Burebista
Encyclopedia
Getae
The Getae was the name given by the Greeks to several Thracian tribes that occupied the regions south of the Lower Danube, in what is today northern Bulgaria, and north of the Lower Danube, in Romania...
and Dacians
Dacians
The Dacians were an Indo-European people, very close or part of the Thracians. Dacians were the ancient inhabitants of Dacia...
, who unified for the first time their tribes and ruled them between 82 BC and 44 BC. He led plunder and conquest raids across Central and Southeastern Europe, subjugating most of the neighbouring tribes. After his assassination in an inside plot, the empire was divided into several smaller states.
Early references
There are only three ancient sources on Burebista: StraboStrabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
: Geographica 7.3.5, 7.3.11 and 16.2.39 (who spells his name Byrebistas and Boirebistas); Jordanes
Jordanes
Jordanes, also written Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th century Roman bureaucrat, who turned his hand to history later in life....
: Getica 67 (spells his name Buruista); and a marble inscription found in Balchik
Balchik
Balchik is a Black Sea coastal town and seaside resort in the Southern Dobruja area of northeastern Bulgaria. It is located in Dobrich Oblast and is 42 km northeast of Varna...
, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
(now found at the National Museum in Sofia) which represents a decree
Decree of Dionysopolis
The Decree of Dionysopolis was written around 48 BC by the citizens of Dionysopolis to Akornion, who traveled far away in a diplomatic mission to meet somebody's farther in Argedauon...
by the citizens of Dionysopolis about Akornion
Akornion
Akornion was an important citizen of the Ionian Greek colony of Dionysopolis .He is mentioned in the Decree of Dionysopolis, written around 48 BC by the citizens of the polis...
.
Development of Burebista's polity
The development of a La TèneLa Tène culture
The La Tène culture was a European Iron Age culture named after the archaeological site of La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where a rich cache of artifacts was discovered by Hansli Kopp in 1857....
-based economy in 3rd-2nd century BC allowed the consolidation of political power through tribal unions. Such regional unions were found both among the Transilvanian Dacians (under the rule of Rubobostes
Rubobostes
Rubobostes was a Dacian king in Transylvania, during the 2nd century BC.He was mentioned in Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus's Prolegomena. Trogus wrote that during his rule, the Dacians' power increased, as they defeated the Celts who previously held the power in the region.Trogus Pompeius and Justin...
) and the Moldavian and Wallachian Getae (with a center of power in Argedava
Argedava
Argedava was an important Dacian town mentioned in the Decree of Dionysopolis , and potentially located at Popeşti, a district in the town of Mihăileşti, Giurgiu County, Romania.- Decree of Dionysopolis :This decree was written by the citizens of Dionysopolis to Akornion, who traveled far away in a...
). Burebista was the first to create a union of tribes of both Dacians and the Getae.
This tribe alliance was probably a weakly centralized state, with a military organization, similar to the one of the Hellenistic Kingdoms
Hellenistic civilization
Hellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world from 323 BCE to about 146 BCE...
. The exact degree of centralization is still under debate, with some archaeologists, such as K. Lockyear, denying the existence of a state, because the archaeological evidence shows much regional diversity, with only a few regional-wide trends. Other archaeologists, such as A. Diaconescu, dispute this and consider that there was a centralized political structure. Nevertheless, due to a number of archaeological factors, it's unlikely there'd be found a definite answer to this question.
During Burebista, the society in the region is sometimes considered to have started developing a system of slavery
Slavery in antiquity
Slavery in the ancient world, specifically, in Mediterranean cultures, comprised a mixture of debt-slavery, slavery as a punishment for crime, and the enslavement of prisoners of war....
similar to the one in Rome and Ancient Greece, but probably most of the production was still made by free people.
Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
wrote that Burebista was able to obtain the complete obedience of his tribe with the help of Decaeneus, a wizard and a diviner
Divination
Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic standardized process or ritual...
who learnt his craft in Egypt. The people's obedience to Burebista was so complete, that they were even persuaded to cut their vines and give up drinking wine. Jordanes
Jordanes
Jordanes, also written Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th century Roman bureaucrat, who turned his hand to history later in life....
further claims that the high priest held "almost royal powers" and taught the "Goths" a code of laws called the "belagines laws", but also ethics, philosophy and sciences, including physics and astronomy.
In the heart of Burebista's empire, in the Orăştie Mountains, he built a system of stone fortifications
Dacian Fortresses of the Orastie Mountains
Built in murus dacicus style, the six Dacian Fortresses of the Orăștie Mountains, in Romania, were created in the 1st centuries BC and AD as protection against Roman conquest....
on higher ground, the most important of such hill fort
Hill fort
A hill fort is a type of earthworks used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze and Iron Ages. Some were used in the post-Roman period...
s are located today in the villages of Costeşti
Orastioara de Sus
Orăştioara de Sus is a commune in Hunedoara County, Romania. It is composed of eight villages: Bucium, Costeşti, Costeşti-Deal, Grădiştea de Munte, Ludeştii de Jos, Ludeştii de Sus, Ocolişu Mic and Orăştioara de Sus....
, Blidaru, Piatra Roşie and Băniţa
Banita
Băniţa is a commune in Hunedoara County, Romania. It is composed of three villages: Băniţa, Crivadia and Merişor....
.
