EPHEMERIS NAPOCENSIS - Institutul de Arheologie şi Istoria Artei

“Spa” Vignettes in Tabula Peutingeriana. Travelling Ad Aquas
6. Concluding remarks. The thermal settlements and the road system
Germisara, Ad Aquas and Ad Mediam represent three important Roman thermal settlements
from Dacia. It is obvious, from what I presented above, that all three were intensively
visited. These points of attractions offered for the inhabitants the opportunity, the chance for
healing, but they also were perceived as touristic settlements. These ‘resorts’ offered what the
Romans borrowed from Greeks: the concept of leisure as a state of mind. They all were connected
to the road infrastructure of roads. Germisara was positioned 7 kilometers north of the main
roads of Dacia and connected with another road, well preserved even nowadays. Ad Mediam
was positioned 5 kilometers east of the road which connected Dierna (today Orşova, Mehedinţi
County). The toponym itself indicates a settlement positioned close to the middle part of this
road. Ad Aquas (Călan, Hunedoara County) was located along the main road of Roman Dacia,
which connected the Danube line with the northern parts of Dacia, via Lederata – Tibiscum
– Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa – Apulum – Potaissa – Napoca – Porolissum. This road was the
‘highway’ of Roman Dacia. It was built during the two military camapaigns of Trajan in Dacia
and finished immediately after the conquest. A Roman milestone discovered at Aiton (between
Potaissa – today Turda, Cluj County, and Napoca, today Cluj-Napoca, Cluj County) dated in
108 AD, during Trajan, demonstrates that the Romans succeeded to built this road up to the
northern parts of the province.
Using the infrastructure, and all the facilities created, including a rapid colonization
of the new province (Eutropius, Breviarum ab urbe condita, 8, 6: Traianus victa Dacia ex toto
urbe Romano infinitas copias hominum transtulerat ad agros et urbes colendas), people of all social
statuses (soldiers, functionaries of the states) started to travel, to communicate, to benefit of all
the advantages of the new province. The society of Roman Dacia (as well as of the whole Roman
Empire) became very dynamic. These three thermal settlements were very attractive, as the
archaeological finds and inscriptions inform us. Communication, as an essential element for any
civilization, was done ‘physically’ by infrastructure, which provided opportunities for goods and
people to travel and organize a territory. Communication also meant the possibility for people
to travel, to interact, to exchange information.
My examples, together with others already known from other provinces, are strong
evidences to contradict with solid arguments the old concepts spread in the historiography,
according to which the Roman Empire was a space of static communities. On the contrary, we
discover, step by step, the huge resources of the Roman Empire and how people interacted with
themselves and with the landscape.
ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
IDR
Inscriptiones Daciae Romanae (București)
ALBU 2005
E. ALBU, Imperial Geography and the Medieval Peutinger Map. Imago Mundi 57, 2005,
136–148.
ALBU 2008
E. ALBU, Rethinking the Peutinger Map. In: R. J. A. Talbert/R. W. Unger (Eds.), Cartography
in Antiquity and Middle Ages: Fresh Perspectives, New Methods (Leiden 2008), 111–119.
BLACKMAN/TREVOR 2001
D. R. BLACKMAN/A. H. TREVOR, Frontinus’ Legacy: Essays on Frontinus’ de aquis urbis
Romae (Michigan 2001).
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