Trajan (full name Marcus Urpius Nerva Traianus marcus ulpius nerva traianus, 18 September 53 – 9 August 117), the second emperor of the Antony dynasty of the ancient Roman Empire, reigned from 98 to 117. The second of the Five Wise Emperors.
During Trajan's reign, he consolidated economic and social institutions internally, waged wars on the outside, and expanded the roman empire to the largest extent in history. For his outstanding merits, he was awarded the title of "Best Head" by the Roman Senate.
Trajan, marcus ulpius nerva traianus. 18 September 53 – 9 August 117), Roman Emperor (98–117), one of the Five Wise Emperors of the Roman Empire.
Trajan was born in Italica, Betica, Spain, and was the first Roman emperor born outside italy. During his reign, he made outstanding military achievements, which brought the territory of the Roman Empire to its peak under his rule. He once established the Pillar of Trajan to record his exploits. The Senate gave him the title of "optimus princeps".
Born into a family of military prowess in Italica, Spain, Trajan grew up with his father in the military and grew into an experienced general. His father was a descendant of Roman colonists in far Spain and his mother was Spanish. His family was wealthy and prestigious, and his father served as governor of Spain, Syria and other provinces.
In 89 AD Trajan became a commander of the legions and in 1991 he was appointed consul. For his exploits against the Germans, he was awarded the honorary title of "Germanicus". It is said that Trajan's character is kind, simple, resolute, and courageous, and he is simply a perfect person, not only deeply supported by the military, but also loved by the Roman people.
In 96 AD, the Roman Emperor Domitian, because of his long-term contempt for the Senate and serious discord with the Senate, was killed in a coup d'état, and the Flavi dynasty of the Roman Empire ended in blood.
The elderly senator Nerva was elected emperor. Despite the strong support of the Senate, Nerva lacked power and prestige in the army. In order to gain the support of the army, in the second year of his succession, he made a wise decision to select the german governor with outstanding military achievements, Trajan, 45, as his adopted son and heir. This decision not only quelled the discontent of the army, but also ushered in a new period of the Roman Empire, which began to enter a 60-year-long peace and prosperity, and the Roman Empire developed to the peak in all aspects.
In early 98 AD, Nerva died of illness, and Trajan, who was defending Cologne, was called to succeed him.
Political strategy
Trajan was born as the first Roman emperor in the province. His status as a provincial indicates a qualitative change in the position of the provincials in the ruling class. It is a symbol that the highest position in Rome is being opened to all the upper classes, whether Roman or provincial.
Trajan was universally praised both in the army and in the Senate, not only for his distinguished field marshal, but also for his charisma and his show of kindness and concern for the people.
He succeeded to the throne, and instead of returning to Rome in 98 AD to accept power, he remained in the Rhine and Danube regions for more than a year, patrolling, consolidating border defenses and planning preparations for war with Dacia. In 99 AD, Trajan returned to Rome and pursued the policy of reviving the Senate, giving the Senate a dignified status, being friendly and respectful to the Senate, and appointing members of the Senate from the eastern provinces, thus gaining the favor of the Senate and strengthening his relationship with the Senate.
Trajan reformed the local administration, appointing loyal loyalists to the provinces as governors, and improving relations between the central government and the provinces; He understood the importance of cultivating people's strength by lightening the burden on the people, and using government loans to help smallholder farmers make ends meet. In addition, he followed the approach pioneered by Nerva, in which the government set up funds in various places with a portion of the tax to support the poor orphans.
Another of Trajan's acclaimed achievements was that he encouraged and personally supervised the vigorous expansion of public works in Rome, Italy, and the provinces, such as the construction of roads, bridges, ditches, reclamation of wasteland, opening ports, and building buildings. The remains of these buildings can still be found in modern Spain, North Africa, the Balkans and Italy.
He received the title of "optimus princeps" given to him by the Senate.
Military operations
As emperor of a military empire, Trajan was famous mainly because he was the largest and last successful expander and aggressor of Rome after Caesar. His wars of foreign aggression and conquest were a great success, and the empire was expanded to an unprecedented scale.
In foreign policy, Trajan departed from the traditions of the early empires established by Augustus and instead revived the aggressive tendencies of the republican period. He ended the inaction of generations of emperors in expanding their territories. He actively carried out foreign expansion, the main purpose of which was to plunder wealth and increase the revenue of the national treasury through such wars of foreign aggression, so as to make up for the lack of taxation, to solve the shortage of funds needed for various undertakings at home, and to meet the profligacy needs of the ruling clique.
