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The research stage concerning the Dacian religion in the Roman province of Dacia.
The epigraphic sources, the figured monuments and the archaeological discoveries offer no clue concerning the survival of the natives’ religion during the Roman epoch. It was presumed by some historians that the religion of the Dacian state was the political fundament in the pre-Roman time, the ideology which ensured the anti-Roman resistance, being able to turn the Dacian warriors into berserkers. Such characteristics are supposed to have forced the Romans to destroy the temples, the sacerdotal caste, and to strictly forbid any display of traditional native religion.
This is the explanation employed for the absence of local gods names in Roman inscriptions, in contrast with the situation in other provinces like the Celtic Noricum or Pannonia. This theoretical image lacks serious, scientific basis and is contradicted by the comparison between the Roman attitude towards the Jews and Dacians, as it is visible in the literary sources. The Latin historians and writers have very different feelings for the two peoples: hate for the Jews, and understanding, sometimes even sympathy for the Dacians. Traian was Dacicus, but Titus never became Judaicus, probably to avoid any political or genetic associations with the Jews. The latter ones were imposed a fiscus Judaicus, while the Dacians were not. Hence, the Dacians had a religious behavior different than the Jews’; they did not have a Diaspora and they were not making proselytes. By this, they did not endanger the religion, customs and the way of (mores) of the Romans. Consequently, the Romans had no reason to treat them or their religion as they treated the Jews whose religion had been the essential element of the anti-Roman position.
Had they proceeded the same with the Dacians, they wouldn’t have named their first town, colonia Ulpia Traiana Augusta Dacica Sarmizegetusa, a colonia deducta of veterans, after the religious pan-Dacian center. The putting together of the Emperor’s name and of the one of the former political and religious capital emphasized the symbolic bonds with the past, and not a rift from a religion and civilization incompatible and antagonistic to the Roman world.
The Roman attitude towards the religious center of the Jews, Jerusalem, was different. After the destruction of the city in AD 70, the Romans set up the camp of legio X Fretensis. Later on, Hadrian’s decision of founding a colony of veterans and building a temple for Jupiter Optimus Maximus over the former sacred temple of the Jews determined Bar Kohba’ s rebellion. (Cassius Dio LXIX, 12, 1). The message received by the native Jews was clear: they were excluded from their sacred city. The name of the colony identified it with the Emperor and the cult of Jupiter from the Capitol of Rome. Colonia Aelia Capitolina was meant to emphasize the connection with the Emperor and his family and to exclude the Jews and their religion from within the city. It spoke of the humiliation of the provincials who had dared to stand against Rome. In conclusion, the attitude of the Romans towards the religious center of the Dacians differs radically from the one towards Jerusalem. The same conclusion must be applied implicitly to the manner in which they viewed the Dacian religion.
The explanation of the absence of Dacian gods on Roman inscriptions and monuments is to be rather seen in the structure of the Dacian religion – of which we know so few – and in the political and social evolution of the pre-Roman world. The breaking of the tribal organization determined by the imposing of a central authority must have brought essential religious changes.
Given the present stage of research, the absence of any indigenous religious manifestation in Roman time seems rather to be connected with the existence of a "folk" religion, than with the interdiction of native religious beliefs. This possibility is supported by the absence of any spectacular forms of cultic manifestations (like temple or sanctuaries) in the barbarian vicinity of Dacia where free Dacians and other related people inhabited and where Romans could not enforce or control such severe religious prohibition.
The "aristocratic" Dacian religion and its "official" divinities were gone, together with the priests’ caste, which had been strongly connected with the existence of the king and state, sometime overlapping them. God names like Zamolxe (Zalmoxe) or Gebeleizis are nowhere to be found in the Roman world. This, given the present stage of research, could explain the lack of any situation where interpretatio antiqua, hence interpretatio Dacica – through which the indigenous could see their own gods under Roman names –could be identified.
The cult of the Danubian Knights.
On both shores of the Danube a series of votif monuments depicting two gods on horseback were found.
It was often asserted that their origin is Dacian. The majority of the monuments are small or middle-sized reliefs. Some also depict a goddess, identified by several authors with the anonymous "Mother Goddess" of the Dacian pantheon, while by others with Atargatis, Epona, Nemesis, Adrasteia, or Tyche.
The knight is depicted in a Frigian outfit, with the afferent cap (alopekis), holding in his right hand a deep bowl, a rhython, a double axe, or a spear.
Sometimes the banner called draco appears. The researchers of this cult determined that it is uniformly spread on the territory of Dacia and that in Panonia and Moesia it is more common along the Danube. No temple dedicated to these gods is known until now. The most recent researches concluded that this is a local cult of the Moesian populations, based on a myth of two knights and a goddess, a variant of the one depicted on the approximately 3000 reliefs found in the Danubian provinces.
