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Trajan ( ; born Marcus Ulpius Traianus, 18 September 53) was a Roman emperor from AD 98 to 117, remembered as the second of the Five Good Emperors of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. He was a philanthropic ruler and a successful soldier-emperor who presided over one of the greatest military expansions in Roman history, during which, by the time of his death, the Roman Empire reached its maximum territorial extent. He was given the title of optimus princeps ('the best ruler') by the Roman Senate.
Trajan was born in the municipium of Italica in the present-day province of Seville in southern Spain, an Italic peoples in Hispania Baetica; his came from the town of Todi in the Umbria region of central Italy. His namesake father, Marcus Ulpius Traianus, was a general and distinguished senator. Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of Domitian; in AD 89, serving as a legatus legionis in , he supported the emperor against a revolt on the Rhine led by Antonius Saturninus. He then served as governor of limes Germanicus and Pannonia. In September 96, Domitian was succeeded by the elderly and childless Nerva, who proved to be unpopular with the army. After a revolt by members of the Praetorian Guard, Nerva decided to adopt as his heir and successor the more popular Trajan, who had distinguished himself in military campaigns against Germanic tribes.
As emperor of Rome, Trajan oversaw the construction of building projects such as the forum named after him, the expansion of Cura Annonae such as the alimenta, and new military conquests. He annexed Nabataea and Roman Dacia, and his war against the Parthian Empire ended with the incorporation of Roman Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria as Roman provinces. In August AD 117, while sailing back to Rome, Trajan fell ill and died of a stroke in the city of Selinus. He was Apotheosis by the senate and his successor Hadrian, Trajan's cousin. According to historical tradition, Trajan's ashes were entombed in a small room beneath Trajan's Column.
The 10th volume of Pliny's letters contains his correspondence with Trajan, which deals with various aspects of imperial Roman government. It is generally agreed that Pliny, being part of the emperor's inner circle, provides a unique and valuable source of information through his letters with Trajan, the only surviving correspondence between a governor and his emperor. However, it has been argued that Pliny's correspondence with Trajan is neither intimate nor candid, but rather an exchange of official mail in which Pliny's stance borders on the servile. Some authors have even proposed that much of the text was written and/or edited by Trajan's Imperial secretary, his ab epistulis. Given the scarcity of literary sources, discussion of Trajan and his rule in modern historiography cannot avoid speculation. Non-literary sources such as archaeology, epigraphy, and numismatics are also useful for reconstructing his reign.
The epitome of Cassius Dio's Roman history describes Trajan as "an Iberian and neither an Italian nor even an Italiote", but this claim is contradicted by other ancient sources and rejected by modern scholars, who have reconstructed Trajan's Italic lineage.: "... The Greek historian Cassius Dio made the baseless assertion that Trajan was an Iberian...'" Appian states that Trajan's hometown of Italica was settled by and named after Italic veterans who fought in Spain under Scipio, and new settlers arrived there from Italy in the following centuries. Among the Italic settlers were the Ulpia gens and the Traia gens, who were either part of the original colonists or arrived as late as the end of the 1st century BC. Their original home, according to the description of Trajan as "Ulpius Traianus ex urbe Tudertina" in the Epitome de Caesaribus, was the town of Tuder (Todi) in the Umbria region of central Roman Italy. "The Epitome has clearly used a source which gave the , or , as did the HA for Hadrian (H 1.1)...Umbrian Tuder as the original home of the Ulpii and the Traii surely derives from Maximus's Vita Traiani." This is confirmed by archeology, with epigraphy placing both the Ulpii and the Traii in Umbria generally and Tuder specifically, and by linguistic studies of the family names Ulpius and Traius which show that both are of Osco-Umbrian origin.: and
It is unknown whether Trajan's ancestors were Roman citizens or not at their arrival in Spain. They would have certainly possessed Roman citizenship in case they arrived after the Social War (91–87 BC), when Tuder became a municipium of Roman citizens. In Spain they may well have intermarried with native Iberians, in which case they would have lost their citizenship. Had they lacked or lost the status of Roman citizens, they would have achieved it or recovered it when Italica became a municipium with Latin rights in the mid-1st century BC.
Trajan's paternal grandfather Ulpia gens married a Traia gens. Their son, Trajan's namesake and father Marcus Ulpius Traianus, was born at Italica during the reign of Tiberius and became a prominent senator and general, commanding the Legio X Fretensis under Vespasian in the First Jewish-Roman War. Trajan's mother was Marcia, a Roman noblewoman of the gens Marcia gens and a sister-in-law of the second Flavian Emperor Titus. Little is known of her. Her father is believed to be Quintus Marcius Barea Sura. Her mother was gens Antonia, daughter of Aulus Antonius Rufus and Furnia gens. Trajan owned some lands called Figlinae Marcianae in Ameria, another Umbrian town, located near both Tuder and Reate (the home of the Flavian dynasty) and believed to be the home of Marcia's family.
The line of the Ulpii continued long after Trajan's death. His elder sister was Ulpia Marciana, and his niece was Salonia Matidia. Very little is known about Trajan's early formative years, but it is thought likely that he spent his first months or years in Italica before moving to Rome and then, perhaps at around eight or nine years of age, he almost certainly would have returned temporarily to Italica with his father during Trajanus's governorship of Hispania Baetica (ca. 64–65). The lack of a strong local power base, caused by the size of the town from which they came, made it necessary for the Ulpii (and for the Aelia gens, the other important senatorial family of Italica with whom they were allied) to weave local alliances, in the Baetica (with the Annii, the Ucubi and perhaps the Dasumii from Corduba), the Tarraconense and the Narbonense, here above all through Pompeia Plotina, Trajan's wife. Many of these alliances were made not in Spain, but in Rome. The family home in Rome, the Domus Traiana, was on the Aventine Hill. Excavations under the Piazza del Tempio di Diana found remains thought to be of the family's large suburban villa, with evidence of highly decorated rooms.
In about 86, Trajan's cousin Aelius Afer died, leaving his young children Hadrian and Paulina orphans. Trajan and his colleague Publius Acilius Attianus became co-guardians of the two children. Trajan, in his late thirties, was created ordinary Roman consul for the year 91. This early appointment may reflect the prominence of his father's career, as his father had been instrumental to the ascent of the ruling Flavian dynasty, held consular rank himself and had just been made a patrician. Around this time Trajan brought the architect and engineer Apollodorus of Damascus with him to Rome,Augustan History, Life of Hadrian 2.5–6 and married Pompeia Plotina, a noblewoman from the Roman settlement at Nîmes; the marriage ultimately remained childless.
The details of Trajan's early military career are obscure, save for the fact that in 89, as legate of Legio VII Gemina in Hispania Tarraconensis, he supported Domitian against an attempted coup by Lucius Antonius Saturninus, the governor of Germania Superior. Trajan probably remained in the region after the revolt was quashed, to engage with the Chatti who had sided with Saturninus, before returning the VII Gemina legion to Legio in Hispania Tarraconensis. In 91 he held a consulate with Acilius Glabrio, a rarity in that neither consul was a member of the ruling dynasty. He held an unspecified consular commission as governor of either Pannonia or Germania Superior, or possibly both. Plinywho seems to deliberately avoid offering details that would stress personal attachment between Trajan and the "tyrant" Domitianattributes to him, at the time, various (and unspecified) feats of arms.
