Trajan

Roman emperor (r. c. 98-117 c.e.)

• Born: c. 53 c.e.
• Birthplace: Italica, Baetica (now in Spain)
• Died: c. August 8, 117
• Place of death: Selinus, Cilicia (now in Turkey)

The first of the adoptive emperors of Rome, Trajan became one of the most successful in both war and politics. During his reign, the Roman Empire reached its maximum territorial extent.

Early Life

Marcus Ulpius Trajanus, known as Trajan (TRAY-juhn), was born in Baetica, in what is now southern Spain, an area of Roman conquests and Latin influences for more than a century. By the time of Trajan’s birth, c. 53 c.e., much of the population spoke Latin rather than the native Iberian language. Trajan’s father, also Marcus Ulpius Trajanus, was a native of Baetica who came from an Italian family that had been long established in Spain. The senior Trajanus had a significant military and political career; he served as governor of Baetica and commanded a legion in the war Vespasian conducted against the Jews, then became a consul and a member of the patrician class before acting as governor of Syria and, ultimately, as Imperial proconsul in the East. His attainments showed that most positions in the Imperial hierarchy during the first century c.e. were open to non-Italians. His son, Trajan, would become the first provincial to become emperor.

Little is known of Trajan’s early life. He served as a military tribune and accompanied his father to Syria during the latter’s term as governor. Typically for one of his class, he held various judicial and political positions, but his primary experience was military. He held command in Spain, then in Germany, becoming governor of Upper Germany. Physically imposing, tall, and serious in manner, he was popular and successful in the military and also among the senators in Rome.

In 97, probably as a result of political pressure, Marcus Cocceius Nerva, emperor since the murder of Domitian the previous year, adopted Trajan as his successor. Nerva was a politician, not a warrior, who hoped to end the autocratic abuses of Domitian’s reign. He was ill and had no children of his own, and his adoption of Trajan satisfied both military and civilian powers. Four months after Trajan’s adoption Nerva died, in January, 98, and Trajan, despite his provincial birth, became emperor of Rome.

Life’s Work

At the time of Nerva’s death, Trajan was at Cologne, in Lower Germany. Before returning to Rome, he fought a series of engagements against nearby foes, both to impress on them the might of Roman power and to establish plans for subsequent military action. His belated arrival in Rome, in the summer of 99, suggests the unchallenged position he had already achieved.

Like his predecessors, Trajan continued to wear the mantle woven by Augustus more than a century earlier. In reality he was an autocrat, but in theory he was merely the first citizen, the princeps. His power was nearly absolute, yet, unlike many of Augustus’s successors, Trajan masked his powers so as to reassure rather than intimidate the former ruling body, the senate, and the aristocratic patricians who had governed during the era of the Republic. Republican sentiment still ran high, in spite of the many changes since the Republic’s end, as reflected in the historical works of two of Trajan’s contemporaries, Cornelius Tacitus and Suetonius. Trajan reconciled the reality of order with the appearance of freedom in a way that satisfied most people; the equilibrium sought by Nerva but established by Trajan ushered in an era that the English historian Edward Gibbon described as one of the golden ages of human history.

Trajan stressed moderation and reinforced the values of an earlier Rome. His family’s upright reputation, his public generosity and private frugality, his lack of interest in excessive ceremonies glorifying himself, and his accessibility all contributed to the general popularity of his rule. As an administrator, Trajan was conscientious and hardworking rather than radically innovative; he was willing merely to improve existing practices inherited from his predecessors. If the senate remained powerless collectively, Trajan made good use of the abilities of individual senators. He created new patricians and made greater use of the class known as the knights rather than the services of freedmen, who often had attained considerable responsibility during the first century of the Empire. His judicial decisions favored the rights of slave owners rather than those of the slaves, although there is considerable evidence that Trajan’s own sympathies were generally humanitarian. In his actions and demeanor, he conveyed the ruling-class virtues of the Republic.

As the Empire reached its maximum extent and its most notable era, public works projects continued to be of great importance. Roads were built or improved, particularly in the eastern part of the Empire, and road milestones from Trajan’s reign have been discovered far south in Egypt. Aqueducts constructed around Rome greatly increased watersupply to the city’s populace. Harbors were improved, including Ostia, the port for Rome. New public baths were developed, and temples, libraries, and business facilities enhanced the city. Plans for many of the projects existed before Trajan became emperor, but he fulfilled and often expanded them. The Empire continued to become more urbanized, particularly in the East, and local municipalities also experienced considerable construction.

