Death of Decebalus and Discovery of Treasure

The smoke still curled above Sarmizegetusa Regia when Decebalus, king and strategist, broke away with a retinue. He had faced Rome for two decades—killing Oppius Sabinus’s successor in reputation, outfoxing Cornelius Fuscus, extracting subsidies from Domitian, and testing the 102 peace. Now, cornered in the hills that once sheltered him, he chose his own end [2].

Cassius Dio tells it cleanly: “Decebalus… committed suicide; and his head was brought to Rome. The treasures of Decebalus were also discovered, though hidden beneath the river Sargetia” [2]. The scene—Roman cavalry closing, the king raising the blade—became iconic, carved later on Trajan’s Column where a mounted Roman reaches as the Dacian falls.

The treasure story reads like myth but sits in a historian’s lines. Decebalus, anticipating the siege, had buried wealth under the Sargetia’s bed, diverting water, hiding the hoard, and letting the river resume. Captured followers revealed the trick. Roman engineers—already practiced at bending water in the Iron Gates—now bent a stream to haul glittering proof of victory from its bed.

The places in the tale matter: Sarmizegetusa’s terraces still smoldered; the Sargetia carried the memory of a king’s prudence and Rome’s persistence; the road to the Danube and Drobeta now ran downhill in every sense. In camps along the river, soldiers heard that the head had reached Rome, and the sound in the tents—cheers, laughter, the scrape of cups—carried something like closure.

For the Dacians, the moment knifed. A leader who had shaped their fight, outwitted emperors, and drawn respect even from Roman pens lay dead by his own hand. The scarlet‑plumed riders who had chased him returned with tokens: a head for display, a tale for triumph, and a story for the marble of Rome.

With Decebalus gone, resistance lost its center. The mountains that once hid a king now hid bands. The empire, which had built a bridge to fight this war, now built a province to capitalize on victory.