Note 121 — Chapter X

During their passage across the Carpathians the Hungarians are said to have encountered and reduced to submission a number of petty chiefs and tribes, believed by certain writers to have been the descendants of Daco-Romans who had settled in those mountains many centuries previously. Amongst them 'Dukes' Gellius or Julius, Claudius, and Mariotus are mentioned. The chronicler of these events is known as the 'Anonymous Notary of King Bela' of Hungary, and his narrative is adopted by those modern writers who hold the view that the early princes of Wallachia descended from the Carpathians, whilst other writers, and notably Roesler, who denies that theory, throw discredit upon the whole story, and consider the writings of the 'anonymous notary' a fabrication. The bias exhibited by the different historians makes it impossible to arrive at any just conclusion on the subject.