Ancient and ArchaeologyΒ permalink
romanian prehistory
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Message 1.Β
Posted by pavel_constantin (U2317241) on Tuesday, 25th October 2005
who are they?
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Message 2
Posted by maraudingsaxon (U3567176) on Monday, 24th April 2006
could have been celtic in origin. Can you offer a bit more if you are still out there pavel ?
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Message 3
Posted by Eliza6Beth (U2637732) on Monday, 24th April 2006
Since Romanian is derived from Latin, presumably the indigenous population of the area is descended from whoever was there at the time roman occupation/conquest (Dacia?), and they presumably are Celtic?
When did Slavs arive in the Balkans? The Magyars got to Hungary in about the 8/9th centuries, I believe, led by Arpad (not sure if he's real or legendary).
Eliza -
Message 4
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Tuesday, 25th April 2006
Eli6abeth, the Romans had 3 wars against Dacia. After the last one it seems that they removed the entire population (which was presumably Celtic), wholesale. Maybe it was then populated by Roman citizen colonists? This would explain why the people of the area have for over a thousand years insisted that they are 'Romani' ie Romans.
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Message 5
Posted by maraudingsaxon (U3567176) on Tuesday, 25th April 2006
hey fascinating good to see you back. Have you been reading the thread about roman army in britain ?
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Message 6
Posted by Eliza6Beth (U2637732) on Tuesday, 25th April 2006
Fscinating - Seems logical!
Greeks call themselves Roumi as well, but presumably not for the same reason. Where is ENicklaos to tell us?!
Eliza -
Message 7
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Wednesday, 26th April 2006
maraudingsaxon, thanks for the welcome. Have a beer on me
I have been busy doing nothing in the past few days.
But I'm back on the track and I'm waving a flag. -
Message 8
Posted by marduk-slayer of tiamat (U2258525) on Thursday, 27th April 2006
Eli6abeth, the Romans had 3 wars against Dacia. After the last one it seems that they removed the entire population (which was presumably Celtic), wholesale. Maybe it was then populated by Roman citizen colonists? This would explain why the people of the area have for over a thousand years insisted that they are 'Romani' ie Romans. Β
the country called itself roumania to leach of the glory that was rome, to claim some for itself, just like every other country in europe (though most do it by copycat architecture rather than naming themselves after an empire that only ruled part of that territory for a short time) -
Message 9
Posted by marduk-slayer of tiamat (U2258525) on Thursday, 27th April 2006
Fscinating - Seems logical!
Greeks call themselves Roumi as well, but presumably not for the same reason. Where is ENicklaos to tell us?!
·΅±τΎ±³ϊ²ΉΜύ
the greeks refer tio themselves as romans 'cos they where the last part of the roman empire, that was destroyed in 1453. -
Message 10
Posted by marduk-slayer of tiamat (U2258525) on Thursday, 27th April 2006
though a fair portion of bulgarians probly have a similar right to the claim
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Message 11
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Friday, 28th April 2006
Eli6abeth, the Romans had 3 wars against Dacia. After the last one it seems that they removed the entire population (which was presumably Celtic), wholesale. Maybe it was then populated by Roman citizen colonists? This would explain why the people of the area have for over a thousand years insisted that they are 'Romani' ie Romans. Β
the country called itself roumania to leach of the glory that was rome, to claim some for itself, just like every other country in europe (though most do it by copycat architecture rather than naming themselves after an empire that only ruled part of that territory for a short time)Β
marduk, no other country has called itself Romania or themselves Romans. When the Romans withdrew their troops in 271, the latinised peoples seem to have lived in the mountains. They started repopulating the valleys in the 12th century. The Romanian state actually went so far as to adopt the whole of ancient Roman law. -
Message 12
Posted by marduk-slayer of tiamat (U2258525) on Friday, 28th April 2006
i didnt say they all named themselves after the romans. i said they all copy them in one wayu or another.
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Message 13
Posted by U3090818 (U3090818) on Saturday, 29th April 2006
Most people believe that the Romans were descendants of the Latins, an Indo-European people that arrived in Italy somewhere around 1000 BCE. There is new evidence that Roma (or Rome) is of Etruscan origin. The Estruscans were a people that are believed to have originated somewhere in Asia Minor, or perhaps somewhere around the Black Sea. Rome is said to have had 3 Etruscan kings, and many things thought of as typically Roman have actually been found to be Etruscan, such as aqueducts and gladiatorial fights.
