Dacian warfare
This led to the division of Burebista's empire into five separate kingdoms, severely weakening the Dacian's defensive capabilities against enemies, particularly Rome.
[4] The Dacian tribes were again consolidated under Decebalus, who achieved several military victories in a series of battles with the forces of Emperor Domitian.
Trajan's forces were successful in both cases, reducing Dacia to client state status in the first, and taking the territory over in the second.
A succession of migratory waves by Visigoths, Huns, Gepids, Avars, and Slavs overran Dacia, cutting it off from the Roman and the Byzantine empires by the end of the sixth century.
Instead, local chieftains, the pileati, meaning "cap-wearing people", raised a levy when required, a force only available after the harvesting season ended.
The men themselves fought in everyday clothing defended merely by an oval shield, for body armor and helmets were only worn by the nobility.
Julius Caesar made preparations for war with King Burebista to prevent an invasion of Macedonia, however both rulers died in the same year.
Dacia lost control over territories beyond the Danube and Tisza and collapsed into hostile factions, now being able to master only 40,000 men from the previous 200,000.
Dacia, however, remained a formidable foe: in the winter of 10 BC, a raid across the Danube was repulsed by Marcus Vinicius.
The following year a Dacian force annihilated the army of Cornelius Fuscus under the new leader Decebalus after the victory of Tettius Julianus at Tapae.
[7] Later Trajan had attacked Decebalus two times, first making peace before reaching the capital, then taking it and conquering around a third of Dacia.
[citation needed] This dreaded weapon, similar to a large sickle, came in two variants: a shorter, one-handed falx called a sica,[9] and a longer two-handed version, which was a polearm.
[15] A 2nd century chieftain would wear a bronze Phrygian type helmet, a corselet of iron scale armour, an oval wooden shield with motifs and wield a sword.
It served as a standard for the Dacians of the La Tène period and its origin must clearly be sought in the art of Asia Minor sometime during the second millennium BC.
[citation needed] Some Kings of the Getae had been Hellenized[24] The Dacians traded with the Hellenistic world based upon their mineral reserves and gained better technological and cultural strategies than their Germanic and Celtic neighbours.
1st century BC poet Horace writes of them in one of his works and mentions them along with the Scythians[27] as tyrants and fierce barbarians.
