Emperor Trajan

“ When paganism had disappeared, the Southern-Slavonic legends received many elements from the Greeks and Romans. There are references to the Emperors Trajan and Diocletian as well as to mythical personages. In the Balkans, Trajan is often confused with the Greek king Midas. In the year 1433 Chevalier Bertrandon de la Broquière heard from the Greeks at Trajanople that this city had been built by the Emperor Trajan, who had goat’s ears. ”

“ The work done by Trajan in the Danubian regions left a lasting mark upon their history. The emperor returned to the capital in 106, laden with captured treasure. His triumph outdid in splendour all those that went before it. Games are said to have been held continuously for four months. Ten thousand gladiators are said to have perished in the arena, and eleven thousand beasts were killed in the contests. Congratulatory embassies came from all lands, even from India. The grand and enduring monument of the Dacian wars is the noble pillar which still stands on the site of Trajan's forum at Rome. ”

“ So far as I know, Huss nowhere took up the case of the emperor Trajan, a topic of constant discussion in the Middle Ages, in which Wyclif also joined. According to the story, Trajan was prayed by Gregory the Great out of hell into heaven, the only pagan to get to the abode of bliss. The solemn question was whether he had gone direct to heaven as John of Damascus claimed, or whether he first was brought back to the earth in order to be baptized, then dying over again before being taken up to the abode of the blessed as Thomas Aquinas, Durandus, and others asserted. ”

“ Trajan, as we have seen in the case of the Nikomêdeian firemen, had a great dislike to unions and societies of any kind which might possibly be turned to political ends. No eranos is to be allowed in any city that is subject to the laws of Rome. But at Amisos, a city ruled by its own laws, Pliny is not to interfere with the establishment of such a body. The way in which the great Emperor speaks is remarkable. The might of Cæsar stands disarmed before the majesty of treaties. Trajan carries out a certain policy wherever he has the legal right to do so; where he has no such right, he forbears. ”

“ Half a century afterwards, the Emperor Trajan, remarkable not merely for the splendid edifices erected during his reign, in almost every part of the empire, but for the interest he took in maritime affairs, constructed, to meet the increasing wants of the provinces, the present Civita Vecchia, as well as the town and port of Ancona on the Adriatic, where may still be read an inscription on the monument of marble he raised at the extremity of the Mole, dedicating the harbour to the use of the mariners who frequented those seas. ”

“ The unknown author of this narrative says: “Trajan thought his glory would not be complete unless he subjected the God of the Christians to his obedience.” What a thought! Was Trajan the kind of man who could desire to triumph over the gods? The emperor is said to have thus accosted Ignatius when he was brought before him: “Who art thou, unclean spirit?” It is very unlikely that an emperor would have discoursed with a prisoner, or have passed sentence upon him himself; it is not customary for sovereign princes to do so. ”

“ Pliny often compliments his Emperor Trajan upon this head; and when he would [Pg 88] animate him to anything great, or dissuade him from anything that was improper, he insinuates, that it is befitting or unbecoming the claritas et nitor sæculi, that period of time which was made illustrious by his reign. When we cast our eyes back on the history of mankind, and trace them through their several successions to their first original, we sometimes see them breaking out in great and memorable actions, and towering up to the utmost heights of virtue and knowledge ”

“ The peaceful system of his predecessors was interrupted by scenes of war and conquest; and the legions, after a long interval, beheld a military emperor at their head. The first exploits of Trajan were against the Dacians, the most warlike of men, who dwelt beyond the Danube, and who, during the reign of Domitian, had insulted, with impunity, the Majesty of Rome. To the strength and fierceness of barbarians they added a contempt for life, which was derived from a warm persuasion of the immortality and transmigration of the soul. ”

“ That the emperor had an honest and soldierly satisfaction in his own well-doing is clear; but, if he had had anything like the vanity of a Domitian, the senate, ever eager to outrun a ruler's taste for flattery, would never have kept within such moderate bounds.
Towards the end of 100, or early in 101, Trajan left Rome for the Danube. Pretexts for a Dacian war were not difficult to find. Although there was no lack of hard fighting, victory in this war depended largely on the work of the engineer. ”

