The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1878-04-14
THE ROUM ANIANS.
How They Preserved the Language Ol
Rome Despite = Hundred Inva-
sfOnS of Barbarlans.

| nOW pHey FEChCEVCu GHG A0u8u 0SE
Rome Despite Hundred Inva-
siOn> of Barbarians.
The story of Roumania is one of the mo
interesting that can be told, for its people,
branch of the Latin race have history al
language almost cOeval with the Christia
era. In the first century it was that the d.
clans, inhabiting the east of Europe north
the Danube, defeated in several engagement
the Roman legions, and even exacted tribu
Of Domitian. This disgrace Trajan dete
mined 10 wipe out, and in 1914 he conducts.
so vigorous series of campaigns againstth
turbulent barbarians that they were fain I
sue for peace and receive Roman garrisons
their chief city and at all strategic points
importance In the fail of 1O4 however, til
natives threatened another rising, and Ira
Jan, who had been much struck by the beat
ty and fertility OF the country and had sc
exterminate them. Though his commenta
ries on the war are lost, Don Cassius and tn
bas-reliefs of Trajan's column tell the stor
OF the conquest By fire, sword and poiso1
the Banat, Transylvania and Bucovina;
few survivors fled across the Pruth. and tn
Dacian people thereafter only existed in his
tory. Ira jan sent out four colonies fifth
being planted. by Severus, ;stationing them
to this day testify, at the passes along thu
western slope Of the Carpa, hans. To this
| far-sighted policy Qor thus Trajan deprived
| the Dacians OF mountain stronghold whence
| they might harry the colonists, and furnish
barbaric invasions) is It due that the Rouma.
MANS, as a distinctive Latin people, have
survived for nearly eighteen hundred years
Till the middle OF the third century the
colonists throve undisturbed, extending their
settlements over the Pennsylvania plateau
and through the passes into the rich Media.
Wan and Wallachian plains Then began the
long series OF invasions, as the Cloths to be fol-
lowed by the Ayares, Gepides, Huns, Bulgari-
ans, Tartars, Magyars Albanians and Turks
in 274 Aurelian abandoned the left bank of the
Danuabe, the bravest OF the colonists, and
those too poor to retreat with him, remained
behind and betook them to the hills. There
they remained for nearly a thousand years,
till the Byzantine and Bulgarian empires
g0l foundations having subsidized, In the thir-
teenth century the colonists of Trajan de-
seended from the mountains, spread through
their settlements, and displayed all the vital
erations before from the Romans of the EN-
pire of Caesar. With this second descent the
heroes OF which are Bougdan and Radul Me-
gra, begins the authentic history of the
Roumanian race. Fragments of 1t were
driven far south to settle in Bulgaria. the
Bobrudscha, Thrace, Macedon, Thessaly and
Epirus, or to the west and north of the Carp
athans, where they now live under Austrian
OF Russian rule, but the main body manned
compact and powerful Stephen OF Moldavia
the Hungarians in great battle and wrench
ing from them part Of Pennsylvania and sus-
tanning an impoltic and fratricidal four
years war with, Vlad of Wallachia, which
ended victoriously for the Roumanians Ste
aury II, 1475, Mahomet II, the conqueror of
Constantinople, with 100, 600 Turks. The Os-
manlis We're signally defeated and hurled
back across the Danube, and against the I'M
natural hostility Of the Wallachians the re-
ligious enmity of the Hungarians and Poles
and the ceaseless onslaughts of the Turks
and Russians the little state made Roadway
for twenty years. But for Christian hostility
Stephen would probably have made it a firm
barrier against the Turkish advance
This same ruinous Christian hostility again
ruined the foundations of the Roumanian
kingdom when, a century later, Michael the
Brave, attacked in the rear by the Poles
while holding the Turks at bay on the DAN
dead on the fatal field of Ploesti. Thereafter
the Roumanians could not make head against
the Christian Poles and Hungarians on the
one side and the Mahometans on the other,
and became tributary to Constantinople, the
century and a half they had to endure the in
conceivable. expressions Of the Phanariot |
delegates of the Porte, but the Roumanians
BOAST that they never lost their autonomy,
hat no mosque was ever built on Muldavian
soil, and no Turk ever owned land therein.
In 1891 they rose against the Phanar oppres.
sion under the leadership of Tudor Vladimir
escn, and drove the oppressors away Be- |
ieving that 1t was revolt against his suzer-
unity, Mahmoud Ii procured the assassi-
out being better informed Of the national
,hoice of a Roumanan Prince Gregory ta ,rv
ihika. The Danubian Principalities, after
he peace OF 1929, passed under O Russian
n 1s4s, burning publicly the code insti e
uted by the Gar. The Russians there
lpon occupied the principalities in force,
killing all the leaders of the revolutionary
'arty. The Crimean war and the cession of
December %, 1861, the union of the two prin-
ipalities under the ROumanian name was
proclaimed, Col. Coma, who had been elected
heir Hospodar in 1859, ascending the throne
With the style of Prince Alexander John l,
ional procedure on his part led to the peace
I'll revolution OF February, 1866, when he was
compelled to abdicate, and Prince Charles T.,
lieutenant In the Prussian dragons, and son
4 the late Prince Charles Of Hohenzollern-
ng the government May 81. 1866. liberal
constitution Was adopted, under which the
'eople have thriven peacefully ever since.
rowing themselves worthy descendants of
ne great Latin race. When the Russo-Turkish
var broke out the representatives of the peo-
lie assembled at Bucharest May 81, 1877. de-
Jared the independence of Roumania and cast
! their lot with the Russian invaders They
ave proved themselves loyal allies, and IN
he desperate attacks upon the redoubts of
levna displayed courage worthy of their
ncestors Of Trajan's time.
SOUTHERN PATENTS.