[296], During the 1980s, the Romanian historian Eugen Cizek took a more nuanced view as he described the changes in the personal ideology of Trajan's reign, stressing the fact that it became ever more autocratic and militarized, especially after 112 and towards the Parthian War (as "only an universal monarch, a kosmocrator, could dictate his law to the East"). Trajan was a much more active ruler than Nerva had been during his short reign. The care bestowed by Trajan on the managing of such public spectacles led the orator Fronto to state approvingly that Trajan had paid equal attention to entertainments as well as to serious issues. [24], According to the Augustan History, it was the future Emperor Hadrian who brought word to Trajan of his adoption. Seemed to be saying: 'Lord, avenge my son, Born in Italica (Seville in modern-day Spain), Trajan was the first Roman emperor born outside of Italy. Soon thereafter, on January 27 or 28, Nerva died, and Trajan was accepted as emperor by both the armies and the Senate. Occupation: Roman Emperor (January 28, 98-August 19, 117) Managed by: FARKAS Mihály László Therefore, in October 97, Nerva adopted as his successor Trajan, whom he had made governor of Upper Germany and who seemed acceptable both to the army commanders and to the Senate. Trajan, however, dropped the charge. Behind the new forum was a public hall, or basilica, and behind that a court flanked by libraries for Greek and Latin books and backed by a temple. After safely escaping the Praetorian Guard mutiny, the ailing Roman emperor Nerva began to question his own mortality and realized the urgency to name a successor. [285] After the setbacks of the third century, Trajan, together with Augustus, became in the Later Roman Empire the paragon of the most positive traits of the Imperial order. Marcus Ulpius Trajanus the elder served Vespasian in the First Jewish-Roman War, commanding the Legio X Fretensis. [64] A revealing case-history, told by Pliny, tells of Dio of Prusa placing a statue of Trajan in a building complex where Dio's wife and son were buried - therefore incurring a charge of treason for placing the Emperor's statue near a grave. Before one goes into the story of just how Trajan became emperor, one should consider his family. He was descended from an old Roman family, and was adopted in 97 by the Emperor Nerva.Trajan was one of the ablest of the Roman emperors; he was stately and majestic in appearance, had a powerful will, and showed admirable consideration and a chivalrous kindliness. [269] In addition Hadrian was born in Hispania and seems to have been well connected with the powerful group of Spanish senators influential at Trajan's court through his ties to Plotina and the Prefect Attianus. [48] The whole idea was that Trajan wielded autocratic power through moderatio instead of contumacia – moderation instead of insolence. [113], The following winter, King Decebalus took the initiative by launching a counter-attack across the Danube further downstream, supported by Sarmatian cavalry,[114] forcing Trajan to come to the aid of the troops in his rearguard. Some epigraphic evidence suggests a military operation, with forces from Syria and Egypt. [266] He probably did not take part in the Parthian War. His health declined throughout the spring and summer of 117, something publicly acknowledged by the fact that a bronze bust displayed at the time in the public baths of Ancyra showed him clearly aged and emaciated. Notable structures include the Baths of Trajan, Trajan's Forum, Trajan's Column, Trajan's Bridge, Alcántara Bridge, Porto di Traiano of Portus, the road and canal around the Iron Gates (see conquest of Dacia), and possibly the Alconétar Bridge. Trajan’s selection as emperor by Nerva set an important precedent for Rome’s rulers. Trajan undertook or encouraged extensive public works in the provinces, Italy, and Rome: roads, bridges, aqueducts, the reclamation of wastelands, the construction of harbours and buildings. AKA Caesar Divi Nervae Filius Nerva Traianus Optimus Augustus. [136] Urban life in Roman Dacia seems to have been restricted to Roman colonists, mostly military veterans;[137] there is no extant evidence for the existence in the province of peregrine cities. Trajan abandoned the policy of not extending the Roman frontiers established by Augustus. In a fierce campaign which seems to have consisted mostly of static warfare, the Dacians, devoid of maneuvering room, kept to their network of fortresses, which the Romans sought systematically to storm[132] (see also Second Dacian War). In 98 A.D. Nerva died and Trajan became Emperor but he did not enter Rome for nearly a year and a half, once he had made certain that the northern frontier was safe. [174], In short, the scheme was so limited in scope that it could not have fulfilled a coherent economic or demographic purpose – it was directed, not towards the poor, but to the community (in this case, the Italian cities) as a whole. [46], In the formula developed by Pliny, however, Trajan was a "good" emperor in that, by himself, he approved or blamed the same things that the Senate would have approved or blamed. [159] In general terms, the scheme functioned by means of mortgages on Italian farms (fundi), through which registered landowners received a lump sum from the imperial treasure, being in return expected to pay yearly a given proportion of the loan to the maintenance of an alimentary fund. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. [164] According to the French historian Paul Petit, the alimenta should be seen as part of a set of measures aimed towards the economic recovery of Italy. In: In the absence of literary references, however, the positioning of the new legions is conjectural: some scholars think that Legio II Traiana Fortis was originally stationed on the Lower Danube and participated in the Second Dacian War, being only later deployed to the East:cf. [76] One of Trajan's senatorial creations from the East, the Athenian Gaius Julius Antiochus Epiphanes Philopappos, a member of the Royal House of Commagene, left behind him a funeral monument on the Mouseion Hill that was later disparagingly described by Pausanias as "a monument built to a Syrian man". [151], For the next seven years, Trajan ruled as a civilian emperor, to the same acclaim as before. [261] After reaching Selinus (modern Gazipaşa) in Cilicia, which was afterwards called Trajanopolis, he suddenly died from edema on August 8. Upon reaching the Persian Gulf, he is said to have wept because he was too old to repeat Alexander the Great’s achievements in India. Trajan's Family. 1973 "Trajan's Canal at the Iron Gate.". The statue of Trajan on top of the column was removed during the Middle Ages and replaced in 1588 by the present one of St. Peter. Jubilant crowds rejoiced at his arrival. [36] His belated ceremonial entry into Rome in 99 was notably understated, something on which Pliny the Younger elaborated. [289], It was only during the Enlightenment that this legacy began to be contested, when Edward Gibbon expressed doubts about the militarized character of Trajan's reign in contrast to the "moderate" practices of his immediate successors. [215] This newer, more "rational" frontier, depended, however, on an increased, permanent Roman presence east of the Euphrates. In 101 AD, Trajan left Rome to battle with the Dacians and easily defeated them at Tapae. Dikla Rivlin Katz, Noah Hacham, Geoffrey Herman, Lilach Sagiv, Z. Yavetz, "The Urban Plebs in the Days of the Flavians, Nerva and Trajan". The Dacians and their allies were repulsed after two battles in Moesia, at Nicopolis ad Istrum and Adamclisi. Lendon, "Three Emperors and the Roman Imperial Regime". Some historians also attribute the construction of the Babylon fortress in Egypt to Trajan;[277] the remains of the fort is what is now known as the Church of Mar Girgis and its surrounding buildings.