Conquests and external policy
Burebista led a policy of conquest of new territories: in 60/59 BC, he attacked and vanquished the Celtic tribes of BoiiBoii
The Boii were one of the most prominent ancient Celtic tribes of the later Iron Age, attested at various times in Cisalpine Gaul , Pannonia , in and around Bohemia, and Transalpine Gaul...
and Taurisci
Taurisci
The Taurisci were a federation of Celtic tribes who dwelt in today's northern Slovenia before the coming of the Romans According to Pliny the Elder, they are the same people known as the Norici...
, who dwelt along the Middle Danube and in what is now Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
. After 55 BC and probably before 48 BC, Burebista conquered the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
shore, subjugating the Greek fortresses from Olbia
Olbia
Olbia is a town and comune of 56,231 inhabitants in northeastern Sardinia , in the Gallura sub-region. Called Olbia in the Roman age, Civita in the Middle Ages and Terranova Pausania before the 1940s, Olbia was again the official name of the town after the period of Fascism.-Geography:It is the...
to Apollonia, as well as the Danubian Plain
Danubian Plain
Danubian Plain can be a translation of:*the approximate Serbian name for the Serbian part of the Pannonian plain, see Danubian Plain...
all the way to the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
. Strabo also mentions the expeditions against a group of Celts who lived among the Thracians and Illyrians (probably the Scordisci
Scordisci
The Scordisci were an Iron Age tribe centered in the territory of present-day Serbia, at the confluence of the Savus , Dravus and Danube rivers. They were historically notable from the beginning of the third century BC until the turn of the common era...
).
The only Greek polis
Polis
Polis , plural poleis , literally means city in Greek. It could also mean citizenship and body of citizens. In modern historiography "polis" is normally used to indicate the ancient Greek city-states, like Classical Athens and its contemporaries, so polis is often translated as "city-state."The...
with which Burebista had good relations was Dionysopolis. According to an inscription
Decree of Dionysopolis
The Decree of Dionysopolis was written around 48 BC by the citizens of Dionysopolis to Akornion, who traveled far away in a diplomatic mission to meet somebody's farther in Argedauon...
found in this city, Akornion
Akornion
Akornion was an important citizen of the Ionian Greek colony of Dionysopolis .He is mentioned in the Decree of Dionysopolis, written around 48 BC by the citizens of the polis...
, a citizen of the city was a chief adviser (πρῶτοσφίλος, literally "first friend") of Burebista.
At its peak of power, the empire of Burebista streched from modern Slovakian Carpathians to the Balkans and from the Middle Danube to the Black Sea. Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
claims that the Getae could raise up to 200,000 soldiers in wartime, a rather improbable number, but which could represent the total number of able males, not the number of any army. Burebista was a worthy adversary for the Romans, as his army would cross the Danube and plunder the Roman towns as far as in Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
, Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
and Illyria
Illyria
In classical antiquity, Illyria was a region in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula inhabited by the Illyrians....
.
In 48 BC, Burebista sided with Pompey
Pompey
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey or Pompey the Great , was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic...
during his struggle against Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
in the Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
civil war, sending Akornion as an ambassador and a military adviser. After Caesar emerged as victor, he planned on sending legions to punish Burebista, but he was assassinated in the Senate
Roman Senate
The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...
before he could do so, on March 15, 44 BC.
Death
Burebista was assassinated in a plot made by the tribal aristocracy, which felt that a consolidation towards a centralized state would reduce their power. After his death, the empire was dissolved, with the exception of the nucleus around the Orăştie Mountains, while the rest being divided into various kingdoms. When Augustus Caesar sent an army against the Getae, the former state of Burebista was divided into four states.Legacy
In Romania, starting with the 1970s, the Nicolae CeauşescuNicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
regime used ancient history, seen from a nationalistic and questionable interpretation (Protochronism
Protochronism
Protochronism is a Romanian term describing the tendency to ascribe, largely relying on questionable data and subjective interpretations, an idealised past to the country as a whole...
) as a way to legitimize its own rule. For instance, Burebista, a great conqueror, was seen as merely a "unifier" of the Dacian tribes.
Part of this tendency, in 1980, the Romanian government declared the celebration of the 2050th anniversary of the founding of the "unified and centralized" Dacian state of Burebista, drawing comparisons with Ceauşescu's Romania and claiming an uninterrupted existence of the state from Burebista to Ceauşescu.
This commemoration led the press to note "similarities" between Burebista and Ceauşescu, and even professional historians such as Ion Horaţiu Crişan
Ion Horaţiu Crişan
Ion Horaţiu Crişan was a Romanian historian and archaeologist. He conducted research in South-Eastern and Central Europe, focusing on Geto-Dacians and Celts....
used about Burebista words of omage similar to the ones used by party activists about Ceauşescu.
In 1980, a movie based on the life of Burebista was made.
Ancient
English text.- JordanesJordanesJordanes, also written Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th century Roman bureaucrat, who turned his hand to history later in life....
, Getica: The origin and deeds of the Goths, translated by Charles C. Mierow. (Chapter XI)
Modern
- Lucian BoiaLucian BoiaLucian Boia is a Romanian historian, known especially for his works debunking Romanian nationalism and Communism.-Bibliography:* Eugen Brote: Litera, 1974...
, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness, Budapest: Central European University Press, 2001; - Hadrian Daicoviciu, Dacii, Editura Enciclopedică Română, Bucharest, 1972.
External links
- Searchable Greek Inscriptions at The Packard Humanities Institute (PHI) - Burebista and Argedava segment from Decree of Dionysopolis reviewed in Inscriptiones graecae in Bulgaria repertae by Georgi Mihailov
- A fost Argedava (Popesti) resedinta statului geto-dac condus de Burebista? - Article in Informatia de Giurgiu (Romanian)