Moesia

In 74 BC, C. Scribonius Curio, proconsul of Macedonia, took an army as far as the Danube and chased the Geto-Dacians to the border of their remote country.

Once Augustus had established himself as sole ruler of the Roman state in 30 BC after the battle of Actium, he took up Caesar's project and aimed to advance the empire's south-eastern European border from Macedonia to the line of the Danube.

The main objective was to increase strategic depth between the border and Italy and also to provide a major river supply route between the Roman armies in the region.

[8] Augustus also wanted to avenge the defeat of Gaius Antonius Hybrida at Histria 32 years before and to recover the lost military standards held in the powerful fortress of Genucla.

[10] After a successful campaign against the Moesi, he drove the Bastarnae back toward the Danube and finally defeated them in pitched battle, killing their King Deldo in single combat.

[11] Augustus formally proclaimed this victory in 27 BC in Rome but blocked Cassius' entitlement to the Spolia opima and use of the term imperator apparently in favour of his own prestige.

[12] As a result of the Dacians constant looting that occurred whenever the Danube froze, Augustus decided to send against them some of his proven generals such as Sextus Aelius Catus and Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Augur (sometime between 1-11 AD[13]).

The region, however, was not organised as a province until the last years of Augustus' reign; in 6 AD, mention is made of its governor, Caecina Severus.

The war ended without a decisive outcome and Decebalus, the Dacian King, later brazenly flouted the terms of the peace (89 AD) which had been agreed on.

Following an incursion into Moesia, which resulted in the death of its governor, Gaius Oppius Sabinus, a series of conflicts between the Romans and Dacians ensued.

As a frontier province, Moesia was strengthened by stations and forts erected along the southern bank of the Danube, and a wall was built from Axiopolis to Tomis as a protection against the Scythians and Sarmatians.