| Image search results - "Matidia" |
015c. MatidiaSalonia Matidia. Niece of Trajan, whom he brought into court after the death of her father. She was named as an Augusta in 112.lawrence c
|
|
015c01. MatidiaTrajan with Matidia. CILICIA. Anazarbus. Ae 28. Dated CY 132 (113/4). 28mm, 12.47 g. Obv: ΑΥΤΟ ΚΑΙϹ ΝΕΡ ΤΡΑΙΑΝΟϹ ϹΕ ΓΕΡΜ ΔΑ Laureate head of Trajan right. Rev:ΑΥΤΟ ΚΑΙϹ ΝΕΡ ΤΡΑΙΑΝΟϹ ϹΕ ΓΕΡΜ ΔΑ Draped bust of Matidia right. RPC III 3370. Naumann Auction 73, Lot 377.lawrence c
|
|
029 Matidia.AR Denarius 3.2gmobv: DIVA AVGVSTA MATIDIA drp.bust r.
rev: CONSECRATIO eagle r. spread wings r. on scepter. head l.
"niece of Trajan, doughter of Marciana, mother inlaw of Hadrian"hill132
|
|
03 - Personalities of the EmpireNerva, Trajan, Plotina, Marciana, Matidia, Hadrian, Sabina, Aelius, Antoninus Pius, Faustina I, Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus and Lucillamdelvalle
|
|
031 Matidia ( -119 A.D.), AR-Denarius, RIC II 759 (Trajanus), Rome, PIETAS AVGVST, Matidia as Pietas with Sabina and Matidia Minor, Modern Fake !!!031 Matidia ( -119 A.D.), AR-Denarius, RIC II 759 (Trajanus), Rome, PIETAS AVGVST, Matidia as Pietas with Sabina and Matidia Minor, Modern Fake !!!
Matidia Daughter of Marciana, niece of Trajan. Augusta, 112-119 A.D.
avers:- MATIDIA-AVG-DIVA-F-MARCIANAE-F, Draped bust of Matidia right.
revers:- PIETAS AVGVST, Matidia as Pietas standing holding hands with Sabina and Matidia Minor.
exerg: -/-//--, diameter: 18,5mm, weight:g, axis: h,
mint: Rome, date: 103-111 A.D., ref: RIC II 759 (Trajanus), p-, BMC-660, RSC-10,
Q-001
Struck. Die-engraver "Lipanoff Studio"
Published: Sofia 2004, no.47
I. Prokopov
quadrans
|
|
102b. Matidia Matidia. Augusta, A.D. 112-119. AR denarius. Rome mint, Struck A.D. 112.
Matidia. Augusta, A.D. 112-119. AR denarius (19.6 mm, 2.74 g, 7 h). Rome mint, Struck A.D. 112. MATIDIA AVG DIVAE MARCIANA F, diademed and draped bust right, wearing hair in elaborate coiffure / PIETAS AVGVST, Pietas standing left, extending hands to child standing on either side. RIC 759 (Trajan); BMCRE 660 (Trajan); RSC 10. near Fine.ecoli
|
|
103a. SabinaSabina
Vibia Sabina was born in 86 CE was the daughter of Salonia Matidia, daughter of Trajan's sister Marciana, and her first husband Lucius Vibius Sabinus. Hence she was a grand niece of emperor Trajan. By the intervention of Trajan's wife Plotina she married Hadrian in 100 CE, thus reinforcing Hadrian's claim to the throne.
The marriage was not happy and she didn't bear him any children. She did, however, follow Hadrian on his many travels, and she received the title of Augusta in 128 CE. She died in 136 or 137 CE and was dutifully deified after her death
AR denarius. SABINA AVGVSTA HADRIANI AVG Diademed and draped bust right, hair in plait behind / VES TA Vesta seated left, holding Palladium and scepter. RIC 410, RSC 81.ecoli
|
|
3 Augustae - Plotina, Marciana and MatidiaFrom left to right: Plotina, wife of Trajan; Marciana, sister of Trajan; Matidia, daughter of Marciana and mother of the empress Sabina, wife of Hadrian.Charles S
|
|
MatidiaMatidia Denarius
20 mm 3.40 gm
O: DIVA MATIDIA AVGVST
Diademed and draped bust right
R:CONSECRATIO
Eagle standing right, head left, with wings spreadKoffy
|
|
Matidia and Plotina - Euromus98-117 AD
at the left draped bust of Plotina right, at the right draped bust of Matidia left, labrys in the center
… CEBACTAI …
facing cult statue of Zeus Labraundos within distyle temple, holding labrys, resting hand on spear; eagle at his feet to the left, head turned right
ΕΥΡΩΜΩWΝ
RPC III, 2214A
5,6g 23mm
ex NaumannJ. B.
|
|
MATIDIA AR DENARIUS - NEICE OF TRAJAN 112-119 AD Weight:. 3.41 gm.
