Trajan Decius, Rome mint,
Antoninianus (20-22 mm / 4.35 g), 249-250 AD.,
Obv.: IMP C M Q TRAIANVS DECIVS AVG , radiate and cuirassed bust of Trajan Decius right, seen from behind.
Rev.: DACIA , Dacia, draped and diademed, standing facing, holding a Dacian war-standard in her r. hand.
RIC 121, 12b. C. 16.
The reverse honours the embroiled Balkan region Dacia, an important region beyond the Danube containing the rich gold, silver and iron mines of the Transylvanian Alps (Carpathians). The region had been annexed about 140 years earlier by Trajan, who celebrated his conquest with the magnificent friezes on his column in Rome. In Roman times more than a dozen cities were established in Dacia as it was populated by people from nearby Roman provinces, notably Illyricum. However, in the reign of Decius, Dacia was no longer a promised land for skilled workers, but a place of great danger. Over the course of time the more remote portions of the province fell from Roman control until, by the reign of Aurelian, only the Transylvanian highlands remained in Roman hands. Indeed, it was Aurelian who forfeited Dacia, and in 274 oversaw a mass evacuation of its citizens and soldiers to the two Moesias south of the Danube. On Decius' coinage Dacia is represented as a draped, veiled woman holding either a military standard or, in this case, a 'draco' staff. This is usually described as a staff surmounted with the head of an ass. However, it is best identified as a 'draco', a dragon military standard adopted by certain detachments of the Roman legions from their contact with Dacian, Scythian and Sarmatian warriors. Comprised of a long cloth tube attached a hollow metal head of a wolf, the draco apparently would make a menacing sound and its tail would fly erect as the standard bearer charged into battle. The device is depicted numerous times on Trajan's column, is mentioned in Arrian's Tactica (composed in 136/7), and also by the 4th or 5th-century military historian Vegetius, in his Epitoma rei militaris. The best description of the draco, however, was penned by the empire's last great Latin historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, who describes a parade of triumph of 357 in which Constantius II "...was surrounded by purple banners woven in the form of dragons and attached to the tops of gilded and jewelled spears; the breeze blew through their gaping jaws so that they seemed to be hissing with rage and their voluminous tails streamed behind them in the wind."
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