Dacians in the context of "Burebista"

The Dardani (/ˈdɑːrdənaɪ/; Ancient Greek: Δαρδάνιοι, Δάρδανοι; Latin: Dardani) or Dardanians were a Paleo-Balkan people, who lived in a region that was named Dardania after their settlement there. They were among the oldest Balkan peoples, and their society was very complex. The Dardani were the most stable and conservative ethnic element among the peoples of the central Balkans, retaining an enduring presence in the region for several centuries.

Ancient tradition considered the Dardani as an Illyrian people. Strabo, in particular – also mentioning Galabri and Thunatae as Dardanian tribes – describes the Dardani as one of the three strongest Illyrian peoples, the other two being the Ardiaei and Autariatae. As Dardanians had followed their own peculiar geographical, social and political development in Dardania, some ancient sources also distinguish them from those Illyrians dwelling in the central and southern coast of the eastern Adriatic Sea and its hinterland, who had constituted their own socio-political formation, referred to as 'Illyrian kingdom' by ancient authors. The Dardani were also related to their Thracian neighbors. In Roman times, there appear Thracian names in the eastern strip of Dardania, and several Thracian and Dacian placenames also appear there, such as Dardapara and Quemedava, but Illyrian names dominated the rest. Nevertheless, ancient authors have not identified Dardanians with Thracians, and Strabo explicitly makes a clear distinction between them. The Dardanians, who are said by Nicholas Damascenus, Strabo, Appian and others to be Illyrians, were regarded by Dio Cassius as being Moesians, and Stephanus says that their towns of Naissus [Nish] and Skupi [Skopje] were Thracian. Various scholars regard Dardania as a mixed territory of Daco-Thracian-Illyrian elements.

The Kingdom of Dardania (Latin: Regnum Dardaniae) was a polity in the central Balkans in the region of Dardania during classical antiquity. It is named after the Dardani, a Paleo-Balkan tribe that formed the core of the Dardanian polity. Dardania was centered around present-day Kosovo, but also included parts of North Macedonia (northwestern area) and Albania (Kukës, Tropoja, Has). The eastern parts of Dardania were at the Thraco-Illyrian contact zone. Marcus Licinius Crassus, grandson of the triumvir Marcus Crassus, officially annexed the kingdom in 28 BC while on campaign against the Dacians and Bastarnae. The region was subsequently incorporated into the province of Moesia in 15 BC, and later in 293 AD, as the province of Dardania.

Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. According to the 2022 census, the population of Belgrade city proper stands at 1,197,114, its contiguous urban area has 1,298,661 inhabitants, while population of city's administrative area (which roughly corresponds to its metro area) totals 1,681,405 people. It is one of the major cities of Southeast Europe and the third-most populous city on the river Danube.

Belgrade is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe and the world. One of the most important prehistoric cultures of Europe, the Vinča culture, evolved within the Belgrade area in the 6th millennium BC. In antiquity, Thraco-Dacians inhabited the region and, after 279 BC, Celts settled the city, naming it Singidūn. It was conquered by the Romans under the reign of Augustus and awarded Roman city rights in the mid-2nd century. It was settled by the Slavs in the 520s, and changed hands several times between the Byzantine Empire, the Frankish Empire, the Bulgarian Empire, and the Kingdom of Hungary before it became the seat of the Serbian king Stefan Dragutin in 1284. Belgrade served as capital of the Serbian Despotate during the reign of Stefan Lazarević, and then his successor Đurađ Branković returned it to the Hungarian king in 1427. Noon bells in support of the Hungarian army against the Ottoman Empire during the siege in 1456 have remained a widespread church tradition to this day. In 1521, Belgrade was conquered by the Ottomans and became the seat of the Sanjak of Smederevo. It frequently passed from Ottoman to Habsburg rule, which saw the destruction of most of the city during the Ottoman–Habsburg wars.

Dacia (/ˈdeɪʃə/, DAY-shə; Latin: [ˈd̪aː.ki.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.

Trajan's Dacian Wars (101–102, 105–106) were two military campaigns fought between the Roman Empire and the Dacians under King Decebalus during the reign of Emperor Trajan. The conflicts stemmed from repeated Dacian incursions into the province of Moesia and from Rome's growing need for resources. Discontent with the treaty Domitian had concluded with Decebalus in 89 CE persisted, and Trajan, keen to assert himself as a soldier-emperor, took the opportunity to reassert Roman authority.