Obverse: AVG DIVA F MARCIANAE F, draped bust of Matidia right
Reverse: PIETAS AVG, Matidia as Pietas standing holding hands with Sabina and Matidia Minor
RIC 759, RSC 10, BMC 660
Cohen 10Marjan E
|
|
Matidia, niece of Trajan, mother of SabinaÆ Sestertius (25.51g, Ø35mm, 6h), Rome mint. Struck AD 113-117.
MATIDIA AVG DIVAE MARCIANAE F, draped diademed bust of Matidia facing right.
PIETAS AVGST (around) S C (in ex.), Pietas standing left, placing her hands on the heads of two children.
RIC (Trajan) 761 [R3]; Cohen 11 (350 Fr.); Foss (Roman Historical Coins) 107:112
ex Ibercoins, Madrid
Matidia was the daughter of Trajan's sister Marciana and thus niece of Trajan, born about AD 68. She assumed the title of Augusta upon the death of her mother in 112. On reverse, Matidia, as Pietas, with her daughters Matidia the younger and Sabina, future wife of Hadrian. After her death in 119, a temple was dedicated to her on the forum of Trajan. Charles S
|
|
RIC 751Denarius
Obv: DIVA AVGVSTA MATIDIA
Bust of Matidia r. dr.; hair arranged in coils with jewels on crown of head; front hair drawn over high comb, with aigrette.
Rev: CONSECRATIO
Eagle with spread wings walking r. on sceptre, head turned l.
3.2g
Sold on eBay, April 22, 2013, for €27,28.
klausklage
|
|
RIC 759Denarius
Obv: MATIDIA AVG DIVAE - MARCIANAE F.
Bust of Matidia r. dr.; hair arranged in coils with jewels on crown of head; front hair drawn over high comb, with aigrette.
Rev: PIETAS – AVGVST
Matidia standing to front, head turned l., placing her hands on heads of Sabina and Matidia the younger.
Offered on eBay by notorious fake seller mangizite-2008, December 2012, for €1.
klausklage
|
|
RIC 759-2Denarius
Obv: MATIDIA AVG DIVAE - MARCIANAE F.
Rev: PIETAS – AVGVST
Matidia standing to front, head turned l., placing her hands on heads of Sabina and Matidia the younger.
Offered on eBay as Replica for £17.99 (21 January 2013)klausklage
|
|
RIC 759-3Denarius
Obv: MATIDIA AVG DIVAE - MARCIANAE F.
Bust of Matidia r. dr.; hair arranged in coils with jewels on crown of head; front hair drawn over high comb, with aigrette.
Rev: PIETAS – AVGVST
Matidia standing to front, head turned l., placing her hands on heads of Sabina and Matidia the younger.
Sold on eBay Austria, 07 March 2013, for $338.33. Unlikely to be genuine.
klausklage
|
|
RIC 759-4Denarius
Obv: MATIDIA AVG DIVAE - MARCIANAE F.
Bust of Matidia r. dr.; hair arranged in coils with jewels on crown of head; front hair drawn over high comb, with aigrette.
Rev: PIETAS – AVGVST
Matidia standing to front, head turned l., placing her hands on heads of Sabina and Matidia the younger.
Offered on eBay (Thailand), 12 March 2013, for C $20.klausklage
|
|
Roman Empire, Matidia Denarius - Pietas (RIC 758)AR Denarius
Rome, 112-119 AD
Obv: Draped bust of Matidia (R) hair arranged in coils with jewels on crown of head
MATIDIA AVG DIVAE MARCIANAE F
Rev: Matidia as PIETAS, veiled, standing left, sacrificing over garlanded altar.
