After these conquests, Decebalus's multiethnic empire was bordered by the Tisa, the Northern Carpathians, the Dniester and the Lower Danube, according to Gábor Vékony. Cassius Dio narrates that the Bastarnae "crossed the Ister and subdued the part of Moesia opposite them" in 29 or 28 BC. Marcus Licinius Crassus in short routed them. In the first decades of the next century, the Sarmatians who arrived from the Pontic steppes became the dominant power of the regions up to that time inhabited by the Bastarnae. The year when the lands between the Lower Danube and the Black Sea, including the three Greek colonies of Callatis, Histria and Tomis, were annexed by the Roman Empire is uncertain. According to the historians Kurt W. Treptow and Marcel Popa, this happened in 46 AD. In contrast, Coriolan Horaţiu Opreanu writes that the territory was only integrated in the province of Moesia in the reign of Emperor Vespasianus (69–79). When Moesia was divided into two parts in 86, the territory became part of Lower Moesia. The new province was administered by former consuls who commanded two Roman legions, the "Legio V Macedonica" and the "Legio I Italica". The region flourished under Antonius Pius who had the roads repaired. On the other hand, an inscription written in Greek from the village of Scraptopara evidences that the locals were complaining of the heavy taxation and the irksome duty of accommodating the Roman soldiers. The walls of Callatis and Tomis were reinforced after the Costoboci had marched through the region in 170. After the end of the Marcomannic War, Emperor Marcus Aurelius had 12,000 free Dacians settled in the province. The peaceful relationship between the Roman Empire and Decebalus's realm came to an end after Emperor Trajan ascended the throne in 98. He waged two wars against the Dacian king in the first decade of the 2nd century. After Trajan's First Dacian War, which lasted from 101 to 102, Decebalus was forced to approve of the stationement of Roman garrisons in Dacian territory, for instance at Drobeta, Romula and Tibiscum. During the Second Dacian War, the Romans annihilated the Dacian kingdom.