The cult was spread after it had permeated the military environment of the Danubian limes. It was popular in Dacia at the beginning of the 2nd century AD and it spread on the entire territory of the province due to the placement of the garrisons and not because of the presumed Dacian origin of the gods. Therefore, the Dacian origin of the cult of the Danubian Knights is not sustainable. It spread North, its birth-place being the Danubian region of Lower and Upper Moesia.
Interpretatio Romana and religious syncretism in Roman Dacia.
In exchange, indigenous cults from other provinces, taken over in the Roman pantheon through interpretatio antiqua (either Romana or not), are numerous in Dacia.
The best examples come from the Celtic and Germanic provinces: Apollo Granus and Sirona, Sucellus and Nantosuelta, Cernunos, Epona, Mars Camulus, Obila, Hercules Magusanus, Iupiter Sol Bussurigius, Iupiter Bussumarus, Iupiter Tavianus, and collective divinities like Quadriviae, Matronae, Dominae, Gesahenae, Suleviae, and Campestres.
The Danubian Knights, of Traco-Moesian origin, are among the best represented, with over 60 reliefs; they are sometimes depicted in syncretism with Apollo.
The goddess Dardanica and the god of lightning, Zbelthiurdus, are each mentioned once.
The oriental gods are just as successful as in other provinces, starting with Mithras and his more than 280 monuments.
Following next are the Siro-Palmyran cults: Iupiter Dolichenus (50 monumens), Syria (Atargatis), Iupiter Heliopolitanus, Iupiter Balmarcodes, Azizos, Sol Invictus, Turmasgades, Baltis, Deus Aeternus, Theos Hypsistos, Belus, Iarhibolus, Malagbel, Bebellahamon, Benefal, and Manavat. The micro-Asian divinities are also represented: Cybele, Sabazius, Cimistenus, Men, Eruzenos, Saromandus, Adrastia, Sardendenos, Zeus Narinos, and Zeus Sittacomicos; so are the Egyptian and the North-West Africans ones: Serapis, Isis, Harpocrates, Ammon, Apis, Caelestis (Tanit), Saturnus, Dii Mauri (Bărbulescu 1998).
It results from here that the religion and the mentality of the population from Roman Dacia reflected the diversity of the colonists, even if not always in a percentile manner. The large mass of colonists from the first wave of colonisation came from Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Noricum. Various auxiliary military units brought other ethnic groups, like Palmyrans, Mawrs, Syrians, Thracians and North-Africans. Trade brought merchants from Syria, Micro Asia and Egypt, or from eastern Gaul and Rhine region. These are the premises of a religious cosmopolitism. Phenomena of interpretatio Romana and syncretism are clearly illustrated, though they were produced outside Dacia, before the arrival of the colonists.
We must also add the numerous magic and occult practices, which form a diverse mosaic in the "folk" beliefs’ category, which are less documented by written and artistic sources. One can conclude that there were different degrees of religious comprehension and practice among the people of Roman Dacia.
The Greek and Roman religion, which dominated the urban communities, played a part just as important as the Latin language did in the integration of the province in the Roman world, and – unlike the language – it played a militant role through the political divinities which spoke about loyalty to the Emperor and the state, like: Victoria, Virtus Romana, Genius Imperatoris, and particularly the ones directly connected with the imperial family; attending or ignoring them made the difference between going up the social ladder and disgrace followed by isolation. These are Domus Divina, the cult of Rome and that of Augustus.
The study of the epigraphic monuments which attest religion in Roman Dacia shows that 73% mention Greek and Roman divinities, a percentage similar to the 74 % of the Latin and Italic names from the study of onomastics.
The correlation of the two indices is a proof of the Romanity and Romanization of the province Dacia. For the rest of the monuments, Mithras is depicted on 10%, the Syro-palmyran gods on 5%, the Micro Asian ones on 3,8%, the Thraco-Moesian divinities on 3,6%, the Egyptian ones on 3%, the Celtic-Germanic and the North-West African ones on 2% each.
Bibliography
Bărbulescu M., Interferenţe spirituale în Dacia romană, Cluj-Napoca, 1984.
Nemeti S., Sincretismul religios în Dacia romană, Cluj-Napoca, 2005.
Opreanu C. H., Colonisation et Acculturation en Dacie. Les mécanisme de l’integration dans le monde romain, în Orbis Antiquus. Studia in honorem Ioannis Pisonis, Cluj-Napoca, 2004, p. 651-660.
Tudor D., Corpus monumentorum religionis Equitum Danuvianorum. I. The monuments, Leiden, 1969; II. The Analysis and Interpretation of the Monuments, Leiden, 1976.