To Tiberius Iulius Draco,
"the lands south of danube were of kinsmen, wouldnt you fight for cousins and brother?"
Perhaps but they did more looting than saving.
"so (as king) breaking a peace treaty which enslaves your people and your country is a bad thing?"
No, but it is a break in international diplomatic convention, and grounds for war.
"That peace treaty was made first off because romans won the war (saying cheated by kidnapping Decebal's sister, would be inappropriate as it was war thus understandable), and second off so that Decebal could re-organize his army."
Yes, that is correct of course, but the strong did what they could and the week suffer what they must.
"Nonetheless the destruction of the capital was a sign that the romans feared dacians more then any previous enemies... (and they had reason too, because even after the war the Free Dacians and Carps continued to wage minor war, only to reconquer the land of their forefathers a few centuries later with the help of Goths)."
Yes they feared them enough to consider them a threat to the eastern provinces, hence the stated reason for the war... strength and wealth are interrelated. The Dacians could only field armies because of all that gold. So its not just that the Romans wanted the wealth, but they were concerned about what the Dacians could do with it.
You have to admit that the Romans had more to gain than lose by conquering Dacia, and for their part the Dacians were making peace difficult.
To be fair my family is from Calabria, ancient Bruttia and the Bruttians were heavily massacred by Rome. But the region was better off afterwards, I probably wouldn't exist if not for that.
one word: spirituality. Didnt want to say religion... Thing is that greek/roman religious morality drives man to a scholarly/scientific point, while the religious morality of "barbarians" drives man to evolution of self(be it through warfare -those under
Well I kind of prefer science over spirituality, and reason over faith... so I am more Greco-Roman on this topic.
"Wotan/Gebeleizis-, be it through hermitage and ascetism -those under Mithra, Zamolxis, etc). Either way, barbarian religion never stressed that there should be great economy or anything... they couldnt care less whether they had 10 gold crates and 100, they wanted to go down in history, to live on through descendants, to be strong and powerful in order to deserve entry in Walholl (germanic) or above the skies (dacian/celtic)."
But being the strongest and bravest can only get you so far, there is more to life than fighting and story telling.
"They didnt lack civil institutions, they had fewer obviously as they didnt need bureaucracy, however they had water mills (and from what i know many barbarian peoples had), sewers surely started in the eastern sea-side greek colonies but probably developed in other places as well."
Its not that they couldn't benefit from bureaucracy but that they didn't have it from my point of view.
"But it's true, the quantity (and for sewers quality as well) was not of the magnitude of the greeks and romans..."
Isn't that a bad thing?
"However, the quality of the schools was laudable considering that the dacians knew of herodot, could recite homer, and so on. Plus, some (as i've said) studied in Athens,"
But over all what was the number of literate dacians before Rome compared to after?
"Corinth, Rome, etc... And i wish to add that Decebal was one of the greatest generals of his time having outsmarted and intimidated romans time and again(one example would be when dacians put shields on trees to make romans think that there's lots more dacians, romans fell for it)."
I'm not denying that barbarian generals could be brilliant tacticians after all Caesars greatest rival was Vercingetorix.
"The reason Trajan won was that he had more numbers... sole reason... As Mark Anthony said(i think): "Even a lion can be killed by a hundred of hungry dogs."
Well the legions bit a lot harder than dogs in my opinion.
"all i could offer you or others is in Romanian... some information can be found here'
I wouldn't be able to read it, sadly English is the only language I am fluent in.
But I will add Dacia to my list of places to delve into more deeply.