Location: 8 km from Tapae Map
Found: 2nd century AD
Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa is
an ancient Roman archeological site situated
8 km from Tapae in Romania. It was originally
found in the 2nd century AD. At first it was used as an
important Roman military camp (Castrum). It was a base for the V
Macedonian Legion of the Roman Empire. The Legion was to guard the
local gold mines, as well as the road by which the gold was
transported to Rome. The romanization of the local population, the
construction of civil, administrative and commercial buildings
began. The city's population consisted mainly of retired military
men and their families, often of mixed descent, although Roman
colonists generally predominated. His first name Ulpia Traiana was
in honor of the Emperor Trajan, a native of Spain. The city grew
rapidly, becoming first a colony and soon receiving the prestigious
status of Jus Italicum within the Italian law of the Empire. By the
end of the II century, it occupied an area of 30 hectares and had
almost 30 thousand people, a developed system of civil
infrastructure and fortifications, not inferior, thus, in terms of
its development to any of the provincial centers in the West of the
Empire. In 222-235 the city was called metropolis (megapolis). In
the most Roman Dacia on size and significance with him could compete
only Napoca.
The rise and fall of
For greater solemnity, Emperor Hadrian gave the colony the full name
Ulpia Trayana Augusta Dacian Sarmizegetuza, to emphasize the
historical continuity of the new capital and the old Dacian fortress
Sarmizegetuza, the ruins of which were located 50 km East of Ulpia
Trayana. In the center of the Roman capital is the forum with the
adjacent vast Palace of the augustalis-priests of the cult of the
Roman emperors Augustus. There was also a large amphitheater. At the
end of the III century defeated by the Goths. After the departure of
the Romans from Dacia after 271, Ulpia Traiana became dramatically
desolate, although it seems to have been partially inhabited until
the beginning of the fifth century. Between the third and fifth
centuries, the Romanesque population that remained in the city
completely abandoned it and dispersed to the neighboring hills. The
Roman toponym has not survived. Unlike other Roman settlements (eg.
Apulum, Napoca), the city never again revived, even after the
arrival of other peoples.