According to the Historia Augusta, the future Emperor Hadrian brought word to Trajan of his adoption. Trajan retained Hadrian on the Rhine frontier as a military tribune, and Hadrian thus became privy to the circle of friends and relations with whom Trajan surrounded himself. Among them was Lucius Licinius Sura, a Roman senator born in Spain and the governor of Germania Inferior, who was Trajan's personal friend and became an official adviser of the Emperor. Sura was highly influential, and was appointed consul for a third term in 107. Some senators may have resented Sura's activities as a kingmaker and éminence grise, among them the historian Tacitus, who acknowledged Sura's military and oratorical talents, but compared his rapacity and devious ways to those of Vespasian's éminence grise Licinius Mucianus. Sura is said to have informed Hadrian in 108 that he had been chosen as Trajan's imperial heir.
As governor of Upper Germany (Germania Superior) during Nerva's reign, Trajan received the prestigious title of Germanicus for his skilful rule of the volatile province. (1984). 9780133921182, Prentice-Hall. ISBN 9780133921182 When Nerva died on 28 January 98, Trajan succeeded to the role of emperor without any outward adverse incident. Feriale Duranum 1.14-15: "V Kal(endas) Febrarias... ob imperium Divi." That he chose not to hasten towards Rome, but made a lengthy inspection of the Rhine and Danube frontiers, may suggest he was unsure of his position, in Rome and with the armies at the front. Alternatively, Trajan's military background meant he understood the importance of strengthening the empire's frontiers. His vision for future conquests required the improvement of surveillance networks, defences and transport along the Danube. Prior to his frontier tours, Trajan ordered Praetorian Prefect Aelianus to attend him in Germany, where he was apparently executed forthwith ("put out of the way"), and his now-vacant post taken by Attius Suburanus. Trajan's accession, therefore, could qualify more as a successful coup than an orderly succession.
In a speech at the inauguration of his third consulship, on 1January 100, Trajan exhorted the senate to share the care-taking of the empire with himan event later celebrated on a coin. In reality, Trajan did not share power in any meaningful way with the senate, something that Pliny admits candidly: "Everything depends on the whims of a single man who, on behalf of the common welfare, has taken upon himself all functions and all tasks". Letters III, 20, 12. One of the most significant trends of his reign was his encroachment on the senate's sphere of authority, such as his decision to make the senatorial provinces of Achaea and Bithynia into imperial ones in order to deal with the inordinate spending on public works by local magnates (2026). 9781615302079, Rosen Publishing Group. ISBN 9781615302079 and the general mismanagement of provincial affairs by various appointed by the Senate.
Eventually, Trajan's popularity among his peers was such that the Roman Senate bestowed upon him the honorific of optimus, meaning "the best", which appears on coins from 105 on. This title had mostly to do with Trajan's role as benefactor, such as in the case of his returning confiscated property. The epithet optimus princeps had already been used for the emperors since the late republic, but Trajan was the only one officially honoured by the title.
Pliny states that Trajan's ideal role was a conservative one, argued as well by the orations of Dio Chrysostom, in particular his four Orations on Kingship, composed early during Trajan's reign. Dio, as a Greek notable and intellectual with friends in high places, and possibly an official friend to the emperor (), saw Trajan as a defender of the . In his third kingship oration, Dio describes an ideal king ruling by means of "friendship"that is, through patronage and a network of local notables who act as mediators between the ruled and the ruler. Dio's notion of being "friend" to Trajan (or any other Roman emperor), however, was that of an informal arrangement, that involved no formal entry of such "friends" into the Roman administration.
However, it was clear to Trajan that Greek intellectuals and notables were to be regarded as tools for local administration, and not be allowed to fancy themselves in a privileged position.Giuseppe Zecchini, "Plutarch as Political Theorist and Trajan" in Philip A. Stadter, L.Van der Stockt, eds., Sage and Emperor: Plutarch, Greek Intellectuals, and Roman Power in the Time of Trajan (98–117 A.D.). Leuven University Press, 2002, , p. 196. As Pliny said in one of his letters at the time, it was official policy that Greek civic elites be treated according to their status as notionally free, but not put on an equal footing with their Roman rulers.
When the city of Apamea Myrlea complained of an audit of its accounts by Pliny, alleging its "free" status as a Roman colony, Trajan replied by writing that it was by his own wish that such inspections had been ordered. Concern about independent local political activity is seen in Trajan's decision to forbid Nicomedia from having a corps of firemen ("If people assemble for a common purpose... they soon turn it into a political society", Trajan wrote to Pliny) as well as in his and Pliny's fears about excessive civic generosities by local notables such as distribution of money or gifts.Benjamin Isaac, 487 Pliny's letters suggest that Trajan and his aides were as much bored as they were alarmed by the claims of Dio and other Greek notables to political influence based on what they saw as their "special connection" to their Roman overlords.
The Greeks had their own memories of independence, a commonly acknowledged sense of cultural superiority, and instead of seeing themselves as Roman, disdained Roman rule. What the Greek oligarchies wanted from Rome was, above all, to be left in peace, to be allowed to exert their right to self-government (i.e., to be excluded from the provincial government, as was Italy) and to concentrate on their local interests. This was something the Romans were not disposed to do as from their perspective the Greek notables were shunning their responsibilities in regard to the management of Imperial affairsprimarily in failing to keep the common people under control, thus creating the need for the Roman governor to intervene.
On the local level, among the lower section of the Eastern propertied, the alienation of most Greek notables and intellectuals towards Roman rule, and the fact that the Romans were seen by most such Greek notables as aliens, persisted well after Trajan's reign. An excellent example of this Greek alienation was the personal role played by Trajan in his relationship with Dio of Prusa: Dio is described by Philostratus as Trajan's close friend, and Trajan as supposedly engaging publicly in conversations with Dio;Giovanni Salmeri, "Dio, Rome, and the Civic Life of Asia Minor" IN Simon Swain, ed., Dio Chrysostom: Politics, Letters, and Philosophy. Oxford U. Press, 2002, , p. 91. nevertheless, as a Greek local magnate with a taste for costly building projects and pretensions of being an important political agent for Rome,Simon Goldhill, Being Greek Under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic and the Development of Empire. Cambridge University Press, 2007, , p. 293. Dio of Prusa was actually a target for . However, while Pliny does tell of Dio of Prusa placing a statue of Trajan in a building complex where Dio's wife and son were buried, therefore incurring a charge of treason for placing the emperor's statue near a grave, Trajan dropped the charge.Simon Swain, Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, AD 50–250. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996, , p. 237.
It must also be added that, although Trajan was wary of the civic oligarchies in the Greek cities, he also admitted into the senate at least fourteen prominent Eastern notables, who had been already slated for promotion during Domitian's reign by reserving for them one of the twenty posts open each year for minor magistrates (the Vigintisexviri);Brian Jones, The Emperor Domitian, Routledge, 2002, , p.171. such unprecedented recruitment number opens to question the issue of the "traditionally Roman" character of his reign, as well as the "Hellenism" of his successor Hadrian.Pierre Lambrechts, "Trajan et le récrutement du Sénat", L'antiquité classique, 1936, 5–1, pp. 105–114. Available at [3]. Retrieved 4 January 2015. But then Trajan's new Eastern senators were mostly very powerful and very wealthy men with more than local influenceStanley E. Hoffer, The Anxieties of Pliny, the Younger. Oxford University Press, 1999, , p. 121. and much interconnected by marriage, so that many of them were not altogether "new" to the Senate.
