GETAE (get'i), an ancient people of Thracian origin, closely akin to the Daci (see DACIA). Their original home seems to have been the district on the right bank of the Danube between the rivers Oescus (Iskr) and Iatrus (Mantra). The view that the Getae were identical with the Goths is not generally accepted. Their name first occurs in connexion with the expedition of Darius Hystaspes (515 B.c.) against the Scythians (see SCYTHIA), in the course of which they were brought under his sway, but they re gained their freedom on his return to the East. During the 5th century, they appear as furnishing a contingent of cavalry to Sitalces, king of the Odrysae, in his attack on Perdiccas II., king of Macedon, but the decay of the Odrysian kingdom again left them independent. When Philip II. of Macedon in 342 B.C. reduced the Odrysae to the condition of tributaries, the Getae made overtures to the conqueror. Their king Cothelas undertook to supply Philip with soldiers, and his daughter became the wife of the Macedonian. About this time, perhaps being hard pressed by the Triballi (q.v.) and other tribes, the Getae crossed the Danube. Alexander the Great, before transporting his forces into Asia, decided to make his power felt by the Macedonian depend encies. His operations against the Triballi not having met with complete success, he resolved to cross the Danube and attack the Getae. The latter, unable to withstand the phalanx, aban doned their chief town, and fled to the steppes, whither Alexander was unwilling to follow them. About 326, an expedition con ducted by Zopyrion, a Macedonian governor of Thrace, against the Getae, failed disastrously. In 292, Lysimachus declared war against them, alleging as an excuse that they had rendered assist ance to certain barbarous Macedonian tribes. He penetrated to the plains of Bessarabia, where his retreat was cut off and he was forced to surrender. Although the people clamoured for his exe cution, Dromichaetes, king of the Getae, allowed him to depart unharmed, probably on payment of a ransom. When the Gauls made their way into eastern Europe, they came into collision with the Getae, whom they defeated and sold in large numbers to the Athenians as slaves. From this time the Getae seem to have been usually called Daci ; for their further history see DACIA.
The Getae are described by Herodotus (iv. 93-6) as the most valiant and upright of the Thracian tribes ; but what chiefly struck Greek inquirers was their belief in the immortality of the soul and their worship of Salmoxis whom the euhemerists of the colonies on the Euxine made a pupil of Pythagoras. They were experts in the use of the bow and arrow while on horse back.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. See W. Tomaschek, "Die alten Thraker," in SitzBibliography. See W. Tomaschek, "Die alten Thraker," in Sitz- ungsberichte der k. Akad. der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Classe, cxxviii. (Vienna, 1893) ; T. Mommsen, Hist. of Rome (Eng. trans.) , bk. v. ch. 7.