In any listing of the greatest emperors of western civilization, one name that
will certainly make the list is that of the Emperor Trajan. Many remarked on how
his behavior seemed to match well his commanding presence. Cassius Dio, consul
and historian, wrote of Emperor Trajan that, “His association with the people
was marked by affability and his inter-course with the senate by dignity, so
that he was loved by all and dreaded by none save the enemy”. That last line is
significant for Trajan has certainly been most remembered for his victorious
military campaigns more than anything else. Under his rule the Roman Empire
reached the peak of its expansion, never before or since would so much of the
world be ‘Roman’ as during the reign of Trajan. He was also though, an able
administrator, setting up a more normal situation after the innovations of
Emperor Domitian, and a great builder who left Rome more glorious than he found
it.
He was born Marcus Ulpius Traianus on or about September 18, 53 AD in
Spain. His father had an illustrious military and civil career having led the X
Legion in the Jewish War, served as consul and as governor of Syria. Young
Trajan served with his father in Syria and rose to command the VII Legion
“Gemina” in southern Spain. He aided in suppressing a rebellion against Emperor
Domitian and so gained imperial favor being successively named praetor and
consul. When Nerva became emperor in 96 AD he made Trajan governor of Upper
Germany where he was serving when Nerva adopted him as his son and heir. So it
was that on January 28, 98 AD that Nerva died and Trajan became Emperor of Rome.
With his authority secure he showed his care by first touring the Rhine and
Danube frontiers before going to Rome to officially take up the
purple.
When he arrived in Rome Trajan was enthusiastically celebrated
but made it a point to behave with friendliness and modesty to all, senators and
commoners alike. He was an absolute ruler but never treated the people with
contempt and patiently dealt with the senate with the utmost respect. Because of
this welcome change he had praise and adulation heaped on him from every section
of society. Yet, it seems to have had no ill-effects on him as his nature
inclined him to disregard flattery. He preferred hunting, hiking and rock
climbing and while devoutly religious he preferred to worship privately without
show or ostentation. Similarly his wife, Lady Plotina, was described much the
same; regal in bearing but modest in dress and unassuming. One would be tempted
to suspect sycophancy from all the praise heaped on Emperor Trajan but his many
accomplishments prove that praise directed at him was mostly deserved.
As
a ruler Emperor Trajan worked tirelessly to defend, expand and improve the
empire. He improved the road system, built bridges, established imperial funds
to aid the poor (children especially) and remarkably this system of social
welfare (first considered by Nerva) worked well and went on caring for Roman
children for nearly 200 years. He enacted extensive building programs throughout
his reign which left many remarkable monuments such as Trajan’s Forum, Trajan’s
Market and, perhaps most famously, Trajan’s Column. This last monument was built
to celebrate the military victories in the Dacian Wars and the military
victories of Emperor Trajan were many. He was a very skilled military commander
and much adored and respected by his troops. He fought three large-scale wars
during his 19-year reign as Emperor and the first two were against the powerful
Kingdom of Dacia in what is now Romania.
Emperor Domitian had fought the
Dacians to a negotiated peace but the Dacian king, Decebalus, was ostentatiously
spurning the terms of that peace and Emperor Trajan decided to strike before the
situation worsened. In 101 AD the Emperor left Rome to command his legions and
inflicted a sharp defeat on the Dacians at Tapae. King Decebalus launched a
counter-attack across the Danube that winter but was repelled by the Roman
defenders. The next year Emperor Trajan renewed his offensive and fought to the
outskirts of the Dacian capital of Sarmizegethusa at which time Decebalus sued
for peace. Emperor Trajan spared the Dacians further humiliation but annexed
considerable territory to the Roman Empire before returning to the Eternal City
for a grand triumph and the award of the title “Dacicus” by the
senate.
The peace had not been harsh by Roman standards but nonetheless
Decebalus did not seem to learn his lesson. Flouting the terms of their
agreement yet again he used the peacetime interlude to rebuild his forces and
plan new attacks so that by the summer of 105 Emperor Trajan had to take to the
field once again. The Dacians attacked and captured a number of Roman frontier
outposts but Trajan had wisely built a large bridge across the Danube which
greatly increased the speed with which he could get his forces into striking
position. As the imposing Emperor and his battle-hardened legions approached
Decebalus was abandoned by many of his allies and he was driven to desperation,
even attempting to assassinate Trajan but to no avail. After all of his past
antics, this time the Emperor was in no mood to be forgiving. Sarmizegethusa was
captured and sacked by the Roman forces, the royal treasury emptied and carried
back to Rome and the Dacian king was forced to flee for his life before finally
committing suicide. All of Dacia became a Roman province and Trajan’s Column was
erected to celebrate the victory.
There was another triumph for the
returning Emperor and 10,000 gladiators fought in the long series of games held
in celebration. The captured loot Trajan brought back was put to use on his many
building projects. For several years there was peace during which time Trajan
devoted himself to improving and embellishing Rome. However, the blast of war
came again in 114 when the primary rivals of Rome in the east began interfering
in the border Kingdom of Armenia. This would put the Parthians on the doorstep
of Rome and Emperor Trajan gathered his legions and marched east, drove out the
Parthian influence and annexed all of Armenia to the Roman Empire. The following
year he turned south and marched into modern-day Iraq and by 116 he had
conquered the entire region to the Persian Gulf and captured the Parthian
capital near present-day Baghdad. The Roman Empire had reached its peak,
stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean and Hadrian’s Wall in
northern England to the Sudan.
However, Emperor Trajan was beginning to
suffer more and more ailments and the strain of such campaigning could not have
helped. In 116 he had to suppress an uprising by the Mesopotamians which proved
more difficult than expected (imagine that) and the following year an attack on
the city of Hatra failed with Trajan himself narrowly avoiding death. Word then
arrived that the Jews in Cyrenaica had risen up and the rebellion was spreading
to Egypt and Cyprus. There were also rumblings of trouble from the northern
frontier. Emperor Trajan left his army in Syria and began the trip back to Rome
to take charge of things but fell ill along the way. He suspected someone had
attempted to poison him. Nonetheless the result was a stroke which left him
half-paralyzed and on August 9, 117 AD the great Emperor died at Selinus in what
is now Turkey. His body was taken back to Rome, cremated and his ashes buried in
a golden urn at Trajan’s Column.
In his own time and ever since Trajan
had been held up as a model Emperor of Rome and an example of everything such a
monarch was expected to be; strong, imposing, tolerant and humble, absolute but
respectful, harsh when necessary but charitable to the downtrodden, hard
working, brave and victorious in war. Noted author Edward Gibbon named him as
one of the “Five Good Emperors” and every time a new emperor came to the throne
after him the senate would pray, ‘felicior Augusto, melior Traiano’, “may he be
more fortunate than Augustus and better than Trajan”. Even after the rise of
Christendom in the Middle Ages, despite being a pagan, Christian writers could
not consign Emperor Trajan to Hell. Unlike all other pre-Christian Roman
Emperors the poet Dante placed Trajan in Heaven and a legend even spread that
Pope Saint Gregory the Great raised him from the dead and baptized Emperor
Trajan to ensure his place in Paradise. Certainly few other monarchs in history
have been so celebrated in their own time and so widely honored for so long
since.
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