Trajan.
The new emperor, one of the most illustrious that ever reigned at Rome, was born in Spain, A.D. 52, and had spent his life in the camp. He had a tall and commanding form, was social and genial in his habits, and inspired universal respect. No better choice could have been made. He entered his capital without pomp, unattended by guards, distinguished only for the dignity of his bearing, allowing free access to his person, and paying vows to the gods of his country. His wife, Plotina, bore herself as the spouse of a simple senator, and his sister, Marciana, exhibited a demeanor equally commendable.
The Dacian war. Gladiatorial sports. The Forum Trajanum.
The great external event of his reign was the war against the Dacians, and their country was the last which the Romans subdued in Europe. They belonged to the Thracian group of nations, and were identical with the Getæ. They inhabited the country which was bordered on the south by the Danube and Mœsia. They were engaged in frequent wars with the Romans, and obtained a decided advantage, in the reign of Domitian, under their king Decebalus. The honor of the empire was so far tarnished as to pay a tribute to Dacia, but Trajan resolved to wipe away the disgrace, and headed himself an expedition into this distant country, A.D. 101, with eighty thousand veterans, subdued Decebalus, and added Dacia to the provinces of the empire. He built a bridge over the Danube, on solid stone piers, about two hundred and twenty miles below the modern Belgrade, which was a remarkable architectural work, four thousand five hundred and seventy feet in length. Enough treasures were secured by the conquest of Dacia to defray the expenses of the war, and of the celebrated triumph which commemorated his victories. At the games instituted in honor of this conquest, eleven thousand beasts were slain, and ten thousand gladiators fought in the Flavian Amphitheatre. The column on which his victories were represented still remains to perpetuate his magnificence, with its [pg 599] two thousand five hundred figures in bas-relief, winding in a spiral band around it from the base to the summit—one of the most interesting relics of antiquity. Near this column were erected the Forum Trajanum, and the Basilica Ulpia, the former one thousand one hundred feet long, and the basilica connected with it, surrounded with colonnades, and filled with colossal statues. This enormous structure covered more ground than the Flavian Amphitheatre, and was built by the celebrated Apollodorus, of Damascus. It filled the whole space between the Capitoline and the Quirinal. The double colonnade which surrounded it was one of the most beautiful works of art in the world.
On the conquest of Dacia, Trajan devoted himself to the internal administration of his vast empire. He maintained the dignity of the Senate, and allowed the laws to take their course. He was untiring in his efforts to provide for the material wants of his subjects, and in developing the resources of the empire, nor did he rule by oppressive exactions.
The Parthian expedition. Death of Trajan.
After seven years of wise administration, he again was called into the field to extend the eastern frontier of the empire. His efforts were directed against Armenia and Parthia. He reduced the former to a Roman province, and advanced into those Caucasian regions where no Roman imperator had preceded him, except Pompey, receiving the submission of Iberians and Albanians. To overthrow Parthia was now his object, and he advanced across the Tigris to Ctesiphon. In the Parthian capital he was saluted as imperator; but, oppressed with gloom and enfeebled by sickness, he did not presume to reach, as he had aspired, the limits of the Macedonian conquest. He was too old for such work. He returned to Antioch, sickened, and died in Cilicia, August, A.D. 117, after a prosperous and even glorious reign of nineteen and a half years. But he had the satisfaction of having raised the empire to a state of unparalleled prosperity, and of having extended its limits on the east and on the west to the farthest point it ever reached.
Hadrian.
Publius Ælius Hadrian succeeded this great emperor, and was born in Rome A.D. 76, and was a son of the first cousin of Trajan. He made extraordinary attainments as a youth, and served honorably in the armies of his country, especially during the Dacian wars. At twenty-five he was quæstor, at thirty-one he was prætor, and in the following year was made consul, for the forms of the old republic were maintained under the emperors. He was adopted by Trajan, and left at the head of the army at Antioch at the age of forty-two, when Trajan died on his way to Rome. He was at once proclaimed emperor by the army, and its choice was confirmed by the Senate.
His warlike expeditions.