The enemies were in two quarters
especially:
1. On the Danube were the Dacians, barbarous people, who occupied
the country of mountains and forests now called Transylvania.
2. On the Euphrates was the great military monarchy of the
Parthians which had its capital at Ctesiphon, near the ruins of
Babylon, and which extended over all Persia.
Trajan made several expeditions against the Dacians, crossed the
Danube, won three great battles, and took the capital of the Dacians
(101-102). He offered them peace, but when they reopened the war he
resolved to end matters with them: he had a stone bridge built over
the Danube, invaded Dacia and reduced it to a Roman province (106).
Colonies were transferred thither, cities were built, and Dacia became
a Roman province where Latin was spoken and Roman customs were
assimilated. When the Roman armies withdrew at the end of the third
century, the Latin language remained and continued throughout the
Middle Ages, notwithstanding the invasions of the barbarian Slavs. It
is from Transylvania (ancient Dacia) that the peoples came from the
twelfth to the fourteenth century who now inhabit the plains to the
north of the Danube.
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