PIETAS AVG
RIC 758 RSC 8Optimo Principi
|
|
Selinus in Cilicia, Philippus I., AE 29, ApolloSelinus in Cilicia, Philippus I., AE 29, 244-249 AD
Obv.: AY K M IOYΛ [ΦI]ΛΠΠOC CE , Laureate, draped, cuirassed bust right (seen from behind
Rev.: TPAIANO[ΠCEΛINO]YCI ΘHC [IEPAC] , Apollo standing front, patera in his right hand, rod/staff in left hand, on right side: bird (raven?) beneath
SNG France 2,686; SNG Levante 467; Lindgren I,1595; SNG Pfalz 6,1105 , (thanks to Markus for ID)
Selinus: City in Cilicia Aspera, among the principal ones on this coast and mentioned by most of the ancient geographers from Pseudo-Skylax on. It was one of the towns taken by Antiochos III in 197 B.C. (Livy 33.20), but is best known as the place where Trajan died in A.D. 117 on his way back from the East. Then it took the name of Trajanopolis (as on this), but the old one prevailed (as on this), shown by coins and other documents.
In mid-summer 117, when Trajan was returning from his Parthian campaigns, he fell ill while at Selinus in Cilicia and died on August 8. The following day his adoption of Hadrian was announced by Plotina and Attianus, the praetorian prefect who had earlier been Hadrian's guardian, with some question whether Trajan had indeed performed the act or whether it was posthumous, thanks to his widow. On August 11, which he considered his dies imperii, the army of Syria hailed its legate, Hadrian, as emperor, which made the senate's formal acceptance an almost meaningless event. This was an example of the historian Tacitus' famous dictum that an emperor could be made elsewhere than at Rome. Hadrian must then have proceeded to Selinus at once from Antioch, to catch up with Attianus, Plotina, and Matidia. He then returned to his province no later than September and stayed there at least into the new year, consolidating his administration.
Basil,of Seleucia (Vita S. Theclae, II, 17) said that the city cof Selinus, which was formerly of much importance, lost it from his time to the fifth century. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, in the tenth century, called it a small town. Today it is the little village of Selinti (near the city GazipaÅŸa) in the vilayet of Adana; there are ruins of a theatre, aqueduct, market-place, bath, etc. .
The coinage begins under the kingdom of Antiochos IV of Kommagene, and continues later from Trajan to Philip. A bishop of Selinos is recorded, under the metropolitan of Seleukeia. . Le Quien (Oriens christianus, II, 1019) names four bishops: Neon, present at the council of Constantinople, 381; Alypius, at Ephesus, 431; AElianus, at Chalcedon, 451; Gheon, signer of the letter of the bishops of the province to Emperor Leo, 458. The see is in the Greek "Notitiae Episcopatuum" of the Patriarchate of Antioch from the fifth to the tenth century (Vailhé in "Echos d'Orient", X, 95, 145). It was also perhaps an Armenian bishopric until the tenth century. (Alishan, Sissouan, Venice, 1899, p. 60). Eubel (Hierarchia catholica medii aevi, I, 468) names a Latin bishop in 1345.
my ancient coin database
Arminius
|
|
Trajan, RIC 750, for Marciana, Sestertius of AD 113-117 (Elephant biga)Æ Sestertius (23.87g, Ø33mm, 6h), Rome mint. Struck AD 113-117.
Obv.: DIVA AVGVSTA MARCIANA, draped diademed bust of Marciana facing right.
Rev.: EX SENATVS CONSVLTO (around), S C (in ex.), Statue of Marciana seated on elephant biga advancing left.
RIC (Trajan) 750 [R3]; Cohen 13; BMC 1086; Foss (Roman Historical Coins) 104:61
ex Künker Auktion 204; exemplar der Auktion Fritz Rudolf Künker 136, Osnabrück 2008, Nr. 1009.
This type was issued to commemorate the funeral and consecration in AD 112 of Ulpia Marciana, the sister of Trajan, mother of Matidia, grandmother of the empress Sabina. Like Trajan's wife Plotina, she refused the title of Augusta when it was offered to her when Trajan became emperor, but accepted it in AD 105, together with Plotina. She died in AD 112 and was immediately consecrated
Charles S
|
|
Trajan, RIC 761, for Matidia, Sestertius of AD 112-117 (Pietas)Æ Sestertius (25.51g, Ø35mm, 6h), Rome mint. Struck AD September 112-117.
MATIDIA AVG DIVAE MARCIANAE F, draped diademed bust of Matidia facing right.
PIETAS AVGST (around) S C (in ex.), Pietas standing left, placing her hands on the heads of two children.
