For the convenience of crossing the Danube the army was divided into two parts, and the river was crossed by bridges of boats at two points, one near Viminacium and the other opposite Orsova.  The first section then skirted the western slopes of the Carpathians through the valley of the Theiss, and so entered the Dacian highlands; the other marched up the valley of the Tierna (Czerna), past the baths of Mehadia, which already existed in the Roman period, and the two divisions of the army formed a junction at Karansebes,[88] or at Tibiscum close by, where two Roman roads met; Trajan is known to have accompanied and led the eastern division until the junction was completed.  It is probable that in that year (101 A.D.) no serious encounter took place between Trajan and Decebalus, who had been occupied for some time in preparing for his defence, and had now received reinforcements from many of the neighbouring tribes.  One of these in the name of the allied tribes sent a threatening message to Trajan, written or scratched upon a fungus, warning him to withdraw his troops, but he heeded neither this admonition nor overtures of peace proceeding from Decebalus himself.  His army went into winter quarters, and early in 102 A.D. he commenced operations by forcing the Iron Gate pass in the Carpathians,[89] and encountered the enemy, it is said, at the same place where Julianus had previously defeated Decebalus, namely, Tapae.[90] Here the Dacians again met with a sanguinary defeat, but the Romans also sustained severe losses, and Trajan secured himself in the affections of his soldiers by tearing up his garments to make bandages for the wounded.[91] After this reverse Decebalus sought to reopen negotiations with Trajan, but on his refusal to receive the emissaries of the emperor, who declined to meet him in person, hostilities were renewed, and the war was prosecuted by the Dacians with great fierceness and barbarity.  The discipline and warlike resources of Rome, however, maintained the ascendency for her arms.  Decebalus was pressed from stronghold to stronghold, and defeated in one encounter after another, until at length his capital Sarmizegethusa was threatened by his triumphant enemy.  Then it was that he sued earnestly for peace, and accepted the unfavourable conditions offered him by Trajan.  He was compelled to give up all his war material and artificers, to raze his fortresses, to deliver up all Roman prisoners and deserters, to conclude a treaty defensive and offensive with Rome, and to appear before and do homage to the emperor.  Dacia thus became a vassal but autonomous province of the Empire, and, content with his victory, Trajan returned to the capital, taking with him certain Dacian chiefs, who repeated the act of homage in the senate.  He then celebrated a triumph, and received the distinctive title of ’Dacicus.’[92]

[Illustration:  TRAJAN ADDRESSING HIS ARMY.]