NORTHERN THRACIAN PEOPLES

GETAE (800 BCE - 6 CE)

Getai (Greek), Getae (Latin), Geţi  (Romanian)

AGATHYRSIANS (700 - 277 BCE)

Agathyrsoi (Greek), Agathyrsi (Latin)

DACIANS (500 BCE - 300 CE)

Daoi (Thracian), Daci (Latin), Dakoi (Greek)

CARPIANS (140 - 318 CE)

Carpi or Carpiani (Latin), Karpavoi or Karpátes (Greek)

 

This gallery and these notes are devoted to the northern Thracian peoples, whom I've divided into four main groups—the Getae, Agathyrsians, Dacians, and Carpians. The Thracians are a broad ethno-linguistic group that arose across a large section of central Europe and western Anatolia beginning in about 1500 BCE from a combination of indigenous Neolithic peoples and Kimmerian migrants. Thus, the period of Thracian ethnogenesis (ca. 1500-1000 BCE) is sometimes linked to the development of Kimmerian culture in eastern Europe (i.e., sometimes they are referred to collectively as the Thraco-Kimmerian culture). However, after the second millenium BCE there was a growing divide between the Kimmerian and Thracian cultural horizons, with the Kimmerians increasingly influenced (and eventually conquered) by the nomadic Skythians, and the Thracians increasingly influenced by the central European Celts and the Mediterranean peoples (especially the Greeks and Macedonians). Between about 1000 and 500 BCE, the Thracians themselves began to develop four broad cultural sub-divisions between those groups living on the Bărăgan and Wallachian Plains (the Getae) and those living on the Transylvanian Plateau (the Agathyrsians), both of whom were influenced by the Skythian conquerers of eastern Europe (collectively, the Getae and Agathyrsians are sometimes referred to as the Skytho-Thracians); those Thracians that lived north of the Danube River and within the curve of the Carpathian Mountains, including the Orăștie and Apusini Mountains, were influenced by the central European Celts and became known as the Dacians; those Thracians that lived south of the Danube River in the Balkan Peninsula were influenced primarily by the Greeks and Macedonians and became known as the Thracians (eastern northern Balkans) and the Illyrians (western northern Balkans); and those in western Anatolia were influenced by the Greeks, Lydians, Kimmerians, and Persians (and became known as the Bithynians and Phrygians). The entire ethnic group is identified as Thracian because those groups that lived in the eastern northern Balkans were the first of these peoples encountered by the Greeks, whose literate culture and interest in written history essentially enshrined that ethnym. This gallery does not cover the Balkan and Anatolian Thracians, who should be covered in separate galleries. In the north, the Getae living on the Bărăgan Plain were ultimately overrun by the Sarmatians (an Aryan group that had also absorbed the Skythians), and those that were not assimilated fled to the Dacians or the Romans by the first century CE. Those Getae living on the Wallachian Plain, and probably the Agathyrsians living on the Transylvanian Plateau, were assimilated by the Dacians by the fifth century BCE. The Dacians long menaced Greece, Macedonia, and Rome, and for a time various Dacian kings sought to build a unified kingdom or empire that could rival the Hellenistic and Roman states, but the Dacians proved fractious and ultimately fell to Rome (ca. first and second centuries CE). The heartlands of Dacia would endure several centuries of invasions and migrations (Celts, Sarmatians, Romans, East Germanic peoples, Huns, Slavs, Avars), eventually developing a complex cultural aggregate (the Vlachs), important to the development of modern Romanian identity (the modern nation of Romania encompasses most of the ancient Dacian territories). During the period of conflict with Rome, a kind of breakaway culture developed within the Dacian sphere, known as the Carpians. They were essentially a mix of northern Thracian mountain peoples that inhabited the eastern Carpathian Mountains. After the conquest of the heartlands of the Dacian Kingdom by the Romans, the Carpians withdrew into their mountain fastnesses to avoid conquest by the Sarmatians, Romans, and East Germanic peoples, although by the early fourth century CE most had been conquered and resettled by the Romans south of the Danube as federates, while the remaining groups were absorbed by various East Germanic groups (Thervingian Goths, Scirians, Gepids). The Carpathian Mountains are named after them.