Prominent Eastern senators included: the Galatian notable and "leading member of the Greek community" (according to one inscription) Gaius Julius Severus, who was a descendant of several Hellenistic dynasts and client kings,Brian Jones, The Emperor Domitian, 172; Martin Goodman, The Roman World 44 BC–AD 180. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013, , p. 120. and grandfather of the prominent general Gaius Julius Quadratus Bassus, consul in 105,Pergamum inscription (Smallwood NH 214), reproduced in Brian Campbell, The Roman Army, 31 BC – AD 337: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge, 2006, , p. 63. Gaius Julius Alexander Berenicianus, a descendant of Herod the Great, suffect consul in 116,Junghwa Choi, Jewish Leadership in Roman Palestine from 70 C.E. to 135 C.E.. Leiden: Brill, 2013, , p. 162. and the Athenian Philopappos, a member of the Royal House of Commagene, who left behind him a funeral monument on the Mouseion Hill that was later disparagingly described by Pausanias as "a monument built to a Syrian man".K. W. Arafat, Pausanias' Greece: Ancient Artists and Roman Rulers. Cambridge University Press, 2004, , p. 192.
This sort of competition came with many undesired effects for those same Roman authorities: rivalry among Greek cities and their ruling oligarchies was mainly for marks of pre-eminence, especially for titles bestowed by the Roman emperor. Such titles were ordered in a ranking system that determined how the cities were to be outwardly treated by Rome.David S. Potter, ed. A Companion to the Roman Empire. Malden, MA: Wiley, 2010, , p.246. The usual form that such rivalries took was that of grandiose building plans, giving the cities the opportunity to vie with each other over "extravagant, needless... structures that would make a show".Ramsey Macmullen, Enemies of the Roman Order. London, Routledge, 1992, , p. 185.
Such extravagant spending meant that junior and thus less wealthy members of the local oligarchies felt disinclined to present themselves to fill posts as local magistrates, positions that involved ever-increasing personal expense.Graham Anderson, Second Sophistic: A Cultural Phenomenon in the Roman Empire. London, Routledge, 2005, Google e-book, available at [4]. Retrieved 15 December 2014. Additionally, inordinate spending on civic buildings was a means to achieve local superiority, and a way for the local Greek elites to maintain a separate cultural identitysomething expressed in the contemporary rise of the Second Sophistic. This "cultural patriotism" acted as a kind of substitute for the loss of political independence,Paul Veyne, "L'identité grecque devant Rome et l'empereur", Revue des Études Grecques, 1999, V.122-2, p. 515. Available at [5]. Retrieved 20 December 2014. and as such was shunned by Roman authorities.Jesper Majbom Madsen, Roger David Rees, eds. Roman rule in Greek and Latin Writing: Double Vision. Leiden: Brill, 2014, , p.36. As Trajan himself wrote to Pliny: "These poor Greeks all love a gymnasium... they will have to content with one that suits their real needs".
An example of yet another challenge this system posed to the romans can be taken from Prusa: an embassy from Dio's city of Prusa was not favourably received by Trajan,Fergus Millar, Rome, the Greek World, and the East: Government, society, and culture in the Roman Empire. University of North Carolina Press, 2004, , p. 31. this had to do with Dio's chief objective, which was to elevate Prusa to the status of a free city, an "independent" city-state exempt from paying taxes to Rome.Jesper Majbom Madsen, Eager to be Roman: Greek Response to Roman Rule in Pontus and Bithynia. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009, , p. 116. Eventually, Dio gained for Prusa the right to become the head of the assize-district, conventus (meaning that Prusans did not have to travel to be judged by the Roman governor), but eleutheria (freedom, in the sense of full political autonomy) was denied.Simon Swain, ed., Dio Chrysostom: Politics, Letters, and Philosophy. Oxford University Press, 2002, , p.68.
Eventually, it fell to Pliny, as imperial governor of Bithynia in AD110, to deal with the consequences of the financial mess wrought by Dio and his fellow civic officials.Paraskevi Martzavou, Nikolaos Papazarkadas, eds., Epigraphical Approaches to the Post-Classical Polis: Fourth Century BC to Second Century AD. Oxford University Press, 2013, , p.115. "It's well established that the are in a state of disorder" Pliny once wrote to Trajan; plans for unnecessary works made in collusion with local contractors being identified as one of the main problems.Temporini & Haase, Politische Geschichte, 669. This was obviously an issue for Roman authorities interested in assuring the cities' solvency and therefore ready collection of Imperial taxes.Hildegard Temporini, Wolfgang Haase, eds., Politische Geschichte: Provinzen und Randvoelker – Griescher Balkanraum: Kleinasien. Berlin; de Gruyter, 1980, , pp.668669.
One of the compensatory measures proposed by Pliny expressed a thoroughly Roman conservative position: as the cities' financial solvency depended on the councilmen's purses, it was necessary to have more councilmen on the local city councils. According to Pliny, the best way to achieve this was to lower the minimum age for holding a seat on the council, making it possible for more sons of the established oligarchical families to join and thus contribute to civic spending; this was seen as preferable to enrolling non-noble wealthy upstarts. Such an increase in the number of council members was granted to Dio's city of Prusa, to the dismay of existing councilmen who felt their status lowered.Jesper Majbom Madsen, Eager to be Roman, 117. A similar situation existed in Claudiopolis, where a public bath was built with the proceeds from the entrance fees paid by "supernumerary" members of the council, enrolled with Trajan's permission.Sviatoslav Dmitriev, City Government in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor. Oxford University Press, 2005, , p. 155.
According to the Digest, Trajan decreed that when a city magistrate promised to achieve a particular public building, his heirs inherited responsibility for its completion.Fergus Millar, Rome, the Greek World, and the East: Government, society, and culture in the Roman Empire. University of North Carolina Press, 2004, , pp. 37/38.
Nevertheless, while the office of corrector was intended as a tool to curb any hint of independent political activity among local notables in the Greek cities,Thérèse Renoirte (Sœur), Les "Conseils politiques" de Plutarque. Une lettre ouverte aux Grecs à l'époque de Trajan. Review by Robert Flacelière, L'antiquité classique, 1952, available at [7]. Retrieved 12 December 2014. the correctores themselves were all men of the highest social standing entrusted with an exceptional commission. The post seems to have been conceived partly as a reward for senators who had chosen to make a career solely on the emperor's behalf. Therefore, in reality the post was conceived as a means for "taming" both Greek notables and Roman senators.E. Guerber, "Les correctores dans la partie hellénophone de l'empire Romain du règne de Trajan à l'avènement de Dioclétien : étude prosopographique" Anatolia Antiqua, V.5, no. 5, 1997; available at [8]. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
Trajan's Forum Traiani was Rome's largest forum. It was built to commemorate his victories in Dacia, and was largely financed from that campaign's loot. To accommodate it, parts of the Capitoline Hill and had to be removed, the latter enlarging a clear area first established by Domitian. Apollodorus of Damascus' "magnificent" design incorporated a Triumphal arch entrance, a forum space approximately 120 m long and 90m wide, surrounded by peristyles: a monumentally sized basilica: and later, the famous Trajan's Column and libraries. It was started in AD 107, dedicated on 1 January 112, and remained in use for at least 500 years. It still drew admiration when Emperor Constantius II visited Rome in the fourth century. It accommodated Trajan's Market, and an adjacent brick market.Fritz Heichelheim, Cedric Veo, Allen Ward,(1984) History of the Roman People, p. 382, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
Trajan was also a prolific builder of triumphal arches, many of which survive. He built roads, such as the Via Traiana, an extension of the Via Appia from Benevento to BrundisiumMartin Klonnek, Chronologie des Römischen Reiches 2: 2. Jh. – Jahr 100 bis 199. Berlin: epubli, 2014, , p. 109. and the Via Traiana Nova, a mostly military road between Damascus and Aqaba, which Rome employed in its annexation of Nabataea and founding of Arabia Petraea.Dikla Rivlin Katz, Noah Hacham, Geoffrey Herman, Lilach Sagiv, A Question of Identity: Social, Political, and Historical Aspects of Identity Dynamics in Jewish and Other Contexts. Berlin: Walter de Griyter, 2019 , p. 304.
