of existence) prevented any strict line of demarcation.  The nominal boundaries of Roman Dacia were the river Theiss on the west, the Pruth on the east, ‘barbarians’ on the north, and the river Danube on the south.  The country actually colonised embraced the Banate of Temesvar, Transylvania (Siebenbuergen), and Roumania as they exist to-day.  There were several centres of colonisation, of which the chief was Ulpia Trajana, including the old capital of Decebalus, Sarmizegethusa (now Varhely), and other important centres were Apulum and Cerna or Tierna.[97]

Trajan and his successors built fortifications, walls, and towns; and, attracted partly by the fertility of the plains and partly by the gold mines of the Carpathians, the Roman colonies soon swelled in numbers and importance.[98] Different opinions have been expressed concerning the character of these colonists.  One modern writer, Carra, who is considered an authority in Roumanian history, says that the Romans regarded Dacia as the French, Cayenne, and sent thither a colony consisting of the scum of the principal towns of Greece and the Roman Empire.  Their descendants, he adds, who inherited their vices and cowardice, were turn by turn conquered and enslaved by the Sarmatians, Huns, and Tartars.[99] This is a statement which rather affects the feelings of modern Roumanians than the current of historical events, and it brings us face to face with an enquiry which we shall have to handle with great circumspection, namely, the descent of the modern Roumanians from the old Daco-Roman colonists, lest we find ourselves involved in a controversy that would fill volumes.  So far as the records of Roman history enable us to judge, Carra has done great injustice to the colonists of Dacia.  It is true that the Romans banished some of their malefactors, and especially political offenders, to their colonies, as Ovid was expatriated; and that Trajan colonised Dacia from various parts of the Empire; but the custom of the Roman generals, which Trajan would doubtless have followed, was to divide the most fertile districts amongst their veteran soldiers,[100] and therefore, if the charges of cowardice and debauchery made by Carra were true, they would apply to the bravest in the legions who had conquered the almost indomitable Decebalus.  But Carra lived and wrote at a time (A.D. 1777) when cool judgment could hardly be expected in a writer on Roumania, and if he were alive to-day he would be surprised to hear that there is a school of modern historians who, using his very authorities, deny that the descendants of the Daco-Roman colonists were ever to be found on Dacian ground during the incursions of the eastern barbarians.  But of that more hereafter.[101]