4 ms·
Is there evidence of actual active Roman "eradication" of Dacian history? It is not the Romans' fault that no history was preserved if nothing existed to preser
by allturtles 4y ago
Is there evidence of actual active Roman "eradication" of Dacian history? It is not the Romans' fault that no history was preserved if nothing existed to preserve to begin with. We know a great deal about the Greeks before the Roman conquest because they already had a written historical tradition to be preserved.
Even if there were native written histories, without careful tending, history destroys itself through entropy over the centuries. For this reason, the vast majority of what the Romans knew about themselves is also entirely lost to us. e.g., only about a quarter of the books from the magnum opus of Rome's history of itself, Livy's "Ab urbe condita", are preserved today.
- simonh 4y agoThe Dacian capital was razed and vast swathes of the population sold into slavery. Destruction of their culture and history may not have been the objective, but it was a pretty much inevitable result.
- qwytw 4y agoHistoriography was not something that really existed in places not heavily influenced by the Greeks. The first history book by a Roman was written around the time of the second punic wars (around 210 BC). In Persia the Sassanids and Parthians knew less about their Achaemenid past than the Greeks/Romans did. I'm not denying the atrocities committed by the Romans but chances are that both in Dacia and the Celtic world there weren't that many (if any) literary sources to destroy.
- simonh 4y agoSure, but who knows how many statues, inscriptions or other archaeological evidence was looted and destroyed.