RIC (Trajan) 761 [R3]; Cohen 11 (350 fr.); BMC 1088; MIR 730 var.1 (33 spec.); Strack 521; Banti 1 (20 spec.); Foss (Roman Historical Coins) 107:112
ex Ibercoins, Madrid
Matidia was the daughter of Trajan's sister Marciana and thus niece of Trajan, born about AD 68. She assumed the title of Augusta upon the death of her mother in 112. On reverse, Pietas symbolizes Matidia with her daughters Matidia the younger and Sabina, future wife of Hadrian. After her death in 119, a temple was dedicated to her on the forum of Trajan.Charles S
|
|
[18H907] Trajan, 25 January 98 - 8 or 9 August 117 A.D., Sepphoris, GalileeBronze AE 23, Hendin 907, BMC 5, Fair, 7.41g, 23.1mm, 0o, Sepphoris mint, 98 - 117 A.D.; obverse TPAIANOS AYTO]-KPA[TWP EDWKEN, laureate head right; reverse SEPFW/RHNWN, eight-branched palm bearing two bunches of dates.
At the crossroads of the Via Maris and the Acre-Tiberias roads, Sepphoris was the capital of Galilee and Herod Antipas' first capital. Damaged by a riot, Antipas ordered Sepphoris be rebuilt. Flavius Josephus described the rebuilt Sepphoris as the "ornament of all Galilee." Since Sepphoris was only five miles north of Nazareth, Jesus and Joseph may have found work in Antipas' rebuilding projects. Sepphoris was built on a hill and visible for miles. This may be the city that Jesus spoke of when He said, "A city set on a hill cannot be hidden."
Marcus Ulpius Traianus, a brilliant general and administrator was adopted and proclaimed emperor by the aging Nerva in 98 A.D. Regarded as one of Rome's greatest emperors, Trajan was responsible for the annexation of Dacia, the invasion of Arabia and an extensive and lavish building program across the empire. Under Trajan, Rome reached its greatest extent. Shortly after the annexation of Mesopotamia and Armenia, Trajan was forced to withdraw from most of the new Arabian provinces. While returning to Rome to direct operations against the new threats, Trajan died at Selinus in Cilicia.
See: http://www.forumancientcoins.com/catalog/indexfrm.asp?vpar=55&pos=0.
De Imperatoribus Romanis: An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Rulers and their Families
Trajan (A.D. 98-117)
Herbert W. Benario
Emory University
Introduction and Sources
"During a happy period of more than fourscore years, the public administration was conducted by the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines. It is the design of this and of the two succeeding chapters to describe the prosperous condition of their empire, and afterwards, from the death of Marcus Antoninus, to deduce the most important circumstances of its decline and fall, a revolution which will ever be remembered and is still felt by the nations of the earth."
This is perhaps the most important and best known of all Edward Gibbon's famous dicta about his vast subject, and particularly that period which he admired the most. It was a concatenation of chance and events which brought to the first position of the principate five men, each very different from the others, who each, in his own way, brought integrity and a sense of public duty to his tasks. Nerva's tenure was brief, as many no doubt had expected and hoped it would be, and perhaps his greatest achievement was to choose Trajan as his adoptive son and intended successor. It was a splendid choice. Trajan was one of Rome's most admirable figures, a man who merited the renown which he enjoyed in his lifetime and in subsequent generations.
The sources for the man and his principate are disappointingly skimpy. There is no contemporaneous historian who can illuminate the period. Tacitus speaks only occasionally of Trajan, there is no biography by Suetonius, nor even one by the author of the late and largely fraudulent Historia Augusta. (However, a modern version of what such a life might have been like has been composed by A. Birley, entirely based upon ancient evidence. It is very useful.) Pliny the Younger tells us the most, in his Panegyricus, his long address of thanks to the emperor upon assuming the consulship in late 100, and in his letters. Pliny was a wordy and congenial man, who reveals a great deal about his senatorial peers and their relations with the emperor, above all, of course, his own. The most important part is the tenth book of his Epistulae, which contains the correspondence between him, while serving in Bithynia, and the emperor, to whom he referred all manner of problems, important as well as trivial. Best known are the pair (96,97) dealing with the Christians and what was to be done with them. These would be extraordinarily valuable if we could be sure that the imperial replies stemmed directly from Trajan, but that is more than one can claim. The imperial chancellery had developed greatly in previous decades and might pen these communications after only the most general directions from the emperor. The letters are nonetheless unique in the insight they offer into the emperor's mind.
Cassius Dio, who wrote in the decade of the 230s, wrote a long imperial history which has survived only in abbreviated form in book LXVIII for the Trajanic period. The rhetorician Dio of Prusa, a contemporary of the emperor, offers little of value. Fourth-century epitomators, Aurelius Victor and Eutropius, offer some useful material. Inscriptions, coins, papyri, and legal texts are of major importance. Since Trajan was a builder of many significant projects, archaeology contributes mightily to our understanding of the man.