In order to meet the needs of foreign wars, he expanded the Roman legions to 30, each of which was also enlarged in size, and the auxiliary personnel fighting with the regular troops were expanded by new and various local troops, composed of non-Roman tribal and ethnic units, with their own weapons, including cavalry in armor. Trajan relied on a large army and launched a series of foreign invasion wars.
Dassian War
The kingdom of Dassia in the lower Danube was the first target of Trajan's invasion and plunder. Dacia, under the leadership of King De Caybarus, became powerful from the end of the 1st century AD and became a serious threat to the Roman Empire.
In the spring of 101 AD, after careful preparations, Trajan gathered an army of 200,000 men, divided into two routes, and sailed a boat across the Danube. Trajan personally led a large army of western roads, all the way through the primeval forest, straight to the Capital of Dasia, Salmizejetusa (present-day Valhle). The Dacians rose up to resist, inflicting great losses on the Romans.
In 102, the Romans crushed the Dacian resistance and approached the capital of Dacia, and Decabarus was forced to accept the peace treaty unconditionally and to express his eternal friendship with Rome.
In 105 AD, Decay Barus took the opportunity of the Romans to leave Dassia and resume the war. Trajan mobilized 12 legions to fight the Dasians and captured one Dasian stronghold after another. The two sides fought the most vicious bloody battle at Salmizejtusa, and Dacia, like the Carthaginians of the year, preferred to die of poison rather than be a slave to the Romans when victory was hopeless, and when Trajan entered the city, he almost entered an empty city without man. Trajan plundered a great deal of treasure. The capital of Dassia was razed to the ground.
Trajan built a huge stone bridge over the Danube and incorporated Dacia into Rome as a new roman province.
Trajan established numerous Roman settlements on the north bank of the Danube. The descendants of these settlements still call themselves Romanians and their country Romania, all of which are derived from the term Roman.
The conquest of Dassia not only eliminated a formidable enemy and stabilized the lower Danube region, but also acquired great wealth and land, which financed Trajan's grand public construction. In Rome, Trajan announced a 123-day festival to celebrate victory in the Dassian War. Spending such a long time to celebrate the victory of a war is unique in ancient and modern Chinese and foreign history.
Parthian War
Subsequently, Trajan pointed the spearhead of aggression at Asia and engaged partate with Parthia. Since the middle of the first century BC, Parthia has been a fierce enemy of the Roman Empire, with constant wars and changing borders between the two countries. Trajan, on the one hand, was dissatisfied that the eastern border of Rome was confined to the upper Euphrates; The other side, sith, tempted by the riches and vast lands of Parthia, was eager to follow in the footsteps of Alexander the Great and annex the country, and as early as 105, as a preparation for the war with Parthian, Trajan sent an army to occupy the kingdom of Nabata in northern Arabia, took control of the main route of eastern trade, and set up a new province here, the Arab Province.
In 110 AD, the Parthians took control of Armenia, deposing the king who had originally supported Rome and establishing a new one. The battle for Armenia became the fuse for the two countries to fight. In 114 AD, Trajan sent troops to occupy Armenia, deposing the Parthian king and declaring Armenia a new province of Rome to be incorporated into the Roman map. This effortless victory stimulated Tula's desire to expand, and he decided to continue eastward and occupy all of Mesopotamia. The Roman army marched in two directions, reaching the Tigris and Euphrates rivers at the same time and occupying Upper Mesopotamia.
In 116 AD, the Roman army marched south along the Tigris River and occupied the parthian capital, Ctesiphon. At the end of the year, Trajan's army arrived in the Persian Gulf, the first and last time the Roman army arrived in the Persian Gulf, and Trajan was the only Roman commander to arrive here.
Here, facing the sea, Trajan was touched by the feelings, tearful that he was too old to repeat Alexander's conquest of India. However, when he visited the ruins of the city of Babylon and saw the place where Alexander died 440 years ago, he exclaimed differently: "The only pile of garbage, stones and ruins is all that is famous." ”
He incorporated the newly occupied areas into Rome, where the provinces of Mesopotamia and Assyria were established. [4] His fleet ravaged towns along the Arabian coast, and Trajan boasted that his forces had almost reached Indian soil.
After a series of expansions by Trajan, the Roman Empire expanded to its maximum extent. It stretches from the Two Rivers Basin in the east, most of Britain in the west, Egypt and North Africa in the south, the Rhine river in the north and Dacia north of the Danube.