Trajan

Rome's Last Conqueror

Nicholas Jackson

• Editore: Greenhill Books
• Anno: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781784387082
• Argomento: History
• Categoria: Military Biographies

Until the publication of this captivating biography, no such volume on Trajan’s life has been tailored to the general reader. The unique book illuminates a neglected period of ancient Roman history, featuring a comprehensive array of maps, illustrations, and photographs to help orientate and bring the text to life. Trajan rose from fairly obscure beginnings to become the emperor of Rome. He was born in Italica, an Italic settlement close to modern Seville in present-day Spain, and is the first Roman Emperor to be born outside of Rome. His remarkable rise from officer to general and then to emperor in just over 20 years reveals a shrewd politician who maintained absolute power. Trajan’s success in taking the Roman Empire to its greatest expanse is highlighted in this gripping biography. Trajan’s military campaigns allowed the Roman Empire to attain its greatest military, political and cultural achievements. The book draws on novel theories, recent evidence and meticulous research, including field visits to Italy, Spain, Germany and Romania to ensure accurate, vivid writing that transports the reader to Trajan’s territory.

CHAPTER 1

IMPRESSIONABLE YEARS

Born into the Roman World

The first-century Roman world can be a hard place to imagine in our current age, racing through a digital era, with few places escaping globalisation. It is equally difficult to envisage that, in the first century, the power of Rome, imperium Romanum, had created a city state which dominated an estimated sixty million people.1 This was around a quarter of the world’s population. At the time, Rome was one of the most civilised and advanced societies on earth, contemporaneous with the Han Dynasty in China, the Kushan empire in Central Asia, the Parthian empire in Persia and the Mayan civilisation in Central America.

Where did it all start for Trajan? It began in a wealthy Spanish region of the Roman Empire, surrounded by lush agricultural lands. This would make Trajan the first Roman emperor to be born outside Italy. Sadly we know very few reliable details about his early childhood, so the story of Trajan’s youth and his early path in life will be brief, requiring some postulation based on the life of a typical contemporary Roman family with a comparable social background.

Yet, despite very few facts about his early years, we know that Trajan’s path in life was one of power: power that launched his father’s career; power within his family to leave Spain for Rome; power to become a senator and later a general; ultimately power to become emperor, a supremacy that would bring Trajan to the mountainous forests of Romania and to the rocky deserts of Iraq in conquest.

Back in Spain, even the year of Trajan’s birth is uncertain. Deduction allows one to estimate he was born in AD 56, in the notorious reign of the Emperor Nero and shortly after the 800th anniversary of Rome’s celebrated founding.2 We know his birthday was on 18 September.

He was born in the town of Italica, in the prospering Roman province of Baetica, which is now the Andalucia region of Spain. As a customary sign of recognition after birth, the midwife would probably have laid the new-born Trajan at his father’s feet and his father in turn would have raised him above his head in acknowledgement of his kin and to establish his rights over the boy. On the ninth day after Trajan’s birth, a purification festival, dies lustricus, would be held by the family for the official naming of the new-born.3

Trajan is the modern English spelling of his name. His full Latin name was Marcus Ulpius Traianus. A Roman citizen normally had three names. The first name (praenomen) was personal to the individual like a modern first name. The second name (nomen) referred to the gens or clan. The third name (cognomen) was the family name. Therefore, Trajan’s father, also called Marcus Ulpius Traianus, belonged to the Traianus family branch of the Ulpian clan. Occasionally, a fourth name was added, an agnomen, to record an act of honour or define a branch of the family. Women were generally referred to only by the name of their clan, and sometimes the name of a wife or daughter was followed by that of the father or husband in the feminine form.

Later in life, Trajan was described as strong in body,4 suggesting he started life in good health and development. This was an achievement for Trajan and his mother, because infant and maternal mortality rates were very high. Around 5 per cent of all Roman newborns did not survive beyond their first month and an estimated one in 4,000 women died giving birth.5 Even after surviving birth and the precarious first month, around a third of infants died before their first birthday.6

Trajan’s family belonged to the equestrian class and family life for the young Trajan would have reflected the comfortable and safe surroundings typical of this status. This equestrian class first formed within the Roman army – the men were rich enough to provide horses and serve in the cavalry – and evolved into a wealthy class of land and business owners. To qualify as an equestrian, a Roman citizen needed property to the value of over 400,000 sestertii, and could expect certain positions of authority in Roman society. Trajan’s father, Marcus Ulpius Traianus (hereafter Traianus), could trace his roots to the ancestral home of the Ulpian clan in the town of Tuder (Todi), in Umbria, Italy.7 Tuder was well positioned near the River Tiber and the Via Amerina road, both connecting the town to Rome.

