Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/523

Rh his somewhat ostentatious camaraderie. His features were firm and clearly cut; his figure was tall and soldierly, and exhibited the sinewy hard health of a veteran campaigner. His hair was already grey before he came to the throne, though he was not more than forty-four years old. The stoutness of the emperor's arm had been proved in the face of his men in many a hard fight. When on service he used the mean fare of the common private, dining on salt pork, cheese, and sour wine. Nothing pleased him better than to take part with the centurion or the soldier in fencing or other military exercise, and he would applaud any shrewd blow which fell upon his own helmet. He loved to display his acquaintance with the career of distinguished veterans, and to talk with them of their battles and their wounds. Probably he lost nothing of his popularity with the army by occasional free indulgence in sensual pleasures, with which, as Bacon remarks, the soldier is apt to pay himself for the perils he encounters. Yet every man felt and knew that no detail of military duty, however minute, escaped the emperor's eye, and that any relaxation of discipline would be rigidly punished, yet with unwavering justice. Trajan emphasized at once his personal control and the constitutionality of his sway by bearing on his campaigns the actual title of "proconsul," which no other emperor had done. All things considered, it is not surprising that he was able, without serious opposition from the army, to remodel the whole military institutions of the empire, and to bring them into a shape from which there was comparatively little departure so long as the army lasted. In disciplinary matters no emperor since Augustus had been able to keep so strong a control over the troops. Pliny rightly praises Trajan as the lawgiver and the founder of discipline, and Vegetius classes Augustus, Trajan, and Hadrian together as restorers of the morale of the army. The confidence which existed between Trajan and his army finds expression in some of the coins of his reign.

For nearly two years after his election Trajan did not appear in Rome. He had decided already what the great task of his reign should be the establishment of security upon the dangerous north-eastern frontier. Before visiting the capital he determined to put affairs in train for the attainment of this great object. He made a thorough inspection of the great lines of defence between the Danube and the Rhine, and framed and partly carried out a vast scheme for strengthening and securing them. The policy of opposing uncivilized tribes by the construction of the limes, a raised embankment of earth or other material, intersected here and there by fortifications, was not his invention, but it owed in great measure its development to him. It is probable that the northernmost part of the great limes Germaniæ, from the Rhine at Rheinbrohl, nearly midway between Coblenz and Bonn, to a point on the Main east of Frankfort, where that river suddenly changes its course from north to west, was begun by Domitian. The extension of this great barrier southwards was undertaken by Trajan, though we cannot say how far he carried the work, which was not entirely completed till long after his time. The limes leaves the Main at Miltenberg, a point at which the north and south course of the river is broken by a great angle, and then follows a line generally parallel to the stream of the Neckar, till it reaches Lorch, a place between Stuttgart and Aalen. Here it meets the so-called limes Ræliæ, which trends eastward till it cuts the Danube at Kelheim, a place some distance short of Ratisbon, the ancient Castra Regina. This grand work, which would have excited the envy of Augustus, is trace able in its main extent at the present day. We may with out hesitation follow the opinion of Mommsen, who maintains that the limes was not intended, like Hadrian's wall between the Tyne and the Solway, and like the great wall of China, to oppose an absolute barrier against incursions from the outside. It was useful as marking definitely the boundary of the Roman sway, and as assuring the Romans that no inroad could be made without intelligence being had of it beforehand, while the limes itself and the system of roads behind it enabled troops to be directed rapidly to any threatened point, and the fortified positions could be held against large numbers till reinforcements arrived. Great importance was no doubt attached to the perfection of the lines of communication bearing on the limes. Among a people of road-makers, Trajan was one of the greatest, and we have definite evidence from inscriptions that some of the military roads in this region were constructed by him. The more secure control which the Romans now maintained over the territory within the limes tended to its rapid civilization, and the Roman influence, if not the Roman arms, soon began to affect powerfully the regions beyond.

After his careful survey of the Rhine end of the great defensive barrier, Trajan proceeded to consider it and plan it from the Danube. From the age of Tiberius onwards the Romans possessed the whole southern bank of the river from its source to the Euxine. But the precarious tenure of their possession had been deeply impressed on them by the disasters and humiliations they had under gone in these districts during the reign of Domitian. A prince had arisen among the Dacians, Decebalus by name, worthy to be placed at the head of all the great barbarian antagonists of Rome. Like Maroboduus, he was able to combine the forces of tribes commonly hostile to each other, and his military ability almost went the length of genius. After he had swept the province of Mcesia bare, he was defeated by one of Domitian's lieutenants, but the position of affairs on the Danubio-Rhenish border was still so threatening that the emperor was glad to conclude a treaty which conferred extraordinary advantages on his foe. Not only did the Romans stipulate to pay to Decebalus an annual subsidy, which he must have regarded as a tribute, but they agreed to supply him with engineers and craftsmen skilled in all kinds of construction, but particularly in the erection of fortifications and defensive works. During the nine or ten years which had elapsed since the conclusion of this remarkable treaty, the Dacian prince had immensely strengthened the approaches to his kingdom from the Roman side. He had also equipped and drilled his formidable army after the Roman fashion. It was impossible for a soldier like Trajan to endure the conditions laid down by Domitiau; but the conquest of Dacia had become one of the most formidable tasks that had ever confronted the empire. Trajan no doubt planned a war before he left the Danube for Rome late in 99.

The arrival of the emperor had been awaited in the capital with an impatience which is expressed by Pliny and by Martial. All that had happened since Trajan's elevation to the throne had raised high at Rome the hope of a prosperous and glorious reign. As he entered the city and went on foot to the Capitol, the plaudits of the people were unmistakably genuine. During his stay in the city he riveted more firmly still the affections both of the senate and of the people. The reconciliation of the empire with liberty, inaugurated, as Tacitus says, by Nerva, seemed now to be securely achieved. Trajan was absolutely open and simple, and lived with men at Rome as he had lived with his soldiers while on service. He