The Actions and Reactions of Trajan and Decebalus: A Brief Reconsidering of the Causation of the Dacian Wars

Authors

Wesley C. Cline, Gettysburg CollegeFollow

Class Year

2023

Document Type

Student Research Paper

Date of Creation

Fall 2019

Department 1

Classics

Department 2

History

Abstract

While one camp of historians have followed the words of Cassias Dio, that Trajan began the war to avenge the defeats of his predecessor Domitian and put down the ever growing power of the Dacians and subsequently was forced to fight a second war which was inevitably for conquest, the other camp argues that Trajan aimed for military glory and sought to conquer Dacia from the onset of hostilities. Neither camp has yet to conclusively utilize Decebalus’ and Trajan’s actions as a way to definitively prove their argument. By analyzing these two military leaders’ orders and strategies, it becomes clear that Trajan always intended for a large war of conquest and fabricated or at least distorted the truth to place the blame on the Dacians.

Comments

Written for CLA/HIS 251: Roman History.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Cline, Wesley C., "The Actions and Reactions of Trajan and Decebalus: A Brief Reconsidering of the Causation of the Dacian Wars" (2019). Student Publications. 765.
https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/student_scholarship/765