Money in Romania

[Fieraru]

Romania means country of Romans. They speak eastern Latin and claim descent of Antiquity Roman colonists to Dacia. Western nation especially like France kept supporting Romanians against all the other South Slavs, Hungarians and Russians because of this western element in their ethnicity. However, genetically Romanians plot next to their neighbors, we can't talk about a substantial genetic input from Italic (or other Roman) colonists.

What does that have to do with anything here? Sure, that is probably mostly right, and the contribution from the Roman empire was fairly small or at least diluted by the much larger native population and some others that came later. And haplogroups frequency can change over time in a population even if some of the original autosomal elements were preserved. Besides, by that time the Roman empire meant people from all over a wide geographic area who were citizens and brought to colonize the newly conquered region. The original Daco-Romans, whatever they were, then survived in pockets like mountain fortresses and highland forests during the chaos of the migrations of the barbarians. There may have been more influx from the south Vlachs too, who were longer under the imperial rule, but archaeology has proven that there were still connections across the river in the Mid Ages after the legions withdrew.

In the past there were many theories by outsiders about the origin of Romanians, even in the Middle Ages, and I am not saying they are all correct

Poggio Bracciolini, an Italian scholar who visited the Danubian region, wrote around 1450 that the Romanians' ancestors had been Roman colonists settled by Emperor Trajan.

This view was repeated by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who stated in his work De Europa (1458) that the Vlachs were a genus Italicum ("an Italian race")

and were named after one Pomponius Flaccus, a commander sent against the Dacians.

Piccolomini's version of the Vlachs' origin was repeated by many scholars in the subsequent century.

According to a modified version of his story, which was recorded by the Transylvanian Saxon Johannes Lebelius in 1542, Trajan "led the Vlachi along with Italian people into the kingdom, spread them all around the Dacian kingdom" and "these people after so many severe fights which they have survived, remained in Dacia, and are now farmers of the land.".

Flavio Biondo noted that "the Dacians or Wallachs claim to have Roman origins";

Pietro Ranzano wrote in the 15th century that Vlachs declared themselves "descendants of Italians".

"The emperor Trajan, after conquering this country, divided it among his soldiers and made it into a Roman colony, so that these Romanians are descendants, as it is said, of these ancient colonists, and they preserve the name of the Romans." ~ 1532, Francesco della Valle Secretary of Aloisio Gritti, a natural son to Doge

The Hungarian Jesuit Stephan Szántó stated in 1574 that Wallachians are "the offspring of an ancient colony of the Romans that used to be once in Transylvania" and their language (Romandiola or Romaniola) would be understandable by "real Italians".

(funny because now Hungarian internet trolls say we are Vlach migrants who moved north and came after them, because of the Transylvania issue!)

These theories were probably influenced strongly by the language and what they knew of history and legends, but they put too much emphasis on that maybe. But it is true that along with Romansch we are one of the only ones who kept the traditional ethnic name.

The national awakening of the people themselves did not come until later in the next two centuries, and at first it was only the educated elite.

And yes, of course people will plot close to their neighbors... that is just something that happen over time. And part of the reason is from even more ancient and deeper ties to the prehistoric populations of neighbors. It seems we are not equally close to all our neighbors but much more to the southern and western ones, who are not totally Slav.

To add, the French and Spanish/Portuguese do not plot exactly next to Italy as well either, and they have their own clusters because the native populations were big and they also received later barbarian inputs. But none of the Romance speaking countries are that far from it either when you look at the whole plot.

Anyways, I do not want to take it too much off of the topic. I really like the coins from the era of Carol I, who was our best king in modern times and built the modern country, bringing prosperity and stability to it.

[Nurzat]

there is no money in Romania :'(