and the Getae over the Danube , whom they call Dacians". Justin , the 3rd century AD Latin historian, wrote in his Epitome of Pompeius Trogus that Dacians are spoken of as descendants of the Getae: "Daci quoque suboles Getarum sunt" (The Dacians as well are a scion of the Getae). In his Roman History (c.   200   AD), Cassius Dio added: "I call

1975-634: The Getic language . In his Epistulae ex Ponto , written from the northern coast of the Black Sea, he asserts that two major, distinct languages were spoken by the sundry tribes of Scythia, which he referred to as Getic, and Sarmatian. Jerome (Letter CVII to Laeta. II) described the Getae as red and yellow-haired, though he may be referring to the Goths, with whom the Getae were sometimes confused in Late Antiquity. The Getae are sometimes confused with

2054-662: The Goths in works of early medieval authors. This confusion is notably expanded on in works of Jordanes , himself of Gothic background, who transferred earlier historical narratives about the Getae to the Goths. At the close of the 4th century AD, Claudian , court poet to the emperor Honorius and the patrician Stilicho , uses the ethnonym Getae to refer to the Visigoths . During 5th and 6th centuries, several historians and ethnographers ( Marcellinus Comes , Orosius , John Lydus , Isidore of Seville , Procopius of Caesarea ) used

2133-577: The Ionian Revolt . Allied groups to the Scythians included the Tauri , Agathyrsi , Neuri , Androphagi , Melanchlaeni , Budini & Gelonians , Sauromatae , and Getae . Other Ionians mentioned as being involved included Aiaces of Samos, Laodamas of Phocaea, Aristagoras of Cymae, Daphnis of Abydos, Hippoclus of Lampsacus, Herophantus of Parium, Metrodorus of Proconnesus, Aristagoras of Cyzicus, and Ariston of Byzantium. The Scythian campaign

2212-621: The Ister . Two of the many tribes found among them are those formerly called the Triballi , and the Dardani , who still retain their old name. There is a dispute among scholars about the relations between the Getae and Dacians , and this dispute also covers the interpretation of ancient sources. Some historians such as Ronald Arthur Crossland state that even Ancient Greeks used the two designations "interchangeable or with some confusion". Thus, it

2291-606: The Sarmatae invaded the Getic territory and were driven back by Roman troops. The Getae were placed under the control of the Roman vassal king in Thrace, Rhoemetalces I . In 6   AD, the province of Moesia was founded, incorporating the Getae south of the Danube River . The Getae north of the Danube continued tribal autonomy outside the Roman Empire. According to Herodotus , the Getae were "the noblest as well as

2370-468: The Scythian campaign of Darius I in 513   BC, during which the latter conquered the Getae. According to Herodotus, the Getae differed from other Thracian tribes in their religion, centered around the god ( daimon ) Zalmoxis whom some of the Getae called Gebeleizis . Between the 5th and 3rd centuries BC, the Getae were mostly under the rule of the flourishing Odrysian kingdom . During this time,

2449-559: The "Scythians across the Sea" ( Old Persian cuneiform : 𐎿𐎣𐎠𐏐𐎫𐎹𐎡𐎹𐏐𐎱𐎼𐎭𐎼𐎹, Sakā tayaiya paradraya ) are mentioned at Naqsh-e Rustam as one of the peoples the king conquered outside of Persia, and János Harmatta was of the opinion that the Persian expedition had instead successfully annexed Scythia, and that the Scythians were able to free themselves only in 496 BC, when the Achaemenids lost all their European territories due to

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2528-540: The Bastarnae across the Danube as a pretext to devastate the Getae and Thracians. He put Marcus Licinius Crassus in charge of the plan. In 29   BC, Crassus defeated the Bastarnae with the help of the Getic prince Rholes . Crassus promised him help for his support against the Getic ruler Dapyx . After Crassus had reached as far the Danube Delta , Rholes was appointed king and returned to Rome. In 16   BC,

2607-659: The Carpathian region no later than c. 2500 BC. According to one scenario, proto-Thracian populations emerged during the Bronze Age from the fusion of the indigenous Eneolithic (Chalcolithic) population with the intruders of the transitional Indo-Europeanization Period . From these proto-Thracians, in the Iron Age , developed the Dacians / North Thracians of the Danubian-Carpathian Area on