 

Militarily, there are really two main divisions here. The first is the Skytho-Thracian tribes of the Agathyrsians and the Getae, who were semi-nomadic pastoralists (mainly horses and cattle). They are sometimes referred to by classical Greek and Roman writers as the "plains tribes" of the Thracians. It is believed that mounted Skytho-Thracian raiders were the inspiration for ancient Greek myths of the Centaurs and the Lapyths (i.e., to men who had never seen cavalry in action before, and who were given to beliefs in the supernatural, it must have seemed like the men and their horses acted like one beast). Archeologically, these cultures are first identified in the second millenium BCE, but they do not enter the historical record until the first millenium BCE. It is through the influence of these peoples that other Thracian groups and Balkan peoples were likely introduced to cavalry warfare, and likewise other Aryan cultural influences (e.g., language, cultic practices, etc.) were transmitted to various central and western European cultures (e.g., the Celts, Germans, southern Thracians, Macedonians, and Greeks) via the Skytho-Thracian and Thracian peoples. Although the Agathyrsians and Getae could field high-quality infantry drawn from allies such as the Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast, the southern Thracian peoples, and the proto-Dacian hill tribes, the main strike arm of Skytho-Thracian armies was cavalry—a combination of heavily armored nobles and unarmored tribesmen. Both were primarily horse archers, supplemented with javelins for mid-range combat, although as with the Skythians the nobles were likely better-equipped to lead a charge into close combat when tactically feasible (they may also have had a warrior ethos that supported this willingness to close with spear, sword, and axe). At least some groups of the Skytho-Thracians buried their dead in Skythian-type barrows (generally known by the term used by the Russian archeologists who first made a serious study of such barrows; kurgans), which have revealed armor and equipment very reminiscent of the Skythians, although typical Thracian elements are also present. Nobles seem to have worn bronze or (later) iron scale (horn and hardened leather may also have been used, but being perishable, examples have not survived), including scaled caps, greaves, and bracers (sometimes the greaves and bracers were splinted). Skytho-Thracian cavalry is sometimes depicted carrying shields of similar designs to those used by the Skythians—wicker shields sometimes covered with cloth or leather or even splinted metal lamellae. Depictions of Skytho-Thracian horse archers look very Skythian, down to the combination bow-and-arrow case (gorytos), although they wore a Thracian cap (similar to the Skythian cap, but distinct). The peltast (Greek, peltastoi) was the mainstay of the Thracian infantry arm. They could operate either as a skirmisher or as main-battle infantry—they were usually only lightly armored (helmet and crescent-shaped wicker shield, called a pelte, from which the troop-type got its name), but they usually carried a combination of javelins for mid-range skirmishing, as well as a thrusting spear, sword, and dagger for close-combat. There were a variety of swords and daggers in use amongst the early northern Thracians (i.e., up to the end of the first millenium BCE). The mákhaira ("war-sword") was a heavy slashing sword with a forward-curving blade that had a cutting edge on the inside of the curve (similar to the Greek kopis and the Egyptian khopesh). Early northern Thracian peltasts also sometimes carried the rhomphaia ("thunderbolt"), a two-handed single-edged sword with a long straight blade with a single cutting edge that swept back to a point on the leading edge, although the blade of the rhomphaia was sometimes swept forward at the tip, like the mákhaira (the mákhaira was usually a single-handed weapon that was always forward-swept, while the rhomphaia was a two-handed weapon that could either be straight or forward-swept, but the designs were generally very similar). Finally, early northern Thracian peltasts usually carried a smaller dagger as a sidearm, very similar in design to the Skythian akīnaka (Greek, akinakes). This had a sharply tapered blade with an elongated triangular profile, used primarily for thrusting at very close quarters (like a stiletto). There were also unshielded light infantry javelinmen, called gymnetes in Greek sources, who carried a bundle of javelins and sometimes a sword or dagger sidearm. These were skirmishers, as were foot archers and slingers, while the peltasts seem to have operated in open country as main battle infantry and in rough terrain as skirmishers. As early as the seventh century BCE the Greeks established colonies on the Black Sea coast in Getic territory, and these were incorporated into the Kingdom of Pontus in the third century BCE when the kings of this Hellenistic kingdom expanded their hegemony to include most of Anatolia, parts of the northern and eastern littoral of the Black Sea (including the Crimea), and the Greek colonies along the western littoral of the Black Sea (e.g., Olbia, Tyras, Histria, Tomis, Callatis, Odessos, Messembria, Apollonia, and Dionysopolis). The Greek colonies along the western littoral of the Black Sea had oscillated between alliance and hostility with the Getae, although the Pontic Kingdom formed an alliance with the Getae. These colonies sometimes supplied mercenary and/or allied contingents to the Getae, primarily thureophoroi/thyreophoroi/thorakitai/thorakites (a Greek type of infantry similar to Thracian peltasts, also named for their shield-type, the thureos/thyreos, or from the fact that they wore a cuirass called a thorax) and psiloi (light infantry skirmishers armed with javelins, bows, or slings).

