>90 GEOGRAPHY FROM AUGUSTUS TO TRAJAN. [CHAP,
Pliny1, and was permanently maintained. It is that country, no
ioubt, to which Tacitus also refers, when he speaks of an island
lying out in the ocean off the northern coast of Germany, which
was inhabited by a people called the Suiones2; for in that appella-
tion the modern name of Swede is generally recognised. Den-
mark, too, was known to Pliny under the name of the Cimbrian
promontory as a great peninsula extending towards the north8.
In eastern Europe the conquest of Dacia by Trajan opened
^ . out a considerable area, which was unexplored
Dacia con- *
queredby before that time. The departure from the estab-
Trajan. lished policy of maintaining the Danube as the
northern frontier of the empire, which the annexation of that
tract involved, was in the first instance unavoidable. During
the reign of Domitian, Decebalus, a Dacian chieftain who had
succeeded in concentrating in his own hands the government .
of the whole of that country, overran Moesia, and caused
great injury to the Roman power. At the conclusion of the
war which followed a peace was concluded, which was far from
advantageous to the Romans; and Trajan, when he came to
the throne, in order to secure the neighbouring parts of the
empire from attacks from that quarter, invaded Dacia, and in
the course of his second campaign (104 A.D.) completely de-
feated Decebalus. Dacia was now reduced to a Roman pro-
vince, and its capital city, Sarmizegethusa, which was captured,
received the name of Ulpia Trajana. The territory which was
comprehended in Dacia is that which is bounded on the east
by the Dniester and on the west by the Theiss, including the
modern kingdom of Roumania, with its wide plains extending
to the Danube, the mountainous district of Transylvania and
the lands to the northward of it as far as the Carpathians, and
the adjoining portion of Hungary which is called the Banat. A
large number of military colonies were now established in the
1 Pliny, 4. 96; sinum, qui Codanus vocatur refertus insulis, quarum claris-
sima est Scatinavia incompertae magnitudinis.
a Tac. Germ., 44; Suionum hinc civitates, ipso in Oceano, praeter viros
armaque classibus valent.
8 Pliny, 4.97; Promunturium Cimbroram excurrens in maria longe paenin-
sulam efficit quae Tastris appellatur.