"Trajan engaged the war with hardened soldiers, who despised the Parthians, our enemy, and who didn't care of their arrow blows, after the terrible wounds inflicted by the curved swords of the Dacians."
Fronto, Principia Historiae, II (translation in “Sources about the history of Romania”, I, 1964, page 533)
The considerable research made until now contributed greatly to define the getae-dacian culture and civilization, to settle the place of the Dacians in the big picture of the ancient Europe and their contribution to the universal knowledge.
The archaeological excavations made in the last 30 years, across the whole Dacian territory, and among the most important the ones from the complex situated in the Sebes mountain, the excavations from Piatra Craivii, Tilisca, Bănita, Capîlna, Cugir, Pecica, Racos and many others in the intra-Charpatian space, to which can be added the excavations from Poiana, Racatau, Brad, Piatra Neamt, Barbosi, Cîrlomanesti, etc, from Moldova or the ones from Crăsani, Bucuresti, Popesti, Cotofenesti, Bîzdîna, Sprîncenata, etc, from the extra-Carpathian space brought forth new and important data regarding the Dacian metallurgy. Beyond excavations, numerous studies regarding the iron manufacturing were performed. This research allows us to define both the iron civilization of the Dacians and the role of metallurgy in the evolution the Dacian civilization.
Dacian warrior armed with a falx daciae
Detail from the Monument of Adamclisi
Weapons are among the elements that could illustrate the degree of civilization of a population. Research has proven that the oldest iron pieces discovered in Romania date from the Hallstatt A, (sec 12 B.C.) and indications exist that the reduction and manufacturing were done in the same place, fact proven with certitude for the next phase, (Hallstatt B). Such a early apparition of iron manufacturing shows the level which this craft reached in the flourishing period of the Dacian state.
The skilled Getae-Dacian craftsmen, who were manufacturing for a long time and with special skill the bonze, learned also the iron manufacturing, which involves a more complicated technology. In the blacksmith workshops, which have a rich inventory of anvils, sledge hammers, hammers, tongs of various forms and shapes, chisel gabs, mandrels, filess, the Dacian craftsmen were making a big variety of tools and weapons.
The iron pieces were processed though hammering, it was heated and then flattened and the desired form of the object was shaped. The piece was cut with chisels and then welded through heated ramming or drilled.
The quality of the pieces is proven by the absence of slag traces in finished pieces or by the absence of the pieces uncouthly manufactured. The different processes of hardening were assuring the toughness and resilience of the manufactures iron pieces. The craftsmanship of the native smiths regarding the hardening is demonstrated by the fact that all the found pieces are hardened, and even more, the hardening is not uniform, but unevenly executed, only on the active parts of the piece.
Around 200-300 BC a considerable multiplication of the iron reduction furnaces is observed on the entire area occupied by the getae-dacians. The basic agricultural tools, numerous artisan tools and an impressive military arsenal were all were made of iron. The smith workshops discovered both inside and outside the Carpathian arch were capable to satisfy the iron made objects of all the communities on the entire Dacian territory.
It is assumed that the scythe is a North-Thracian invention, having the center inside the Carpathian arch, and from the scythe was subsequently developed the national weapon of the Dacians, the DACIAN FALX – the curved sword. The Falx is a kind of scythe, more or lesss curved at the tip, slightly smaller then the long, curved sarmatian swords. It is the typical weapons for the Dacians, and this is why it appears on numerous imperial monuments and coins in the centuries II-III a.c. It is abundantly illustrated on Trajan’s column and Adamclisi monument. The scarcity of the number of swords found at the archaeological sites shows the importance they had as war booty, but even so, sword or sword fragment were found in nearly all the important forts where research was conducted. This shows the actual number of the artifacts that existed in the maximum flourishing period of the Dacian state.
The multitude of representations of this specific weapon indicate it popularity in the arsenal of the antique world and the impact which this weapon had in the battless that the Dacians fought, either in Dacia or somewhere lesse where it accompanied its bearers. One example is given by an inscription on a building in the fort of the 1st Cohort Aelia Dacorum. This inscription with a relief representing the Dacian sword contains the name of the tribune Claudius Menander, who insisted to emphasize its Dacian heritage by the link to the Dacian sword. Moreover, one of the legions which participated in the Dacian wars and stationed in the Sarmizegetusa area for surveillance, sculpted the name of the unit on a marble block with letter with the curved sword shape.
It is very probable that, at the origin, Falx Dacica was a simple tool, used at the ingathering of the crop, and that it evolved because of the double role of the Dacian peasant, often forced to change the agricultural tools for the arms. This is also the reason for which the FALX is used preponderantly by the pedestrian army. The apparition of the curved sword in its consecrated form coincides with the passage from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, metal more fitted for such a weapon-tool.