“ The emperor visited his friends on terms of equality, and had the greatness of mind, generally deficient in absolute princes, to bestow his confidence on those who deserved it. Somebody, a member perhaps of the old police who had made such fortunes in the time of Domitian by alarming the tyrant with stories of plots and assassinations, told Trajan one day to beware of his minister, who intended to murder him on the first opportunity. ”

“ By CHARLES MERIVALE.
[M. Ulpius Trajanus, successor as Roman emperor to Nerva, born A.D. 53, ascended the throne 99; died 118. One of the most illustrious among those who wore the Roman purple, his reign was distinguished as much by happiness and prosperity as by lofty virtues. As a soldier, Trajan subdued the Dacians, completed the conquest of Germany and Sarmatia, annexed Armenia to the empire, and subdued the Parthians to the Roman yoke. His civic administration was no less notable than his military conquests and organization.] ”

“ Trajan—the good emperor of whom Rome still gossips and has so little harm to say? Why, it was only the other day that standing by your tomb in the Eternal City, in your forum, in the shadow of the great column that bears the record of your triumphs, I heard the old story, told and retold by poet, painter and sculptor; how clear it echoes through the ages! As you rode forth to battle, a poor widow stood at your bridle and would not let you pass, crying out for justice for her son, whom your soldiers had ridden down and killed, innocent of ill. ”

“ In the following campaign, after desperate fighting to the north of the Danube in the mountainous region of Transylvania, Sarmizegethusa, the capital of Decebalus, was taken, and he was forced to terms. He agreed to raze all fortresses, to surrender all weapons, prisoners and Roman deserters, and to become a dependent prince under the suzerainty of Rome. Trajan came back to Italy with Dacian envoys, who in ancient style begged the senate to confirm the conditions granted by the commander in the field. The emperor now enjoyed his first Dacian triumph, and assumed the title of Dacicus. ”

“ On the accession of Trajan he seems to have left Rome for Spain, it is said because the emperor refused to recognise his genius; but as he had been a prominent author for upwards of thirty years, it is likely that his character, not his talent, was what Trajan looked coldly on. A poet who had prostituted his pen in a way unexampled even among the needy and immoral pickers-up of chance crumbs that crowded the avenues of the palace, could hardly be acceptable to a prince of manly character. At the same time there is this excuse for Martial, that he did not belong to the old families of Rome. ”

“ It is sincerely to be lamented, that whilst we are fatigued with the disgustful relation of Nero’s crimes and follies, we are reduced to collect the actions of Trajan from the glimmerings of an abridgment, or the doubtful light of a panegyric. There remains, however, one panegyric far removed beyond the suspicion of flattery. Above two hundred and fifty years after the death of Trajan, the senate, in pouring out the customary acclamations on the accession of a new emperor, wished that he might surpass the felicity of Augustus, and the virtue of Trajan. ”

“ What a pity that our modern divines and churchmen cannot be got to see the persecutions of Chartists and Socialists, now-a-days, with the same eyes with which they look upon those of our predecessors, in religion and politics, who suffered under Nero, Domitian, and Trajan! The Trajan persecution continued several years, and made an immense number of martyrs; amongst others the famous Clement, Bishop of Rome. But as Trajan was an emperor famed for his liberality, justice, and moderation, some of our modern parsons are at a loss to account for his severity to the Christians. ”

“ After the reign of Trajan he who did not deny the faith and adore the pagan gods and the image of the emperor had to pay the penalty of an obduracy incomprehensible to the Roman magistrates, by death as a traitor. Singularly enough, it was this emperor, so averse to persecution and self-deification, who outlawed Christianity in the Roman Empire by the verdict that the Christians should not be hunted out, but, when informed against and convicted, should be punished unless they renounced their faith ”

