A few years later the Quadi and Marcomanni made inroads into Western Dacia, but they were held in check by the proconsul Varus, who built a tower or fort in close proximity to Trajan's bridge, of which the ruins are still visible to travellers on the Danube, and which has given its name to the modern town of Turnu-Severin. But the Goths, a people of Scandinavian origin, had been for some time previously drawing nearer to the borders of the Roman Empire. Between the beginning of our era and the end of the second century they had spread themselves, associated with the Vandals, in the direction of the Carpathians and the Ukraine, and in the reign of the Emperor Philip (243-249) they made irruptions into Mœsia. In that of Decius they invaded the Roman territory a second time under a chief, Cniva, and, after defeating the Romans and compelling the emperor to flee, they took and sacked Philippopolis. Shortly afterwards Decius met them again, but he was again defeated and slain. The barbarians then retired with their plunder.
The next event of importance was the defeat of the Goths (about 268 or 269[104]) by Marcus Aurelius Claudius. They had once more entered Roman territory, had overrun Mœsia and Illyria, and were approaching the capital; it was therefore found necessary to raise a powerful army and drive them over the frontier. This time they were defeated with great slaughter at Naissos in the Balkans and elsewhere, and were then driven across the Danube. Marcus Aurelius, who took the name of 'Gothicus,' describes the fate of the enemy in these terms: 'We have annihilated 320,000 Goths, and have sunk two thousand of their ships. Everywhere rivers are covered with their shields, all the banks with their swords and spears, whilst the fields are sown with their bones. The roads are indistinguishable; much baggage is taken. We have captured so many women that every soldier is able to possess two or three of them.'[105] And yet, notwithstanding this decisive victory of Marcus Aurelius, his successor Aurelian found himself very shortly afterwards in deadly conflict with these same Goths, and his contests were so doubtful in their results that he was glad to make a treaty of peace with them and leave them in undisturbed possession of Trajan's Dacia. That he decided to withdraw the Roman legions (about 270 or 275 a.d.) from Dacian territory, that he offered protection to all colonists who were prepared to follow them across the Danube, and that a new colony, called Dacia Aureliani, was founded along the south bank of the Danube: these are uncontradicted facts. But when we come to enquire into the details of the withdrawal and the composition of the remaining population, we find such a conflict of authorities that it is impossible to come to a definite conclusion. Nay, not only do the historians differ from one another in regard to the conditions under which Aurelian evacuated Dacia Trajana, or Dacia north of the Danube, but in some cases they even contradict themselves, and, after a careful perusal and comparison of the statements of many of them, we are quite disposed to accept the opinion expressed by our own historian Gibbon, who, after saying that Aurelian withdrew the Roman legions from Dacia and offered the alternative of leaving to those colonists who were disposed to follow him, adds:—
'The old country of that name (Dacia) detained, however, a considerable number of its inhabitants who dreaded exile more than a Gothic master. These degenerate Romana continued to serve the Empire whose allegiance they had renounced by introducing amongst their conquerors the first notions of agriculture, the useful arts, and the convenience of civilisation. An intercourse of commerce and language was gradually established between the opposite banks of the Danube, and after Dacia became an independent State it often proved the firmest barrier of the Empire against the invasions of the savages of the north. A sense of interest attached these more settled barbarians to the alliance of Rome, and a permanent interest very frequently ripens into sincere and useful friendship.'[106]
And Gibbon, who had read and studied the works of Eutropius and his successor Vopiscus, as well as other more recent historians, gives us further details of the negotiations that took place between Aurelian and the Goths, which remove any doubts as to the accuracy of his views. Aurelian treated with the barbarians after a battle had been fought which was by no means adverse to the Roman arms, and he stipulated with the Goths that they should contribute an auxiliary force of 2,000 men to the Roman army. He moreover secured a large number of hostages, being the sons and daughters of Gothic chiefs, whom he sent to Rome to be educated. He adds, concerning the constitution of the province north of the Danube: 'This various colony which filled the ancient province, and was insensibly blended into one great nation, still acknowledged the superior renown and authority of the Gothic tribe, and claimed the fancied honour of Scandinavian origin.'[107]
But this is not all. The great historian, whose views can only be rejected on what we may call a political or partisan theory, believed the Roman colonists to have been industrious agriculturists; for when he speaks, in another place, of the temptations which led the wandering Goths in the first instance to cast longing eyes upon Dacia, he says: 'But the prospects of the Roman territory were far more alluring, and the fields of Dacia were covered with a rich harvest, sown by the hands of an industrious, and exposed to be gathered by a warlike people.'[108]
In bringing the history of the Roman occupation of Dacia to a close, we have therefore to acknowledge that, far from being inhabited by the scum of the earth as Carra supposed, the country was at first in the hands of an industrious, though probably a sparse peasantry, and, as Gibbon has said, 'only those who had nothing to lose accompanied the Roman army,' leaving the remainder, a large body of industrious Daco-Roman agriculturists, ruled over by a tribe of warlike barbarians. What these and their posterity suffered, will be seen from the narrative in our next chapter.