Early Life and Career
The patria of the Ulpii was Italica, in Spanish Baetica , where their ancestors had settled late in the third century B.C. This indicates that the Italian origin was paramount, yet it has recently been cogently argued that the family's ancestry was local, with Trajan senior actually a Traius who was adopted into the family of the Ulpii. Trajan's father was the first member of the family to pursue a senatorial career; it proved to be a very successful one. Born probably about the year 30, he perhaps commanded a legion under Corbulo in the early sixties and then was legate of legio X Fretensis under Vespasian, governor of Judaea. Success in the Jewish War was rewarded by the governorship of an unknown province and then a consulate in 70. He was thereafter adlected by the emperor in patricios and sent to govern Baetica. Then followed the governorship of one of the major military provinces, Syria, where he prevented a Parthian threat of invasion, and in 79/80 he was proconsul of Asia, one of the two provinces (the other was Africa) which capped a senatorial career. His public service now effectively over, he lived on in honor and distinction, in all likelihood seeing his son emperor. He probably died before 100. He was deified in 113 and his titulature read divus Traianus pater. Since his son was also the adoptive son of Nerva, the emperor had officially two fathers, a unique circumstance.
The son was born in Italica on September 18, 53; his mother was Marcia, who had given birth to a daughter, Ulpia Marciana, five years before the birth of the son. In the mid seventies, he was a legionary legate under his father in Syria. He then married a lady from Nemausus (Nimes) in Gallia Narbonensis, Pompeia Plotina, was quaestor about 78 and praetor about 84. In 86, he became one of the child Hadrian's guardians. He was then appointed legate of legio VII Gemina in Hispania Tarraconensis, from which he marched at Domitian's orders in 89 to crush the uprising of Antonius Saturninus along the Rhine. He next fought in Domitian's war against the Germans along Rhine and Danube and was rewarded with an ordinary consulship in 91. Soon followed the governorship of Moesia inferior and then that of Germania superior, with his headquarters at Moguntiacum (Mainz), whither Hadrian brought him the news in autumn 97 that he had been adopted by the emperor Nerva, as co-ruler and intended successor. Already recipient of the title imperator and possessor of the tribunician power, when Nerva died on January 27, 98, Trajan became emperor in a smooth transition of power which marked the next three quarters of a century.
Early Years through the Dacian Wars
Trajan did not return immediately to Rome. He chose to stay in his German province and settle affairs on that frontier. He showed that he approved Domitian's arrangements, with the establishment of two provinces, their large military garrisons, and the beginnings of the limes. Those who might have wished for a renewed war of conquest against the Germans were disappointed. The historian Tacitus may well have been one of these.
Trajan then visited the crucial Danube provinces of Pannonia and Moesia, where the Dacian king Decebalus had caused much difficulty for the Romans and had inflicted a heavy defeat upon a Roman army about a decade before. Domitian had established a modus vivendi with Decebalus, essentially buying his good behavior, but the latter had then continued his activities hostile to Rome. Trajan clearly thought that this corner of empire would require his personal attention and a lasting and satisfactory solution.
Trajan spent the year 100 in Rome, seeing to the honors and deification of his predecessor, establishing good and sensitive relations with the senate, in sharp contrast with Domitian's "war against the senate." Yet his policies essentially continued Domitian's; he was no less master of the state and the ultimate authority over individuals, but his good nature and respect for those who had until recently been his peers if not his superiors won him great favor. He was called optimus by the people and that word began to appear among his titulature, although it had not been decreed by the senate. Yet his thoughts were ever on the Danube. Preparations for a great campaign were under way, particularly with transfers of legions and their attendant auxiliaries from Germany and Britain and other provinces and the establishment of two new ones, II Traiana and XXX Ulpia, which brought the total muster to 30, the highest number yet reached in the empire's history.
In 101 the emperor took the field. The war was one which required all his military abilities and all the engineering and discipline for which the Roman army was renowned. Trajan was fortunate to have Apollodorus of Damascus in his service, who built a roadway through the Iron Gates by cantilevering it from the sheer face of the rock so that the army seemingly marched on water. He was also to build a great bridge across the Danube, with 60 stone piers (traces of this bridge still survive). When Trajan was ready to move he moved with great speed, probably driving into the heart of Dacian territory with two columns, until, in 102, Decebalus chose to capitulate. He prostrated himself before Trajan and swore obedience; he was to become a client king. Trajan returned to Rome and added the title Dacicus to his titulature.
