TRAJAN (M. Ulpius Traianus), ROMAN EMPEROR. - Born at Italica, modern Santiponce near Seville, in the province of Baetica. He was the first emperor not born in Italy, and the liveliness with which Cassius Dio notes this fact demonstrates how it must have been greeted with satisfied pride by the Roman citizens of the provinces. Spain, moreover, was among the regions most thoroughly permeated by Latin civilization.
Trajan preferred the hard service of the military camps to honorary and lucrative offices, and for ten years he served as tribune on various frontiers of the Empire. Having then begun his civil career, he was praetor under Domitian, commanded legions, and later governed Upper Germany. While performing these duties, he received news of the assassination of Domitian, the elevation of Nerva to the throne, and—altogether unexpectedly—his own adoption and the consequent assumption of a kind of co-regency that the elderly emperor, who had always lived amid legal studies, deemed necessary to remedy his own lack of military experience (97 AD).
Trajan, however, did not interrupt his work on the German frontier, neither then nor when Nerva died shortly afterward. He carried out roadworks, fortifications, and shrewd agreements with independent tribes, ensuring the tranquility of that dangerous border. Thus, when in the summer of 99 he deemed it necessary no longer to delay his entry into Rome, he was able to withdraw a third of his troops from the Rhine frontier, and for more than a century no military expeditions were required in those regions, while flourishing centers of civil life arose almost along the frontier lines.
Equally fruitful in good were the early years of his reign in Rome. He restored cordial and sincere relations of collaboration with the Senate, eradicated the noxious weed of informers, and promoted public welfare not so much through free distributions of grain as by securing, through every kind of provision, an increase in production and a lowering of prices. He initiated great public works, especially roads and ports, and peace reigned sovereign and beneficent over the vast Empire. One of the remedies adopted against the decline of morals and the reluctance to have children despite the abundance and tranquility of life was particularly original. Two large inscriptions found, one near Parma and the other near Benevento, inform us about what were called the *alimentary institutions*. Through these, Trajan allocated substantial sums from the imperial treasury to be lent at low interest to landowners in Italian cities, with the interest being used for the benefit of poor boys and girls in those cities. The principle and the structure of the institution were doubly beneficial, for they not only aided needy families in the upbringing of their children but also provided capital on favorable terms to small private landowners.
It was necessary, however, to defend this salutary *pax romana* from external threats. The Dacians appeared menacing, formed into a powerful state north of the Danube, frequent violators of the Roman frontier, and grown in power and pride during the previous reign of Domitian after defeating two Roman armies and obtaining a peace treaty that was excessively favorable and utterly damaging to Roman prestige. The Danube proved an insufficient barrier, being crossable when frozen in winter, and the Roman province of Moesia, facing the Dacians with the Thracians—mountainous people only partially subdued and akin in race to the Dacians—behind it, was unreliable. War appeared inevitable, and it unfolded in two successive, very hard campaigns. The terrain was exceedingly difficult—mountainous and wooded, unfamiliar to the Romans but well known to the valiant and tenacious defenders, ably led by their great king Decebalus. The first expedition, lasting two years (101–102), led to partial occupation and the recognition of Roman protectorate. But the renewed arrogance of the barbarians made a second expedition necessary, which resulted in the death of Decebalus and the complete subjugation of the region, reduced between 105 and 107 to a Roman province. To the exceedingly meager narrative of the literary sources may be contrasted the magnificent, though not always clear, celebration found in the reliefs of the Column in the Forum.
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**(phot. Gab. Fot. Naz.)**
**OCTAVIAN, ROMAN EMPEROR - Portrait (1st half of the 2nd century).**
**Ostia, Museum.**
Noteworthy in these works is the spirit of sincerity and justice, which in the work of art sought a faithful, truthful illustration, free from any bombast or exaggeration, generous and chivalrous toward the vanquished, full of nobility and humanity. Immediate and fervent effort was devoted to the organization of the new territory: Trajan replaced the daring wooden bridge thrown across the Danube during the war with a stone construction, brought large numbers of colonists into the new province, opened roads, and founded cities, succeeding in a few years in creating in Eastern Europe a Latin civilization, just as Julius Caesar and Augustus had founded it in the West. And the imprint of Romanitas was so vivid and profound that centuries of turmoil and changing fortunes have not sufficed to erase II. Even within the ancient borders of the Empire, noble and useful celebrations of the Dacian triumph were not lacking. The immense works of the new Portus Traiani, dug inland near the mouth of the Tiber, of the Trajanic markets cleverly adapted within the Quirinal’s bowels, of the Forum Traiani with its Basilica, libraries, and figured column, gave Rome substantial conveniences and unmatched magnificence. Outstanding public works were also carried out in Italy and the provinces.
Trajan had to concern himself with another universal force, contrasting with the Empire in certain respects: Christianity. In this matter, he did not rise above the suspicious and hostile conceptions of his predecessors, but in his repression he sought to remain within the bounds of fairness and decorum. A precious document regarding Trajan’s conduct and attitude toward Christians remains in the famous letter of Pliny, governor of Bithynia, and the imperial chancellery’s reply (v. YOUNG).
One last serious problem remained: that of the eastern frontier, burdened by the Parthian Empire, heir to the once vast Persian Empire. For two centuries, Rome and the East had clashed in Armenia, Cappadocia, and Syria, and the elderly emperor deemed it his duty to confront this problem now with the full strength of the Empire. He had already succeeded, through his legate Cornelius Palma, in reducing Arabia to a province, thus squeezing the Parthians from the south and securing for the Romans a new commercial outlet on the Red Sea to the east of the peninsula.