in Ancient Geography, a large district of country in Europe, bounded N. by the country of the Bastarnae, E. by the river Tynas and the Euxine Sea, S. by the Danube, and W. by the river Pahissus, or Tibiscus, the modern Theiss. It comprehended the modern provinces of Transylvania and Wallachia, the Bukowina, the Banat of Temesvar, and parts of Hungary, Galicia, and Moldavia.

The original inhabitants of Dacia were the Getæ, a rude and barbarous tribe of Thracian extraction. The earliest notice that we have of them in history is the fact of their attempting to obstruct the passage of Alexander the Great across the Danube, when that prince was subduing the hordes of northern barbarians who had risen against him in rebellion shortly after his accession to the throne. About forty years later Lysimachus, king of Thrace, who had begun a war of aggression against the Getæ, and had penetrated a considerable way into their territory, was defeated and taken prisoner; but after a short detention, generously set at liberty. We next hear of the Getæ as being at war with the Gauls, by whom they were defeated, and many of them sold as slaves to the Athenians and other Greeks.

In later days the Getæ appear in history under the name of Daci. Why or by whom their original name was changed is not known; but ancient and modern ethnographers all agree in identifying the Daci with the Getæ. In the days of the Roman empire, the Dacians had attained to great power, and their name had become a watchword of terror in the Roman capital itself. Their reputation was heightened by the submission which they exacted from the tyrant Domitian, and the tribute with which that prince was obliged to purchase immunity from their attacks. At the close of the first century of the Christian era, however, Trajan, who had succeeded to the purple, set out against them in person, and defeated them with great slaughter at a place which is still called Prat de Trajan. In A.D. 104, he again invaded Dacia, routed Decebalus, who soon after committed suicide, and reduced Dacia into a Roman province. It was in honour of this campaign that the famous column of Trajan was erected at Rome. In order to secure his conquests in this direction, Trajan built over the Danube his famous bridge (which was one of the architectural wonders of the world, and of which some small remains still exist), as well as three great military roads. Dacia remained a Roman province till the time of Aurelian, when the colonists retired in a body to the south bank of the Danube, and the Goths took possession of the unoccupied territory. After this time Dacia was overrun by the Huns, the Gepidæ, the Lombards, and the Scythians, till in the tenth century the Magyars conquered it, and occupy it till this day. Deep traces of the Roman occupation of the province are to be found in the language of its modern inhabitants, the upper classes of whom speak a Latin that is wonderfully pure, while the common people use a dialect in which the Roman vocables are still the predominating element.