Whoa, that went off-topic. -
Message 14
Posted by U3090818 (U3090818) on Saturday, 29th April 2006
(By Roma, I meant the name, not Rome in general)
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Message 15
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Sunday, 30th April 2006
Elisabeth yes Greeks also use the name 'Romios' (Romioi in plural) (i.e. Romaios, in english Roman) since the Byzantine empire though having Greek language and in many parts clear Greek conscioussness nontheless citizens recognised that they were the last part of the Roman Empire.
Interestingly, when Greeks rebelled against the Ottomans they used the term 'Romios' that personally I do not categorise as 100% equal to Greek. Why? First of all Greeks did not rebel to re-built ... Athens (that was a 2000 people village at the time) but to take back Konstantinoupolis, thus extending that, to rebuilt the previous Empire. Hence, the term Romios though used mainly by Greeks (being the leading nation of the previous empire), down to the basics it refers not so much to nationality but to those people faithful to the Orthodox church who would like to re-construct the Eastern Roman Empire. Hence, under that term any other people from any other balkan nation (be it Bulgarians, Serbians or Roumanians) who were willing to join forces with Greeks in that effort were 100% Romioi as well! And indeed there were such paradigms at that time. It is characteristic that foreign intervention convinced the Greeks to change from 'Romioi' to 'Hellenes' (proposed also by antiquity-lover Greek writers) since the 'Romioi' could have several other implications (... could eventually lead to a huge organised revolution in the Balkans and Minor Asia that would easily break up the Ottoman Empire once and for all and that was not in any western country's plans!!!). For more, refer to Greek writers like Rigas Ferraios (who wrote not for Greeks but for all Balcanic people - not at all accidentally arrested by... Austrians and given to Turks who briefly executed him and thrown his body in the Danube). -
Message 16
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Sunday, 30th April 2006
Lets not forget that the Greek revolution started from.... modern Roumania with the big time battle of Dragatsani organised by Dimitrios Ypsilantis where Greek students (calling themselves 'Sacred Band' after the Theban one) fell one by one to the last. (at the 18th-19th century some 1 million Greeks lived in Romania - and actually when Ottomans had made Romania (Wallachia at the time) a semi-autonomus area they had placed Greeks as governors.
Now going back to Romanians themselves. It is quite difficult to point out the exact origins of Roumanians but not impossible. As Hungary had been the passage point between Ukraine (and the east behind it) and central-western Europe, Roumania had always been the passage point between Ukraine and the Balcans. It is more than obvious since all raiders (Goths, Huns, Avars, Petchenegs, Bulgarians, Varaggo-Russians etc.) enterred the Balcans from Roumania and not so much from the lands were Slovenia and Serbia lie.
However, that should not necessarily imply that modern Roumanians are a huge mix of all the above since there is little evidence and not to mention that linguistically they present little influence.
Ancient Romania in B.C. times was habitated by a plethora of tribes most of Celtic (that came from the west) and Thraecian origins (related to southern tribes - though personally I have a certain problem with the term 'Thraecian' since I find it vague - there is no language attributed to them), while of course in the coast you had the traditional Greeks founding numerous colonies. The most well known tribe was the Dacians (though these were not the only) who united all local tribes in a particularly strong federations and fought considerably well against Romans and managed to force them built a huge bridge on the Danube in order to pass a huge army and conquer the area. After that conquest it is true that Romans were harsh on these tribes and dispersed the populations bringing in population from the south as well as installing their veteran mercenaries (giving land etc.). All the newcomers and due to the heavy presence of the Roman army (that used latin language) in the area were communicating in Latin unlike all the rest of the Balkans that communicated in Greek. Hence, Romania was 'latinised' and as it proved by history it was done irreversibly.
Romania in late Roman Imperial times was the meeting point of Celtic tribes (that came from west), Skythes and other easterns that raided from the northeast (e.g. Alans and Sarmatians passed from there on their way to the west), Thraecian tribes in the south and also Goths that actually enterred in numbers in the area between Romania and Ukraine initially and then invaded as immigrants first and as armied later in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. When Eastern Romans managed to solve the problem they placed most of them in the area above and below the Danube and employed many of them as mercenaries protecting the borders of the Empire.
Perhaps it was the fact that Romania (i.e. the area above the Danube) had been the northern forefront of the Eastern Empire in conjunction with the above hisory that made Romanian local leaders as well as most of population so proud to be "Romans" thus very unwilling to be altered by any other culture (namely the touranic and later of course the slavic that encircled them). On the other hand they had been quite lucky that most raiders saw Romania only as a passage point to other areas thus soon after they were raided they were left again to re-organise their local hegemonies as "Romans" again. The best examples are the tourano-mongolic Avars-Petchnegs who brought also with them the slavic Bulgarians who simply passed from Roumania and enterred modern Bulgaria having of course the usual target of Konstantinoupolis but then when failed they were settled in modern day Bulgaria (regions below the Danube) were a couple of centuries previously had Goths been settled. Romanians by the 12th century and the gradual disintegration of the Eastern Roman Empire they continued their own way always though being called 'Romans' in exactly the same way that Greeks called themselves 'Romioi' having always (more or less) been faithful to the idea of the christian Roman Empire and of course resisting to the bitter end the Ottoman oncoming attack. Count Draculia (local hegemon Vlad Tsetes) was the most famous resistance figure and he would be a saint for that country - having managed to win over large Ottoman armies - and captured POWs of 20,000 people (killed on sticks and planted as forests of dead) but then he also dead similar things to his own people having killed also the 1/5th of his own people, thus treason came quite easily!
