Decebalus

Decebalus ruled Dacia from 87 AD, and after raiding south of the Danube he defeated a Roman invasion under Domitian, buying years of independence to consolidate power. When Trajan took the throne, Roman armies pushed into Dacia to blunt the threat to Moesia; Decebalus lost in 102 AD, his sister abducted and married into Roman nobility — some historians trace the later usurper Regalianus to her line. He stayed on as a client king but kept asserting independence, prompting a final overwhelming invasion in 105 AD. Trajan leveled the Dacian capital Sarmizegetusa the next year and folded parts of D…