418 



ROMAN EMPIRE. 



Roman 

 Empire. 



Trajan 

 overcomes 

 the Da- 



. eians. 



A. . 103. 



.A. D. 



Persecutes 

 the Christ- 

 ians. 

 A. D. 114. 



given him, he lived in the most simple and unassum- 

 ing manner. He performed long marches on foot 

 along with his troops, and shared with them all the 

 dangers and fatigues of war. He knew all the old 

 soldiers by their own names, and conversed with them 

 in the most familiar manner. Before he retired to 

 rest he inspected the camp personally, and convinced 

 himself of the vigilance of his sentinels and the secu- 

 rity of his army. To these qualities as a soldier, he 

 added the most amiable modesty and mildness of dis- 

 position, and he united in his character all those moral 

 and intellectual qualifications, and all that experience 

 in war and personal bravery which history generally 

 records as the gifts of many different individuals. His 

 personal appearance corresponded with the symmetry 

 of his mind ; and when he entered Rome in the vigour 

 of manhood, he inspired his subjects with a respect 

 and admiration which they never ceased to attach to 

 his name. 



Trajan had no sooner ascended the throne, than he 

 was called upon to check the insolence of the Dacians, 

 who had ravaged the Roman empire during the reign 

 of Domitian, and who now claimed from the Roman 

 people a tribute which the cowardice of that emperor 

 had induced him to offer. At the head of a powerful 

 army Trajan marched towards Dacia, and overawed 

 the barbarians by his sudden appearance upon their 

 frontier. The treaty, however, into which they were 

 thus compelled to enter, was speedily broken by their 

 king Decebalus. After throwing a bridge over the 

 Danube, Trajan entered Dacia, and brought Decebalus 

 to a general action, in which the Dacian army was 

 completely routed ; and their king, despairing of success, 

 put himself to death. In this battle, which reduced 

 Dacia to a Roman province, the slaughter was so great, 

 that linen was wanted in the Roman camp to dress the 

 wounds of the soldiers. On the return of Trajan to 

 Italy he entered the capital in triumph, and the re- 

 joicings for the victories were continued for 120 days. 



The duties of peace now demanded the attention of 

 Trajan. He erected many public works; he opened 

 communications between the different parts of his pro- 

 vinces ; he established many colonies, and he laid up 

 stores of corn and provisions to save the capital from 

 the calamities of famine. In order to commemorate 

 his victories, Apollodorus erected the magnificent co- 

 lumn which still exists at Rome under the name of 

 Trajan's column. Unfortunately for the future re- 

 putation of this great emperor, he was persuaded about 

 the 9th year of his reign to harbour a dislike of his 

 Christian subjects. His regard for the national reli- 

 gion, and a law which had been enacted against so- 

 cieties that dissented from it, induced him to sanction 

 those cruelties which form a blot upon his name, and 

 which we have already described in our article EC- 

 CLESIASTICAL HISTORY. The Armenians and Parth- 

 ians having about this time thrown off the Roman yoke, 

 Trajan marched into Armenia, which had been aban- 

 doned by its sovereign, and having taken possession 

 of the kingdom, and captured the king himself, he 

 marched into the Parthian territories, where he obtained 

 the most signal successes ; and after conquering Syria 

 and Chaldea, he took possession of Babylon itself. The 

 enemy made a stand when he reached the Euphrates ; 

 but having caused boats to be constructed in the ad- 

 jacent mountains during the night, he brought them 



* See ADBIAN, Vol. I. p. 150. 



suddenly to the river side, and crossed his army in the Roman 

 face of the enemy, who disputed the passage with un- ^ m P ire - 

 usual vigour. Quitting the Euphrates, he traversed ^^-Y 

 countries which had never been trodden by the foot Trajan's 

 of a Roman soldier; and he seems to have taken a pe- f x P e( lt'n 

 culiar delight in following that line of march which ^ t! 

 Alexanderhad pursued beforehim. He crossed the rapid Cd 

 Tigris, and took the city of Ctesiphon, and after sub- 

 jugating the districts of Persia bordering on that river, 

 he marched in a southerly direction towards the Per- 

 sian Gulph, where he subdued the sovereign of a ter- 

 ritory formed by the channels of the Tigris. The in- 

 clemency of the weather and the inundations of the 

 river had nearly cut off his army ; and suffering from 

 the seal-city of provisions, and experiencing the infir- 

 mities of age, he returned along the Gulph of Persia, 

 ' with the view of punishing that kingdom, which had 

 revolted during his absence. He began this war of 

 vengeance by laying Edessa, in Mesapotamia, in ashes; 

 and he not only reconquered all the revoked states, 

 but he added to the Roman empire many of the richest 

 kingdoms of Asia. Having met with a repulse before 

 the city of Atra in Arabia, Trajan concluded that the 

 time had now arrived for limiting his conquests, and 

 putting them under proper management. Returning 

 to Ctesiphon, he crowned Parthamaspates king of 

 Persia. He gave a king to the country of Albania 

 near the Caspian, and he placed governors and lieu- 

 tenants in the other provinces. Having resolved to 

 return to Italy, he left Adrian in the command of all 

 his forces in the east, and advanced towards Rome, 

 where the most splendid preparations were made to 

 adorn his triumph. Exhausted, however, with the 

 fatigues of war, he was taken ill in the province of 

 Cilicia, and finding himself unable to travel any far- 

 ther, he was carried to Selinus, where he died of a Detth of 

 flux in the 64th year of his age and the 20th of his Trjan. 

 reign. His ashes were carried to Rome and deposited A. D. 117 

 under the lofty column which bears his name. During 

 his indisposition at Selinus, he was constantly attend- 

 ed by his wife Plotina, who, from a knowledge of 

 her husband's dislike to Adrian, is supposed to have 

 forged the will in which that general was appointed his 

 successor. 



Adrian, who was introduced to the Roman armies Adrian sue 

 by Plotina as the adopted son of her husband, was ceeds to the 

 descended of a Spanish family, and was born at Seville, empire. 

 the native place of Trajan. He abandoned the East- 

 ern conquests of Trajan, and limited the Roman em- 

 pire by the Euphrates. He returned to Rome in 

 the year 118 ; and after a reign of twenty years, he A. D. 118. 

 died of a dropsy in 138. A full account of the events 

 of his reign has already been given in our account of 

 his life.* 



Adrian was succeeded in the empire by Marcus An- Marcus 

 tonius Pius, whom he had adopted some time before Antoniu* 

 his death. His reign, which lasted twenty-eight Pius chosen 

 years, was marked with few striking events ; but it eni P eror ^ 

 will be ever distinguished in the annals of Rome by the A ' ll 

 public and private virtues which exalted his character. 

 He died of a fever in the seventy-fifth year of his age, A. D. 161. 

 and the twenty-third of his reign, the distinguishing 

 events of which have been already detailed in our bio- 

 graphical account of him. t ,, 



This excellent emperor was succeeded by his son-in- Aurelhis 

 law, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who had married his chosen em- 



perur. 



t See ANTONINUS Pius, Vol. II. p. 222. 

 6 