Some historians attribute the construction or reconstruction of Old Cairo's Roman fortress (also known as "Babylon Fort") to Trajan, and the building of a canal between the River Nile and the Red Sea. In Egypt, Trajan was "quite active" in constructing and embellishing buildings. He is portrayed, together with Domitian, on the propylon of the Temple of Hathor at Dendera. His cartouche also appears in the column shafts of the Temple of Khnum at Esna.
He built palatial villas outside Rome at Arcinazzo, at Centumcellae and at Talamone. He also built a bath complex as well as the Aqua Traiana.
At some time during 108 or 109, Trajan held 123 days of games to celebrate his Dacian victory. They involved "fully 10,000" and the slaughter of thousands, "possibly tens of thousands," of animals, both wild and domestic. Trajan's careful management of public spectacles led the orator Fronto to congratulate him for paying equal attention to public entertainments and more serious issues, acknowledging that "neglect of serious matters can cause greater damage, but neglect of amusements greater discontent".Quoted by Andrea Giardina, ed. The Romans. University of Chicago Press, 1993, , p. 272. State-funded public entertainments helped to maintain contentment among the populace; the more "serious matter" of the Cura annonae aimed to satisfy individuals.Z. Yavetz, "The Urban Plebs in the Days of the Flavians, Nerva and Trajan". IN Opposition et Resistances a L'empire D'auguste a Trajan. Geneva: Droz, 1987, , p. 181.
Further tests faced by Christians in Pontus are alluded to in correspondence between Pliny the Younger, governor of the Roman province of Bithynia and Pontus, and Emperor Trajan. Writing from Pontus in about AD 112, Pliny reported that the "contagion" of Christianity threatened everyone, regardless of gender, age, or rank. Pliny gave those accused of being Christians opportunity to deny it, and those who would not, he executed. Any who cursed Christ or recited a prayer to the gods or to Trajan’s statue were released. Pliny acknowledged that these were things that "those who are really Christians cannot be made to do."Plin. Ep. 96.5
Trajan formalised the alimenta, a welfare program that helped orphans and poor children throughout Italy by providing cash, food and subsidized education. The program was supported out of Dacian War booty, estate taxes and philanthropy. The alimenta also relied indirectly on mortgages secured against Italian farms ( fundi). Registered landowners received a lump sum from the imperial treasury, and in return were expected to repay an annual sum to support the alimentary fund.John Rich, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, eds., City and Country in the Ancient World. London: Routledge, 2003, , p. 158.
The treaty seems to have allowed Roman troops the right of passage through the Dacian kingdom in order to attack the Marcomanni, Quadi and Sarmatians. However, senatorial opinion never forgave Domitian for paying what was seen as tribute to a barbarian king.Marcel Emerit. "Les derniers travaux des historiens roumains sur la Dacie". In: Revue des Études Anciennes. Tome 41, 1939, n°1. pp. 57–64. available at [9]. Retrieved 23 February 2016. Unlike the Germanic tribes, the Dacian kingdom was an organized state capable of developing alliances of its own, thus making it a strategic threat and giving Trajan a strong motive to attack it.
In May of 101, Trajan launched his first campaign into the Dacian kingdom, crossing to the northern bank of the Danube and defeating the Dacian warfare at Tapae (see Second Battle of Tapae), near the Iron Gates of Transylvania. It was not a decisive victory, however. Trajan's troops took heavy losses in the encounter, and he put off further campaigning for the year in order to regroup and reinforce his army. Nevertheless, the battle was considered a Roman victory and Trajan strived to ultimately consolidate his position, including other major engagements, as well as the capture of Decebalus' sister as depicted on Trajan's Column.
The following winter, Decebalus took the initiative by launching a counter-attack across the Danube further downstream, supported by Sarmatian cavalry,José Maria Blázquez, Las res gestae de Trajano militar: las guerras dácicas. Aquila Legionis, 6 (2005) 19. forcing Trajan to come to the aid of the troops in his rearguard. The Dacians and their allies were repulsed after two battles in Moesia, at Nicopolis ad Istrum and Adamclisi.Ioan Glodariu, LA ZONE DE SARMIZEGETUSA REGIA ET LES GUERRES DE TRAJAN. Studia Antiqua et Archaeologica, VII, Iasi, 2000. Available at VII, Iasi,2000).pdf. Retrieved 2 July 2014. Trajan's army then advanced further into Dacian territory, and, a year later, forced Decebalus to submit. He had to renounce claim to some regions of his kingdom, return runaways from Rome then under his protection (most of them technical experts), and surrender all his war machines. Trajan returned to Rome in triumph and was granted the title Dacicus. The peace of 102 had returned Decebalus to the condition of more or less harmless client king; however, he soon began to rearm, to again harbour Roman runaways, and to pressure his Western neighbours, the Iazyges Sarmatians, into allying themselves with him. Through his efforts to develop an anti-Roman bloc, Decebalus prevented Trajan from treating Dacia as a protectorate instead of an outright conquest. In 104, Decebalus devised an attempt on Trajan's life by means of some Roman deserters, a plan that failed. Decebalus also took prisoner Trajan's legate Longinus, who eventually poisoned himself while in custody. In 105, Decebalus undertook an invasion of Roman-occupied territory north of the Danube.
Prior to the campaign, Trajan had raised two entirely new legions: II Traianawhich, however, may have been posted in the East, at the Syrian port of Laodiceaand XXX Ulpia Victrix, which was posted to Brigetio, in Pannonia. By 105, the concentration of Roman troops assembled in the middle and lower Danube amounted to fourteen legions (up from nine in 101)about half of the entire Roman army. Even after the Dacian wars, the Danube frontier would permanently replace the Rhine as the main military axis of the Roman Empire. Including , the number of Roman troops engaged on both campaigns was between 150,000 and 175,000, while Decebalus could dispose of up to 200,000. Other estimates for the Roman forces involved in Trajan's second Dacian War cite around 86,000 for active campaigning with large reserves retained in the proximal provinces, and potentially much lower numbers around 50,000 for Decebalus' depleted forces and absent allies.
