The Dacian Legacy of the Tetrarchy: Maximinus Daia, Licinius and the Imperial Complex of Vrelo-Šarkamen
At the end of the 19th century, Austro-Hungarian explorer Felix Kanitz documented the existence of two highly significant ancient fortifications on the territory of present-day Serbia. One was the imperial palace of Emperor Galerius, Felix RomUliana (modern Gamzigrad), while the other, located near Negotin, was Vrelo-Šarkamen, believed to have been the fortified residence of the Tetrarch Maximinus Daia. The site is particularly renowned for a discovery unique within the entire Roman Empire: a set of imperial golden jewelry belonging to an empress buried in a mausoleum near the fortification. Based on archaeological investigations conducted between 1994 and 2003, scholars proposed that the complex represented an unfinished fortified imperial residence from the Tetrarchic period. However, after the excavations were resumed in 2013, new evidence has cast serious doubt on this hypothesis and raised other important questions concerning the nature and function of this enigmatic site. Given what is historically known, the association between this complex and the name of Maximinus Daia is increasingly becoming a significant topic of discussion.
At present, there is no unequivocal evidence linking the site to this emperor, suggesting the possibility that it may have been commissioned by another figure. It is, in fact, known that a third emperor, Licinius, was a native “ex Nova Dacia”. Unlike Maximinus Daia, Licinius exercised actual political control over the Balkan area after the death of Galerius and until the end of the bellUm Cibalense, leaving open the possibility that he was the one who commissioned the complex. By comparing the archaeological data with what is historically known about the different ways in which Daia and Licinius exercised their influence in the Diocese of Dacia at different times—and, finally, by taking into account the weight of Tetrarchic power ideology in the actions of the emperors—an attempt will be made to define the contours of the problem and the key elements for identifying the complex and its owner.
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