Justice requires it and pity holds me back.' [18] Hadrian was then retained on the Rhine frontier by Trajan as a military tribune, becoming privy to the circle of friends and relations with which Trajan surrounded himself – among them the then governor of Germania Inferior, the Spaniard Lucius Licinius Sura, who became Trajan's chief personal adviser and official friend.

[165] Finley thinks that the scheme's chief aim was the artificial bolstering of the political weight of Italy, as seen, for example, in the stricture – heartily praised by Pliny – laid down by Trajan that ordered all senators, even when from the provinces, to have at least a third of their landed estates in Italian territory, as it was "unseemly [...] that [they] should treat Rome and Italy not as their native land, but as a mere inn or lodging house". The traditional donative to the troops, however, was reduced by half. Bennett, Trajan, 196; Christol & Nony, Rome,171. Literary sources relate that Trajan had considered others, such as the jurist Lucius Neratius Priscus, as heir. From there, after his father's replacement, he seems to have been transferred to an unspecified Rhine province, and Pliny implies that he engaged in active combat duty during both commissions. The fortress city of Hatra, on the Tigris in his rear, continued to hold out against repeated Roman assaults. In contrast, his successor Hadrian would stress the notion of the empire as ecumenical and of the Emperor as universal benefactor and not kosmocrator. Various authors have discussed the existence of the province and its location: André Maricq (La province d'Assyrie créée par Trajan. Alan Bowman, Peter Garnsey, Averil Cameron, eds., Meléndez, Javier Bermejo, Santiago Robles Esparcia, and Juan M. Campos Carrasco. [138] Therefore, the indefensible character of the province did not appear to be a problem for Trajan, as the province was conceived more as a sally-base for further attacks. As Pliny wrote to Trajan, this had as its most visible consequence a trail of unfinished or ill-kept public utilities. [253] Quietus discharged his commissions successfully, so much that the war was afterward named after him – Kitus being a corruption of Quietus. 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. [284] A third-century emperor, Decius, even received from the Senate the name Trajan as a decoration. [110], In May of 101, Trajan launched his first campaign into the Dacian kingdom,[111] crossing to the northern bank of the Danube and defeating the Dacian army at Tapae (see Second Battle of Tapae), near the Iron Gates of Transylvania. [257] It has been theorized that Quietus and his colleagues were executed on Hadrian's direct orders, for fear of their popular standing with the army and their close connections to Trajan. Combining chariot racing, beast fights and close-quarters gladiatorial bloodshed, this gory spectacle reputedly left 11,000 dead (mostly slaves and criminals, not to mention the thousands of ferocious beasts killed alongside them) and attracted a total of five million spectators over the course of the festival. Giovanni Salmeri, "Dio, Rome, and the Civic Life of Asia Minor" IN Simon Swain, ed.. Hildegard Temporini, Wolfgang Haase, eds.. Paul Veyne, "L'identité grecque devant Rome et l'empereur". Trajan, Latin in full Caesar Divi Nervae Filius Nerva Traianus Optimus Augustus, also called (97–98 ce) Caesar Nerva Traianus Germanicus, original name Marcus Ulpius Traianus, (born September 15?, 53 ce, Italica, Baetica [now in Spain]—died August 8/9, 117, Selinus, Cilicia [now in Turkey]), Roman emperor (98–117 ce) who sought to extend the boundaries of the empire to the east (notably in Dacia, Arabia, Armenia, and Mesopotamia), undertook a vast building program, and enlarged social welfare. [22] There are hints, however, in contemporary literary sources that Trajan's adoption was imposed on Nerva. [126], These costly projects completed,[127] in 105 Trajan again took to the field. Having come to the narrow strip of land between the Euphrates and the Tigris, he then dragged his fleet overland into the Tigris, capturing Seleucia and finally the Parthian capital of Ctesiphon. Some say that Trajan had adopted Hadrian as his successor, but others[who?] [59] What the Greek oligarchies wanted from Rome was, above all, to be left in peace, to be allowed to exert their right to self-government (i.e., to be excluded from the provincial government, as was Italy) and to concentrate on their local interests. His campaigns expanded the Roman Empire to its greatest territorial extent. [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. [195][196] In the absence of conclusive evidence, trade between Rome and India might have been far more balanced, in terms of quantities of precious metals exchanged: one of our sources for the notion of the Roman gold drain – Pliny's the Younger's uncle Pliny the Elder – had earlier described the Gangetic Plains as one of the gold sources for the Roman Empire. [117], The peace of 102 had returned Decebalus to the condition of more or less harmless client king; however, he soon began to rearm, to again harbor Roman runaways, and to pressure his Western neighbors, the Iazyges Sarmatians, into allying themselves with him.

This capital city was conceived as a purely civilian administrative center and was provided the usual Romanized administrative apparatus (decurions, aediles, etc.). [216], The chronology of subsequent events is uncertain, but it is generally believed that early in 115 Trajan launched a Mesopotamian campaign, marching down towards the Taurus mountains in order to consolidate territory between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The furthest south the Romans occupied (or, better, garrisoned, adopting a policy of having garrisons at key points in the desert)[148] was Hegra, over 300 kilometres (190 mi) south-west of Petra.