page_title: Roman Dacia
section_title: First re-organizations (117–138)
hierarchical_section_title: Roman Dacia / Dacia under the Antonine and Severan emperors (106–235) / First re-organizations (117–138)
caption_attribution_description: Statue of Hadrian
context_page_description: Roman Dacia was a province of the Roman Empire from 106 to 271–275 AD. Its territory consisted of the regions of Oltenia, Transylvania and Banat. During Roman rule, it was organized as an imperial province on the borders of the empire. It is estimated that the population of Roman Dacia ranged from 650,000 to 1,200,000. It was conquered by Trajan after two campaigns that devastated the Dacian Kingdom of Decebalus. However, the Romans did not occupy its entirety; Crișana, Maramureș, and most of Moldavia remained under the Free Dacians.
  After its integration into the empire, Roman Dacia would see a constant administrative division. In 119, it was divided into two departments: Dacia Superior and Dacia Inferior. Between 124 and around 158, Dacia Superior was divided into two provinces, Dacia Apulensis and Dacia Porolissensis. The three provinces would later be unified in 166 as a single one known as Tres Daciae due to the ongoing Marcomannic Wars. The area was the focus of a massive and organized Roman colonization. Therefore, new mines were opened and ore extraction intensified, while agriculture, stock breeding, and commerce flourished in the province.
context_section_description: Hadrian was at Antioch in Syria when word came through of the death of Trajan. He could not return to Rome, as he was advised that Quadratus Bassus, ordered by Trajan to protect the new Dacian territories north of the Danube, had died there while on campaign. As a result of taking several legions and numerous auxiliary regiments with him to Parthia, Trajan had left Dacia and the remaining Danubian provinces below strength. The Roxolani allied themselves with the Iazyges to revolt against Rome, as they were angry over a Roman decision to cease payments to which Trajan had agreed. Therefore, Hadrian dispatched the armies from the east ahead of him, and departed Syria as soon as he was able.
  By this time, Hadrian had grown so frustrated with the continual problems in the territories north of the Danube that he contemplated withdrawing from Dacia. As an emergency measure, Hadrian dismantled Apollodorus' bridge across the Danube, concerned about the threat posed by barbarian incursions across the Olt River and a southward push between a number of Trajan's colonia and the castrum at Bersobis.
  By 118, Hadrian himself had taken to the field against the Roxolani and the Iazyges, and although he defeated them, he agreed to reinstate the subsidies to the Roxolani. Hadrian then decided to abandon certain portions of Trajan's Dacian conquests. The territories annexed to Moesia Inferior (Southern Moldavia, the south-eastern edge of the Carpathian Mountains and the plains of Muntenia and Oltenia) were returned to the Roxolani. As a result, Moesia Inferior reverted once again to the original boundaries it possessed prior to the acquisition of Dacia. The portions of Moesia Inferior to the north of the Danube were split off and refashioned into a new province called Dacia Inferior. Trajan's original province of Dacia was relabelled Dacia Superior. It was at this time that Hadrian moved the Legio IV Flavia Felix from its base at Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa and ordered it stationed in Moesia Superior.
  By 124, an additional province called Dacia Porolissensis was created in the northern portion of Dacia Superior, roughly located in north-western Transylvania. Since it had become tradition since the time of Augustus that former consuls could only govern provinces as imperial legates where more than one legion was present, Dacia Superior was administered by a senator of praetorian rank. This meant that the imperial legate of Dacia Superior only had one legion under his command, stationed at Apulum. Dacia Inferior and Dacia Porolissensis were under the command of praesidial procurators of ducenary rank.
  Hadrian vigorously exploited the opportunities for mining in the new province. The emperors monopolized the revenue generated from mining by leasing the operations of the mines to members of the Equestrian order, who employed a large number of individuals to manage the operations. In 124, the emperor visited Napoca and made the city a municipium.
caption: Emperor Hadrian (117–138), as depicted in the Antalya Museum
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