The Emperor Trajan (1/2)
For most of the first century
Anno Domini, the city of Rome and the Empire were ruled by Emperors of the
Julio-Claudian and Flavian dynasties. Some of these, notably Caligula, Nero,
Titus and Domitian, were labled as despots, or tyrants by historians writing in
the times of their successors, but the Empire was growing throughout the first
century AD and the economy needed support from increased taxation.
The Emperor Domitian and his
General Cornelius Fuscus attacked the Dacian King Duras in the year 87. Six
Roman legions crossed the Danube on an improvised bridge of ships, but were
ambushed and suffered an ignominious defeat, their General Fuscus being killed
in the fighting.
The following year the Romans
attacked again, they won the first battles but Rome and Dacia agreed upon an uneasy
truce in 89 when the Dacian King Decebalus became a subject of Rome and Dacia a
client state.
In the year 98 Marcus Ulpius
Trajanus succeeded the Emperor Nerva as his adopted son. A Spaniard by birth he would become the first
non-Italian Emperor of Rome. He was a successful general and popular with the
military leadership. After an initial tour of his legions along the Danube and
Rhine borders, Trajan famously entered Rome on foot, walking amongst the
citizens and greeting each senator personally. No
previous Emperor had ever displayed such modesty.
Trajan was a great general, he personally
inspired confidence and popularity in his troops. He began a new series of
campaigns to subdue Dacia, modern day Romania. The Romans laid siege to the
Dacian capital Sarmisegetusa, and cut the water pipes to the city. The city
was captured and was burned to the ground, finally causing their King Decebalus to
commit suicide and leading to the destruction of Dacia as a nation.
The Romans located the Dacian
treasure buried under the bed of the river Sargesia, an estimated 165 metric tonnes
of gold, and more than twice that weight of silver. Dacia’s rich gold mines
were then operated by Roman miners. Two legions were permanently stationed in
Dacia, and the soldiers allowed to marry Dacian women.
More than one hundred thousand
Dacian slaves were sent back to Rome.
This triumph is still recorded
today on Trajan’s column in Rome. The huge wealth
funded a massive public building program in Rome and the regeneration of roads,
walls and aqueducts. The captured wealth also paid for further campaigns throughout the
Empire.
In the time of the Emperor Trajan
the Roman Empire reached its furthest boundaries, and the city it’s greatest
population, estimated at about one and a half million people.
In the view of the 18th
century English historian Edward Gibbon, this was the time of the greatest happiness
and prosperity, for the greatest Empire in human history.
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