Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 1.djvu/82

 46 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS the conditions laid down by Domitian ; 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 impa- tience 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 prosper ous 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 realized the Senate's ideal of the citizen ruler. The assur- ance that no senator should suffer was renewed by oath. All the old republican formalities were most punctiliously observed even those attendant on the emperor's election to the consulate, so far as they did not involve a restoration of the old order of voting at the comitia. The veneration for republican tradi- tion is curiously attested by the reproduction of many republican types of coin struck by senatorial officers. Trajan seized every opportunity for emphasizing his view that the princeps was merely the greatest of the magistrates, arid so was not above but under the laws. He was determined, he said, to be to his subjects such a ruler as he had desired for himself when a subject. There is a pretty story to the effect that he handed the commander of the praetorians his sword, and said, " Use it for me if I do well, but against me if I do ill." Martial, who had called Domitian his lord and his god, now cried, " In him we have no lord, but an imperator ! " Real power and influence were accorded to the Senate, which had now, by the incorporation of members whose origin was provincial, become in a manner rep- resentative of the whole empire. Trajan associated with the senators on equal terms, and enjoyed in their company every kind of recreation. All pomp was distasteful to him, and discarded by him. There was practically no court, and no intrigues of any kind were possible. The approach to his house was free, and he loved to pass through the city unattended, and to pay unexpected visits to his friends. Fie thirsted for no senator's blood, and used severity against the delatores alone. There was but one insignificant conspiracy against him during his whole reign. Though not literary himself, Trajan conciliated the literary men, who at all times had close relations with the Senate. His intimate, M. Licinius, played an excellent Maecenas to his Augustus. In his efforts to win the affections of Roman society, Trajan was excellently aided by his wife Plotina, who was as simple as her husband, benevolent, pure in character, and entirely unambitious. The hold which Trajan acquired over the people was no less firm than that which he maintained upon the army and the Senate. His largesses, his distribu- tions of food, his public works, and his spectacles were all on a generous scale.