the offering of a bull as sacrifice.  Then there is a continuance of the march inland, followed by fierce contests between the two armies.  At length the Romans arrive before a walled city (probably Sarmizegethusa) where all the incidents of a siege, including personal adventures, are portrayed.  A Roman soldier, standing at the top of a scaling ladder, has struck off the head of one of the Dacians on the wall, whilst the latter are seen hurling stones and other missiles at those engaged in the assault.  Then comes another application for peace, a Dacian prince kneeling at the feet of Trajan; whilst in the same section, separated only by a couple of thin trees, we have the scene of the Dacians setting fire to their city, and in close contiguity is their dying leader.  The remaining scenes depict the Roman soldiers dividing the spoil.  Trajan is addressing them, distributing rewards, and bidding them adieu.  Then follow secondary incidents; the building of fortresses by the Romans; one or two more contests in which Trajan’s generals defeat the Dacians, driving them into the mountains, whither they are seen fleeing with their flocks, women, and children.  One of the last scenes represents the second triumph of Trajan, with soldiers who arrive bearing the head of Decebalus.  Some of the minor incidents in the panorama are intended to exhibit the barbarity of the Dacians, one being the exhibition of a row of heads stuck upon spears on the walls of a town or fortress; another the burning and torturing of naked Roman prisoners by Dacian women.  Altogether these bas-reliefs, which are said to be the work of several artists, present anything but an edifying spectacle of the ancient mode of warfare.

[Footnote 79:  Dion Cassius (Cocceianus), the Roman historian, was born 155 A.D. at Nicaea in Bithynia, where he also probably died in retirement after a long and eventful political life; the date of his death is unknown.  He was governor of Pannonia under Severus, and had opportunities of learning about Trajan’s expeditions into Dacia.  He wrote a history of Rome, including one of Trajan, but of the latter there is only an abridgment by Xiphilinus made in the eleventh century; our extracts are from the French version referred to in the Appendix.]

[Footnote 80:  See initial letter, and vignette at the end of this chapter.]

[Footnote 81:  Bohn’s Tacitus, vol. ii. p. 164.  This occurred 70 A.D. under Vespasian.  Moesia had been formally constituted a Roman province 9 A.D. (or 2 B.C., Merivale).]

[Footnote 82:  According to Merivale, vol. vii. p. 103 note (Longmans, 1862), it was a title:  ’interpreted by some writers “The Strength of the Dacians,” by others “Dakhi-Valhus,” the Scythian for the Day Falcon.’  Smith (Biography, article ‘Decebalus’) says it was probably a title of honour amongst the Dacians equivalent to chief or king, since we find that it was borne by more than one of their rulers, and that the individual best known to history as the