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Page 34, line 20: instead of 'They were not subordinated to any higher executive authority, theoretically not even to the emperor, whose proconsular imperium was constitutionally co-ordinate with theirs.'

read 'They were not subordinated directly to any higher executive authority, though in cases of collision the proconsular power of the emperors, as maius imperium, would overrule theirs.'

Page 100, heading of Ep. xi: instead of 'Media,' read 'Medici.'

INTRODUCTION

LIFE OF TRAJAN

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MARCUS ULPIUS TRAIANUS, Roman emperor from 98-117 A.D., was born at Italica, in the province of Baetica, on September 18,1 52 or 53 A.D.2 Italica had been founded by Scipio as an asylum for his wounded veterans, and therefore the Ulpian and Traian gentes were probably, like the Aelian, of Italian origin. Baetica had long been one of the most thoroughly Romanised of the provinces, and had contributed several illustrious names to Roman politics and literature, but of the Ulpian gens, Trajan's father, M. Ulpius Traianus, was the first who attained to curule office at Rome and senatorial rank. We find him first in the Jewish war under Vespasian, acting as legate of Legio X Fretensis at the siege of Joppa. This post implies a previous praetorship, and his services in the war were rewarded by the consulship, probably in 69 A.D. In 76 he was legate of Syria,5 and during his governorship some frontier hostilities with the Parthians gave him the opportunity of winning the 'triumphalia ornamenta.' 6 In this campaign his son, the future emperor, served as military tribune, and, if we may trust to the courtly phrases of Pliny, not without distinction. In 79 an inscription of Laodicea proves him to have held the dignified

1 Orelli, 1104. Plin. Ep. ad Trai. 17; Panegyr. 92. Cf. Sueton. Dom. 17.

2 The statement of Dio Cassius (68, 6) that he was forty-two at the time of his adoption, would put forward the date of his birth to 55 A.D., which would not leave time for the ten years spent as mili

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tary tribune and the other offices prior to
the praetorship in 85 A.D.

3 Appian, De reb. Hisp. c. 38.
4 Iosephus, Bell. Iud. iii 7, 31.

5 As a medal of Antioch proves. Eckhel, vi 434.

6 Dio Cassius, 68, 15, and Plin. Panegyr. 9. Aurelius Victor, Caes. 9. 7 Plin. Panegyr. 14.

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was

post of proconsul of Asia.1 The young Trajan therefore entered upon the ordinary career open to youths of senatorial family with somewhat more than ordinary prospects. Of his boyhood and youth we have no information. He entered the army as military tribune perhaps earlier than usual, and before he had gone through anything like a thorough course of rhetorical training, a deficiency which did not seriously affect his later career. Nor was his the ordinary 'semestris militia' of the senatorial youth. Entering the service probably in 68 A.D., he seems to have served under his father in the Jewish war, while in the course of the ten campaigns which Pliny mentions he served on the Rhine in Lower Germany, and, as we have already seen, was engaged in his father's Parthian campaign in 75 or 76 A.D. During these years, we may well believe, apart from Pliny's exaggerated expressions, that Trajan showed those qualities which afterwards Imade him the hero of his soldiers. In 78, with a military experience and reputation greater than that of most of his contemporaries, Trajan returned to Rome, and during the last years of Vespasian, and the short reign of Titus, he was successively passing through the ordinary 'cursus honorum ;' first the quaestorship, then either the tribunate of the plebs or the curule aedileship, and then the praetorship. The latter office he almost certainly held in 85 A.D., for Spartian 5 mentions him as 'praetorium tunc' in Hadrian's tenth year (86 A.D.) Of his conduct in these offices we know nothing; the times were not stirring, and he was probably as unobtrusive as Tacitus describes Agricola to have been. Owing to this necessary residence in the city, Trajan lost the chance of distinguishing himself in Domitian's war against the Chatti (83-84), but after his praetorship we find him in 89 in Spain, charged by Domitian with the task of leading the Legio I Adiutrix from that province to Upper Germany. The object of this transfer has frequently been misunderstood. Trajan was not governor of Hispania Tarraconensis, which was a consular appointment, nor was he at this time made legate of Upper Germany, for the command of

1 C. I. Gr. 3935.

2 Dio Cassius, 68, 7.

3 Plin. Panegyr. 15.

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4 Ib. 14. 5 It seems to have been a rule that governors were not appointed

so important a post from 89 till 97, the date of his adoption by Nerva, would have been contrary to all precedent. There is no doubt that he was legate of the Legio I Adiutrix, then stationed in Spain, and that he was sent to Germany to act against Antonius Saturninus, who had induced the two legions at Vindonissa to revolt, and had even entered into communication with the Chatti.1 As a reward probably for the alacrity shown upon this occasion, Trajan was made one of the 'consules ordinarii' for 91 A.D., a mark of especial favour from an emperor whose own frequent consulships diminished the number which he had to confer on others. Beyond this, however, Domitian, who in his later years cherished an insane jealousy for military talent, did not advance him. For the next six years we know nothing of Trajan's position, though from one passage of the Panegyric2 he seems to have lived at Rome and shared the dangers of Domitian's reign of terror. But if he was passed over by Domitian, promotion came with the election of Nerva, by whom he was appointed legate of Upper Germany,+ still perhaps, in spite of the number of legions on the Danube, the premier military command. There was, however, at this period no need for military operations on the Rhine, and Trajan's work needed administrative ability even more than strategic skill.5 Domitian had inaugurated a new frontier policy in Upper Germany. The Rhine was to be no longer the boundary. With a formidable tribe like the Chatti confronting the Roman arms, it was deemed advisable to throw forward some farther barrier in their way, and especially to command the valleys of such tributary rivers as the Main and the Neckar, through which at any time an enemy might penetrate. It was with this end that Domitian had pushed forward his legions against the Chatti, and commenced the limes' extending from Friedberg through Wörth to Lorch, where it was subsequently met by the Raetian 'limes,' which ran eastward to Regensberg. By this means the Black Forest, the region hitherto called the 'Agri Decu

1 Dierauer (Beitrage zu einer Kritischen Geschichte Trajan, p. 12) gives conclusive reasons for placing the rising of Saturninus in 89, and not in 93 as Merivale does.

2 Plin. Panegyr. 44. cum; periclitatus es.'

'Vixisti nobis

3 Ib. 94. Praeteritus est a pessimo principe, qui ab optimo non potuit.'

That he was appointed by Nerva and not by Domitian, is almost certain, as well from c. 94 as from c. 9 of the Panegyric.

5 Plin. Panegyr. 56.

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