Auxiliary Regiments and New Cultural Formation in Imperial Dacia, 106–274 C.E.

Traditionally, Romanian nationalist scholarship has seen the role of legionaries and auxiliaries as agents of romanization in Roman Dacia. Romanization, however, is a flawed model for understanding cultural change. Furthermore, a close reading of epigraphic evidence demonstrates that the experience of legionaries and auxiliaries was quite different. New cultural formation in Dacia, as generally along the militarized northern frontier, was a dynamic interplay between multivalent elements. Different groups chose to participate to varying degrees, as the divergent experiences of auxiliaries and legionaries in Dacia shows.