Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/525

Rh legate in the provinces of Bithynia and Pontus, and in constant communication with Trajan. The correspondence is extant, and gives us the means of observing the principles and tendencies of the emperor as a civil governor.

The provinces (hitherto senatorial) were in considerable disorder, which Pliny was sent to cure. It is clear from the emperor's letters that in regard to nine out of ten of the matters which his anxious and deferential legate referred to him for his decision he would have been better pleased if the legate had decided them for him self. Trajan's notions of civil government were, like those of the duke of Wellington, strongly tinged with military prepossessions. He regarded the provincial ruler as a kind of officer in command, who ought to be able to discipline his province for himself, and only to appeal to the commander-in-chief in a difficult case. In advising Pliny about the different free communities in the provinces, Trajan showed the same regard for traditional rights and privileges which he had exhibited in face of the senate at Rome. At the same time, these letters bring home to us his conviction that, particularly in financial affairs, it was necessary that local self-government should be carried on under the vigilant super vision of imperial officers. The control which he began in this way to exercise, both in Italy and in the provinces, over the "municipia" and "libers civitates," by means of agents entitled (then or later) "correctores civitatium liberarum," was carried continually farther and farther by his successors, and at last ended in the complete centralization of the government. On this account the reign of Trajan constitutes a turning point in civil as in military history. In other directions, though we find many salutary civil measures, yet there were no far-reaching schemes of reform. Many details in the administration of the law, and particularly of the criminal law, were improved. To cure corruption in the senate the ballot was introduced at elections to magistracies. The finances of the state were economically managed, and taxpayers were most carefully guarded from oppression. Trajan never lacked money to expend on great works of public utility; as a builder, he may fairly be compared with Augustus. His forum and its numerous appendages were constructed on a magnificent scale. Many regions of Italy and the provinces besides the city itself benefited by the care and munificence which the emperor bestowed on such public improvements. His attitude towards religion was, like that of Augustus, moderate and conservative. The famous letter to Pliny about the Christians is, according to Roman ideas, merciful and considerate. It was impossible, however, for a Roman magistrate of the time to rid himself of the idea that all forms of religion must do homage to the civil power. Hence the conflict which made Trajan appear in the eyes of Christians like Tertullian the most infamous of monsters. On the whole, Trajan's civil administration was sound, careful, and sensible, rather than brilliant or epoch-making.

In 113 or 114 Trajan left Italy to make var in the East. The never-ending Parthian problem confronted him, and with it were more or less connected a number of minor difficulties. Already by 106 the position of Rome in the East had been materially improved by the peaceful annexation of districts bordering on the province of Syria. The district of Damascus, hitherto a dependency, and the last remaining fragment of the Jewish kingdom, were incorporated with Syria; Bostra and Petra were permanently occupied, and a great portion of the Nabathaean kingdom was constituted the Roman province of Arabia. Rome thus obtained mastery of the most important positions lying on the great trade routes from East to West. These changes could not but affect the relations of the Roman with the Parthian empire, and the affairs of Armenia be came in 114 the occasion of a war which has been described under PERSIA, vol. xviii. p. 603. Trajan's campaigns in the East ended in complete though brilliant failure. In the retreat from Ctesiphon (117) the old emperor tasted for almost the first time the bitterness of defeat in the field. He attacked the desert city of Hatra, westward of the Tigris, whose importance is still attested by grand ruins. The want of water made it impossible to maintain a large force near the city, and the brave Arabs routed the Roman cavalry. Trajan, who narrowly escaped being killed, was forced to withdraw. A more alarming difficulty lay before him. Taking advantage of the absence of the emperor in the far East, and possibly by an understanding with the leaders of the rising in Armenia and the annexed portions of Parthia, the Jews all over the East had taken up arms at the same moment, and at a given signal. The massacres they committed were portentous. In Cyprus 240,000 men are said to have been put to death, and at Cyrene 220,000. At Alexandria, on the other hand, many Jews were killed. The Romans punished massacre by massacre, and the complete suppression of the insurrection was long delayed, but the Jews made no great stand against disciplined troops. Trajan still thought of returning to Mesopotamia, and of avenging his defeat at Hatra, but he was stricken with sickness and compelled to take ship for Italy. His illness increasing, he landed in Cilicia, and died at Selinus in that country about the end of July 117. Trajan, who had no children, had continually delayed to settle the succession to the throne, though Pliny in the " Panegyric " had pointedly drawn his attention to the matter, and it must have caused the senate much anxiety. Whether Hadrian, the cousin of Trajan, was actually adopted by him or not is impossible to determine; certainly Hadrian had not been advanced to any great honours by Trajan. Even his military service had not been distinguished. Plotina asserted the adoption, and it was readily and most fortunately accepted, if not believed, as a fact.

The senate had decreed to Trajan as many triumphs as he chose to celebrate. For the first time a dead general triumphed. When Trajan was deified, he appropriately retained, alone among the emperors, a title he had won for himself in the field, that of "Parthicus." He was a patient organizer of victory rather than a strategic genius. He laboriously perfected the military machine, which when once set in motion went on to victory. Much of the work he did was great and enduring, but the last year of his life forbade the Romans to attribute to him that felicitas which they regarded as an inborn quality of the highest generals. Each succeeding emperor was saluted with the wish that he might be " better than Trajan and more fortunate than Augustus." Yet the breach made in Trajan's felicitas by the failure in the East was no greater than that made in the felicitas of Augustus by his retirement from the right bank of the Rhine. The question whether Trajan's Oriental policy was wise is answered emphatically by Mommsen in the affirmative. It was certainly wise if the means existed which were necessary to carry it out and sustain it. But succeeding history proved that those means did not exist. The assertion of Mommsen that the Tigris was a more defensible frontier than the desert line which separated the Parthian from the Roman empire can hardly be accepted. The change would certainly have created a demand for more legions, which the resources of the Romans were not sufficient to meet without danger to their possessions on other frontiers.

The records of Trajan's reign are miserably deficient. Our best authority is the 68th book of Dio Cassius; then comes the "Panegyric" of Pliny, with his correspondence. The facts to be gathered from other ancient writers are scattered and scanty. Fortunately the inscriptions of the time are abundant and important. Of modern histories which comprise the reign of Trajan the best in English is that of Merivale; but that in German by H. Schiller (Geschichte der romischcn Kaiscrzeit, Gotha, 1883) is more on a level with recent inquiries. There are special works on Trajan by H. Francke (Gustrow, 1837), De la Berge (Paris, 1877), and Dierauer (in M. Btidinger's Untersuchungen zur romischen Kaisergcschichtc, Leipsic, 1868). A paper by Mommsen in Hermes, iii. pp. 30 sq., entitled " Zur Lebensgeschichte des jiingeren Plinius," is important for the chronology of Trajan's reign.

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