Hello all,
Recently a guy I know and myself have been doing some work on ancient Roman military names, but we have come across something which we can't really explain.
So we thought that writing "Traiani Bella Daca" should mean "Trajan's Dacian Wars". The reasoning for this is the following:
Traiani = genitive version of Traianus
Bella = Nominative pl. version of Bellum
Daca = Nominative pl. version of Dacus.
We have some problems however...
First, I'm not entirely sure that "Dacian" in the nominative singular is Dacus (and is therefore in the 2nd declension). Of course Dacia (the Proper Noun) is 1st declension, but the adjective version appears to be from a different declension - sort of like the difference between Roma (Rome) and Romanus (Roman).
The reason I think that Dacus might be correct is because I've seen plenty of references to "Dacorum" - for instance, Cohors Dacorum. If it's true that Dacus is actually a word, then it follows that Daca would work in "Traiani Bella Daca".
However, when researching the issue further I saw that Trajan himself wrote a work entitled "Traiani Bella Dacica".
Can anyone explain to me where he's got "Dacica" from because I don't really understand. Is this some form of irregular change, literary flair device or something I'm missing totally?
Please be aware that I'm not that great at Latin, and thanks for any help in advance!
Recently a guy I know and myself have been doing some work on ancient Roman military names, but we have come across something which we can't really explain.
So we thought that writing "Traiani Bella Daca" should mean "Trajan's Dacian Wars". The reasoning for this is the following:
Traiani = genitive version of Traianus
Bella = Nominative pl. version of Bellum
Daca = Nominative pl. version of Dacus.
We have some problems however...
First, I'm not entirely sure that "Dacian" in the nominative singular is Dacus (and is therefore in the 2nd declension). Of course Dacia (the Proper Noun) is 1st declension, but the adjective version appears to be from a different declension - sort of like the difference between Roma (Rome) and Romanus (Roman).
The reason I think that Dacus might be correct is because I've seen plenty of references to "Dacorum" - for instance, Cohors Dacorum. If it's true that Dacus is actually a word, then it follows that Daca would work in "Traiani Bella Daca".
However, when researching the issue further I saw that Trajan himself wrote a work entitled "Traiani Bella Dacica".
Can anyone explain to me where he's got "Dacica" from because I don't really understand. Is this some form of irregular change, literary flair device or something I'm missing totally?
Please be aware that I'm not that great at Latin, and thanks for any help in advance!