ARCHEO TOUR - TRAJANS COLUMN

The God of the Danube greets the Roman army as it crosses on a pontoon bridge of boats. Thus begins the First Dacian War (101-102AD) led by Trajan against the Dacian King Decebalus.

Looking closely we can see that there are two pontoons of boats, showing that the Romans entered Dacian territory with two distinct forces. The army that followed Trajan over the Danube was 70,000 strong, made up of roman legionaries and foreign auxiliary troops, while another 70,000 remained to defend the Danube boarder. Decebalus' force numbered 200,000 men, with an additional 20,000 mercenary cavalry.

Trajan presides over the “Lustratio”, the ritual sacrifice to purify the army before beginning a campaign or a great battle. The “Victimator” is shown bare-chested, ready to perform the sacrifice.

Trajan burns incense, while a pig, a sheep and a bull are led to the sacrifice, called “suovetaurilia”. To the right we see the trumpeters and also the bucinatores, with their distinctive curved instruments.

Shortly after the ceremony we see a slave with a knife in his hand, fallen from a mule. This episode probably relates to the first attempt to assassinate Trajan, as ordered by Decebalus.

Under the watch of Trajan the legionaries build a fortified camp.

While the work is underway an enemy spy is dragged before Trajan.

The legionaries rest along the way to the Pass of the Iron Gates, where Decebalus waited with his army. The pass in the Carpathian Mountains was a trap by Decebalus in order to encircle Trajan's army.

The Romans continue their advance, while Decebalus waits, certain of the invincibility of the Iron Gates.

The Romans, pushing back the enemy cavalry, march up to the pass, seeking hand-to-hand fighting, in which they were invincible.

A violent battle ensues, and Roman legionaries show Trajan the severed heads of Dacian soldiers.

Germanic auxiliaries, fighting bare-chested, are at the sides of the Roman legionaries.

The battle grows more ferocious. A roman soldier fights while holding the hair of a severed Dacian head with his teeth.

Jupiter himself fights on the side of the Romans, hurling lightning bolts.

The Dacians are defeated.

The Dacians cannot halt the Roman advance.

The fallen dead litter the battlefield.

Decebalus, powerless, witnesses the utter defeat of the Dacians.

The Romans have conquered the Iron Gates.

Decebalus, bringing in new mercenaries, attempts a counter-offensive.

But, pushed back by the Romans, the Dacians are washed away by the waters of the river.

Undaunted, Decebalus attacks a Roman fort, launching his armored cavalry, the “catafratti”, backed by infantry, but the Romans resist and push back the assault.

Thus ends the first Dacian War, by which Trajan took and held the strategic Pass of the Iron Gates.

To be continued...

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