“ But it is difficult to understand how an emperor like Trajan—an enlightened and humane ruler—if he was powerless to prevent, could have brought himself to give countenance to a policy at once so intolerant and cruel, and in the end to prove so short-sighted. A great cause prospers by persecution. The martyr-spirit is strengthened by blows and fagots. ”

“ The Senate confirmed the choice, and acknowledged the emperor's adopted son as his successor. In a letter which Nerva sent at once to Trajan, he quoted most significantly a line from the beginning of the "Iliad," where Chryses, insulted by Achilles, prays to Apollo: "May thy shafts afford me vengeance on the Greeks for my tears." After a little hesitation Trajan accepted the position, which was marked by the titles of Imperator, Cæsar, and Germanicus, and by the tribunician authority. ”

“ But the Prætorians, becoming mutinous, not only put the murderers of Domitian to death, but forced the emperor to approve of their act publicly. This insult was deeply felt by Nerva, who now resolved to adopt a colleague, in order to increase his own authority. He therefore selected M. Ulpius Trajan, a distinguished general, who was in command of the army of Lower Germany.
We now enter upon the most pleasing period in the history of the Roman Empire. During the next eighty years a general prosperity prevailed. ”

“ He hailed the accession of Vespasian and of Trajan as a happy change to purer manners and to freedom of speech.141 But the reign of Vespasian had been followed by the gloomy suspicious despotism of Domitian. Who could be sure about the successors of Trajan? Tacitus hardly shared the enthusiasm and exuberant hopes expressed by his friend Pliny in his Panegyric. It was a natural outbreak of joy at escaping from the dungeon, and the personal character of Trajan succeeded in partially veiling the overwhelming force of the emperor under the figment of the freely accepted rule of the first citizen. ”

“ Such an incident is this letter of Pliny to Trajan, and his reply. We have here the governor of a province before whom Christians are brought as criminals. We find that if they acknowledge their faith and persist in professing it, he sentences them to death. But embarrassed by their numbers, and perplexed also by the fact, that, save the profession of their faith, there appeared nothing criminal in their conduct, he refers the matter to the emperor. The emperor, [pg 214] no Nero or Domitian, but one renowned for his justice and moderation, praises what the governor has done ”

“ The reconciliation of the Empire with liberty, inaugurated, as Tacitus says, by Nerva, seemed now to be securely achieved. Trajan was absolutely open and simple, and lived with men at Rome as he had lived with his soldiers while on service. He realized the Senate's ideal of the citizen ruler. The assurance that no senator should suffer was renewed by oath. All the old republican formalities were most punctiliously observed—even those attendant on the emperor's election to the consulate, so far as they did not involve a restoration of the old order of voting at the comitia. ”

“ Pliny asks for and receives a statement of their case in writing. He thinks much of the paper irrelevant; but he sends it to the Emperor to be guided by his judgement. In all this correspondence one somehow thinks of the correspondence of Augustine and Gregory; the superior is so clearly the wiser man of the two. Trajan writes back that the straightforward dealing of the men of Apameia is to be respected; the proconsul is to tell them that it is by the Emperor’s special request that he asks to look at their accounts; he is to do so without any prejudice to their privileges for the future. ”

“ He did not make his profession an object of gain like the rest of the Roman orators, but he refused fees from the rich as well as from the poorest of his clients, and declared that he cheerfully employed himself for the protection of innocence, the relief of the indigent, and the detection of vice. He published many of his harangues and orations, which have been lost. When Trajan was invested with the imperial purple, Pliny was created consul by the emperor. ”

“ Trajan never lacked money to expend on great works of public utility; as a builder, he may fairly be compared with Augustus. His forum and its numerous appendages were constructed on a magnificent scale. Many regions of Italy and the provinces besides the city itself benefited by the care and munificence which the emperor bestowed on such public improvements. His attitude towards religion was, like that of Augustus, moderate and conservative. The famous letter to Pliny about the Christians is, according to Roman ideas, merciful and considerate. ”