 

The early northern Thracian groups that the Greeks referred to as the "highland tribes," who developed into the Dacian and Carpian peoples, would have conformed broadly to the military system outlined above, with the exception that cavalry would have been far more rare. Prior to about 500 BCE, these groups would have had a range of ever-shifting relationships to the Thraco-Skythian peoples of the plains, ranging from domination by the plains tribes to alliances or rivalries to complete independence. Those tribes that lived in closer proximity to the Skytho-Thracian tribes may have been able to field a king or chieftain and a small retinue of cavalry, but most would have been infantry (peltasts, javelinmen, bowmen, and slingers). The emphasis on infantry in the northern highland Thracian military system was accentuated by the introduction of the use of heavier armor and shock infantry tactics by the Celts, who invaded the Balkans in the fourth and third centuries BCE, with significant Celtic settlement on the Transylvanian Plateau and in the Little Carpathians region (a western sub-system of the Carpathians that connects the Carpathians with the Alps, crossing modern Slovakia). The Agathyrsians were either driven out, destroyed, or fled into the Carpathians to be absorbed by the highland tribes (see the History in Depth section for a fuller discussion). Over time, however, the native Thracians assimilated many of the Celtic settlers, developing a proto-Dacian culture (ca. 277-82 BCE). The ethnogenesis of the Dacians is usually considered to have been complete by the time the Getic king Burebista (82-44 BCE) united the Getic tribes with the Dacian tribes and conquered the Celtic Boii and Taurisci in Slovakia (those Celts that had settled in Transylvania had apparently already been assimilated). Although Burebista was ultimately assassinated by his own chieftains as a result of their desire to keep each tribal polity independent, and this fractiousness continued to stymie the efforts of later kings that attempted to create a centralized state, it is from the reign of Burebista that Dacia became a widely recognized geopolitical and cultural entity distinct from the Celtic and Germanic civilizations in the rest of central Europe, the proto-Slavic and Skytho-Sarmatian civilizations of eastern Europe, and the Greco-Roman civilization in the Mediterranean (which had absorbed the southern Thracian peoples by the dawn of the first millennium CE). Militarily, the Dacians represent an evolution that grew out of the Skytho-Thracian and northern highland Thracian systems outlined above, with additional Celtic influences. The Dacians had native cavalry traditions, especially while the Getae remained independent, but as the Sarmatians moved into eastern Romania, the Wallachian Plain, and the Pannonian Plain (ca. 50 BCE-92 CE), only very powerful Dacian kings went into battle with a mounted retinue (and then only when operating on the plains) and a small number of cavalry skirmishers (javelineers, not horse archers), while the bulk of Dacian cavalry (when there were any) would have consisted of Sarmatian mercenaries or allies (see my Western Aryan Nomads gallery and notes). Scale armor was the norm, although the Celts introduced the production of mail, and a mail corslet sometimes supplemented or replaced a scale hauberk. There was also a type of banded leather armor (similar to the Roman lorica segmentata), probably adopted from the Sarmatians. The Dacians developed a unique style of helmet that had a swept-forward conical crest, sometimes with a metal fin along the ridgeline, that imitated the shape of the traditional Thracian cap (it often had stout plate cheek guards and a scale or mail aventail/camail to protect the neck as well). Armor and helmets would have been limited to nobles and their retinues, although the Dacians more-fully exploited the metallurgical resources of the Carpathian Mountains than their forebears, due to the importation of Greek and Roman technologies and techniques. The Romans considered the Dacians a greater threat than many of the other "northern barbarians" because their warriors were more liberally supplied with high-quality metal armor (mail and scale) and a formidable array of weapons (see below). The ancient crescent-shaped wicker pelte was replaced by a round buckler carried by Dacian skirmishers, although the majority of Dacian warriors carried an oval body shield (i.e., large enough to cover most of the body, usually from shoulder to knee). Both had a stout iron or bronze boss, and like the Romans (but unlike the neighboring Germanic peoples) these shields were bound around the edge in metal. Shields were decorated in intricate designs reminiscent of ancient Thracian styles. Weapons included spears and javelins, Celtic-style longswords (long straight-bladed swords with dual parallel cutting edges and a tapered tip for thrusting), the sica (a heavy slashing sword that evolved from the mákhaira outlined above), and the falx (representing the further evolution of the rhomphaia, with a pronounced forward-arcing curve to the blade, which could be up to six feet in length, with a three-foot blade on a three-foot haft). Finally, Celtic style daggers were almost universally carried by warriors as a sidearm (unlike the stilletto-like akinakes, these Celtic style daggers were heftier and could be used for thrusting or slashing). Tactically, most Dacian armies would have fielded a combination of elite warbands (nobles and their retinues) and common warbands (tribal levies). These were both shock infantry formations (i.e., relying on a swift impetuous charge to overwhelm and hopefully sweep away enemy units), probably deployed in a similar fashion to Celtic and Germanic warbands of the time—leaders at the center of their men, elite warriors in front and radiating out to the sides of the leader, with commoners forming rear ranks and/or forming up on the flanks. The Dacians put a much heavier emphasis an foot archers than contemporary Celts or Germans (or their Thracian antecedents, for that matter), although most seem to have been deployed as skirmishers. It is my personal theory that the reason for this is the absorption of some elements of the Skytho-Thracian culture (i.e., the Getae and Agathyrsians)—these groups had long lived in close contact with the highland peoples, something that culminated in large-scale assimilation by the time of the Daco-Getic empire of Burebista, and thereafter as the Skytho-Thracians were displaced on the plains by the Celts and Sarmatians, we may surmise that many would have found refuge among the highland peoples, and assimilation is often a two-way street (i.e., the cavalry traditions of the former plains peoples faded, but their archery practices were retained).

