Did the Conquest of Dacia Save Rome's Economy?

This is an honest question for all you well-read people out there. It's no big secret that after Traianus conquered Dacia, he had 123 days of nothing but celebrations in the city of Rome, where thousands of gladiators and animals were slaughtered. He also distributed 2,000 sesterces a head in 107AD, almost double the salary of a legionnaire. I've read in a few sources that Traianus' forum was built on gold brought from Dacia, which supposedly weighed in at 165 tons of gold from Decebal's treasury alone, coupled with another 330 tons of silver. It is unclear whether this is exaggerated or not, given Rome's ability to hold such a massive celebration, even after taxing its system to the limit by mobilizing 11 legions for the conquest of Dacia, not to mention that Traianus was soon after able to go after the Parthians in another massive campaign.

In short, what I'm looking for are answers to the question in the title. How significant was Dacia's conquest? Did it save the Roman economy, which at the time was having significant difficulties? On the one hand, it was an extremely vulnerable region, but on the other hand, the resources there were more than enough to convince the Romans to maintain occupation, often with 3 full legions acting as garrison. Alongside the massive gold and silver mines, there were also significant resources in salt, and other precious raw materials.

I'm also interested in images of Roman coins dating from before and after the conquest. I've heard the claim that after the conquest, Roman gold coins apperantly became much thicker, where as earlier they were extremely thin. If anyone has pictures of coins, say, from the time of Nerva, and then comparing them with coins from 107AD, I'd be really appreciative.

Well, the conquest did bring significant gold and salt resources, but I'm not so sure on the „saved” part. Maybe paullus can answer this. (and damn, you posted at 6:49 AM, no wonder the topic was so far back).

It would have saved Rome, but as you said, he wasted all that in booze and girls. (To be honest, and men too, since he payed his legionaries)

Arguably from the Third Punic War onwards Rome's continued success was paid for by conquest. And even before that at various points. I think the fact that it stopped collecting taxes from it's citizens in 167BC was a sign of where future finance would have to be levied.

Actually, I think the saving of "Roman economy" came somewhat later, during Septimius Severus' campaign against the Parthians; After sacking Ctesiphon he carried enough loot (As well as enough slaves to rank upwards hundreds of thousands) to delay an economical crisis for several decades (Some estimate three to four). Dacia was rich and was pivotal for Trajan in order to transfer his campaign to waging war against the Parthians, but did not prove sufficient given Septimius' later expensive military enterprises.

This angered the Arsacids, but the drop that made the cup overflow was Caracalla's deception (Allegedly over a marriage with Artabanus' daughter, which proved to be a Roman invasion incognito), leading to the defeat of the Romans at Nisibis 217 CE (Many have shrugged it off as "Pyrrhic", due to Herodian's description of the battle, however given the bias we have no reason to dismiss that the Parthians nipped the Romans right in the bud). This lead to a costly reparation treaty, but the Arsacids were soon to be overthrown by the Sassanian clan, who clearly held a more pronounced anti-Roman attitude.

BUMP.

C'mon, is my question really that cliche and boring?

I think the fact that Trajan had all of the building projects after conquering Dacia proves that it "fixed" the economy. It wasn't any permanent fix though, since the Roman Empire had a treasury and not a balanced economy with modern concepts of balance of income and expenses and such.

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Originally Posted by MarcusAureliusAntoninus

I think the fact that Trajan had all of the building projects after conquering Dacia proves that it "fixed" the economy. It wasn't any permanent fix though, since the Roman Empire had a treasury and not a balanced economy with modern concepts of balance of income and expenses and such.

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That is correct. A complete analysis would be too long and I don't have the time for that right now. It slowed down a process but couldn't stop it. The new gildmines in Dacia were very important (more so than the booty) especially because production of the Iberian and other mines became less and less. Still they couldn't stop the process of (can't think of the correct english word atm)...well the lack of gold decreased the worth of the coinage. one of the main problems of the 2nd and 3rd century.

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Originally Posted by L.C.Cinna

That is correct. A complete analysis would be too long and I don't have the time for that right now. It slowed down a process but couldn't stop it. The new gildmines in Dacia were very important (more so than the booty) especially because production of the Iberian and other mines became less and less. Still they couldn't stop the process of (can't think of the correct english word atm)...well the lack of gold decreased the worth of the coinage. one of the main problems of the 2nd and 3rd century.

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were you looking for the words "devaluation" and "inflation" (possibly w/hyper prefix)?

YES :idea2: thanks *shouldn't write stuff late at night anymore*

1.
Roman writers claimed that Trajan brought a huge fortune from Dacia but arhelogical finds don't show the kingdom of Dacia very rich in gold. They had gold coins named koson but almost no jewelry was found until recently and this new finds are probably fakes.
While we don't know how much he got from the war in the next years he made huge celebrations, build a new great forum in Rome and several large ports around it, raised 2 new legions and carried a massive campaign against Parthia etc
At his death the treasury was largely empty so no long time profit was made.
2.
Early in his reign, before the conquest of Dacia, he had to debase the coin, reducing it's value.

Kosmo: Geological evidence shows that the Apuseni Mts were very rich in gold (they still have significant amounts). And what do you mean by fake jewelry? There's a recent program to recover jewelry of confirmed Dacian origin from various private collections going on now.

The conquest of Dacia was nothing more than a band-aid, an analgesic, to Rome's economic problems. As mentioned earlier, the Roman economy was commonly supported by conquest after the Third Punic War. See H.H. Scullard's From the Gracchi to Nero for an exhaustive inquiry to the economic and sociological turmoil wracking the empire following the Third Punic War.

Augustus' principate, too, was little more than a band-aid. Unfortunately, there wasn't much anyone could do without completely overhauling the entire socio-economic structure of the entire Mediterranean basin, a task that was nigh impossible, especially given the rudimentary knowledge of sociology and economics that was possessed during those days.

Dacia provided a temporary influx of money. However, it was shortly topped by Trajan's Parthian War. The cost of raising extra legions and garrisoning the expanded borders of the empire were swiftly bankrupting the economy. A centralized yet static military (which had developed during the Flavians and was continued by the Antonines) replaced the system of buffer-states (clientele) that Augustus had promoted. This system was not as cost-effective, and indeed, difficult to sustain, although it seemed preferable to subsuming the cost of the military to the provinces. In other words, the entire imperial administration was hyper-centralized and micromanaged largely from Rome itself at the time. This created an enormous money-pit from which there could be no relief. Hyper-inflation was inevitable. The coinage was steadily debased further and further from the ascension of Nero. Even Diocletians price edict did little to relieve the economic crisis--a crisis that had lasted for centuries by then.

So, no, Trajan's Dacian conquest didn't save Rome's economy--it only slowed down the inexorable inflation increase. Indeed, his conquests severely over-extended Rome economically and militarily, and prompted Hadrian to give back huge swathes of territory that Trajan had acquired.

What's worse is that constant conquest brought with it other sociological and economic problems.

Rome would have basically needed to kill large swaths of it's population to deal with some of those sociological problems.


Rome got really dumb with doing away with the client state system; hell, I'd argue even taking over the land once the puppet died was dumb. One great example of that is Britannia.......

I don't know. When the rebellion in Britain had been put down, everybody there learned what would happen if you apposed Roma and people were less likely to try again in the future. I think the aftermath of the rebellion proved beneficial to Roma.

Yeah, but look at what happened to Pergamon and that area. From rich fashionable region to poor backwater one, all after Rome´s takeover.