In a fierce campaign that seems to have consisted mostly of static warfare, the Dacians, devoid of manoeuvring room, kept to their network of fortresses, which the Romans sought systematically to storm (see also Second Dacian War). The Romans gradually tightened their grip around Decebalus' stronghold in Sarmizegetusa Regia, which they finally took and destroyed. A controversial scene on Trajan's column just before the fall of Sarmizegetusa Regia suggests that Decebalus may have offered poison to his remaining men as an alternative option to capture or death while trying to flee the besieged capital with him. Decebalus fled but, when later cornered by Roman cavalry, committed suicide. His severed head, brought to Trajan by the cavalryman Tiberius Claudius Maximus,Anton J. L. van Hooff, From Autothanasia to Suicide: Self-killing in Classical Antiquity. London: Routledge, 2002, , p. 277, note 41. was later exhibited in Rome on the steps leading up to the Capitoline Hill and thrown on the Gemonian stairs.Harriet I. Flower, The Art of Forgetting: Disgrace & Oblivion in Roman Political Culture. University of North Carolina Press, 2006, , p. 253. The famous Dacian treasures were not found in the captured capital and their whereabouts were only revealed when a Dacian nobleman called Bikilis was captured. Decebalus’ treasures had been buried under a temporarily diverted river and the captive workers executed to retain the secret. Staggering amounts of gold and silver were found and packed off to fill Rome's coffers.
Trajan built a new city, Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augusta Dacica Sarmizegetusa, on another site (north of the hill citadel holding the previous Dacian capital),Martin Goodman, The Roman World 44 BC–AD 180, 253. although bearing the same full name, Sarmizegetusa. This capital city was conceived as a purely civilian administrative centre and was provided the usual Romanized administrative apparatus (decurions, , etc.).Jennifer Trimble, Women and Visual Replication in Roman Imperial Art and Culture. Cambridge U. Press, 2011, , p. 288. Urban life in Roman Dacia seems to have been restricted to Roman colonists, mostly military veterans;Ioana A. Oltean, Dacia: Landscape, Colonization and Romanization. Abingdon: Routledge, 2007, , p. 222. there is no extant evidence for the existence in the province of peregrine cities. Native Dacians continued to live in scattered rural settlements, according to their own ways. In another arrangement with no parallels in any other Roman province, the existing quasi-urban Dacian settlements disappeared after the Roman conquest.Carbó García, Juan Ramón. " Dacia Capta: particularidades de un proceso de conquista y romanización." Habis, 41, 275–292 (2010).
A number of unorganized urban settlements (vicus) developed around military encampments in Dacia proper – the most important being Alba Iulia – but were only acknowledged as cities proper well after Trajan's reign.Meléndez, Javier Bermejo, Santiago Robles Esparcia, and Juan M. Campos Carrasco. "Trajano fundador. El último impulso colonizador del imperio." Onoba. Revista de Arqueología y Antigüedad 1 (2013). The main regional effort of urbanization was concentrated by Trajan at the rearguard, in Moesia, where he created the new cities of Nicopolis ad Istrum and Marcianopolis. A vicus was also created around the Tropaeum Traianum. The garrison city of Oescus received the status of Roman colony after its legionary garrison was redeployed. The fact that these former Danubian outposts had ceased to be frontier bases and were now in the deep rear acted as an inducement to their urbanization and development. Not all of Dacia was permanently occupied. After the post-Trajanic evacuation of lands across the lower Danube, land extending from the Danube to the inner arch of the Carpathian Mountains, including Transylvania, the Metaliferi Mountains and Oltenia was absorbed into the Roman province, which eventually took the form of an "excrescence" with ill-defined limits, stretching from the Danube northwards to the Carpathians. This may have been intended as a basis for further expansion within Eastern Europe, as the Romans believed the region to be much more geographically "flattened", and thus easier to traverse, than it actually was; they also underestimated the distance from those vaguely defined borders to the ocean.
Defence of the province was entrusted to a single legion, the XIII Gemina, stationed at Alba Julia, which functioned as an advance guard that could, in case of need, strike either west or east at the Sarmatians living at the borders. Therefore, the indefensible character of the province did not appear to be a problem for Trajan, as the province was conceived more as a sally-base for further attacks.Frank Vermeulen, Kathy Sas, Wouter Dhaeze, eds. Archaeology in Confrontation: Aspects of Roman Military Presence in the Northwest : Studies in Honour of Prof. Em. Hugo Thoen. Ghent: Academia Press, 2004, , p. 218. Even in the absence of further Roman expansion, the value of the province depended on Roman overall strength: while Rome was strong, the Dacian salient was an instrument of military and diplomatic control over the Danubian lands; when Rome was weak, as during the Crisis of the Third Century, the province became a liability and was eventually abandoned. Trajan resettled Dacia with Romans and annexed it as a province of the Roman Empire. Aside from their enormous booty (over half a million slaves, according to John Lydus),Moses I. Finley, ed., Classical Slavery, London: Routledge, 2014, , p. 122. Trajan's Dacian campaigns benefited the Empire's finances through the acquisition of Dacia's gold mines, managed by an imperial procurator of Equestrian order rank ( procurator aurariarum). On the other hand, commercial agricultural exploitation on the Roman villa model, based on the centralized management of a huge landed estate by a single owner ( fundus) was poorly developed. Therefore, use of slave labor in the province itself seems to have been relatively undeveloped, and epigraphic evidence points to work in the gold mines being conducted by means of labor contracts ( locatio conductio rei) and seasonal wage-earning.Steven A. Epstein, Wage Labor and Guilds in Medieval Europe. UNC Press, 1991, , p. 26; Paul du Plessis, Studying Roman Law. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014, p. 82. The victory was commemorated by the construction both of the 102 cenotaph generally known as the Tropaeum Traiani in Moesia, as well of the much later (113) Trajan's Column in Rome, the latter depicting in stone carved bas-reliefs the Dacian Wars' most important moments.
The empire gained what became the province of Arabia Petraea (modern southern Jordan and northwest Saudi Arabia). At this time, a Roman road ( Via Traiana Nova) was built from Aila (now Aqaba) in Limes Arabicus to . As Nabataea was the last client kingdom in Asia west of the Euphrates, the annexation meant that the entire Roman East had been provincialized, completing a trend towards direct rule that had begun under the Flavians.
That Charax traded with the Roman Empire, there can be no doubt, as its actual connections with merchants from Palmyra during the period are well documented in a contemporary Palmyrene epigraph, which tells of various Palmyrene citizens honoured for holding office in Charax.Daniel T. Potts, ed., Araby the Blest: Studies in Arabian Archaeology. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1988, , p. 142. Also, Charax's rulers' domains at the time possibly included the Bahrain islands, which offered the possibility of extending Roman hegemony into the Persian Gulf itself.Potts, 143. (A Palmyrene citizen held office as satrap over the islands shortly after Trajan's death, though the appointment was made by a Parthian king of Charax.Julian Reade, ed., The Indian Ocean In Antiquity. London: Routledge, 2013, , p. 279.) The rationale behind Trajan's campaign, in this case, was one of breaking down a system of Far Eastern trade through small Semitic ("Arab") cities under Parthia's control and to put it under Roman control instead.George Fadlo Hourani, Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times. Princeton University Press, 1995, , p. 15.
