Capidava

Capidava (Kapidaua, Cappidava, Capidapa, Calidava, Calidaua) was originally an important Geto-Dacian centre on the right bank of the Danube. After the Roman conquest, it became a civil and military centre in the province of Moesia Inferior (later Scythia Minor) and part of the defensive frontier system of the Moesian Limes along the Danube. It is located in the village with the same name in Constanța County, Romania.

Capidava is depicted in the form Calidava/Calidaua in Segmentum VIII of Tabula Peutingeriana (1st–4th century) on a Roman road between Axiopolis and Carsium. The map provides distances between Axiopolis, Capidava and Carsium which coincide with the distances between the sites. This is also verified by the discovery of a milestone at Seimenii Mici that indicates the distance of 18,000 feet (27 km) from Axiopolis to Capidava.

Capidava appears on an illustration from Notitia Dignitatum imperii romani between the forts standing on the Lower Danube limes and found under the authority of the military commander of the province (dux Scythiae). Notitia also mentions at Capidava (form Capidaua) a cavalry unit or detachment of units under the command of the Duke of Scythia: Cuneus equitum Solensium, Capidaua. The Cuneus equitum Solensium might well be the cavalry component of the old Legio XX Valeria Victrix, renamed the Solenses.

Capidava took its name from the old Getic dava "settlement". "Capidava" has the characteristic Dacian ending, the suffix –dava meaning "settlement, village, town". This Getic toponym, means the "curve fortified settlement". The Getic name had been preserved by the Romans under the form Capidava in the Antonine Itinerary (224, 3), Calidava in the Tabula Peutingeriana (VIII, 3) and Cappidava or Capidapa in the Geography of Ravenna (179, 3 and 186). The entire territory took the name "territorium capidavense". Petculescu noted that in the zone of the Danubian frontier zone the names of the sites of the forts and the civilian settlements related to them were overwhelmingly of pre-Roman origin, mostly Geto-Dacian. In the southern part of the frontier there was a concentration of names ending in dava, characteristic of the Geto-Dacian hill-forts, indicating that the Roman army found a lot of local tribes dwelling in fortified sites according to their traditions. Nevertheless, Capidava is one of the few Roman-era settlements with indigenous names in the area where no significant pre-Roman settlement was found.

Based on the literary evidence that confirms both the existence and the importance of Capidava and also based on the archaeological pre-Roman evidence, some take into consideration the hypothesis that the Getic fortress might have been razed to the ground through the building of the Roman castra itself Historians such as Suceveanu, Miclea and Florescu consider that the pre-Roman indigenous Getic settlement of Capidava, located at some distance from the future Roman fortress gave the name Capidava. On the site of modern Capidava village, there is a La Tène settlement of Geto-Dacian culture, dated to 5th century - 2nd century BC. At 4 km south of Capidava, on the bank of Zaval Valley, there are strong Geto-Dacian traces, dating back to the second period of Iron Age. Beside the Geto-Dacian ceramic, fragments of Roman vases are scattered here and there. The early 20th century Romanian archaeologist and historian Vasile Pârvan identified the Geto-Dacian Capidava as the center of power for the Getic king Dapyx, within a territorium Capidavense. Cassius Dio's Historia Romana makes mention of the retreat of Dapyx into his fort after his defeat in 28 BC at the hand of Marcus Licinius Crassus. Pârvan identified the fort mentioned by Dio with future Roman fort Capidava, stating the locations described in the a

Monument data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).