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It's a bit of a stretch to say the Carpians are a distinct group. There were tribes identified as Carpi by Greek and Roman writers prior to the Roman conquest of Dacia, but I think they should be seen as a regional subgroup of the Dacian civilization rather than as a distinct group. However, between 106 and 140 CE they appear to have absorbed large numbers of refugees from the Roman conquest of central Dacia, and after about 140 CE Roman writers cease to speak of "Free Dacians" (i.e., those that fled the Roman conquest) and "Carpi" separately, henceforth referring only to the Carpians. We may only assume that by that point (ca. 140 CE) the refugees from other parts of Dacia no longer retained any distinct tribal identities, and therefore the Carpians remained the last of the free Dacian peoples. However, Roman pressure on the Carpians continued virtually unabated throughout the second and third centuries CE, and from about 200 CE east Germanic groups migrated into the Balkans from Poland and began to settle along the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, leaving the Carpians between the proverbial rock and a hard place. The archeological record for the Carpians is unedifying, few definitive Carpian sites having been identified, and it is likely that their distinct culture gradually dwindled until they disappear altogether in the early fourth century CE. The major mining and metal-producing centers of the Dacian Kingdom were seized by the Romans, and although the Carpians still represented a threat to the Daco-Roman population, they have a record that boasts few victories and several major disasters that led to the forced deportation of huge numbers of Carpians (they were settled as federates within the Roman Empire, where they were quickly assimilated). It is doubtful they fielded any cavalry, and it seems likely that distinctive equipment would gradually have disappeared as they increasingly would have come under the influence of the Daco-Romans, Sarmatians, and East Germanic peoples. Indeed, like the Bastarnae during this period (see my East Germanic Peoples gallery), it would seem that the difficulty in identifying any specific Carpian archeological sites may stem from the fact that their material culture ceased to be distinct from that of their neighbors, and they adopted a lifestyle virtually identical to that of their neighbors (i.e., both peoples were Germanicized by the Goths and Scirians, who became the dominant powers north of the Danube by the second century CE). What this means militarily would be that, probably by the end of the second century CE, Carpian fighters would have ceased to look and act like Dacians and would likely have looked and acted a lot more like the Goths or Scirians—indeed, following the Hunnic conquest of the Thervingian Goth kingdom, the Thervingians withdrew into the Carpathians and remained independent of the Huns for a time. Later Roman descriptions of battles with the Carpians often portray them in the same way that the Germanic fighters are described (appearance and tactics), and some later Roman writers even mistake them to be a Germanic people.

 

The figures in this gallery best represent the armies of the Dacian Kingdom in the first and beginning of the second centuries CE, particularly the reigns of Scorilo (29-69 CE), Duras (69-87 CE), and Decebalus (87-106 CE). This is the army famously portrayed on Trajan's Column in Rome. At the time I put this army together, no one really produced a satisfactory full line of Dacians in 15mm (in my opinion), so these figures are a mix of what I thought were the best from the Dacian lines produced by Old Glory 15s, Donnington Miniatures, Lancashire Games, Xyston, and Lurkio Miniatures. Shield designs are from Little Big Men Studios, and the draco standards, adopted by the Dacians from the Sarmatians, are from Khurasan. The Thracians and Dacians are close to my heart both in terms of my interest in the history and my fascination with the military system. As a modeler, I also find these peoples visually interesting to work with (they used some wild geometric designs that were challenging to do in scale with 15mm figures, and there are a lot of bare-chested warriors covered in tattoos that were also a challenge to get right).