Following the annexation of Spain into the Roman Empire, a family branch of the Ulpii probably left for the province of Baetica and settled in the town of Italica (north-west of Seville), lured by the promise of wealth from the prosperous agricultural region or for an administrative position in the province. Alternatively, a distant family member may have been one of the first Roman army veterans who set up home in the newly founded town of Italica. The Ulpii, like the Aelii and the Traii or Trahii were noble families in the region. Intermarriage between the Ulpii and the Traii resulted in a branch of Traianus’ ancestors.

Traianus was born around AD 25 and probably married Trajan’s mother, Marcia, at around twenty-five years of age.8 Marcia’s roots are even more obscure. Her ancestors may have come from the Marcii Bareae family that could have originated from wealthy landowners around Ameria (Amelia), also in Umbria near the Via Amerina. Some have pointed out that this possibly made Marcia’s father, Trajan’s grandfather, the prominent Quintus Marius Barea Soranus, who was consul in AD 52. If this was the case, the match with Marcia was a prestigious one for Traianus. Moreover, Marcia’s half-sister, Marcia Furnilla, would later marry the emperor Titus and therefore tie Traianus to the imperial court, a linkage that would help exalt his family into the highest echelons of Roman society and power. After the marriage of Traianus and Marcia, Trajan’s elder sister, Ulpia Marciana, was born. Trajan and his sister appear to have remained close throughout their lives.

The Romans did not have a definitive word for a new-born child.9 Instead, during the period before he reached seven years of age, Trajan would have been referred to as an infans, literally meaning not speaking and from the time he learned to speak and walk he would have been a puer, a pre-pubescent boy. As a symbol of Trajan’s vulnerability as an infant, he would have worn a traditional bulla around his neck, a gold charm to ward off evil spirits. This charm was given during the dies lustricus, the naming-day ceremony.

As a sign of free birth, a puer might sometimes wear a toga praetexta, a toga dyed to create a broad purple band around the rim. Children were viewed as requiring formation into human beings.10 This formation was prone to ‘corruption’ through seduction and failure to resist the trappings of pleasure. Traianus and Marcia would have striven to protect the young Trajan from any abuse to ensure his correct formation into an adult. Thus, a paedagogue, or slave escort, was usually appointed to watch over a young boy like Trajan and to shadow his early years and shield him from dangers during the absence of his parents.

Traianus’ Early Career

Before we can explore Trajan’s education and his early years in Italica and Rome, we must first consider the early cursus honorum, or senatorial career, of his father, Traianus. Little is known of Traianus’ initial career, but the different stages were prescribed by law and status. One can therefore piece together his path approximately, based on the elements of a typical career in the Senate.

Prerequisites for entry into the Senate included free birth Roman citizenship, no serious prior convictions, good health and a million sestertii or more in the census rating.11 Essentially, one had to be wealthy and influential. A further precondition for any hopeful senatorial candidate was selection by the emperor into the vigintivirate: the twenty annual public posts in Rome held by men around twenty years old. Next was required a junior military position (tribunus laticlavius), typically for a year, and then a candidate could enter the Senate proper if selected for one of the twenty quaestorships, these being public financial posts. After a mandatory five-year gap, the next senatorial office was the praetorship. Eighteen praetorships, judicial in function, were hotly contended. Like the quaestorships, these positions effectively required endorsement by the emperor to ensure selection. There was also a ‘fast track’ route for favourites of the emperor who could be adlected directly into the Senate. Protocol allowed Rome’s aristocrats to qualify for a consulship at thirty-two years of age and this was the pinnacle of a senatorial career, despite the heavy erosion of the position’s power in the imperial era. Two consuls were appointed at any one time by the emperor, who could choose to hold one of the offices himself. As an ex-consul, a senator could expect the best military and governorship positions and perhaps the prestigious appointment of a second consulship or even the extremely rare honour of a third.

Working backwards from later dates that we do know, Traianus took a relatively risky step around the age of eighteen and broke away from his ancestors to seek a position on the first rung of the ladder towards a senatorial cursus, the vigintivirate. In this position, he may have acted as a junior magistrate dealing with civil cases. The post probably meant that Traianus had a helping hand from a senior senator or perhaps even direct selection by the Emperor Claudius himself, whose attention may have been drawn to his emerging talents.

