406 / 530
405
province was abandoned, getting all military effects on the Danube line. The
reconstitution of this period that marks the passage to the actual withdrawal of the
Roman administration and army is almost impossible to establish in all its scale.
Literary sources have been discussed many times bringing into attention all
the possible elements linked to the event. Epigraphic sources are scarce and little
well known in scientific circles, being enreached by two epigraphs found at
Potaissa. Roman Empire faced violent attacks coming from barbarians found East
of Pont. These conflicts, taking part on annual basis, do not cross over Dacia, reaching
only its adjacent areas.
When Aurelianus came to throne after a short period of time, in 270, clues of
military stabilisation of the empire started to emerge. The cavalry army whose
leader he had been prooved to be the most important body of army up to his
proclamation, the elite, of the military actions that followed. Formed – in my
opinion – from the majority of the troops that belonged to Roman Dacia, this army
was the key of success in the military conflicts of that time. The army residing in
Dacia could solve a major military situation of the empire. Before the oriental
campaign, though, Aurelian was forced to lead two or three expeditions against
barbarians found within the military confinium of north Danube Dacia. A correct
order would be: Taifals, free Dacians from West (?) and Carps.
Another attack, of the Goths occurs in 272, in the eastern Lower Danube
area, where they will be seized by Aurelian campaign army found on the route to
Palmyra. After the victory from June 24, 272, Aurelianus receives the imperial title
of
Gothicus Maximus
. According to
SHA, Vita Divi Aureliani, 22,2
the emperor
himself killed the Goth leader called
Canabas
or
Cannabaudes
together with
5000 men. This Roman victory silenced for a while the Goths.
The main factor that polarised Roman politics in the last decades of the
3
rd
century was the internal stability and tranquility at the state borders, in a
moment when the attacks – of Goths allied with the Carps – happened on periodic
bases and small time intervals.
Late Roman literary sources:
Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Rufius Festus, Historia
Augusta, Orosius, Iordanes
make up the ancient sources that reffer to Roman
withdrawal from Dacia. These texts mention almost identically the way in which
Dacia was abandoned by the Romans, by moving the army and the provincials
south to the Danube inbetween the two Moesia provinces. In 275, when the Roman
army returned from Orient and after the visit to Illyricum, Aurelian decided to abandon
the province, and create a new Dacia province, inbetween Moesia Superior and
Moesia Inferior.
Roman fortifications abandoned
do not present signs of arsening, as it would
have been normal under those circumstances. In civil environment, both on the
territory of ancient cities, and on rural grounds of Dacia province, no shows of
violence were found. The use of buildings, though restricted, was observed in
Porolissum, Tibiscum, Ulpia Trajana etc. as proof that the Dacian Roman population
perhaps restrained in number, inhabited those settlements. Some urban workshops
like those of pottery, glass making continued to function at Tibiscum. The same for