In his Dacian conquests, Trajan had already resorted to Syrian auxiliary units, whose veterans, along with Syrian traders, had an important role in the subsequent colonization of Dacia. He had recruited Palmyrene units into his army, including a camel unit,Pat Southern, Empress Zenobia: Palmyra's Rebel Queen. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2008, , p. 25. therefore apparently procuring Palmyrene support to his ultimate goal of annexing Charax. It has even been ventured that, when earlier in his campaign Trajan annexed Armenia, he was bound to annex the whole of Mesopotamia lest the Parthians interrupt the flux of trade from the Persian Gulf and/or foment trouble at the Roman frontier on the Danube.Freya Stark, Rome on the Euphrates: The Story of a Frontier.London: I.B. Tauris, 2012, , p. 211. Other historians reject these motives, as the supposed Parthian "control" over the maritime Far Eastern trade route was, at best, conjectural and based on a selective reading of Chinese sourcestrade by land through Parthia seems to have been unhampered by Parthian authorities and left solely to the devices of private enterprise. Commercial activity in second century Mesopotamia seems to have been a general phenomenon, shared by many peoples within and without the Roman Empire, with no sign of a concerted Imperial policy towards it.
As in the case of the alimenta, scholars like Moses Finley and Paul Veyne have considered the idea that a foreign trade policy underlay Trajan's war to be anachronistic; according to these scholars, the concern of Roman leaders with the trade in far eastern luxuriesbesides collecting toll taxes and customsPaul Erdkamp, The Grain Market in the Roman Empire: A Social, Political and Economic Study. Cambridge University Press, 2005, , p. 5.was moral in nature, because contemporary Roman mores frowned upon the "softness" of luxuries. In the absence of conclusive evidence, trade between Rome and India might have been far more balanced, in terms of quantities of precious metals exchanged: one of our sources for the notion of the Roman gold drainPliny's the Younger's uncle Pliny the Elderhad earlier described the Gangetic Plains as one of the gold sources for the Roman Empire. Accordingly – in a controversial book on the Roman economy – Finley considers Trajan's "badly miscalculated and expensive assault on Parthia" to be an example of the many Roman "commercial wars" that had in common the fact of existing only in the books of modern historians.
The alternative view is to see the campaign as triggered by the incentive of territorial annexation and prestige, the sole motive ascribed by Cassius Dio. As far as territorial conquest involved tax-collecting,Michael Alexander Speidel: "Bellicosissimus Princeps". In: Annette Nünnerich-Asmus ed., Traian. Ein Kaiser der Superlative am Beginn einer Umbruchzeit? Mainz 2002, pp. 23/40. especially of the 25% tax levied on all goods entering the Roman Empire, the tetarte, one can say that Trajan's Parthian War had an "economic" motive. Also, there was the propaganda value of an Eastern conquest that would emulate, in Roman fashion, those of Alexander the Great.Nathanael John Andrade, "Imitation Greeks": Being Syrian in the Greco-Roman World (175 BCE – 275 CE). Doctoral Thesis, University of Michigan, 2009, p. 192. Available at [12]. Retrieved 11 June 2014. The fact that emissaries from the Kushan Empire might have attended to the commemorative ceremonies for the Dacian War may have prompted Greco-Roman intellectuals like wrote about only 70,000 Roman soldiers being necessary to a conquest of India as well as in Trajan's closer associates, speculation about the treasure to be obtained by reproducing Macedonian Eastern conquests.Raoul McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East: Trade Routes to the Ancient Lands of Arabia, India and China. London: Continuum, 2010, , p. 130. There could also be Trajan's idea to use an ambitious blueprint of conquests as a way to emphasize quasi-divine status, such as with his cultivated association, in coins and monuments, to Hercules.Olivier Hekster, "Propagating power: Hercules as an example for second-century emperors". Herakles and Hercules. Exploring a Graeco-Roman Divinity (2005): 205–21.Available at [13] Retrieved 18 August 2019.
It is possible that the attachment of Trajan to an expansionist policy was supported by a powerful circle of conservative senators from Hispania committed to a policy of imperial expansion, first among them being Licinius Sura. Alternatively, one can explain the campaign by the fact that, for the Romans, their empire was in principle unlimited, and that Trajan only took advantage of an opportunity to make idea and reality coincide.Dexter Hoyos, ed., A Companion to Roman Imperialism. Leiden: Brill, 2012, , p. 262. There are other modern historians who think that Trajan's original aims were purely military and strategic: to assure a more defensible Eastern frontier for the empire, crossing Northern Mesopotamia along the course of the Khabur River in order to offer cover to a Roman Armenia. This interpretation is backed by the fact that all subsequent Roman wars against Parthia would aim at establishing a Roman presence deep into Parthia itself.David Kennedy & Derrick Riley, Rome's Desert Frontiers. London: B.T. Datsford Limited, 2004, , pp. 31/32. It is possible that during the onset of Trajan's military experience, as a young tribune, he had witnessed engagement with the Parthians; so any strategic vision was grounded in a tactical awareness of what was needed to tackle Parthia.
Trajan marched first on Armenia, deposed the Parthian-appointed king, Parthamasiris (who was afterwards murdered while kept in the custody of Roman troops in an unclear incident, later described by Fronto as a breach of Roman good faith),John Rich, Graham Shipley, eds., War and Society in the Roman World. London: Routledge, 1993, , p. 235. and annexed it to the Roman Empire as a province, receiving in passing the acknowledgement of Roman hegemony by various tribes in the Caucasus and on the Eastern coast of the Black Seaa process that kept him busy until the end of 114. At the same time, a Roman column under the legate outstanding cavalry generalHermann Bengtson, Römische Geschichte: Republik und Kaiserzeit bis 284 n. Chr. Munich: Beck, 2001, , p. 289. who had signalled himself during the Dacian Wars by commanding a unit from his native MauretaniaAlfred S. Bradford, With Arrow, Sword, and Spear: A History of Warfare in the Ancient World. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2001, , p. 232.crossed the Araxes river from Armenia into Media Atropatene and the land of the Mardians (present-day Ghilan).
It is possible that Quietus' campaign had as its goal the extending of the newer, more defensible Roman border eastwards towards the Caspian Sea and northwards to the foothills of the Caucasus.S.J. De Laet, review of Lepper, Trajan's Parthian War. L'Antiquité Classique, 18-2, 1949, pp. 487–489. This newer, more "rational" frontier, depended, however, on an increased, permanent Roman presence east of the Euphrates.Richard Stoneman, Palmyra and Its Empire: Zenobia's Revolt Against Rome. Ann Arbor: 1994, University of Michigan Press, , p. 89.
The chronology of subsequent events is uncertain, but it is generally believed that early in 115 Trajan launched a Mesopotamian campaign, marching down towards the Taurus mountains in order to consolidate territory between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. He placed permanent garrisons along the way to secure the territory. While Trajan moved from west to east, Lusius Quietus moved with his army from the Caspian Sea towards the west, both armies performing a successful pincer movement, whose apparent result was to establish a Roman presence into the Parthian Empire proper.
