The Dacians

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After the Arimaspians had disappeared, and before the current inhabitants, a people called the Dacians lived in the Carpathians. Their name might have meant ‘wolf’ in their language, although we can’t say that for sure.

Their most powerful god was called Zalmoxis. It is said that he was once a human being, a slave to the Greeks. He was later freed, became wealthy, and then came back and rose to godhood.

The Dacians lived under fearless priest-kings, and their capital was called Sarmizegetusa. They fought with a scythe-like weapon called a falx. They built six great fortresses in the mountains, the largest of which proved difficult to conquer, even for the Romans. The Dacian king Decebalus famously humiliated the Roman emperor Domitian and forced him to accept peace on Decebalus’s terms.

But then, years later, emperor Trajan ended what Domitian had started. Dacia was eventually conquered and became a Roman province, and Decebalus killed himself in order to avoid imprisonment. Such was the tragic end of this exceptional people.