| Dacia, in ancient
geography the land of the Daci
or Getae, was a large district of Central Europe,
bounded on the north by the Carpathians, on the south by the Danube, on the west
by the Tisa (Tisza river, in Hungary), on the east by the Tyras (Dniester or Nistru,
now in eastern Moldova). It thus corresponds in the main to modern Romania and
Moldova. The capital of Dacia was Sarmizegetusa. The inhabitants of this district
are considered as belonging to the Thracian stock as Getae
in Roman documents; also as Dagae and Gaete. The Roman province Dacia Trajana, established as a consequence of the Dacian Wars during 101-106, comprising the regions known today as Banat, Oltenia and Transylvania. The later Roman province Dacia Aureliana, reorganised inside former Moesia Superior after the abandonment of former Dacia to the Goths and Carpi in 271. |  |
The kingdom of Dacia was in existence at least as early as the beginning of the 2nd century BC and it reached its maximum extent under Burebista. The former Dacia Trajana province was controlled by the Visigoths and Carpians until they were in turn displaced and subdued by the Huns in 376, under the leadership of Attila. The Dacians rebelled frequently and due to increasing pressure from them and the Visigoths in 271, the Emperor Aurelian abandoned Dacia Trajana. The colonists, besides the Roman troops, were mainly first- or second-generation Roman colonists from Noricum or Pannonia, later supplemented with colonists from other provinces: South Thracians (from the provinces of Moesia orThracia) and settlers from the Roman provinces of Asia Minor. In 382-3, allied with the Ulaid Scots, the Picts again invade England, and this time the damage done to the wall and its forts is never repaired although the invaders are driven back by Magnus Maximus. There were several temples in Roman Leicester.
The Déisi was a term used to describe a class of peoples in ancient Ireland. The term Déisi is also virtually interchangeable with another Irish term, aithechthúatha meaning "rent-paying tribes", "vassal communities" or "tributary peoples" may lie at the origin of the mysterious people known as the Attacotti of Scotland and Ireland, who along with the Scots, Picts and Saxons, inspired so much terror in Roman Britain in the 360's. One of the most famous medieval Irish tales, first written sometime in the eighth century, is "The Expulsion of the Déisi". It tells the story of a sept of Tara, called the Dal Fiachrach Suighe, who are expelled from Tara by their kinsman, Cormac mac Airt.
Part of the sept settled in Munster after many battles, while one section of them, led by Eochaid Allmhuir mac Art Corb, sail across the sea to Britain where he founded kingdoms among territory once held by the Ordovices and Silures extended through the River Severn and the Forest of Dean called Verulamium and then to be St. Albans, but especially in Demetae- the kingdoms of the Cymru Celts since 382 by one of the many sons of Magnus Maximus. In about 395, Britain had to be rescued from her barbarian foes, this time by the most powerful general of the Western Roman Empire, Stilicho. Stilicho's intervention was the last occasion on which a major expedition was mounted against the enemies of Britain. Roman forces on the island were further reduced to serve Italy against the invading Goths. In 406 a vast army of barbarians crossed the frozen Rhine in Europe and began advancing westwards towards the Channel coast. Earlier in the year, the authorities had elevated an unknown soldier, Marcus, to supreme power in Britannia. Gratian, an urban magistrate survived only four months, and the army's next choice fell on a soldier, Constantine (High King of Britain), who challenged Roman authority in Gaul, later creating a kingdom or prefecture at Arles from which to rule as Emperor Constantine III.
Constantine had, in 407 removed most of the remaining trained forces from Britain only to be killed in 411 at Arles. The troops never returned but instead may have largely settled in Armorica. In 408, Britannia was subjected to a large-scale barbarian invasion, probably Saxons, with Anglian support. During what was either a revolt of peasants and slaves in Britain in 409 to mirror the popular uprising of the oppressed classes in Armorica (Brittany), or the tail end of the barbarian invasion, the Romano-British governor had appealed for imperial help. In the face of this abandonment by Rome, the defence of Britain was left to the western and northern kingdoms and to the central government, essentially under the traditional Celtic High King, who may well have used the title Emperor of Britain. Vortigern could have been the first of these, with Ambrosius Aurelianus, and Arthur following them; Uther Pendragon is harder to pin down, but would have ruled between Ambrosius and Arthur. The south and east, land far more greatly Romanised, came under the island's central administration, for as long as it lasted, and was much more tightly controlled. Kingdoms did emerge in the south and east, mostly towards the end of the fifth century.
The Celts of Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall became separated from the Celts of Wales after the Battle of Deorham in about 577. Vortigern's main power base seems to have been further south than Powys and was passed onto Ambrosius Aurelianus' descendants, to be finally conquered by the West Saxons in 577. Many of the defended areas were settled with Teutonic foederati. Formed from the military district of Valentia, the Kingdom of Northern Britain covered the whole of the Roman militarised zone from a line close to the Humber to Hadrian's Wall and a lesser sphere of influence for some distance beyond it (perhaps including the Votadini). Quite possibly appointed to his position by the departing Magnus Maximus, Coel Hen was probably the last Roman-style dux brittanniarum, and ruled in a very Romanised way. Coel Hen's descendants divided a single political entity of North Britain into a patchwork of small kingdoms that fell one by one to the Angles. Cunedda and his people quickly settled in Gwynedd, carrying out their task of expelling the Irish invaders who had begun to settled North Wales until the only Irish stronghold remained on Ynys Mon (the Isle of Anglesey).
The Romanised form of Demetae (Dyfed) was centered at Castle Dwyan throughout the 4th and 5th centuries. The line of kings founded by Eochaid remained rulers of Dyfed well into the 10th century, and founded a sub-kingdom in Brecon (Welsh: Aberhonddu). It is derived from the River Honddu, which empties into the River Usk near the town centre, a short distance away from the River Tarrell which enters the Usk a few hundred metres upstream. It is the traditional county town of Brecknockshire, although its role as a county town diminished since the formation Chester and of Powys the West Midlands region of England. In the tenth century, the Welsh ruler Howell the Good merged Dyfed and Seisyllwg and established a new kingdom known as Deheubarth.
The Roman powerhouse in Britain was one Magnus Maximus (Macsen Wledig in British) a possible grandson of Constantine the Great. He served with Theodosius and had risen to head the military in Britain. He claimed a right to the Empire over Emperor Gratian and in 383AD invaded Gaul. Behind him he left Britain in a secure position under trusted lieutenants. The north was under the command of Coel; who had been in charge there throughout Magnus' tenure while Magnus had concentrated on the south and west. Coel already had his own trusted people in every region of the north. One of his generals accompanying him on this Gaulish adventure was Conanus, a rebellious nephew of Magnus' predecessor who came along to show he was now at peace with the great man. This is the same Kynan Meriadec who, after the defeat of the Gaulish king of Armorica, was given the kingship of the area which became known as Lesser Britain or Brittany. Magnus depleted the trained Roman army in the south and the east for his invasion of mainland Europe. This left those areas pretty wide open to English invasion, but the north (Hadrian's Wall) and west, under Coel.
Over the 50 years following the defeat of Magnus Maximus in 388AD the region settled down under control of the family of Coel. The Thirteen Kingdoms of the North (the Round Table). The Men of the North refers to the northern Cymry - the Britons. It list twelve families seperated into three main groupings. Six families are shown as decending from Ceneu ap Coel, the son of Coel. Five families come from Dyfawal Hen (Dyfawal the Old) who was himself a grandson of Macsen Wledig, the self-proclaimed Emperor of Rome. And one final famaly seems to be of singularly British decent through the tradition female line.