Trajan took the northern Mesopotamian cities of Nisibis and Batnae and organized a province of Mesopotamia, including the Kingdom of King Abgar VII submitted to Trajan publiclyMaurice Sartre, The Middle East Under Rome. Harvard University Press, 2005, , p. 146. as a Roman protectorate. This process seems to have been completed at the beginning of 116, when coins were issued announcing that Armenia and Mesopotamia had been put under the authority of the Roman people. The area between the Khabur River and the mountains around Singara seems to have been considered as the new frontier, and as such received a road surrounded by fortresses.
After wintering in Antioch during 115/116 and, according to literary sources, barely escaping from a violent earthquake that claimed the life of one of the consuls, Marcus Pedo VirgilianusFergus Millar, The Roman Near East, 31 B.C. – A.D. 337. Harvard University Press, 1993, , p. 101.Trajan again took to the field in 116, with a view to the conquest of the whole of Mesopotamia, an overambitious goal that eventually backfired on the results of his entire campaign. According to some modern historians, the aim of the campaign of 116 was to achieve a "pre-emptive demonstration" aiming not toward the conquest of Parthia, but for tighter Roman control over the Eastern trade route. However, the overall scarcity of manpower for the Roman military establishment meant that the campaign was doomed from the start.Patrick Le Roux, IN Ségolène Demougin, ed., H.-G. Pflaum, un historien du XXe siècle: actes du colloque international, Paris les 21, 22 et 23 octobre 2004. Geneva: Droz, 2006, , pp. 182/183. It is noteworthy that no new legions were raised by Trajan before the Parthian campaign, maybe because the sources of new citizen recruits were already over-exploited.
As far as the sources allow a description of this campaign, it seems that one Roman division crossed the Tigris into Adiabene, sweeping south and capturing Adenystrae; a second followed the river south, capturing Babylon; Trajan himself sailed down the Euphrates from a triumphal arch was erected in his honourthrough Ozogardana, where he erected a "tribunal" still to be seen at the time of Julian the Apostate's campaigns in the same area. Having come to the narrow strip of land between the Euphrates and the Tigris, he then dragged his fleet overland into the Tigris, capturing Seleucia and finally the Parthian capital of Ctesiphon.
He continued southward to the Persian Gulf, when, after escaping with his fleet a tidal bore on the Tigris,Longden, "Notes on the Parthian Campaigns", 8. he received the submission of Athambelus, the ruler of Charax Spasinu. He declared Babylon a new province of the Empire and had his statue erected on the shore of the Persian Gulf,T. Olajos, "Le monument du triomphe de Trajan en Parthie. Quelques renseignements inobservés (Jean d'Ephèse, Anthologie Grecque XVI 72)". Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 1981, vol. 29, no 1-4, pp. 379–383. The statue was torn down by Sassanids in 571/572. after which he sent the Senate a laurelled letter declaring the war to be at a close and bemoaning that he was too old to go on any further and repeat the conquests of Alexander the Great. Since Charax was a de facto independent kingdom whose connections to Palmyra were described above, Trajan's bid for the Persian Gulf may have coincided with Palmyrene interests in the region. Another hypothesis is that the rulers of Charax had expansionist designs on Parthian Babylon, giving them a rationale for alliance with Trajan.E. J. Keall, Parthian Nippur and Vologases' Southern Strategy: A Hypothesis. Journal of the American Oriental Society Vol. 95, No. 4 (Oct. – Dec. 1975), pp. 620–632. The Parthian city of Susa was apparently also occupied by the Romans.George Rawlinson, Parthia. New York: Cosimo, 2007, , p. 310.
According to late literary sources (not backed by numismatic or inscriptional evidence) a province of Roman Assyria was also proclaimed, apparently covering the territory of Adiabene. Some measures seem to have been considered regarding the fiscal administration of Indian tradeor simply about the payment of customs () on goods traded on the Euphrates and Tigris. It is possible that it was this "streamlining" of the administration of the newly conquered lands according to the standard pattern of Roman provincial administration in tax collecting, requisitions and the handling of local potentates' prerogatives, that triggered later resistance against Trajan.Janos Harmatta and others, eds., History of Civilizations of Central Asia: The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations, 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1999, , p. 135.
According to some modern historians, Trajan might have busied himself during his stay on the Persian Gulf with ordering raids on the Parthian coasts,Pirouz Mojtahed-Zadeh, Security and Territoriality in the Persian Gulf: A Maritime Political Geography, London: Routledge, 2013, , p. 120. as well as probing into extending Roman suzerainty over the mountaineer tribes holding the passes across the Zagros Mountains into the Iranian plateau eastward, as well as establishing some sort of direct contact between Rome and the Kushan Empire. No attempt was made to expand into the Iranian Plateau itself, where the Roman army, with its relative weakness in cavalry, would have been at a disadvantage.Axel Kristinsson, Expansions: Competition and Conquest in Europe Since the Bronze Age. Reykjavík: ReykjavíkurAkademían, 2010, , p. 129.
Trajan left the Persian Gulf for Babylonwhere he intended to offer sacrifice to Alexander in the house where he had died in 323BC But a revolt led by Sanatruces, a nephew of the Parthian king Osroes I who had retained a cavalry force, possibly strengthened by the addition of Saka archers,Kaveh Farrokh, Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War. Oxford: Osprey, 2007, , p. 162. imperilled Roman positions in Mesopotamia and Armenia. Trajan sought to deal with this by forsaking direct Roman rule in Parthia proper, at least partially. Trajan sent two armies towards Northern Mesopotamia: the first, under Lusius Quietus, recovered Nisibis and Edessa from the rebels, probably having King Abgarus deposed and killed in the process, with Quietus probably earning the right to receive the honors of a senator of praetorian rank ( adlectus inter praetorios). The Cambridge Ancient History: The Imperial peace, A.D. 70–192, 1965 ed., p. 249. The second army, however, under Appius Maximus Santra (probably a governor of Macedonia) was defeated and Santra killed.Julián González, ed., Trajano Emperador De Roma, 216.
Later in 116, Trajan, with the assistance of Quietus and two other legates, Marcus Erucius Clarus and Tiberius Julius Alexander Julianus, defeated a Parthian army in a battle where Sanatruces was killed, possibly with the assistance of Osroes' son and Sanatruces' cousin, Parthamaspates, whom Trajan wooed successfully.E. Yarshater, ed., The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 3(1). Cambridge University Press, 1983, , p. 91. After re-taking and burning Seleucia, Trajan then formally deposed Osroes, putting Parthamaspates on the throne as client ruler. This event was commemorated in a coin as the reduction of Parthia to client kingdom status: REX PARTHIS DATUS, "a king is given to the Parthians".
That done, Trajan retreated north in order to retain what he could of the new provinces of Armeniawhere he had already accepted an armistice in exchange for surrendering part of the territory to Sanatruces' son Vologesesand Mesopotamia. It was at this point that Trajan's health started to fail him. The fortress city of Hatra, on the Tigris in his rear, continued to hold out against repeated Roman assaults. He was personally present at the siege, and it is possible that he suffered a heat stroke while in the blazing heat.
Quietus discharged his commissions successfully, leading rabbinic sources to name the conflict in Judaea the "Kitos War," with Kitus being a corruption of Quietus. Whether or not the Diaspora revolt included Judea proper, or only the Jewish Eastern diaspora, remains doubtful in the absence of clear epigraphic and archaeological evidence. What is certain is that there was an increased Roman military presence in Judea at the time.