Traianus would have next taken up the sword as a junior officer, a tribunus laticlavius, typically under a legion commander who was a family relative or close family friend. Following this military service, Traianus would be back in Rome for an annual post (ca. AD 51–52) as quaestor. Around the age of thirty-one, Traianus then held an annual praetor post in Rome (ca. AD 57–58). After Claudius, the reign of Nero saw steady promotions for novi homines, ‘new men’ from the provinces instead of the traditional aristocratic families in Rome. The novi homines like Traianus prospered in the new era and such patronage secured him a governorship of the senatorial province of Baetica, his homeland.12 The date of this governorship is not known precisely. It has been argued that he was possibly the first provincial Roman citizen to govern his home province, and this was a change supported by Nero, who appreciated that a local man knew the best way to govern his own back yard. Despite this trend under Nero, this was rare because there were repeated rulings against governing one’s own province of origin.13

In and Around Italica

Traianus’ senatorial career involved a great deal of travelling across the Roman Empire and senators were expected to live in Rome when not away on state business, meaning that he would have spent limited periods in his Italica home.14 As a result, bailiffs were likely appointed by Traianus to manage the family properties in Baetica in his absence. Nevertheless, around the middle of the first century, there was the opportunity for Traianus and his family to return to Italica, perhaps to attend to critical business and interests in Baetica. Consequently, the family was probably together in Italica for the period up to and around Trajan’s birth in 56.

Before or after Trajan’s birth, it is more than likely that Traianus returned to Rome and left his family in Italica, rather than drag them away on a long journey while his wife was pregnant or while Trajan was very young. Accordingly, Trajan likely spent his first months or years in Italica before moving to Rome and then, perhaps at around eight or nine years old, he almost certainly would have returned to Italica with his father during Traianus’ governorship of Baetica (ca. 64–65).

The town of Italica was established in 206 BC by one of the greatest Roman generals of the age, Publius Cornelius Scipio. It was founded for his wounded troops and veterans following the victorious battle of Ilipa, where the Carthaginians were decisively beaten by an outnumbered Roman force. This battle marked the climax of the Second Punic War and effectively removed the Carthaginians from Spain, giving Rome a very large regional acquisition for its newly forming empire. The name Italica was chosen nostalgically in recognition of the troops’ Italian homeland. It was the very first Roman settlement outside Italy and Scipio selected the area as a bastion of the Roman presence for two reasons: firstly, its geographical position lent itself well to transportation and communication within the region; secondly, it was an area blessed with substantial natural resources.15

The new town of Italica shared its plateau site with the native Turdetanians who already inhabited this fertile region. The Turdetanians were peaceful in nature and the Roman settlers integrated well, bringing Roman culture and technologies that would have been slowly accepted by the natives. To the north of Italica was access to the western Sierra Morena Mountains, rich in metal ores. To the east, plains stretched for miles, and to the west gentle rolling hills with rich soils. In the vicinity, the Huelva River flowed into the wide Guadalquivir River (then called the Baetis), which continued south to the sea. The riverbanks were cultivated and the river navigable from the coast to the town of Cordvba (Córdoba), which later became the capital of the province.

By the first century AD, Italica had flourished into a successful Roman town with municipal status while intensive Roman farming methods yielded a bounty of local produce. A complex irrigation network was developed, bringing the river waters further inland and allowing wine, oil and wheat production to rise substantially. Livestock was ...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Content
• LIST OF PLATES AND MAPS
• PREFACE
• TRAJAN’S FAMILY TREE
• CHAPTER 1 IMPRESSIONABLE YEARS
• CHAPTER 2 YOUNG ADULTHOOD IN A NEW ERA
• CHAPTER 3 THE MAKING OF A MILITARY OFFICER
• CHAPTER 4 THE MAKING OF A GENERAL
• CHAPTER 5 ADOPTION AND ACCESSION
• CHAPTER 6 THE DAWNING TRAJANIC AGE
• CHAPTER 7 TRAJAN’S FIRST DACIAN WAR
• CHAPTER 8 TRAJAN’S SECOND DACIAN WAR
• CHAPTER 9 BIDING TIME BETWEEN GREAT WARS
• CHAPTER 10 THE PARTHIAN WAR
• CHAPTER 11 CONSPIRACY, DEATH AND DEIFICATION
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• PLATE SECTION