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Dacia
 

Alternate meanings: see Dacia (disambiguation)

Dacia, in ancient geography the land of the Daci, named by the ancient Greeks Getae, was a large district of Southeastern Europe, bounded on the north by the Carpathians, on the south by the Danube, on the west by the Tisa, on the east by the Tyras or Nistru, now in eastern Moldova. It thus corresponds in the main to modern Romania and Moldova, as well as parts of Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Serbia. The capital of Dacia was Sarmizegetusa. The inhabitants of this district are considered as belonging to the Thracian stock. Ancient writers are unanimous in considering the Getae the same as the Daci and often used the name of Daci for those in North-West, while Getae for those in the lower Danube. (Strabo, VI)

Name

The Dacians were known as Geton (plural Getae) in Greek writings, and as Dacus (plural Daci) and Getae in Roman documents; also as Dagae and Gaete— see the late Roman map Tabula Peutingeriana. Strabo tells that the original name of the Dacians was "daoi", which could be explained with a possible Phrygian cognate "daos", meaning "wolf". This assumption is enforced by the fact that the Dacian standard, the Dacian Draco had a wolf head.

Geography

Towards the west Dacia may originally have extended as far as the Danube where it runs from north to south at Waitzen (Vacz). Julius Caesar in his De Bello Gallico (book 6) speaks of the Hercynian forest extending along the Danube to the teritory of the Dacians. Ptolemy puts the eastern boundary of Dacia Trajana as far back as the Hierasus (Siret river, in modern Romania).

The extent and location of the later geographical entity Dacia varied in its four distinct historical periods (see History, below);