Quietus was promised a consulate in the following year (118) for his victories, but he was killed before this could occur, during the bloody purge that opened Hadrian's reign, in which Quietus and three other former consuls were sentenced to death after being tried on a vague charge of conspiracy by the (secret) court of the Praetorian Prefect Attianus. (1994). 9783428080694, Dunker & Hunblot. ISBN 9783428080694 It has been thought that Quietus and his colleagues were executed on Hadrian's direct orders, for fear of their popular standing with the army and their close connections to Trajan.Histoire des Juifs, Troisième période, I – Chapitre III – Soulèvement des Judéens sous Trajan et Adrien.
In contrast, the next prominent Roman figure in charge of the repression of the Jewish revolt, the equestrian Quintus Marcius Turbo, who had dealt with the rebel leader from Cyrene, Loukuas, retained Hadrian's trust, eventually becoming his Praetorian Prefect. As all four consulars were senators of the highest standing and as such generally regarded as able to take imperial power ( capaces imperii), Hadrian seems to have decided to forestall these prospective rivals. (2026). 9789004182998, Brill. ISBN 9789004182998
According to a well-established historical tradition, Trajan's ashes were placed within the small cella that still survives at the base of Trajan's column. In some modern scholarship, his ashes were more likely interred near his column, in a mausoleum, temple or tomb built for his cult as a divus of the Roman state.
Hadrian had held an ambiguous position during Trajan's reign. After commanding Legio I Minervia during the Dacian Wars, he had been relieved from front-line duties at the decisive stage of the Second Dacian War, being sent to govern the newly created province of Pannonia Inferior. He had pursued a senatorial career without particular distinction and had not been officially adopted by Trajan although he received from him decorations and other marks of distinction that made him hope for the succession. He received no post after his 108 consulate and no further honours other than being made Archon eponymos for Athens in 111/112. He probably did not take part in the Parthian War.
Literary sources relate that Trajan had considered others, such as the jurist Lucius Neratius Priscus, as heir. Hadrian, who was eventually entrusted with the governorship of Syria at the time of Trajan's death, was Trajan's cousin and was married to Trajan's grandniece, which all made him as good as heir designate. Hadrian seems to have been well connected to the powerful and influential coterie of Spanish senators at Trajan's court, through his ties to Plotina and the Prefect Attianus. His refusal to sustain Trajan's senatorial and expansionist policy during his own reign may account for the "crass hostility" shown him by literary sources.
Hadrian's first major act as emperor was to abandon Mesopotamia as too costly and distant to defend, and to restore Armenia and Osrhoene to Parthian hegemony, under Rome's suzerainty. The Parthian campaign had been an enormous setback to Trajan's policy, proof that Rome had overstretched its capacity to sustain an ambitious program of conquest. According to the Historia Augusta, Hadrian claimed to follow the precedent set by Cato the Elder towards the Macedonians, who "were to be set free because they could not be protected" – something Birley sees as an unconvincing precedent. Other territories conquered by Trajan were retained.
This story was popularized in the twelfth century by Humanism authors, who added emphasis on Trajan's deeds earning him sympathy from the Pope. Peter Abelard, the Magdeburg Centuries, Godfrey of Viterbo, and in particular John of Salisbury all wrote of Trajan's personal morality, justice, rational virtue, and wisdom as an epitome of successful political leadership. They generally framed Pope Gregory's intercession on his behalf as a way for the Church to legitimize the achievements of Roman political system.
In the thirteenth century, the story of Trajan evolved into a theological question many theologians engaged with, including William of Auvergne, William of Auxerre, Alexander of Hales, Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventure. Instead of being concerned with the power of Pope Gregory or virtue of Trajan, they used it to engage with questions such as christian mortalism and prayers for the dead. Notably, Trajan's case was not associated with the question of the , as he lived after the establishment of Christianity. Aquinas and the other theologians believed Trajan's salvation mechanically came from him getting a second chance at life, even if momentary, to convert to Christianity.
In the Divine Comedy, Trajan appears twice. First, as a marble statue in Purgatorio X, serving as a model for good governance and humility for those in purgatory. His second appearance in Paradiso XX in the Heaven of Jupiter places him with other historical and mythological persons noted for their justice. Dante's version of the story incorporates the perspectives of the thirteenth century theologians as well as the twelfth century humanists — a resuscitation was necessary for his salvation, but Dante places emphasizes on Trajan's righteousness over Pope Gregory's intercession. An eagle explains to Dante the salvation of Trajan and Ripheus, a virtuous pagan who lived before Christ, perhaps reflecting Dante's optimism for the salvation of others who lived virtuous and valuable lives after Christ without being a Christian.
The story of Trajan and Pope Gregory also appears in Piers Plowman and John Wyclif's De ecclesia.
In the 18th century, King Charles III of Spain commissioned Anton Raphael Mengs to paint The Triumph of Trajan on the ceiling of the banquet hall of the Royal Palace of Madridconsidered among the best works of this artist. (2026). 9780684312040, Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 9780684312040
It was only during the Enlightenment that this legacy began to be contested, when Edward Gibbon expressed doubts about the militarized character of Trajan's reign in contrast to the "moderate" practices of his immediate successors. Theodor Mommsen adopted a divided stance towards Trajan, at some point of his posthumously published lectures even speaking about his "vainglory" ( Scheinglorie). Mommsen also speaks of Trajan's "insatiable, unlimited lust for conquest". Although Mommsen had no liking for Trajan's successor Hadrian"a repellent manner, and a venomous, envious and malicious nature"he admitted that Hadrian, in renouncing Trajan's conquests, was "doing what the situation clearly required".
It was exactly this military character of Trajan's reign that attracted his early twentieth-century biographer, the Italian historian Roberto Paribeni, who in his 1927 two-volume biography Optimus Princeps described Trajan's reign as the acme of the Roman principate, which he saw as Italy's patrimony. (2026). 9780198738053, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198738053 Following in Paribeni's footsteps, the German historian Alfred Heuss saw in Trajan "the accomplished human embodiment of the imperial title" ( die ideale Verkörperung des humanen Kaiserbegriffs). Trajan's first English-language biography by Julian Bennett is also a positive one in that it assumes that Trajan was an active policy-maker concerned with the management of the empire as a wholesomething his reviewer Lendon considers an anachronistic outlook that sees in the Roman emperor a kind of modern administrator.
During the 1980s, the Romanian historian Eugen Cizek took a more nuanced view as he described the changes in the personal ideology of Trajan's reign, stressing the fact that it became ever more autocratic and militarized, especially after 112 and towards the Parthian War (as "only an universal monarch, a kosmocrator, could dictate his law to the East"). The biography by the German historian Karl Strobel stresses the continuity between Domitian's and Trajan's reigns, saying that Trajan's rule followed the same autocratic and sacred character as Domitian's, culminating in a failed Parthian adventure intended as the crown of his personal achievement.
It is in modern French historiography that Trajan's reputation becomes most markedly deflated: Paul Petit writes about Trajan's portraits as a "lowbrow boor with a taste for booze and boys". For Paul Veyne, what is to be retained from Trajan's "stylish" qualities was that he was the last Roman emperor to think of the empire as a purely Italian and Rome-centred hegemony of conquest. In contrast, his successor Hadrian would stress the notion of the empire as ecumenical and of the emperor as universal benefactor and not kosmocrator.
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