2686-652: The Dacians and Getae spoke the same language, after stating the same about Getae and Thracians. Strabo's account of the lands inhabited by the Getae: Pliny the Elder , in his Naturalis Historia (Natural History), c.   77–79   AD: "... though various races have occupied the adjacent shores; at one spot the Getae , by the Romans called Daci ". Appian , who began writing his Roman History under Antoninus Pius , Roman Emperor from 138 to 161, noted: "[B]ut going beyond these rivers in places they rule some of

2765-510: The Dacians are "Getae or Thracians of Dacian race": In ancient times, it is true, Moesians and Getae occupied all the land between Haemus and the Ister; but as time went on some of them changed their names, and since then there have been included under the name of Moesia all the tribes living above Dalmatia , Macedonia , and Thrace , and separated from Pannonia by the Savus , a tributary of

2844-580: The European side in June. Thus, he may have started to go beyond the Danube in late August. Darius inflicted widespread damage on the Scythians and their allies, weakened the prestige of the Royal Scythians especially, and upset the balance of power among the various peoples of the region. However, he suffered very heavy losses and did not fulfill the tasks set for the campaign. He failed to bring

2923-724: The Getae and Massagetae to the Jats of South Asia. Likewise, the Dacians have been linked to the Dahae of Central Asia (and the Dahae to the Dasas of South Asia). W. W. Hunter claimed in 1886, suggested that the Jats were an Iranian people – most likely Scythian / Saka in origin, Alexander Cunningham (1888) believed that references in classical European sources – like Strabo , Ptolemy and Pliny  – to peoples such as

3002-706: The Getae and/or Jats. The Xanthii were later established to be a subgroup (tribe or clan) of the Dahae. Subsequent scholars, such as Edwin Pulleyblank , Josef Markwart (also known as Joseph Marquart) and László Torday , suggest that Iatioi may be another name for a people known in classical Chinese sources as the Yuezhi and in South Asian contexts as the Kuṣānas (or Kushans). Scythian campaign of Darius I 700,000 total The Scythian campaign of Darius I

3081-425: The Getae he was defeated by them. The Getae king, Dromichaetes , took him prisoner but he treated him well and convinced Lysimachus there is more to gain as an ally than as an enemy of the Getae and released him. According to Diodorus, Dromichaetes entertained Lysimachus at his palace at Helis, where food was served on gold and silver plates. The discovery of the celebrated tomb at Sveshtari (1982) suggests that Helis

3160-566: The Getae provided military services and became famous for their cavalry. After the disintegration of the Odrysian kingdom, smaller Getic principalities began to consolidate themselves. Before setting out on his Persian expedition, Alexander the Great defeated the Getae and razed one of their settlements. In 313   BC, the Getae formed an alliance with Callatis , Odessos , and other western Pontic Greek colonies against Lysimachus , who held

3239-624: The Moesian dialect of Dacian, but this view has not gained wide acceptance among scholars and is rejected by most linguists, who consider that Albanian belongs to the Illyrian branch of IE. Polomé accepts the view that Albanian is descended from Illyrian but considers the evidence inconclusive. There is general agreement among scholars that Dacian and Thracian were Indo-European languages; however, widely divergent views exist about their relationship: Georgiev (1977) and Duridanov (1985) argue that

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3318-534: The Persian force. Darius halted the advance to consolidate his gains, and built a defence line. Practically everything that is known of this campaign is from Herodotus 's book The Histories ; almost no Persian sources exist, and no Scythian ones. As a result, it is difficult to know for sure how much of Herodotus's account is accurate. Darius crossed the Black Sea at the Bosphorus Straits using

3397-491: The Romanian historiography that considered the two people the same. Nevertheless, he chose to use the term "Geto-Dacians" as a conventional concept for the Thracian tribes inhabiting the future territory of Romania, not necessarily meaning an "absolute ethnic, linguistic or historical unity". Crossland suggested the two designations may refer to two groups of a "linguistically homogeneous people" that had come to historical prominence at two distinct periods of time. He also compared

3476-429: The Romans allowed Burebista , the leader of this coalition, to dominate the region for a short period (60–50 BC). In the mid-first century BC Burebista organized a kingdom consisting of descendants of those whom the Greeks had called Getae , as well as Dacians , or Daci , the name applied to people of the region by the Romans. Augustus aimed at subjugating the entire Balkan peninsula , and used an incursion of

3555-482: The Romans. Some scholars consider the Getae and Dacians to be the same people at different stages of their history and discuss their culture as Geto-Dacian . Historian and archaeologist Alexandru Vulpe found a remarkable uniformity of the Geto-Dacian culture; however, he is one of the few Romanian archaeologists to make a clear distinction between the Getae and Dacians, arguing against the traditional position of

