Re: Trajan's column

In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh wrote:

>> In fact, the scenes CLIV/CLV depict something like this: some
>> Roman soldiers walk from the left (where they are) to the right.
>> Behind them there is a Dacian city which burned out. In front of
>> them, there are a group of Dacians (women, children, men) and a
>> bunch of farm animals. A part of the Dacians look back, others
>> bear some weapons.
>> Now, in interpretation of these two scenes, Reinach, Cichorius
>> and Froehner proposed more than 100 years ago the idea that
>> Dacians are chased by Romans out of occupied territory.
>
> *****GK: This sounds plausible. A destroyed city,

Actually being fired by Romans on the Column.

> advancing Romans, fleeing Dacian population (not just soldiers,
> but "lock stock and barrel", with glances at the threat)*****

It is possible to be like this. But there is no way to say whehter
they're driven out of the province or only out of the fortified zone.

>> Patsch argues that it's about the refugees in the mountains who
>> return to their own villages after the war;
>
> *****GK: This I don't get. Why would they have left the
> mountains "lock stock and barrel" to fight the Romans,

Dacian fortifications _were_ in the mountains and it's there that
decisive final battles took place (women participating at them).
Keep in mind that after creation of Dacia Romana, a new Sarmisegetuza
Regia was founded, considerably lower than ex-Dacian capital, at
some good distance from it. The name could be explained only in
connection with local population's feelings, otherwise Romans had
no special reason to call another place using a Dacian name.

>> Daicoviciu says they are evacuated from mountains where they
>> could have organized further resistence in front of the Romans
>> and brought in plain, where they could have been better kept
>> under Big Brother's eye.
>
> *****GK: This also seems rather strained. What is the depiction
> immediately prior to the one you have described?*****

It's just the last figured battle of the war, near a city (most
probably the same which is depicted further as being fired by Roman
soldiers). The final images are rather rustical and suggest return
to a calm life.
The interpretation is not so stupid, taking into account that one
key request ignored by Dacian king after the Ist war was dismantling
of fortified cities, which were to some extent feared by Romans.

Regards,
Marius Iacomi