The most important war under Domitian, was that against the Dacians, the same race as the ancient Getæ, who as early as Alexander’s time had driven the Scythian tribes before them. Since Diceneus (in the reign of Augustus) the great Dacian monarchy in Transylvania, and very likely almost the whole of Wallachia and part of Moldavia and the Banat, had arisen. They were rich, owing to their mines; and we see from the column of Trajan, that they were not at all looked upon as barbarians, but that they were even held in higher esteem than the Germans: they had fortified towns and wooden houses, such as are still common in the Tyrol. Their king Decebalus was a man of much greatness of character, and worthy of ruling his nation in such critical circumstances. They had a well organized constitution, and an aristocracy, who by way of distinction wore either caps or long hair: they were withal a brave and free people. Since the days of Augustus, they had often threatened the Roman frontier; and as soon as Rome felt weak, they burst into Mœsia: to Pannonia, perhaps, they did not come; for the country between the Theiss and the Danube was nothing but deep marshes. Lower down, towards Pressburg, it was inhabited partly by Gallic, and partly by German tribes. Of Domitian’s Dacian wars, we have but very confused accounts; Xiphilinus and Zonaras entirely pass over the details. We know thus much, that once at least the Romans suffered a great defeat, and that the Dacians overran Mœsia. But such wars, even when successfully carried on, always in the long run became dangerous to these peoples; and therefore Decebalus concluded a peace in a form which seems to us humiliating. This does not, however, prove much, as such was the general custom in wars against the Romans. Domitian could now take the name of Dacicus, and, after his great losses, return in triumph to Rome.