Decebalus, however, once left to his own devices, undertook to challenge Rome again, by raids across the Danube into Roman territory and by attempting to stir up some of the tribes north of the river against her. Trajan took the field again in 106, intending this time to finish the job of Decebalus' subjugation. It was a brutal struggle, with some of the characteristics of a war of extirpation, until the Dacian king, driven from his capital of Sarmizegethusa and hunted like an animal, chose to commit suicide rather than to be paraded in a Roman triumph and then be put to death.
The war was over. It had taxed Roman resources, with 11 legions involved, but the rewards were great. Trajan celebrated a great triumph, which lasted 123 days and entertained the populace with a vast display of gladiators and animals. The land was established as a province, the first on the north side of the Danube. Much of the native population which had survived warfare was killed or enslaved, their place taken by immigrants from other parts of the empire. The vast wealth of Dacian mines came to Rome as war booty, enabling Trajan to support an extensive building program almost everywhere, but above all in Italy and in Rome. In the capital, Apollodorus designed and built in the huge forum already under construction a sculpted column, precisely 100 Roman feet high, with 23 spiral bands filled with 2500 figures, which depicted, like a scroll being unwound, the history of both Dacian wars. It was, and still is, one of the great achievements of imperial "propaganda." In southern Dacia, at Adamklissi, a large tropaeum was built on a hill, visible from a great distance, as a tangible statement of Rome's domination. Its effect was similar to that of Augustus' monument at La Turbie above Monaco; both were constant reminders for the inhabitants who gazed at it that they had once been free and were now subjects of a greater power.
Administration and Social Policy
The chief feature of Trajan's administration was his good relations with the senate, which allowed him to accomplish whatever he wished without general opposition. His auctoritas was more important than his imperium. At the very beginning of Trajan's reign, the historian Tacitus, in the biography of his father-in-law Agricola, spoke of the newly won compatibility of one-man rule and individual liberty established by Nerva and expanded by Trajan (Agr. 3.1, primo statim beatissimi saeculi ortu Nerva Caesar res olim dissociabiles miscuerit, principatum ac libertatem, augeatque cotidie felicitatem temporum Nerva Traianus,….) [13] At the end of the work, Tacitus comments, when speaking of Agricola's death, that he had forecast the principate of Trajan but had died too soon to see it (Agr. 44.5, ei non licuit durare in hanc beatissimi saeculi lucem ac principem Traianum videre, quod augurio votisque apud nostras aures ominabatur,….) Whether one believes that principate and liberty had truly been made compatible or not, this evidently was the belief of the aristocracy of Rome. Trajan, by character and actions, contributed to this belief, and he undertook to reward his associates with high office and significant promotions. During his principate, he himself held only 6 consulates, while arranging for third consulates for several of his friends. Vespasian had been consul 9 times, Titus 8, Domitian 17! In the history of the empire there were only 12 or 13 private who reached the eminence of third consulates. Agrippa had been the first, L. Vitellius the second. Under Trajan there were 3: Sex. Iulius Frontinus (100), T. Vestricius Spurinna (100), and L. Licinius Sura (107). There were also 10 who held second consulships: L. Iulius Ursus Servianus (102), M.' Laberius Maximus (103), Q. Glitius Atilius Agricola (103), P. Metilius Sabinus Nepos (103?), Sex. Attius Suburanus Aemilianus (104), Ti. Iulius Candidus Marius Celsus (105), C. Antius A. Iulius Quadratus (105), Q. Sosius Senecio (107), A. Cornelius Palma Frontonianus (109), and L. Publilius Celsus (113). These men were essentially his close associates from pre-imperial days and his prime military commanders in the Dacian wars.
One major administrative innovation can be credited to Trajan. This was the introduction of curators who, as representatives of the central government, assumed financial control of local communities, both in Italy and the provinces. Pliny in Bithynia is the best known of these imperial officials. The inexorable shift from freedmen to equestrians in the imperial ministries continued, to culminate under Hadrian, and he devoted much attention and considerable state resources to the expansion of the alimentary system, which purposed to support orphans throughout Italy. The splendid arch at Beneventum represents Trajan as a civilian emperor, with scenes of ordinary life and numerous children depicted, which underscored the prosperity of Italy.
The satirist Juvenal, a contemporary of the emperor, in one of his best known judgments, laments that the citizen of Rome, once master of the world, is now content only with "bread and circuses."