Trajan oversaw the reorganization of the traditional importation of grain so important to the Romans and increased the number of people qualified to receive it free. Public shows and games, a major part of urban life during his reign, were especially notable after his military victories. Trajan’s interests in the plight of the lower classes possibly reflected his humanitarian concerns, but those actions were also simply good politics. He was fortunate to be able to reduce taxes—partially because of administrative dedication, but also because of the economic benefits that resulted from his military victories. Personally popular with the legions, Trajan successfully controlled his armies. He created a new mounted bodyguard, primarily composed of non-Italians, thus moving toward parity between Italians and those from the provinces. Concern for his personal security, given the record of violent deaths suffered by several of his predecessors, led to the development of a new secret service.

Trajan’s religious beliefs, orthodox for members of his class and time, reflected his traditional and patriotic nature rather than a deep theological concern. He built and restored temples throughout the Empire, and like Augustus, he accepted the fact of emperor worship in the eastern part of the Empire but resisted its development in the West. Nevertheless, new religions, such as Christianity, were spreading throughout the Empire, and, although only a small minority of the population were Christians, questions arose about the new movement.

Pliny the Younger, a Roman aristocrat appointed by Trajan as governor of the province of Bithynia-Pontus, wrote often to ask for solutions to problems he faced, including how Christians were to be treated. Trajan seriously considered all such difficulties; he did not allow his subordinates to decide the many matters of governance. Given the intimate tie between the Roman gods and the Roman state, Trajan’s instructions to Pliny were moderate and sensible. Fearing subversive threats that might affect the tranquillity of the Empire, Trajan ordered that Christians who would not recant should be punished according to the requirements of the laws, but Christians should not be sought out for special persecution, and anonymous accusations by others against them should not be accepted. Trajan’s response was typical of his nature; he was not a religious fanatic, but he understood the necessity to uphold the laws that had traditionally been accepted by the society and that had been responsible for Roman well-being.

Predictably, war and military conquest, the enterprises that had led to his adoption by Nerva, became an important theme of Trajan’s reign. In eastern Europe, the great rivers of the Rhine and the Danube had long served as the natural boundaries of the Empire. Yet, because of a great inward curve of the Danube, a portion of southeastern Europe, known as Dacia, had remained a dangerous enclave that threatened the security of the Empire. The Dacians had adopted at least part of the Greco-Roman culture, including certain military techniques; although the Romans considered them barbarians, they were not primitives, and periodically they aggressively raided Roman territory across the Danube.

Trajan waged two wars against the Dacians and their formidable king, Decebalus. The first war, lasting from 101 to 102, resulted in Trajan leading the legions to victory over the Dacians, but Decebalus refused to abide by the terms of peace, and a second Dacian war was fought in 105. Again, Trajan was victorious, and Decebalus committed suicide. Most of the population of Dacia was removed and the area was colonized by Roman soldiers and civilians. The province became an important part of the Empire, until it was abandoned in the late third century after the invasion of the Germanic Goths. Trajan’s conquest was celebrated by coins and inscriptions throughout the Empire, but the most famous monument stood in Rome. A hundred-foot-high column was constructed that portrayed the course of the Dacian wars; running counterclockwise from bottom to top, twenty-five hundred carved figures decorated the column, which was crowned with a statue of Trajan. It was dedicated in 113 and remains one of the most impressive remains of the Roman Empire at the time of its greatest power.

After the victory against Decebalus, Trajan spent the next several years in Rome before responding to another threat to Rome’s supremacy, this time in the East, from Parthia, whose ancient borders spread at times from the Euphrates River to India. Rome and Parthia had been adversaries as far back as the late Republic, when Pompey the Great had extended the boundaries of the Empire into the area south of the Black Sea. Trajan, in 113, decided to annex Armenia to Rome, claiming that the Parthians had upset the existing arrangements in that territory. Trajan’s motives have been variously interpreted; he may have acted for economic reasons, to secure the overland trade routes from the Persian Gulf and beyond, or because of ambitions for personal fame (although even the wars against Dacia resulted more from Dacian incursions than Roman aggression). Trajan was sixty years old when the war against Parthia began, and in 114 his armies easily conquered Armenia, making it a Roman province, with client kingdoms extending even farther to the east.

The Roman advance continued south the following year into Mesopotamia. Behind the Roman lines, however, there was unrest; businessmen were upset by the uncertain changes brought by the new Roman regime, and many Jewish communities in the East again rose up against Roman authority. At the same time the Parthians, previously disunited, came together, forcing the Romans back. The military situation stabilized, but Trajan’s health declined; there were matters at Rome that needed his presence, and he turned west toward home. Before reaching Rome, he died at Selinus in Cilicia, in southern Asia Minor, probably on August 8, 117. His ashes were deposited in a golden urn at the base of his famous column in Rome.

