Las guerras dácicas de Trajanoantecedentes, desarrollo, geopolítica, estrategia y consecuencias

Abstract

The aim of this study is to reconstruct and analyse the event of Trajan's Dacian Wars from five different points of view: the antecedents to the war in search of the warfare roots and events that determined its course and conclusion; the geopolitics of the region and its transformation during the war with the objective of finding out all the parties involved and their motivations; the strategy, the means that every party had to reach their particular objectives, the ways in which they implemented said means and how the site was exploited, as well as the circumstances of the warfare; the development of the warfare, how the events unfolded and to what extent they were determined by the antecedents, geopolitics and the strategies of the war; the direct consequences of the war on religion, changes in geopolitics and strategies applied by the surviving parties to adapt to the new situation. In order to reach this aim, available literary resources related to the Trajan's Dacian Wars have been carefully compiled and critically organised. This organisation allowed to reconstruct the distribution, gathering and movements of the Roman army units in the Danube limes between 85 A.D. and 119 A.D. Numismatic sources of the reigns of Domitian, Nerva, Trajano and Hadrian, reigns whose propaganda messages are relevant or linked to the Dacian Wars and warfares arisen from them, have also been fully compiled. Another methodological cornerstone in this study is the study of the geography and topography of the warfare site, specified on 1:1,000,000 scale topographic maps attached to this thesis. An essential complement to this geographic perspective is the archaeological compilation of settlements, cities, fortifications and military infrastructures that have been documented on the warfare site between 85 A.D. and 119 A.D. This multiple organisation of literary, numismatic and archaeological sources together with the study of movements and the arrangement of the Roman army in the Danube limes and the geographic study of the warfare site have been essential tools facilitating an in-depth examination of iconographic and monumental sources (mainly the Trajan's Column and the metopes of Tropaeum Traiani), as well as their interpretations made up to this date. In this way, among various other contributions, it has been proved that the Dacian State, following an elaborated political and military agenda from the Burebista's reign, managed to drag powerful parties such as the Central European Germanic tribes of Quadi and Marcomanni, the Bastarnae, the Roxolani Sarmantians or Greek cities such as Tyras and Olbia to the war to fight against the Roman Empire. This expansion of the Dacian power destabilised the safety net and alliances of Rome in that region, forcing them to compensate for these circumstances by mobilising their own allies in this region: the Iazyges, the Aorsi and the Bosporan Kingdom. Bearing in mind that the Danube and the Black Sea were key elements in the warfare site and that maritime powers were involved in the war, it has also been demonstrated that the existence of the operational naval army among the parties of the Dacian entente (who were able to oppose to the Roman classes) was necessary, by exposing the expansion of the war to the maritime environment. In this regard, it has been confirmed that naval battles did indeed take place, which were fought to gain control of the main vital routes that crossed the Danube, its tributaries and the Black Sea during the Trajan and Domitian's Dacian Wars. Finally, the direct consequences of the Trajan's Dacian Wars that prevented Rome from permanently stabilising this region up to 119 A.D. have been highlighted.