Re: [tied] Re: Trajan's column

--- m_iacomi <m_iacomi@...> wrote:

> 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,
>
> (MI) Actually being fired by Romans on the Column.
>
> >(GK) 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.

*****GK: If this is the last depiction on the column
(?) it would at least intimate that these Dacians,
though defeated, survived as a collectivity (with
their weapons and stock), and it would not suggest
that they stayed under Roman domination. That's the
simplest interpretation.******

>
> >> 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.

*****GK: That's a good point. But was this local
population allowed to keep its weapons and retain its
social and political structures? I still feel that the
logical interpretation of the last scene is that these
Dacians are not giving up, and moving away from the
advancing Romans.******

>
> >> 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.

*****GK: I still think this is strained. The defeated
Dacians are allowed to keep their property and their
weapons. There are better ways to depict the return to
calm. That "look back" implies a sense of loss and
danger. It still seems best viewed as the imposition
of a new boundary, guarded by Roman arms.******

>
> Regards,
> Marius Iacomi
>
>
>

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