3634-428: The Scythians to battle, he was unable to secure any territorial gains and he did not even complete the building of the forts at what could have been a frontier. The campaign was little more than an expensive stalemate. As winter now had come, Darius did not return to attack, and marched towards Thrace , towards his firmly secured territories. Some form of Persian authority perhaps remained after Darius withdrew, for

3713-413: The Scythians to respect the Persian forces. The whole area from central Thrace to Georgia and from Ukraine to the north-east Mediterranean formed a compact area with mutual economic interests between Scythians, Thracians or Ionians , and Iranians . In strategic terms, Darius must have seen that some Scythian-type peoples extended from Ukraine all the way to what is modern-day Uzbekistan, forming

3792-588: The Scythians, Darius's army chased the Scythian army deep into Scythian lands, mostly in what is modern-day Ukraine, where there were no cities to conquer and no supplies to forage. In frustration Darius sent a letter to the Scythian ruler Idanthyrsus to fight or surrender. The ruler replied that he would not stand and fight with Darius, unless the Persians found and desecrated the graves of the Scythians' forefathers. Until then, they would continue their strategy as they had no cities or cultivated lands to lose. Despite

3871-635: The Thracian and Dacian languages in the works of Cassius Dio , Trogus Pompeius , Appian and Pliny the Elder . But the Daco-Thracian theory has been challenged since the 1960s by the Bulgarian linguist Vladimir I. Georgiev and his followers. Georgiev argues, on phonetic, lexical and toponymic grounds, that Thracian, Dacian and Phrygian were completely different languages, each a separate branch of IE, and that no Daco-Thraco-Phrygian or Daco-Thracian branches of IE ever existed. Georgiev argues that

3950-526: The centum/satem classification is irrelevant in determining relationships between languages. This is because a language may contain both satem and centum features and these, and the balance between them, may change over time. There was a well-established tradition in the 4th century that the Getae, believed to be Dacians by mainstream scholarship, and the Gothi were the same people, e.g., Orosius: Getae illi qui et nunc Gothi . This identification, now discredited,

4029-560: The distance between Dacian and Thracian was approximately the same as that between the Armenian and Persian languages, which are completely different languages. In elaborating the phonology of Dacian, Georgiev uses plant-names attested to in Dioscorides and Pseudo-Apuleius, ascertaining their literal meanings, and hence their etymology, using the Greek translations provided by those authors. The phonology of Dacian produced in this way

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4108-404: The evading tactics of the Scythians, Darius' campaign was so far relatively successful. As presented by Herodotus , the tactics of the Scythians resulted in the loss of their best lands and damage to their loyal allies. The fact is thus that Darius held the initiative. As he moved eastwards in the cultivated lands of the Scythians, he remained resupplied by his fleet and lived to an extent off of

4187-470: The form of Mysian by a migration of the Moesi people; Strabo asserts that Moesi and Mysi were variants of the same name. Dacian was an Indo-European language (IE). Russu (1967, 1969 and 1970) suggested that its phonological system, and therefore that of its presumed Thraco-Dacian parent-language, was relatively close to the primitive IE system. While there is general agreement among scholars that Dacian

4266-500: The identification, historian Constantin C. Giurescu claiming the two were identical. The archaeologist Mircea Babeș spoke of a "veritable ethno-cultural unity" between the Getae and the Dacians. According to Glanville Price , the account of the Greek geographer Strabo shows that the Getae and the Dacians were one and the same people. Others who support the identity between Getae and Dacians with ancient sources include freelance writer James Minahan and Catherine B Avery , who claim

4345-510: The land. While moving eastwards in the European Scythian lands, he captured Gelonos , the large fortified city of the Budini , one of the allies of the Scythians, and burnt it. Darius ordered a halt at the banks of Oarus , where he built "eight great forts, some eight miles distant from each other", no doubt as a frontier defence. As A. Fol and N. G. L. Hammond state, this evidently was as far eastwards as Darius intended to go, at least for

4424-521: The latter to interpret the common language as a sign of a common people, despite Strabo making a distinction between the two. From the 7th century BC onwards, the Getae came into economic and cultural contact with the Greeks , who were establishing colonies on the western side of Pontus Euxinus, nowadays the Black Sea. The Getae are mentioned for the first time together in Herodotus in his narrative of

