THE ”DACIAN” WOLF
THE ”DACIAN” WOLF

Summary/Abstract: The «Dacian Wolf» is the standard ensign that the ancient Dacian people used to hold up in warfare: a wolf’s head with snake body. It is a well-known ensign both in its representation on the Trajan’s Column in Rome and from some ancient historians’ descriptions. The significance of these two totemic animals – the wolf and the snake – in the Dacian and Getae peoples’ religion and mythology have also been studied by important contemporary historians, from Vasile Pârvan to Mircea Eliade. This study follows our own original and hermeneutic hypothesis concerning the persistence of these symbols a long time after the Dacian people disappeared, being assimilated by the Romans, symbols which periodically appear in history as archetypes of the collective unconscious (as defined by C.G. Jung), thus examining the Christian legend of St. George killing the dragon (draco), and the establishment of the Order of the Dragon as a Christian military order at the beginning of the 15th century.

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