In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians or Getae as they were known by the Greeks—a branch of the Thracians north of the Haemus range.
At times Dacia included areas between the Tisza and the Middle Danube. The Carpathian Mountains were located in the middle of Dacia. It thus corresponds to the present day countries of Romania and Moldova.l Dacians (or Getae) were North Thracian tribes.[7] Dacian tribes had both peaceful and military encounters with other neighboring tribes, such as Celts, Ancient Germanics, Sarmatians, and Scythians, but were most influenced by the Ancient Greeks and Romans. The latter eventually conquered, and linguistically and culturally assimilated the Dacians.
A Dacian Kingdom of variable size existed between 82 BC until the Roman conquest in 106 AD. The capital of Dacia, Sarmizegetusa, located in modern Romania, was destroyed by the Romans, but its name was added to that of the new city (Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa) built by the latter to serve as the capital of the Roman province of Dacia.
The Romanian language is the purest of the Latin derivative languages with the word "ursa," of course, being the Latin word for bear. Think of the constellations "ursa major" and "ursa minor," the great bear and the little bear.Grandma and Grandpa Ursaki had a neighbor (I'm assuming Romanian) who told my dad that the name Ursaki was actually derived from a truer spelling of Ursache, which translated to mean "Bear Man". The neighbor said that the name Ursaki referred to men who wrestled or boxed with bears. So who exactly were these "bear men" that we're obstensibly descended from? Well I'll tell you . . . I don't know! However, two summers ago, while standing in the Roman Colosseum I had a thought or two while I was reading the following about the history of the nasty place:
"Construction of the Ancient Roman Colosseum was started by Emperor Vespasian in 70 A.D. After Vespasian's death in 79 A.D. his son Titus completed and inaugurated the Roman Colosseum in 80 A.D. The opening ceremony is documented to have lasted 100 days and between 5000 and 11000 wild animals were killed. The Colosseum was used for gladiatorial combat until about 435 A.D. and wild animal hunts continued until the early 6th Century."
The majority of the entertainment that took place in the Colosseum involved killing . . . people killing people, people killing animals, animals killing people and animals killing animals. I read (while at the Collosseum) that entire species of animals became extinct during the "games" (gee, I wonder why the Roman Empire fell). For the first couple of hundred years, the Roman emperors brought in a lot of large, exotic animals (lions, tigers, giraffes, elephants, etc.) but when Rome's glory days were coming to an end it was mostly bears (Eurasian brown bears and Syrian brown bears) that were used in their blood sports. So, it occurs to me that just possibly, we could be descended from a gladiator or slave who was sent into the arena to fight with bears. Maybe this gladiator or slave became Christian and eventually was sent (or found his way) to Dacia. That's a lot of "maybe" but it just rang true to me while I was standing in the Roman Colloseum!
If any of you are more up on your history than I am, and can shed some light on this, I would love to hear from you. In the meantime, I'm going to think of myself as descended from someone who fought with bears in the colloseum (or one of the other 70 arenas in the Roman Empire used for blood sports). That's my story and I'm sticking to it! 'Til next time, Sandra
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