4503-470: The most just of all the Thracian tribes". Herodotus. Histories , 4.93.</ref> When the Persians , led by Darius the Great , campaigned against the Scythians , the Thracian tribes in the Balkans surrendered to Darius on his way to Scythia , and only the Getae offered resistance. One episode from the history of the Getae is attested by several ancient writers. When Lysimachus tried to subdue

4582-568: The name of the Dacian tribe to refer to all the unconquered inhabitants north of the Danube . Also, Edward Bunbury believed the name of Getae, by which they were originally known to the Greeks on the Euxine , was always retained by the latter in common usage: while that of Dacians, whatever be its origin, was that by which the more western tribes, adjoining the Pannonians , first became known to

4661-410: The notion that Thracian and Dacian were the same language implausible. However, this thesis has been challenged on a number of grounds: Georgiev's thesis has by no means achieved general acceptance: the Thraco-Dacian theory retains substantial support among linguists. Crossland (1982) considers that the divergence of a presumed original Thraco-Dacian language into northern and southern groups of dialects

4740-436: The one hand and the Thracians of the eastern Balkan Peninsula on the other. According to Georgiev, the Dacian language was spread south of the Danube by tribes from Carpathia, who reached the central Balkans in the period 2000–1000 BC, with further movements (e.g., the Triballi tribe) after 1000 BC, until c. 300 BC. According to the ancient geographer Strabo , Daco-Moesian was further spread into Asia Minor in

4819-846: The ordinary man's belief that what brought him and his tribe honour was the killing of enemies. The various Scythian tribes co-operated with each other, winning support of other neighboring peoples as well. In that regard, they showed more of a sense of a community than the Greek city-states were to show through much of the subsequent Greco-Persian Wars . Dacian linguistic area Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European Dacian ( / ˈ d eɪ ʃ ə n / )

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4898-439: The people Dacians, the name used by the natives themselves as well as by the Romans , though I am not ignorant that some Greek writers refer to them as Getae , whether that is the right term or not...". He also said the Dacians lived on both sides of the Lower Danube ; the ones south of the river (today's northern Bulgaria ), in Moesia , were called Moesians , while the ones north of the river were called Dacians. He argued that

4977-400: The people whom the Greek called Getae were called Daci by the Romans. This same belief is stated by some British historians such as David Sandler Berkowitz and Philip Matyszak . The Bulgarian historian and thracologist Alexander Fol considers that the Getae became known as "Dacians" in Greek and Latin in the writings of Caesar , Strabo and Pliny the Elder , as Roman observers adopted

5056-485: The phonetic development from proto-Indo-European of the two languages was clearly divergent. Note : Asterisk indicates reconstructed PIE sound. ∅ is a zero symbol (no sound, when the sound has been dropped). Georgiev and Duridanov argue that the phonetic divergences above prove that the Dacian and Thracian (and Phrygian, per Georgiev) languages could not have descended from the same branch of Indo-European, but must have constituted separate, stand-alone branches. However,

5135-570: The place of Dacian in the IE evolutionary tree. According to a dated view, Dacian derived from a Daco-Thraco-Phrygian (or "Paleo-Balkan") branch of IE. Today, Phrygian is no longer widely seen as linked in this way to Dacian and Thracian. In contrast, the hypothesis of a Thraco-Dacian or Daco-Thracian branch of IE, indicating a close link between the Thracian and Dacian languages, has numerous adherents, including Russu 1967, Georg Solta 1980, Vraciu 1980, Crossland 1982, Rădulescu 1984, 1987. Mihailov (2008) and Trask 2000. The Daco-Thracian theory

5214-402: The probable linguistic situation with the relation between modern Norwegian and Danish languages. Paul Lachlan MacKendrick considered the two as "branches" of the same tribe, speaking two dialects of a common language. The Romanian historian of ideas and historiographer Lucian Boia stated: "At a certain point, the phrase Geto-Dacian was coined in the Romanian historiography to suggest

5293-534: The same ethnonym Getae to name populations invading the Eastern Roman Empire ( Goths , Gepids , Kutrigurs , Slavs ). For instance, in the third book of the History of the Wars Procopius details: "There were many Gothic nations in earlier times, just as also at the present, but the greatest and most important of all are the Goths, Vandals, Visigoths, and Gepaedes. In ancient times, however, they were named Sauromatae and Melanchlaeni; and there were some too who called these nations Getic." The Getae were considered

