Background History
The Geto-Dacians, the Getae south and east of the Carpathians, and the Dacians in the Transylvanian plateau and Banat, forming a great cultural, ethnic and linguistic unity are mentioned for the first time by Herodotus in connection with the 514 BC expedition of Darius, the Persian king.
Burebista achieved the unification of the Geto-Dacian political and military formations. After his death (44 BC) the centralized Dacian State divided into several political formations, which were reunited under the leadership of Decebalus (87 - 106 AD) in a unitary state, having its political, military and religious centre in Transylvania, more precisely in the Orastie Mountains.
In the course of the two wars with the Roman legions, between 101 - 102 and 105 - 106 respectively, the emperor Trajan succeeded after fierce battles to defeat the Dacians and their allies and the greatest part of Dacia became a Roman province. The massive colonisation with Roman or Romanized elements, the use of the Latin language and the assimilation of Roman civilization as well as the intense development of urban centres led to Romanisation of the native population: and through the mixing of Dacians and Roman colonists, to the formation of a Daco-Roman population, which according to one major theory, is the principal element of the ethnogenesis process of the Romanian people.
The Romans occupied the area of central and southwest Transylvania, and across the Carpathians into Oltenia. They founded cities on Dacian sites and imported colonists from far and wide, but the Roman
period was short lived being abandoned in 271.
A number of sites have been excavated by archaeologists dating from the Dacia and the later Roman period. The evidence is scarce, but some believe these to show a Romanised population.
During almost a thousand years of successive migrations and invasions of peoples moving from the eastern to the western part of Europe, which followed the official withdrawal of the Roman army and administration to the south of the Danube, the original
Romanised population, which resulted from the Geto-Dacians blending with the Romans, gradually formed
the present Romanian ethnic identity. Today, Romania once again occupies the same general territory as occupied by the old Geto-Dacians and Romans.
For another major theory on the ethnogenesis of Romania, see the section pertaining to the Feudal Period of Romanian history.
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