Romanians in the Ottoman Empire shared the same fate as any other nation, though from the early 18th century they were given considerable autonomy and christian governors (that were all Greeks from Konstantinoupolis) - however there was always a healthy Greek population in the area, not to mention that pretty much the only schools in the area were Greek ones. The fact that Roumania was spared the harsher treatment that other lands saw and the fact that fewer muslim populations habitated the area did not mean that Roumanians did not bother the Ottoman Empire as local leaders would carry on local fights (just like any other Balkan area from north to south and east and west).
There is also another misconception with Roumanians in relation to the name Wallachia. Wallachia is an important region of Roumania but then there are people habitating all over the Balkans from Roumania to Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece called 'Vlahoi' (i.e. Wallachians) who are not exactly Roumanians though they speak a latin language that is similar to Roumanian in the sence that they are the two only living latin languages in the area. Various studies has shown that Wallachians are actually a very differentiated group. Some would say that this is due to intermixture but then if you ask the local people they will tell you that 'Wallachians' at least for the last 300 years that we know some things about them were strictly endogamous resisting intermarriages with other local populations thus retaining to a large extend their own characteristics that were still different from times to times.
The explanation is easy: Under the name Wallachian (which is a very generic name) were named all those vassal tribes of the Roman Empire and later of the Eastern Roman Empire that were serving as border guards along the Danube. It is not accidental that ancient localities for the Wallacks concentrated around the Danube as well as around rivers (since the Roman army used rivers for transporting). Thus we have to guess that Wallachians were a mix of numerous tribes (I will mention primarily Goths and Thraecians and Illyrians but it could be also Romans and Greeks along with these to a varying extend according to localities). By 10th century these groups had solidified conscioussness as christian Roman citizens and not as anything else but then that should not be confused with Roumanian citizens as Wallachians of Slovenia or Serbia or FYROM and Greece would not be the same apart from the fact that they used the Latin dialect. It is characteristing that 'Vlahoi' of Greece (that I know better) had united their fates along with those of the Greek people, since they were faithful to the orthodox patriarchate that was Greek and regarded Greeks as 'Romioi' (i.e. Romans!) thus they were of the first to rebel in 1821 and the most rich of them giving huge amounts of money (it is not accidental that even later, the big time donations came only too often from Vlahoi). To tell you the truth if any 'Vlahos' reads my above commentary he will call me 'anthellenas' (that I am against Greeks) implying that Vlahoi are not 100% Greeks but then as a lover of history I know very well that the visibly blonder colours of Vlahoi in comparison to other greek localities should be traced to those Goths and other tribes that served in the Roman army than to Athenians, Spartans and Macedonians (but of course t€hat makes no less Greeks the Vlahoi in Greece than any of the others).
I do not know if I have given a clearer idea or if I made it more obscure. On the overall on Roumanians one should bear in mind that these land had seen all the invasions that Europe has seen, pronouncing more the presence of Celtics, Thraecians and of course Goths and to a lesser extend the Slavs but then their national identity was forged in the late Roman Empire and all along the Eastern Roman Empire as christian Roman citizens. You should also bear in mind that whoever spoke or speaks latin in the Balkans is not necessarily related to Roumanians other than probably he spoke/speaks latin since he is descendant of border guard populations. -
Message 17
Posted by Alaric the Goth (U1826823) on Monday, 22nd May 2006
Around the 3rd/4th centuries the area of Romania known as Transylvania was in Visigothic hands. It was then that the Visigoths wewre converted to the Arian form of Christianity, with Ulfilas the Bishop translating the Bible ito Gothic (using a script he had devised that is rather like a cross beteween Greek and Roman letters and is a bit like Cyrillic to look at).
The Huns pushing westwards drove the Ostrogoths (who were in what is now the Ukraine) and other tribes west in a sort of donmino effect that resulted in the Visigoths seeking entry into the (Eastern, initially) Roman Empire. Thus began the events that included the Battle of Adrianople and the later Sack of Rome by my namesake in 410!
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