 Dacian warrior with a falx Detail from Traian's Column |
This weapon is found in all Getae-Dacian regions, being exported also in the Celto-German and Sarmatian worlds. It had a long and narrow blade, sharpened on the concave side and had a wooden or bone handle, very good for cutting and cutting through and less for jabbing. Some sampless have blood grooves and engravings. The shorter variant was called “Sica” (in the Dacian language) and the long one (with an average length between 0.60-0.70 m) was called FALX (in latin language). The Falx was curved towards the front third, which made is especially effective against the enemy legs and ligaments. The FALX by itself was a frightful weapon: the curved blade similar to a bill-hook, at the end of a wooden handle was proven to be a lethal weapon in the hands of a good warrior and all the populations around the Dacian territory learned to fear it.
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The cutting action was accomplished by a movement of hitting and pulling. The cutting was amplified by using both hands. When it was used correctly it could easily cut a limb or behead an enemy. Also, because of the beak that resulted from the curved shape, it could pierce the helmets and armors, causing serious wounds or causing cerebral commotions when the head was hit.
The warriors usually used the Falx to break open the way through the compact enemy units, but they could as well fight with it against the light cavalry due to its length. The ones fighting with Falx, which resembled regarding the way of using it with the Thracian romphaia, fought in small units, using the Scythians military techniques of attacking in a triangle with its angle of lead pointed forward. Because of their need to use the weapons as well as they could, the warriors rarely used shields, as those might have disturbed them in their action. Usually they fought bare-bosomed wearing a cap for protection.
The Falx was a heavy weapon and it was handled with both hands. In some pictures it seems to have been a blade similar to a scythe attached to a strong hilt made of wood or other material; in other pictures it looks rather like a curved sword. The fact that it could cause grave wounds and even surgical sacrifice, arose such great fear among the Roman soldiers, that a special group of Romei legionaries wore their legs and hands armoured while opposing the Falx fighters. As a result of the often encounters between the Romans and the Falx fighters, the Roman armourers added two transversal metalic straps on the helmets of the soldiers to make them more resistant to the hits.
Dacian curved swords on Traian's Column
Among the first plotting which illustrates the curved sword is the one from the chalk block discovered at Gradistea Muncelului and kept in the Museum of Deva. This was found outside the perimeter of the fortress and it is not large (height-0.83; width-0.57; thick-0.33),it is roughly done, poorly maintained and illustrates two characters: one of them standing and holding a lance and the other one sitting down, having his head covered by a cap. Near this character-without any doubt, a Dacian tarabostes-there lies a curved sword, actually straight, only with its head curved. This man's nationality is given by the curved sword near him. It is a sword that often appears pictured on the Roman Imperial coins especially on those that appeared after the wars with Dacia and on the Roman monument from Britannia.
The headstone of the tribune Menander, on which a curved sword appears
Other representation of the Falx is on the marble plaque found at Gradistea Muncelului among the ruins of a building and now kept as well in the Museum of Deva. This plaque is a bit larger than the chalk block (1,115 m X 0,57m) and on its superior side, bordered by a tabula ansata, there are various signs carved and artistically representing the name of the Legion IV Flavia Felix. The researchers established that this legion camped at Sarmizegetusa -probably some surveillance detachments after the first Dacian war and more of them after the second war (Dio Cassius XVIII, 9, 7). It is very important the fact that a legion chose to carv its name in the shape of curved swords, because this fact shows us just how famous this Falx was. (M. Macrea, Sargetia, II 1941 p 133-36).
The fact that these swords were the essential trophies taken by the victorious armies made that the number of the discovered pieces to be extremely low. However, in almost all Dacian fortresses and important cities were found curved swords-in one piece or fragmented. The curved daggers-sica-were found in several Dacian tombs in Transilvania like those from Blandiana (H. Ciugudean, în ActaMN, XVII, 1980, pag. 425—426, fig. 2/1—2)
The consequences of a Dacian falx's attack on a Roman shield
The archaeological discoveries made in various spots of the former Dacia, proved the high development of the metallurgy even before the Roman conquest (two or three centuries before it). This transforms the Dacian civilization in a binary one, a civilization of wood doubled by an iron one of La Tene type perfectly comparable to the Celtic one and not below of the Roman one.
Author Cătălin Borangic aka Burebista
Translated and adjusted Codruta aka Pădure and Gabriela aka Aelia
Grupul Sarmizegetusa
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