Nam qui dabat olim / imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se / continet, atque duas tantum res anxius optat, / panem et circenses. (X 78-81)
Trajan certainly took advantage of that mood, indeed exacerbated it, by improving the reliabilty of the grain supply (the harbor at Ostia and the distribution system as exemplified in the Mercati in Rome). Fronto did not entirely approve, if indeed he approved at all. The plebs esteemed the emperor for the glory he had brought Rome, for the great wealth he had won which he turned to public uses, and for his personality and manner. Though emperor, he prided himself upon being civilis, a term which indicated comportment suitable for a Roman citizen.
There was only one major addition to the Rome's empire other than Dacia in the first decade and a half of Trajan's reign. This was the province of Arabia, which followed upon the absorption of the Nabataean kingdom (105-106).
Building Projects
Trajan had significant effect upon the infrastructure of both Rome and Italy. His greatest monument in the city, if the single word "monument" can effectively describe the complex, was the forum which bore his name, much the largest, and the last, of the series known as the "imperial fora." Excavation for a new forum had already begun under Domitian, but it was Apollodorus who designed and built the whole. Enormous in its extent, the Basilica Ulpia was the centerpiece, the largest wood roofed building in the Roman world. In the open courtyard before it was an equestrian statue of Trajan, behind it was the column; there were libraries, one for Latin scrolls, the other for Greek, on each side. A significant omission was a temple; this circumstance was later rectified by Hadrian, who built a large temple to the deified Trajan and Plotina.
The column was both a history in stone and the intended mausoleum for the emperor, whose ashes were indeed placed in the column base. An inscription over the doorway, somewhat cryptic because part of the text has disappeared, reads as follows:
Senatus populusque Romanus imp. Caesari divi Nervae f. Nervae Traiano Aug. Germ. Dacico pontif. Maximo trib. pot. XVII imp. VI p.p. ad declarandum quantae altitudinis mons et locus tant[is oper]ibus sit egestus (Smallwood 378)
On the north side of the forum, built into the slopes of the Quirinal hill, were the Markets of Trajan, which served as a shopping mall and the headquarters of the annona, the agency responsible for the receipt and distribution of grain.
On the Esquiline hill was constructed the first of the huge imperial baths, using a large part of Nero's Domus Aurea as its foundations. On the other side of the river a new aqueduct was constructed, which drew its water from Lake Bracciano and ran some 60 kilometers to the heights of the Janiculum Hill. It was dedicated in 109. A section of its channel survives in the basement of the American Academy in Rome.
The arch in Beneventum is the most significant monument elsewhere in Italy. It was dedicated in 114, to mark the beginning of the new Via Traiana, which offered an easier route to Brundisium than that of the ancient Via Appia.
Trajan devoted much attention to the construction and improvement of harbors. His new hexagonal harbor at Ostia at last made that port the most significant in Italy, supplanting Puteoli, so that henceforth the grain ships docked there and their cargo was shipped by barge up the Tiber to Rome. Terracina benefited as well from harbor improvements, and the Via Appia now ran directly through the city along a new route, with some 130 Roman feet of sheer cliff being cut away so that the highway could bend along the coast. Ancona on the Adriatic Sea became the major harbor on that coast for central Italy in 114-115, and Trajan's activity was commemorated by an arch. The inscription reports that the senate and people dedicated it to the []iprovidentissimo principi quod accessum Italiae hoc etiam addito ex pecunia sua portu tutiorem navigantibus reddiderit (Smallwood 387). Centumcellae, the modern Civitavecchia, also profited from a new harbor. The emperor enjoyed staying there, and on at least one occasion summoned his consilium there.
Elsewhere in the empire the great bridge at Alcantara in Spain, spanning the Tagus River, still in use, testifies to the significant attention the emperor gave to the improvement of communication throughout his entire domain.
Family Relations; the Women
After the death of his father, Trajan had no close male relatives. His life was as closely linked with his wife and female relations as that of any of his predecessors; these women played enormously important roles in the empire's public life, and received honors perhaps unparalleled. His wife, Pompeia Plotina, is reported to have said, when she entered the imperial palace in Rome for the first time, that she hoped she would leave it the same person she was when she entered. She received the title Augusta no later than 105. She survived Trajan, dying probably in 121, and was honored by Hadrian with a temple, which she shared with her husband, in the great forum which the latter had built.
