In AD 105 Hadrian was one of the praetors, but did not serve the normal year of office. At some point he was instead appointed as legatus legionis of I Minervia and was decorated for service during the Second Dacian War. Once again he did not remain in this post for very long and sometime in 106 was promoted when Trajan decided to split the province of Pannonia into two, creating an Upper and Lower province. Hadrian was the first legate of Pannonia Inferior and simultaneously commander of the single legion in garrison there, II Adiutrix. In that sense it was a sideways transfer, but the prestige of governing a province was considerable, and the rapid succession of posts in such a short time suggests a display of some trust and favour on Trajan’s part and there are hints at this in our sources. Our story offers an explanation as to how this all might have happened.

Dacia and the Dacians are not as well understood as we would wish. As is almost always the case, their side of the story is not preserved and we must guess on the basis of meagre and garbled accounts written by more or less hostile outsiders. Contact between the Dacians and Romans began in the first century BC, and Julius Caesar planned to mount a major expedition against them before marching against Parthia. His assassination prevented both projects, but in the decades that followed the Roman frontier pushed forward and contact became more frequent and periodically hostile. In Caesar’s day the Dacians were united under the capable King Burebista. Like Caesar he was murdered by his own followers, and after that the kingdom fragmented into tribal groups. Decebalus managed to restore much of the old unity and power late in the first century AD and as a result was seen as a serious threat by the Romans. No doubt Dacian views of Rome were similar.

The Dacians worshipped Zalmoxis and their faith appears to have inspired great bravery in battle as well as a willingness to commit suicide if things went badly. Little is really known about their beliefs, and I have drawn from passages from Herodotus, who wrote more than five centuries before our story, and Strabo who wrote a mere century or so before our setting. As foreigners describing another race whom they considered to be barbaric, the reliability of their accounts must be doubted, but if we reject them then we have nothing at all. Herodotus tells of the five-yearly sacrifice of a Messenger to the god, of shooting arrows into the sky to calm it and of belief in a blessed afterlife spent in the company of the god.

From quite early on, the Dacians had traded with and learned from the Greek colonies on the Black Sea. Later, Decebalus in particular encouraged Roman deserters to join him and in the treaty with Domitian was given technical and military advisors. Dacian fortifications were formidable, exploiting the rugged terrain to the full and adding well-built walls and towers. Unlike any other tribal army in Europe, they used artillery and other siege equipment. Archers were common and effective, and in addition to composite bows there is a good chance that they made use of ‘belly-bows’, small handheld catapults a little like a crossbow. Many fought with straight swords, javelins and spears, but most famous were the curved one-handed sica and the larger falx, which could probably be wielded in one or both hands and was capable of penetrating armour and inflicting dreadful wounds. Apart from the Dacians themselves, at various times their armies were joined by allies from the Roxolani, a Sarmatian people, and various Celtic, Getic and Germanic groups, with the Bastarnae notable among the latter. Many of the warriors on the Adamklissi metopes have their hair twisted into a side knot, which was seen as a characteristic of the Germanic peoples, especially the Suebi, and use falxes, and may well be Bastarnae.