Dacia was thus converted into a Roman province, and Trajan shortly after sent colonies to increase its population. New cities were built, and pavements were constructed on the high roads, for the greater facility of communication.[[1]] It was governed by a Roman pro-prætor until the year 274.
Under the reign of Gallienus, when the empire was already declining, various parts of Dacia were seized by the Goths, and other barbarous nations.
A few Roman legions yet remained in the country, under the reign of the Emperor Aurelian, who, returning from Gaul, came down to Illyria, and finding a great part of Dacia in the hands of the barbarians, foresaw the impossibility of maintaining any possessions in the midst of them, and he withdrew a good number of the Roman inhabitants to the other side of the Danube, and settled them in Mæsia.
During the space of a hundred years from that period, those of the natives who had remained behind, and their descendants, were incessantly exposed to the rapacities of a variety of barbarous tribes, who came into the country for plunder.
Towards the year 361, the Goths, more powerful than the rest, seemed to have been left in exclusive possession of the province, and were inclined to make a permanent stay in it. They embraced the Christian religion, and established it in Dacia; since when, to the present moment, it has never ceased to be predominant amongst its inhabitants.
In 376, the Hunns, having over-run the countries possessed by the Goths, forced Athanaric, King of the Vizigoths, to retire with all his forces to that part of Dacia, situated between the rivers Dniester and Danube, now called Moldavia. He raised a wall between the latter river and the Pruth, by which he thought himself sufficiently protected against the attacks of his enemies. The Hunns, however, were not stopped by it; and their approach spread such consternation among the Goths of the interior, that those who had the means of escaping, to the number of some hundred thousand, fled for refuge into the Roman territory, and were permitted by the Emperor Valens, to settle in Thrace, upon condition that they should live peaceably there, and serve, when required, in the Roman armies.
The Hunns having penetrated into Dacia, were left masters of it until the year 453, when Ardaric, King of the Gepidæ, a people previously conquered by Attila and the Hunns, revolted against them, in consequence of Attila’s death. His son and successor, Ellach, marched against them, but being defeated and slain, the Hunns were driven back into Scythia, and the Gepidæ remained masters of all Dacia. They entered into a sort of alliance with the Romans, who agreed to pay them a pension. In 550, their first quarrels with their neighbours, the Lombards, took place; and being sometimes assisted by the Emperor Justinian, they carried on frequent hostilities against them, for the space of eight years, at the end of which both nations resolved to decide the fate of the war by one great battle. The Lombards, under their King Alboin, had previously formed an alliance with the Avars, a people of Scythian extraction; and, assisted by them, they marched to action. Both sides fought with equal valor; but at last victory declared in favour of the Lombards, who, pursuing the Gepidæ, made a great slaughter among them. The Gepidæ, either destroyed, dispersed, or subdued, never after had a king of their own, and ceased to be a nation.
Alboin’s achievements in Dacia attracted the notice of Narses, sent by Justinian to conquer Italy: he made offers to him, and finally engaged him to join the expedition with all his forces. The Lombards thus abandoned their possessions in Dacia and Pannonia to their friends and neighbours the Avars. These, also known by the name of White-Hunns, remained in them until their own destruction by the Franks and Bulgarians. In the 7th century, being joined by other barbarous tribes, they pushed their incursions as far as the gates of Constantinople, where they were so completely defeated by the Emperor Heraclius, that they could not recover the blow: it was the original cause of their rapid decline.
Towards the close of the same century, a nation, known under the names of Slaves and Bulgarians, came from the interior of Russia to that part of Mæsia, which has since been called Bulgaria. Soon after a great number of Slaves, headed by their chief Krumo, crossed the Danube, and settled in Dacia, where they have since been known under the name of Wallachs. Opinion varies with respect to the origin of this name. Some historians pretend that the Slaves distinguished by it the Romans of Mæsia; whilst others maintain that they meant by it a people who led a pastoral life, and had given it to the inhabitants of Mæsia, most of whom were shepherds; and that a great number of these, having joined the Slaves in Dacia, the name by degrees became a general one amongst its inhabitants. The modern Wallachians, however, exclude it altogether from their language, and call themselves “Rumunn” or Romans, giving to their country the name of Roman-land, “Tsara-Rumaneska.”
Some former inhabitants of Dacia, joined by a number of Slaves and Bulgarians, separated from the new settlers, and went to the lower part of Dacia lying between the rivers Olt and Danube, where they fixed their habitations. They formed themselves into a nation, and chose for their chief one Bessarabba, to whom they gave the Slavonic title of Bann or regent. The country within his jurisdiction was called Bannat; and it retains to this day the name of Bannat of Crayova, the latter being that of its present capital. Several other petty independent states arose at the same time in various parts of Dacia; but they were frequently annexed to the same sceptre, at other periods dismembered, according to the warlike ardour or indolence and incapacity of their various chiefs. Their general system, however, consisted in making war against the Romans of the lower empire, in which they were seconded by the Slaves and Bulgarians of Mæsia, whom they looked upon as their natural allies. This state of things continued to the close of the 9th century, at which period the Slaves having fallen into decline, various hordes, originally Scythians, successively undertook the conquest of Dacia, driving each other out of it, according to the momentary superiority of the one over the other. The most remarkable of these were the Hazars, the Patzinaces, the Moangoures, the Ouzes, the Koumans, and other Tartars.