5372-465: The same language or two distinct languages. The ethnonym Moesi was used within the lands alongside the Danube river, in north-western Thrace. As analysed by some modern scholars, the ancient authors used the name Moesi speculatively to designate Triballians and also Getic and Dacian communities. It is possible that Illyrian, Dacian and Thracian were three dialects of the same language, according to Rădulescu. Georgiev (1966), however, considers Illyrian

5451-513: The same people as the Goths by Jordanes in his Getica written at the middle of the 6th century. He also claims that at one point the "Getae" migrated out of Scandza , while identifying their deity Zalmoxis as a Gothic king. Jordanes assumed the earlier testimony of Orosius. The 9th-century work De Universo of Rabanus Maurus states, "The Massagetae are in origin from the tribe of the Scythians, and are called Massagetae, as if heavy, that is, strong Getae. There have long been attempts to link

5530-414: The satem/centum distinction, once regarded as a fundamental division between IE languages, is no longer considered as important in historical linguistics by mainstream scholars. It is now recognised that it is only one of many isoglosses in the IE zone; that languages can exhibit both types at the same time, and that these may change over time within a particular language. There is much controversy about

5609-403: The time being. After chasing the Scythians for a month, Darius's army was suffering losses due to fatigue, privation and sickness. In his Histories , Herodotus states that the ruins of the forts were still standing in his day. Concerned about losing more of his troops, Darius halted the march at the banks of the Volga River and headed towards Thrace . He had failed to bring the Scythians to

5688-506: The validity of this conclusion has been challenged due to a fundamental weakness in the source-material for sound-change reconstruction. Since the ancient Balkan languages never developed their own alphabets, ancient Balkan linguistic elements (mainly placenames and personal names) are known only through their Greek or Latin transcripts. These may not accurately reproduce the indigenous sounds, e.g., Greek and Latin had no dedicated graphic signs for phonemes such as č, ġ, ž, š and others. Thus, if

5767-497: Was a military expedition into parts of European Scythia by Darius I , the king of the Achaemenid Empire , in 513 BC. The Scythians were an East Iranian -speaking people who had invaded Media , revolted against Darius and threatened to disrupt trade between Central Asia and the shores of the Black Sea as they lived between the Danube and Don Rivers and the Black Sea. The campaigns took place in parts of what

5846-529: Was an Indo-European language , there are divergent opinions about its place within the IE family: Several linguists classify Dacian as a satem IE language: Russu, Rădulescu, Katičić and Križman. In Crossland's opinion (1982), both Thracian and Dacian feature one of the main satem characteristics, the change of Indo-European * k and * g to s and z . But the other characteristic satem changes are doubtful in Thracian and are not evidenced in Dacian. In any case,

5925-510: Was decisive in that the Persians abandoned the attempt to subjugate the European Scythians. Herodotus was correct in his assessment that the Scythians owed their escape to their mobility, their lack of inhabited centres, and the skill of their mounted archers. He furthermore states that their refusal to submit to Persia was due to such factors as the authoritarian power of the kings, the widespread hatred of foreigners (IV.76.1), and

6004-424: Was first used by Herodotus . The root was also used for the Tyragetae , Thyssagetae , Massagetae , and others. Strabo stated in his Geographica ( c. 7   BC – 20   AD) that the Dacians lived in the western parts of Dacia , "towards Germania and the sources of the Danube", while the Getae lived in the eastern parts, towards the Black Sea , both south and north of the Danube. He also wrote that

6083-421: Was located perhaps in its vicinity, where remains of a large antique city are found along with dozens of other Thracian mound tombs. As stated earlier, just like the Dacians, the principal god of the Getae was Zalmoxis whom they sometimes called Gebeleizis . This same people, when it lightens and thunders , aim their arrows at the sky , uttering threats against the god; and they do not believe that there

6162-556: Was merely to destroy the Scythian lands, the erection of a bridge over the Hellespont contradicts this; his superior fleet could have easily shipped the troops over as the Scythians had no navy at all. Though Herodotus does not mention the season of the year, as Fol and Hammond write, it is possible to infer it, knowing that if Darius marched from Susa in spring 513 BC, he would have reached Chalcedon in May, and mustered his forces on

6241-459: Was supported by Jacob Grimm . In pursuit of his hypothesis, Grimm proposed many kindred features between the Getae and Germanic tribes. The mainstream view among scholars is that Daco-Moesian forms the principal linguistic substratum of modern Romanian , a neo-Latin ( Romance ) language, which evolved from eastern Eastern Romance in the period AD 300–600, according to Georgiev. The possible residual influence of Daco-Moesian on modern Romanian

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