QUESTION: Is it true that the Romans found that this Balkan region would sign a treaty to end a war, regroup, and then start again, as they did with the Minsk agreement? If true, then what they say about the region goes back thousands of years.
BP
ANSWER: I guess you have been digging into ancient history. Yes, in fact, the Roman Emperor Trajan (98-117AD) even issued a coin showing him standing between two trophies representing the first Dacian War which ended in a peace treaty, which they then broke, and he launch a second campaign against them representing the second trophy.
Rome conquered the entire region, but it did not erase local identities. Instead, it created a new, overarching layer of identity: becoming part of the Roman Empire. The main divide was between the civilized Roman world and the “barbarian” outside. Within the empire, people were Romans or non-Romans, not primarily “ethnic” rivals.
