Costoboci

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The Costoboci were a Dacian tribe, which lived in the areas known today as Maramureş and southern Ukraine. Archeologically speaking, they are identified whith the Lipita culture. When the Roman emperor Trajan conquered Dacia in 106, the Costoboci remained among the free Dacian tribes (unconquered by the Romans).

From their positions in the north, the Costoboci often raided the Roman province of Dacia, in conjunction with rebellions of the local Dacians. One of these raids (conducted probably by their "king" Pieporus), during the reign of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius reached as far as Attica, severely affecting the provinces of Moesia, Scythia Minor and Macedonia.

Having been defeated by the Romans, the Costoboci lost much of their power. So, in the year 172, probably bribed by the Romans, the Hasdingi (part of the German tribe of the Vandals) attacked and conquered most of the Costoboci's land. However, this invasion did not put an end to the Dacians living in this territory, as they continued to coexist to a certain degree with the invaders, as evidenced by the archeological sites. The Costoboci living in the east, in what is now Bukovina, probably ended under the control of the Carpians, another free Dacian tribe.