Trajan

Marcus Ulpius Traianus was born on 18 September AD 53 in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica[16] (in what is now Andalusia in modern Spain), in the municipium of Italica (now in the municipal area of Santiponce, in the outskirts of Seville), a Roman colony established in 206 BC by Scipio Africanus.[17][18][19] At the time of Trajan's birth it was a small town, without baths, theatre and amphitheatre, and with a very narrow territory under its direct administration.[19] Trajan's year of birth is not reliably attested and may instead have been AD 56.[20]

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.[21][22][23][24] 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 Ulpii and the Traii, who were either part of the original colonists or arrived as late as the end of the 1st century BC.[25] 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 Italy.[26][27] This is confirmed by archeology, with epigraphic evidence 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.[28][29][30][31]

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 Ulpius married a Traia.[32] Their son, Trajan's namesake 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.[33][34] Trajan's mother was Marcia, a Roman noblewoman of the gens Marcia and a sister-in-law of the second Flavian Emperor Titus.[35] Little is known of her. Her father is believed to be Quintus Marcius Barea Sura. Her mother was Antonia Furnilla, daughter of Aulus Antonius Rufus and Furnia. 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.

On his entry to Rome, Trajan granted the plebs a direct gift of money. The traditional donative to the troops, however, was reduced by half.[62] There remained the issue of the strained relations between the emperor and the Senate, especially after the supposed bloodiness that had marked Domitian's reign and his dealings with the Curia. By feigning reluctance to hold power, Trajan was able to start building a consensus around him in the Senate.[63] His belated ceremonial entry into Rome in 99 was notably understated, something on which Pliny the Younger elaborated.[64] By not openly supporting Domitian's preference for equestrian officers,[65] Trajan appeared to conform to the idea (developed by Pliny) that an emperor derived his legitimacy from his adherence to traditional hierarchies and senatorial morals.[66] Therefore, he could point to the allegedly republican character of his rule.[67]

In a speech at the inauguration of his third consulship, on 1 January 100, Trajan exhorted the senate to share the care-taking of the empire with him – an event later celebrated on a coin.[68][69] In reality, Trajan did not share power in any meaningful way with the senate, something that Pliny admits candidly: "[E]verything depends on the whims of a single man who, on behalf of the common welfare, has taken upon himself all functions and all tasks".[70][71] 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[72] and the general mismanagement of provincial affairs by various proconsuls appointed by the Senate.[73

Trajan was a prolific builder. Many of his buildings were designed and erected by the gifted architect Apollodorus of Damascus, including a massive bridge over the Danube, which the Roman army and its reinforcements could use regardless of weather; the Danube sometimes froze over in winter, but seldom enough to bear the passage of a party of soldiers.[134] Trajan's works at the Iron Gates region of the Danube created or enlarged the boardwalk road cut into the cliff-face along the Iron Gate's gorge.[135] A canal was built between the Danube's Kasajna tributary and Ducis Pratum, circumventing rapids and cataracts.[136]

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.[137] To accommodate it, parts of the Capitoline and Quirinal Hills 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, 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.[137] It accommodated Trajan's Market, and an adjacent brick market.[138][139]

Conquest of Dacia[edit]

Main article: Trajan's Dacian Wars

Trajan's Column, Rome

The earliest of Trajan's conquests were Rome's two wars against Dacia, an area that had troubled Roman politics for over a decade in regard to the unstable peace negotiated by Domitian's ministers with the powerful Dacian king Decebalus.[154] Dacia would be reduced by Trajan's Rome to a client kingdom in the first war (101–102), followed by a second war that ended in actual incorporation into the Empire of the trans-Danube border group of Dacia.[154] According to the provisions of Decebalus's earlier treaty with Rome, made in the time of Domitian, Decebalus was acknowledged as rex amicus, that is, client king; in exchange for accepting client status, he received from Rome both a generous stipend and a steady supply of technical experts.[155] 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.[156] Unlike the Germanic tribes, the Dacian kingdom was an organized state capable of developing alliances of its own,[157] thus making it a strategic threat and giving Trajan a strong motive to attack it.[158]

In May of 101, Trajan launched his first campaign into the Dacian kingdom,[159] crossing to the northern bank of the Danube and defeating the Dacian army at Tapae (see Second Battle of Tapae), near the Iron Gates of Transylvania. It was not a decisive victory, however.[160] 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.[161] 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.[162]

The following winter, Decebalus took the initiative by launching a counter-attack across the Danube further downstream, supported by Sarmatian cavalry,[163] 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.[164] 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.[165] Trajan returned to Rome in triumph and was granted the title Dacicus.[166] 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.[167] 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. Finally, in 105, Decebalus undertook an invasion of Roman-occupied territory north of the Danube.[168][169]

Portrait of King Decebalus in the Cartea omului matur (1919)

Prior to the campaign, Trajan had raised two entirely new legions: II Traiana – which, however, may have been posted in the East, at the Syrian port of Laodicea – and XXX Ulpia Victrix, which was posted to Brigetio, in Pannonia.[168][170] 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.[171] Even after the Dacian wars, the Danube frontier would permanently replace the Rhine as the main military axis of the Roman Empire.[172] Including auxiliaries, 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.[160] 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.[173]