His sister Marciana, five years his elder, and he shared a close affection. She received the title Augusta, along with Plotina, in 105 and was deified in 112 upon her death. Her daughter Matidia became Augusta upon her mother's death, and in her turn was deified in 119. Both women received substantial monuments in the Campus Martius, there being basilicas of each and a temple of divae Matidiae. Hadrian was responsible for these buildings, which were located near the later temple of the deified Hadrian, not far from the column of Marcus Aurelius.
Matidia's daughter, Sabina, was married to Hadrian in the year 100. The union survived almost to the end of Hadrian's subsequent principate, in spite of the mutual loathing that they had for each other. Sabina was Trajan's great niece, and thereby furnished Hadrian a crucial link to Trajan.
The women played public roles as significant as any of their predecessors. They traveled with the emperor on public business and were involved in major decisions. They were honored throughout the empire, on monuments as well as in inscriptions. Plotina, Marciana, and Matidia, for example, were all honored on the arch at Ancona along with Trajan.
The Parthian War
In 113, Trajan began preparations for a decisive war against Parthia. He had been a "civilian" emperor for seven years, since his victory over the Dacians, and may well have yearned for a last, great military achievement, which would rival that of Alexander the Great. Yet there was a significant cause for war in the Realpolitik of Roman-Parthian relations, since the Parthians had placed a candidate of their choice upon the throne of Armenia without consultation and approval of Rome. When Trajan departed Rome for Antioch, in a leisurely tour of the eastern empire while his army was being mustered, he probably intended to destroy at last Parthia's capabilities to rival Rome's power and to reduce her to the status of a province (or provinces). It was a great enterprise, marked by initial success but ultimate disappointment and failure.
In 114 he attacked the enemy through Armenia and then, over three more years, turned east and south, passing through Mesopotamia and taking Babylon and the capital of Ctesiphon. He then is said to have reached the Persian Gulf and to have lamented that he was too old to go further in Alexander's footsteps. In early 116 he received the title Parthicus.
The territories, however, which had been handily won, were much more difficult to hold. Uprisings among the conquered peoples, and particularly among the Jews in Palestine and the Diaspora, caused him to gradually resign Roman rule over these newly-established provinces as he returned westward. The revolts were brutally suppressed. In mid 117, Trajan, now a sick man, was slowly returning to Italy, having left Hadrian in command in the east, when he died in Selinus of Cilicia on August 9, having designated Hadrian as his successor while on his death bed. Rumor had it that Plotina and Matidia were responsible for the choice, made when the emperor was already dead. Be that as it may, there was no realistic rival to Hadrian, linked by blood and marriage to Trajan and now in command of the empire's largest military forces. Hadrian received notification of his designation on August 11, and that day marked his dies imperii. Among Hadrian's first acts was to give up all of Trajan's eastern conquests.
Trajan's honors and reputation
Hadrian saw to it that Trajan received all customary honors: the late emperor was declared a divus, his victories were commemorated in a great triumph, and his ashes were placed in the base of his column. Trajan's reputation remained unimpaired, in spite of the ultimate failure of his last campaigns. Early in his principate, he had unofficially been honored with the title optimus, "the best," which long described him even before it became, in 114, part of his official titulature. His correspondence with Pliny enables posterity to gain an intimate sense of the emperor in action. His concern for justice and the well-being of his subjects is underscored by his comment to Pliny, when faced with the question of the Christians, that they were not to be sought out, "nor is it appropriate to our age." At the onset of his principate, Tacitus called Trajan's accession the beginning of a beatissimum saeculum, and so it remained in the public mind. Admired by the people, respected by the senatorial aristocracy, he faced no internal difficulties, with no rival nor opposition. His powers were as extensive as Domitian's had been, but his use and display of these powers were very different from those of his predecessor, who had claimed to be deus et dominus. Not claiming to be a god, he was recognized in the official iconography of sculpture as Jupiter's viceregent on earth, so depicted on the attic reliefs of the Beneventan arch. The passage of time increased Trajan's aura rather than diminished it. In the late fourth century, when the Roman Empire had dramatically changed in character from what it had been in Trajan's time, each new emperor was hailed with the prayer, felicior Augusto, melior Traiano, "may he be luckier than Augustus and better than Trajan." That reputation has essentially survived into the present day.
Copyright (C) 2000, Herbert W. Benario.
Published: De Imperatoribus Romanis: An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Rulers and their Families http://www.roman-emperors.org/startup.htm. Used by permission.
Edited by J. P. Fitzgerald, Jr.
Cleisthenes
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
