| Native Name: | |
| Conventional Long Name: | Dacia Ripensis |
| Common Name: | Dacia Ripensis |
| Image Map Caption: | The northern Balkans, including Dacia Ripensis, in the 6th century |
| Subdivision: | Province |
| Nation: | Roman Empire |
| Year Start: | 280s |
| Year End: | 586 |
| Life Span: | 283 – 586 |
| Capital: | Ratiaria (now in Vidin Province, Bulgaria) |
| Event Pre: | Evacuation of Dacia Traiana, creation of Dacia Aureliana |
| Date Pre: | 271 |
| Event Start: | Dacia Aureliana partitioned |
| Date Start: | before AD 285 |
| Event1: | Captured by the Huns |
| Event End: | Devastated by Avar invasion |
| P1: | Dacia Aureliana |
| S1: | Pannonian Avars |
Dacia Ripensis was the name of a Roman province in the northern Balkan peninsula, immediately south of the Middle Danube. Its capital was Ratiaria (modern Archar, Bulgaria). It was a district less urban than neighbouring Dacia Mediterranea and more militarized; "military camps and forts, rather than cities, were typical of the province". Besides Ratiaria, Oescus was the major settlement.
Dacia Ripensis was one of the "Two Dacias" established south of the Danube in the late 3rd century. The Roman emperor Aurelian abandoned the province of Roman Dacia established by Trajan in 106 AD on the northern bank of the river, and created the two new "Dacias" between the existing provinces of Moesia Prima (upstream) and Moesia Secunda (downstream). The northern part of Aurelian's Dacia Aureliana is attested as "Dacia Ripensis" in 343/4. The southern part, with its capital at Serdica (modern Sofia) was known as Dacia Mediterranea.
According to the Laterculus Veronensis, both provinces were part of the Diocese of Moesiae after the empire was divided into dioeceses during the reign of Constantine the Great, but by the time of the Notitia Dignitatum they were part of the Diocese of Thrace. According to the Notitia, Dacia Ripensis was governed by a praeses, while the governor of Dacia Mediterranea was a more senior consularis. Dacia Ripensis was under the authority of the Praetorian prefecture of Illyricum.
Dacia Ripensis flourished in the mid-4th century, and some forts on the northern bank of the Danube were recovered by the Romans. In the 5th century Priscus described Ratiaria as large and densely populated. In the 6th century, Hierocles's Late Greek Synecdemus identifies Ratiera as the principal city of the province, calling the province, though Procopius referred to it as .[1]
In 535, emperor Justinian I (527-565) created the Archbishopric of Justiniana Prima as a regional primacy with ecclesiastical jurisdiction over all provinces of the Diocese of Dacia, including the province of Dacia Ripensis.
It is unclear whether Aurelian or the Emperor Diocletian replaced Dacia Aureliana with two provinces,[2] [3] but by 285, there were two – Dacia Mediterranea with its capital at Serdica and Dacia Ripensis, with its capital at Ratiaria. Later, these two "Dacias" along with Dardania, Lower Moesia, and Prevalitana constituted the Diocese of Dacia.
Ratiaria was established as the capital of Dacia Ripensis (it was previously a colony founded by Trajan located within Moesia Superior) and served both as the seat of the military governor (or dux) and as the military base for the Roman legion XIII Gemina.[4]
According to Priscus, Dacia Ripensis was a flourishing province during the 4th and 5th centuries AD. During the early 440s, however, the Huns captured the province (prior to this, there were conflicts between the Romans and the Huns whereby the latter group captured Castra Martis through treacherous means[5]). Even though the province recovered briefly from Hunnic rule, it was eventually decimated by the Avars in 586.[4] On a more specific note, Aurelian developed Dacia Ripensis on a stretch of the Danube specifically between Moesia Superior and Moesia Inferior.[6]
"When founded as a colony by Trajan, Ratiaria was within Moesia Superior: when Aurelian withdrew from the old Dacia north of the Danube and established a new province of the same name on the south (Dacia Ripensis), Ratiaria became the capital. As such it was the seat of the military governor (dux), and the base of the legion XIII Gemina. It flourished in the fourth and fifth centuries, and according to the historian Priscus was Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: μεγίστη καί πολυάνθρωπος ("very great and with numerous inhabitants") when it was captured by the Huns in the early 440s. It appears to have recovered from this sack, but was finally destroyed by the Avars in 586, though the name survives in the modern Arcar."
"What the Romans could not anticipate was that the Huns would take Castra Martis in Dacia Ripensis by treachery."
"The emperor Aurelian formed two provinces of Moesia Superior and Inferior. In fact, Dacia Ripensis was formed out of a stretch of the Danube between Moesia Superior and Inferior, while Dacia Mediterranea was the old inland Balkan region of Dardania."
"Lactantius and the Epitome de Caesaribus state that the emperor Maximus was of peasant origin. His birthplace is unknown but his mother's brother, the emperor Galerius, was born in Dacia Ripensis, part of the former province of Moesia Superior (Epit. de Caes. 41.14)."