Significance

Before he died, Trajan apparently adopted as his successor Publius Aelius Hadrianus (Hadrian), a distant relative who had been reared in Trajan’s household. Trajan had no children of his own, and his wife, Pompeia Plotina, favored Hadrian’s accession. One of the first acts of the new emperor was to reach an agreement with Parthia to have Rome withdraw from the advanced positions attained by Trajan. Hadrian’s decision was both strategic and political. It is possible that under Trajan the Empire was overextended, that it lacked the resources necessary to hold the new territories. For his own success, Hadrian desired peace rather than a resumption of his predecessor’s forward policy. Under Hadrian, and under his successors, the Roman Empire would never again reach the limits achieved by Trajan.

The adjustment made between the ruler as princeps and the ruler as tyrant distinguished Trajan’s reign. Power resided solely in the emperor’s hands, but he used that power responsibly. The practice of adopting one’s successor, first established by Nerva, continued until 180, and during that period the Empire was governed by men of ability and much vision. It was not, however, a golden age; even under Trajan, increased centralization took place, Italy began to fall relatively behind other parts of the Empire, and the borders were never totally secure. The traditional governing classes of Rome turned more toward the literary life than toward politics and public service, while the Empire depended in large part on the labor of slaves for its prosperity.

Nevertheless, Trajan was one of the greatest of the emperors, both because of his military and territorial conquests and because of the standards he set as governor and statesman. Early in his reign he was hailed as Optimus, the best. Along with Augustus, Trajan was the standard by which later Romans measured the leadership of the Empire; their expressed hope, rarely attained, was that later emperors would be felicior Augusto, melior Traiano, or more fortunate than Augustus and better than Trajan.

Trajan and His Successors

98-117

• Trajan

117-138

• Hadrian

138-161

• Lucius Verus

161-169

• Antoninus Pius

161-180

• Marcus Aurelius

180-192

• Commodus

193

• Pertinax

193

• Didius Julianus

193-194

• Pescennius Niger

193-211

• Septimius Severus

Bibliography

Bennett, Julian. Trajan: Optimus Princeps. 2d ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. The first full-length biography on Trajan in English. Comprehensive and detailed, although sometimes uninspired writing. Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Garzetti, Albino. From Tiberius to the Antonines: A History of the Roman Empire, A.D. 14-192. Translated by J. F. Foster. London: Methuen, 1974. Trajan is one of the major figures and is the subject of a long chapter in the work. The author argues that Trajan was one of the best of all the emperors of Rome and that he successfully remained primarily princeps rather than dictator.

Gibbon, Edward. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 1787. Reprint. New York: Modern Library, 1995. In Gibbon’s landmark work, the second century of the common era was one of humanity’s golden ages. Trajan was one of the best of the emperors, whose only personal weakness was his military ambitions.

Grant, Michael. The Army of the Caesars. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974. The author, one of the most prolific historians of ancient Rome, has produced a well-written study of the armies of Rome from the late Republic through the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476. Grant discusses the military conquests of Trajan in Dacia and against Parthia and argues that the latter was ultimately beyond the resources of the Empire.

Grant, Michael. The Roman Emperors: A Biographical Guide to the Rulers of Imperial Rome, 31 B.C.-A.D. 476. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1996. The sketch on Trajan is brief but covers his accomplishments and characteristics.

Harris, B. F. Bithynia Under Trajan: Roman and Greek Views of the Principate. Auckland, New Zealand: University of Auckland, 1964. This brief monograph discusses the different but complementary views of the position and powers of the Roman emperor at the time of Trajan as expressed by the Roman governor in Bithynia, Pliny the Younger, and the Greek Dio Chrysostom.

Hoffer, Stanley E. The Anxieties of Pliny the Younger. London: Oxford University Press, 1999. Provides some useful biographical information on Trajan as well as criticism and interpretation of his times. Includes five pages of bibliographical references and an index.

Millar, Fergus. The Emperor in the Roman World, 31 B.C.-A.D. 337. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977. This study of the emperors of Rome from Augustus to Constantine is one of the major works on the powers and responsibilities of the many rulers of the Empire. Long and not easily digested, it is still worth the effort because of its comprehensiveness and its insights. Although there is no single chapter on Trajan, he is frequently mentioned.

Rossi, Lino. Trajan’s Column and the Dacian Wars. Translated by J. M. C. Toynbee. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1971. The author’s historical interest is in warfare, Roman and modern. In this study, in the absence of written records, he uses one of the most famous monuments of the Roman Empire in order to dissect the course of Trajan’s victorious wars against the Dacians, which represented one of the most important accomplishments of his reign.

Wilken, Robert L. The Christians as the Romans Saw Them. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1984. Pliny the Younger’s letters to the emperor have continued to be one of the major sources for the era. Among other topics, Pliny wrote to Trajan regarding Christians in Bithynia. The author places that correspondence in historical context from the Roman perspective.