Sources
- Petolescu, Constantin C., Dacia: Un Mileniu De Istorie, Editura Academiei Romane (2010), pp. 170-177
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This is a list of known governors of the trans-Danubian Roman province of Dacia, referred to as Dacia Traiana. Created in AD 106 by the Roman emperor Trajan after the final defeat of Decebalus' Dacian kingdom, it was originally a single province under the name Dacia, governed by a Legatus Augusti pro praetore. In 118, Hadrian reorganised the province, abandoning some territory in the east and relabelling the province Dacia Superior. At the same time he split Moesia Inferior, with the territory north of the Danube renamed as Dacia Inferior. In 123, Hadrian created a third Dacian province, Dacia Porolissensis, fashioning it out of territory from the northern portion of Dacia Superior.
Antoninus Pius undertook the next reorganisation in 158. Dacia Superior was renamed Dacia Apulensis, Dacia Inferior was transformed into Dacia Malvensis, while Dacia Porolissensis remained as it was. During all these transformations, Dacia Superior/Dacia Apulensis was governed by a consular legate, while the other two provinces were under the command of praesidial procurators.
Then in 166, the pressures building along the Danube frontier forced the new emperor Marcus Aurelius to reorganise the province once again. This time, he set up an overarching province which fused the three provinces into one, called Tres Daciae, commanded by a consular legate. However, the three provinces still remained as separate entities, each one governed by a praesidial procurator, who then reported to the proconsular governor. Apart from a brief period during the Marcomannic Wars when the province was temporarily split into three due to an emergency situation, Tres Daciae retained this structure until Aurelian abandoned the province in 271.
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