At the end of 85 or the beginning of 86 AD, the Dacian king Duras ordered his troops to attack the Roman province of Moesia on the southern course of the Danube river. The Dacian army was led by Diurpaneus, often cited as one and the same with the later king named Decebalus, although these assumptions remain obscurely founded and problematic. It seems that the Romans were caught by surprise since the governor, Oppius Sabinus, and his forces, possibly including the V "Alaudae", were annihilated.