Trajan's First Dacian War began in 101 CE, when the emperor led a major offensive across the Danube using a pontoon bridge constructed by his engineer Apollodorus of Damascus, who also cut a road through the river cliffs. The Romans won a series of victories, including at Tapae and Adamclisi. Before Trajan could capture the Dacian capital, Sarmizegetusa, Decebalus sought peace. The treaty forced him to surrender territory and engineers provided by Domitian, return equipment, accept Roman garrisons, and refrain from crossing the Danube.

Ovid, the Latin poet of the Roman Empire, was banished in 8 AD from Rome to Tomis (now Constanța, Romania) by decree of the emperor Augustus. The reasons for his banishment are uncertain. Ovid's exile is related by the poet himself, and also in brief references to the event by Pliny the Elder and Statius. At the time, Tomis was a remote town on the edge of the civilized world; it was loosely under the authority of the Kingdom of Thrace (a satellite state of Rome), and was superficially Hellenized. According to Ovid, none of its citizens spoke Latin, which as an educated Roman, he found trying. Ovid wrote that the cause of his exile was carmen et error ("a poem and an error"), probably the Ars Amatoria and a personal indiscretion or mistake.

Ovid was one of the most prolific poets of his time, and before being banished had already composed his most famous poems – Heroides, Amores, Ars Amatoria, Remedia Amoris, Medicamina Faciei Femineae, his lost tragedy Medea, the ambitious Metamorphoses and the Fasti. The latter two works were left, respectively, without a final revision and only half finished. In exile, the poet continued producing works that survive today: Ibis, Tristia, Epistulae ex Ponto, and possibly several other, minor poems. These works consist of letters to friends and enemies, and also depict the poet's treatment by the Scythians – particularly the Getae, a nomadic people related to the Dacians or Thracians.

This is a list of ancient tribes in Thrace and Dacia (Ancient Greek: Θρᾴκη, Δακία) including possibly or partly Thracian or Dacian tribes, and non-Thracian or non-Dacian tribes that inhabited the lands known as Thrace and Dacia. A great number of Ancient Greek tribes lived in these regions as well, albeit in the Greek colonies.

The Chernyakhov culture, Cherniakhiv culture or Sântana de Mureș—Chernyakhov culture was an archaeological culture that flourished between the 2nd and 5th centuries AD in a wide area of Eastern Europe, specifically in what is now Ukraine, Romania, Moldova and parts of Belarus. The culture is thought to be the result of a multiethnic cultural mix of the Gothic, Geto-Dacian, and Sarmatian populations in the area at that time. "In the past, the association of this Chernyakhov culture with the Goths was highly contentious, but important methodological advances have made it irresistible."

The Chernyakhov culture territorially replaced its predecessor, the Zarubintsy culture. Both cultures were discovered by the Czech-Russian archaeologist Vikentiy Khvoyka, who conducted numerous excavations around Kyiv and its vicinity. With the invasion of Huns, the culture declined and was replaced with the Penkovka culture (or the culture of the Antes).

The Carpi or Carpiani were a tribe that resided in the eastern parts of modern Romania in the historical region of Moldavia from no later than c. AD 140 and until at least AD 318.

The ethnic affiliation of the Carpi remains disputed, as there is no direct evidence in the surviving ancient literary sources. A strong body of modern scholarly opinion considers that the Carpi were a tribe of the Dacian nation. Other scholars have linked the Carpi to a variety of ethnic groups, including Sarmatians, Thracians, Slavs, Germanic peoples, Balts and Celts.

The barbarian invasions of the third century (212–305) constituted an uninterrupted period of raids within the borders of the Roman Empire, conducted for purposes of plunder and booty by armed peoples belonging to populations gravitating along the northern frontiers: Picts, Caledonians, and Saxons in Britain; the Germanic tribes of Frisii, Saxons, Franks, Alemanni, Burgundians, Marcomanni, Quadi, Lugii, Vandals, Juthungi, Gepids and Goths (Tervingi in the west and Greuthungi in the east), the Dacian tribes of the Carpi and the Sarmatian tribes of Iazyges, Roxolani and Alans, as well as Bastarnae, Scythians, Borani and Heruli along the Rhine-Danube rivers and the Black Sea.

Since the time of Marcus Aurelius during the Marcomannic Wars (166/167-189), Germanic-Sarmatian tribes had not exerted such strong pressure along the northern borders of the Roman Empire.