TRAJAN (M. Ulpius Traianus), Roman Emperor. - Born in Italy [sic], 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 the fact demonstrates how it must have been greeted with satisfied pride by the Roman citizens of the provinces. Spain was, moreover, among the regions most intensely permeated by Latin civilization.
To honorary and lucrative offices T. preferred hard service in military camps, and for ten years he was a tribune on various frontiers of the Empire. Having then begun his civil career, he was praetor under Domitian, held command of legions and then the governorship of Upper Germany. And while he was exercising these functions, news reached him of the murder of Domitian, of the elevation of Nerva to the throne, and — wholly unexpected — of his own adoption and consequent assumption of a kind of co-regency which the old Emperor, having always lived among legal studies, had deemed it necessary to create as a remedy for his own military inexperience (97 A.D.).
T., however, did not interrupt, either then or when Nerva died shortly afterwards, his work on the German frontier, with road-building, fortification works, and shrewd agreements with the independent tribes, ensuring the tranquillity of that dangerous frontier. So that when in the summer of 99 he deemed it necessary no longer to postpone his entry into Rome, he was able to withdraw a third of his troops from the frontiers of the Rhine, and for over a century there was no need whatsoever for military expeditions in those regions, while flourishing centres of civil life were being established almost right up to the frontier lines.
Equally fruitful in good were the first years of his reign spent in Rome. Once cordial and sincere relations of collaboration with the Senate had been restored, the noxious weed of informers swept away, and public welfare promoted not so much by free distributions of grain as by procuring, through every kind of provision, an increase in production and a lowering of prices, and once great public works had been begun, especially of roads and ports, peace reigned supreme and beneficent over the whole vast Empire. One of the remedies adopted against the decline of morals and the reluctance to have offspring despite the abundance and tranquillity of life was original. Two great inscriptions found, one near Parma, the other near Benevento, inform us of what were called the institutiones alimentariae. By these T. allocated substantial sums from the imperial treasury to be lent at a modest rate of interest to landowners of Italian towns, devoting such interest to the benefit of poor boys and girls of the town. The principle and the line of the institution were doubly beneficial, because not only were needy families thereby assisted, helped in the education of their offspring, but capital was also supplied on easy terms to small private properties.
It was necessary, however, to think also of defending this salutary pax romana from the danger of external enemies. The Dacians appeared threatening, constituted as 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 for having defeated two Roman armies and obtained a peace treaty exceedingly favourable and absolutely ruinous to Roman prestige. The Danube had several times proved an insufficient barrier, crossable when it froze in winter, and the Roman province of Moesia was insecure, having the Dacians in front of it and the Thracians behind it, a mountain population incompletely subjugated and akin by stock to the Dacians. War appeared inevitable, and it unfolded in two successive, very hard campaigns. The mountainous and wooded terrain to be traversed was extremely difficult, new to the Romans, well known to the valiant and tenacious defenders, skilfully led by their great sovereign Decebalus. The first expedition, lasting two years, from 101 to 102, had led to partial occupation and to recognition of the Roman protectorate. But the resurgent insolence of the barbarians made the second expedition necessary, which led to the death of Decebalus and the complete subjugation of the region, reduced, between 105 and 107, to a Roman province. To the exceedingly poor narrative of the literary sources one may counterpose the magnificent, though not always perspicuous, celebration constituted by the reliefs of the column in the Forum.
In them is notable the spirit of sincerity and justice, which in the work of art willed a faithful, truthful illustration, far from all emphasis and all exaggeration, generous and chivalrous toward the vanquished, full of nobility and humanity. Immediate and most fervent work was given to the organization of the new territory: having replaced with a stone construction the bold wooden bridge thrown across the Danube during the war, brought into the new province large masses of colonists, opened roads, founded cities, T. succeeded in a few years in creating in eastern Europe a Latin civilization, just as Julius Caesar and Augustus had founded it in the western. And so lively and profound was the imprint of Romanity, that the course of centuries and the stormy change of events have not been able to erase it. Even within the ancient boundaries of the Empire there was no lack of noble and useful celebrations of the Dacian triumph. The immense works of the new Portus Traiani excavated inland near the mouth of the Tiber, of the Trajanic markets skillfully fitted within the bowels of the Quirinal, of the Forum of Trajan with the Basilica, the libraries and the figured column gave Rome conspicuous conveniences and unsurpassed magnificence. Italy and the provinces also had distinguished public works.
With another universal force like the Empire, and in certain respects contrasting with it, T. had to deal: with Christianity. He did not overcome in this conflict the suspicious and hostile conceptions of his predecessors, but even in repression he sought to keep within the limits of equity and decorum. Of the conduct and spirit of T. toward the Christians a precious document remains in the celebrated letter of Pliny, governor of Bithynia, and in the reply of the imperial Chancery (v. PLINIO IL GIOVANE).
A last grave problem remained: that of the eastern frontier, on which weighed the Empire of the Parthians, heir of the already immense Persian Empire. For two centuries Rome and Parthia had clashed in Armenia, in Cappadocia, in Syria, and the old Emperor deemed it his duty now to confront this problem too with the full strength of the Empire. He had already succeeded by means of the legate Cornelius Palma in reducing Arabia to a province, thus gripping the Parthians from the south, and gaining for the Romans a new commercial outlet in the Red Sea to the east of the peninsula of Sinai. Now he believed the moment had come for more energetic and definitive action. The expedition set out from Antioch and, led personally by the Emperor, at first brought brilliant successes: the enemy country was invaded, Ctesiphon, the capital, was stormed, King Chosroes managed to escape capture, but a daughter of his was taken prisoner and the golden throne of the Arsacids was seized in the booty. The Emperor, at the head of a fleet of five ships, sailed down the Tigris as far as the Persian Gulf, for a short time persuaded that he had overthrown the rival Empire and had added to Rome's dominions an immense territory and the open route to reach the Indies with a short voyage. But wars in the East have no certain ends, and to the resumption were added disastrous earthquakes in the Roman province of Syria and a furious Jewish insurrection in the rear of the operating army. The expedition had then led to a grave wearing down of Trajan's forces, who, more than sixty years old, had for three years marched on foot, as was his custom, an old Roman foot soldier among the icy mountains of Armenia and the torrid plains of Mesopotamia.
Physical prostration and moral disillusionment triumphed over his robust constitution, and at Selinus in Cilicia, probably struck by an apoplectic fit, Trajan died almost suddenly (Sept. 117). The three new provinces created by him beyond the Euphrates were immediately abandoned by his successor Hadrian, nor were they ever again reconquered by Rome.
Bibliography12 works
Roberto Paribeni