There is a page or two in the abbreviation which
Xiphilin made of Dion; Aurelius Victor has a little to add, so
also has Eutropus, but, practically speaking, there is, apart from
that column, nothing save conjecture.
Campaigns are wearisome reading, but not the one that is pictured
there. You ask a curve a question, and in the next you find the
reply. There is a point, however, on which it is dumb--the origin
of the war. But if you wish to know the result, not the momentary
and transient result, but the sequel which futurity held, look at
the ruins at that column's base.
The origin of the war was Domitian's diplomacy. The chieftain whom
he had made king, and who had been surprised enough at receiving a
diadem instead of the point of a sword, fancied, and not
unreasonably, that the annuity which Rome paid him was to continue
forever. But Domitian, though a god, was not otherwise immortal.
When he died abruptly the annuity ceased. The Dacian king sent
word that he was surprised at the delay, but he must have been far
more so at the promptness with which he got Trajan's reply. It was
a blare of bugles, which he thought forever dumb; a flight of
eagles, which he thought were winged.
In the spirals of the column you see the advancing army, the
retreating foe; then the Dacian dragon saluting the standards of
Rome; peace declared, and an army, whose very repose is menacing,
standing there to see that peace is kept.
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