Photo credit: (c) Alex TUDOR / AGERPRES ARCHIVE

The earliest traces of human settlers in the area date back to the Neolithic, in two settlements — Palanca and Livezi — located in today’s area of the town.

A Mycenaean bronze sword has been found here belonging to the Tei civilisation. In the village of Meri in the environs of Rosiorii de Vede a mound cemetery has been discovered going back to the 13th century BC, where the skeleton of a chieftain along with a large quantity of pottery and an iron knife were unearthed.

In the 2nd-1st centuries BC the presence of Scordici from the region of Sava was recorded.

The autochthonous Geto-Dacian civilisation in the area had links to the Roman civilisation going back to the 1st century BC — 1st century AD, when the Roman Empire had expanded to the right bank of the Danube, as proved by coins discovered in today’s town.

In the same area, traces of a Roman earth camp with a defence wall and ditch, located 7.5km SW of the town’s centre, on the old limes transalutanus , a continual earth border wall accompanied by a castrum line was also found.

After the withdrawal of Roman armies and administration from Dacia (271/275), Slavs took over as the most influential in the history of the land on the left bank of the Danube River, according to the Rosiorii de Vede Town Hall website. They were recorded near the town by Procopius of Caesarea in 546.

Between the 9th and the 11th centuries, more barbaric invasions ensued: the Pechenegs of Turkish extraction and then the Cumans, who gave the toponym of Teleorman County, meaning thick forest, which reign over the land extended to the 1241 Tartar invasion.

On the site of today’s municipality, bronze coins have been found from the 9th and the 11th centuries, which attest to the existence of a population that was very busy trading domestically and externally.

The first written record of the Rusii de Vede burg, the name under which the settlement was mentioned in Middle Ages documents, dates back to 1385. Over the centuries, it became famous as a commercial centre for trading in agricultural produce and craft objects, with the local merchants having strong connections with Brasov City.

In the 16th century, the headquarters of a captainship of calarasi soldiers were established here, with the settlement becoming officially the capital of Teleorman County, which it stayed until 1838. Wallachian ruler Michael the Brave (1593-1601) presented part of Rusii de Vede to the calarasi soldiers, who were settled here to defend the area against the Ottomans from the Turnu Ottoman land, in exchange for their obligation to engage in war alongside the ruler. Once the captainship was established here, the place lost its rural nature, becoming a true burg, and in 1677 it was among 25 burgs of Wallachia mentioned by chronicler Miron Costin in his ‘Polish Chronicles.’

Starting in 1768, the largest part of the town’s hearth and its entire estate were awarded by the ruler to the St. Spiridon the New monastery of Bucharest, with all the local merchants becoming serfs. Consequently, the merchants would start fighting against the claims of the monastery, a fight that would last 100 years.

In his proclamation to Bucharesters of March 16, 1821, revolutionary leader Tudor Vladimirescu said that Rosiorii de Vede was one of the settlements that had joined the revolution. After the assassination of the leader of the 1821 Revolution, on May 27, 1821, the Ottomans started a slaughter of Vladimirescu’s followers known as pandurs, who took refuge to Oltenia. The town is conquered by Ottomans and burned down, the same as Caracal and Slatina were.

The dismantling of the Ottoman and of Turnu under the 1829 Treaty of Adrianople had lasting effects on the consequent development of Rosiorii de Vede. In Wallachia, it was known as one of the most important commercial and crafty centres, a reason why Article 1 in the Organic Regulation mentioned its right to send two delegates for the election of the ruler. Nevertheless, the adoption of the Organic Regulations led to worsening contradictions between the local merchants and the monastery that owned their land. Given the circumstances, traders, merchants, small boyars and the soldiers of Rosiorii de Vede joined the 1848 Revolution.

Prominent among the local militants for the Union of Romanian Principalities would be Alecu Petrescu, a former propaganda commissioner of the 1848 Revolution, who in 1855 joined the editorial desk of the Patria newspaper, a standard bearer of the unionist movement in Wallachia. Later on, following the revolutionary changes under the rule of Alexandru Ioan Cuza (1859-1866), Rosiorii de Vede managed to break away from the authority of the St. Spiridon the New monastery.

The adoption of today’s name Rosiorii de Vede is said to have been the expression of the locals’ wish, and not a decision of the central administration, according to the website of the local town hall. The name started being used in official documents in 1864.

After an army mobilisation of April 1877 for the achievement of national independence, many locals enlisted on July 23, when the 3rd Company of eh 1st Teleorman Battalion was created as part of the Romanian army of operations. The locals also contributed to the Independence War by requisitions and shipments, subscriptions to purchase weaponry and cash donations as well as other volunteer contributions for the army.

In the first half of the 20th century, Rosiorii de Vede was known as a main hub for grain trade, with famous weekly trade fairs and larger annual fairs that was just about to embark on industrialisation.

After Romania joined in WWI in August 1916, many people of Rosiorii de Vede enlisted with the 20th Dorobanti, 60th Dorobanti and 4th Calarasi regiments. The German armies burned down the business centre of the town and took hostages in retaliation.

In WWII, after Romania switched sides on August 23, 1944 and joined the United Nations coalition, three companies of the 3rd Pioneers Regiment, headquartered some 6 km away from the town, went on a mission to take over the German garrison of the Rosiorii de Vede airfield. On August 25, 1944 at night, Romanian soldiers disarmed 500 heavily-armed German soldiers at the German airfield of Rosiorii de Vede.

In 1947, the 209-kmBucharest-Rosiori-Craiova railroad opened.

In the second half of the 20th century, the light and food industries developed, including cotton spinning and weaving, furniture manufacturing, rolling stock manufacturing, knitting, edible oil manufacturing, fruit and vegetable canning.

A March 4, 1977 strong earthquake left Rosiorii de Vede seriously damaged.

It was promoted to municipality on January 18, 1995. According to the 2011 census of the population and housing, the resident population of Rosiorii de Vede is 27,416.

Worth mentioning among the local monuments are the churches of St. Elijah (1804), St. Theodore-Tiron (1818), Sts. Constantine and Helena—Serdareasa (1832-1835), Dormition of the Mother of God (1836), St. Paraskeve (1836), St. John the New (1842), Holly Cross (1849), the remains of a St. Nicholas Church (1780), the East Station (1889), the Town Hall House (1912), the Court House (1912), and the Mamut House (1899). AGERPRES