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[174] (see also Second Dacian War). The Romans gradually tightened their grip around Decebalus' stronghold in Sarmizegetusa Regia,[172] 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.[173] Decebalus fled but, when later cornered by Roman cavalry, committed suicide. His severed head, brought to Trajan by the cavalryman Tiberius Claudius Maximus,[175] was later exhibited in Rome on the steps leading up to the Capitol and thrown on the Gemonian stairs.[176] 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.[173]

The amphitheater at Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa

Trajan built a new city, Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augusta Dacica Sarmizegetusa, on another site (north of the hill citadel holding the previous Dacian capital),[177] 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, aediles, etc.).[178] Urban life in Roman Dacia seems to have been restricted to Roman colonists, mostly military veterans;[179] 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.[180] In another arrangement with no parallels in any other Roman province, the existing quasi-urban Dacian settlements disappeared after the Roman conquest.[181]

A number of unorganized urban settlements (vici) developed around military encampments in Dacia proper – the most important being Apulum – but were only acknowledged as cities proper well after Trajan's reign.[182] 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.[183] The garrison city of Oescus received the status of Roman colony after its legionary garrison was redeployed.[183] 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.[184] Not all of Dacia was permanently occupied. After the post-Trajanic evacuation of lands across the lower Danube,[185] 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.[172] 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.[186]

Modern statue of Trajan at Tower Hill, London

Defence of the province was entrusted to a single legion, the XIII Gemina, stationed at Apulum, which functioned as an advance guard that could, in case of need, strike either west or east at the Sarmatians living at the borders.[184] 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.[187] 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.[188] 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),[189] Trajan's Dacian campaigns benefited the Empire's finances through the acquisition of Dacia's gold mines, managed by an imperial procurator of equestrian rank (procurator aurariarum).[190] On the other hand, commercial agricultural exploitation on the villa model, based on the centralized management of a huge landed estate by a single owner (fundus) was poorly developed.[191] 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.[192] 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.[193]

Nabataean annexation[edit]

In 106, Rabbel II Soter, one of Rome's client kings, died. This event might have prompted the annexation of the Nabataean Kingdom, but the manner and the formal reasons for the annexation are unclear. Some epigraphic evidence suggests a military operation, with forces from Syria and Egypt. What is known is that by 107, Roman legions were stationed in the area around Petra and Bosra, as is shown by a papyrus found in Egypt. The furthest south the Romans occupied (or, better, garrisoned, adopting a policy of having garrisons at key points in the desert)[194] was Hegra, over 300 kilometres (190 mi) south-west of Petra.[195] The empire gained what became the province of Arabia Petraea (modern southern Jordan and northwest Saudi Arabia).[196] At this time, a Roman road (Via Traiana Nova) was built from Aila (now Aqaba) in Limes Arabicus to Bosrah.[197] 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.[194]

Parthian campaign[edit]

Main article: Trajan's Parthian campaign

Anatolia, western Caucasus and northern Levant under Trajan

In 113, Trajan embarked on his last campaign, provoked by Parthia's decision to put an unacceptable king on the throne of Armenia, a kingdom over which the two great empires had shared hegemony since the time of Nero some fifty years earlier. Trajan, already in Syria early in 113, consistently refused to accept diplomatic approaches from the Parthians intended to settle the Armenian imbroglio peacefully.[198] As the surviving literary accounts of Trajan's Parthian War are fragmentary and scattered,[199] it is difficult to assign them a proper context, something that has led to a long-running controversy about its precise happenings and ultimate aims.

Cause of the war[edit]

Modern historians advance the possibility that Trajan's decision to wage war against Parthia had economic motives: after Trajan's annexation of Arabia, he built a new road, Via Traiana Nova, that went from Bostra to Aila on the Red Sea.[200] That meant that Charax on the Persian Gulf was the sole remaining western terminus of the Indian trade route outside direct Roman control,[201] and such control was i

Early in 117, Trajan grew ill and set sail for Italy. His health declined throughout the spring and summer of 117, possibly acknowledged to the public by the display of a bronze portrait-bust at the public baths of Ancyra, showing an aged and emaciated man, though the identification with Trajan is disputed.[281][282] He reached Selinus,[a] where he suddenly died, shortly before 11 August.[b] Trajan in person could have lawfully nominated Hadrian as his successor, but Dio claims that Trajan's wife, Pompeia Plotina, assured Hadrian's succession by keeping Trajan's death a secret, long enough for her to produce and sign a document attesting to Hadrian's adoption as son and successor. Dio, who tells this narrative, offers his father – the governor of Cilicia Apronianus – as a source, so his narrative may be based on contemporary rumour. It may also reflect male Roman displeasure that an empress – let alone any woman –  could presume to meddle in Rome's political affairs.[286]

Hadrian 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.[287][288] He received no post after his 108 consulate and no further honours other than being made Archon eponymos for Athens in 111/112.[289][290] 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.[291] 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.[292][293] 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 Pre