V

NERVA AND TRAJAN

III.

PUBLIC WORKS, FINANCE, SOCIAL POLICY

 

In his third oration on kingship Dio Chrysostom concludes his account of the ideal ruler by the following summary of his activities; “he reviews an army, subdues a province, founds a city, bridges rivers and builds roads”. Trajan's military career must be the subject of a separate chapter: but a survey of the administration of one who earned a reputation as a great builder may fairly begin with his public works. At Rome, the early years were not spectacular. Pliny describes the Emperor as parcus in aedificando; though it is true that he is referring mainly to private building for imperial use, of which Domitian had been lavish. But beyond the vague mention of porticus and delubra he can find nothing to record except the well-known restoration and extension of the Circus Maximus. It is possible that the repair of the temple of Augustus, which is mainly, if not entirely, Domitian's work, was not completed till 303: and tolerably certain that a temple of Nerva was at least begun by  100. Coins of 100 show a triumphal arch, which is now generally identified with the so-called Arch of Drusus on the Via Appia, of which it perhaps commemorated the partial reconstruction completed in this year, just as the arch at Beneventum later marked the Via Traiana. The other undertakings for which an early date is confirmed were of a more general utility. The series of terminal stones of the years 101 and 103 bear witness to fresh activity in the department of the curator alvei et riparum Tiberis, and in the former year for the first time the addition a cloacarum urbis is found in the title of the curator. The danger to Rome from flood, which was the special concern of this office, was further met by the construction of a canal to carry off the floodwater; its precise date and locality, however, are still uncertain. Meanwhile a similar energy was shown by the office of the cura aquarum. Besides minor improvements, the Anio Novus was extended at its source to tap fresh and better supplies, and the Marcia within the city in order to serve the Aventine. These changes initiated by Nerva were completed in the early years of Trajan's reign.

But the greater part by far of his work in Rome belongs to the period between the Dacian and Parthian wars. In 109 the Baths on the Oppian, the Aqua Traiana, and the Naumachia were dedicated and opened to public use. For the first of these Trajan's great architect Apollodorus used a space adjoining the Baths of Titus on the site of the former domus aurea of Nero; the Naumachia were probably situated on the right bank of the Tiber near the castle of S. Angelo and fed by the Aqua Traiana, which brought water from the lake of Bracciano to serve mainly the industrial quarter of Trastevere. Other baths, adjoining his house on the Aventine, were bequeathed to the Roman people by Licinius Sura on his death about 110. In 113 the temple of Venus in the Forum of Caesar was re-opened; but a theatre in the Campus Martius which Hadrian is said to have pulled down probably never got beyond an early stage of construction. All these works were, however, dwarfed by the great Forum Traiani, the largest and most splendid of the imperial Fora, and the marvel of succeeding ages, which was dedicated by Trajan in January, 112. The complete group of buildings filled a space some five times as great as the Forum of Augustus, and contained the Basilica Ulpia, two libraries, the Column of Trajan and the temple of Trajan and Plotina, erected by Hadrian. The architect of the group was Apollodorus. The forum itself, rectangular in shape, was surrounded on three sides by a Marble colonnade pierced on the south-east by an entrance arch which was still in process of construction during the Parthian wars. On the long sides it was flanked by semicircular courts built against and into the slope of the Capitoline and Quirinal hills. For the buildings which surrounded these courts considerable excavation was necessary, and it is probably this work which was proclaimed in the dedicatory inscription at the base of the column. The column itself, 100 feet high and of Parian marble, was entirely covered by a spiral frieze commemorating the Dacian wars; it was surmounted by a statue of the Emperor, and afterwards housed his ashes.

The communications of Italy, both external and internal, were one of Trajan’s main concerns in his attempt to buttress her economic structure; and here, too, a similar distinction between the earlier and later parts of his reign is apparent. The re-making of the Via Appia, begun by Nerva, was continued and by 100 was completed co as far as the 48th milestone at Forum Appii. From this point the difficulties were more serious and further work was postponed. Milestones also record repairs on the Via Aemilia in 100, Puteolana in 102 (begun by Nerva), Sublacensis in 103-5 and Latina in 105 (restoration of a bridge over the Liris). More substantial work was undertaken after the Dacian wars. The Via Appia was completed by the building of a sound road through the Pomptine marshes, the stretch from Forum Appii to Terracina, in 11o. The Via Salaria was repaired in 111, the Latina further in 115, and a bridge on the Flaminia in the same year. In 108 a series of improvements was carried out on the Clodian-Cassian group of roads leading through Etruria; these alterations bore the title of Tres Traianae or Traiana Nova. Of greater significance, however, was the Via Traiana itself and the harbours which Trajan built on both coasts of Italy. The Via Traiana diverged from the Appia at Beneventum and ran through Canossa and Bari to Brindisi. A road here had existed since Republican times, but it was now entirely re-made and perhaps first numbered among the public roads of Italy at this time. The milestones, of which some thirty have been found, bear the date 109. Of the harbours, that of Ostia, which alone is represented on the coins, was the most important. Trajan's work here was an extension and improvement of that of Claudius, which still failed to provide adequate shelter for shipping. An interior basin was excavated, hexagonal in shape, and surrounded with buildings; and round the two harbours, the Claudian and the Trajanic, a town grew up and ultimately became independent of Ostia, which itself shows traces of Trajanic work. Farther north new harbours at Centumcellae and Ancona, built after the Dacian wars, filled a need on both western and eastern coasts; the dedicatory arch at Ancona, of AD 115, bears words which echo the purpose of all Trajan's work in Italy. Of rather less importance was a similar restoration at Terracina, connected with the earlier phase of the work on the Via Appia. Between 115-7 reclamation was undertaken on the shores of the Fucine lake, and the Claudian drainage system was probably overhauled; and undated traces of fresh work or repairs to aqueducts are recorded from various parts of the peninsulas.

The wealth of public buildings in the provinces reflects no doubt the influence of Trajan's example; but to determine his actual share is another matter. For not every dedication—in Trajan's case they were legion—marks gratitude for a particular beneficence.

The Bithynian letters of Pliny show how forward the Greek cities were themselves in building, and much was due also to private donors who would generally include the emperor in their dedications. We stand indeed on the threshold of an age of unparalleled generosity, in which rich men counted it an honor to spend money for the service of their city. This public spirit was directly fostered by the emperors, by example, exhortation and edict. Nerva made it legal for cities to receive legacies; Trajan enacted that what a man promised to his city he must perform, and the obligation descended to his heir. Where Trajan was himself concerned, his motive, as in Italy, was public utility—roads, bridges, harbors, aqueducts. Milestones bear witness to roadmaking in nearly every province, and their dates permit some narrower conclusions. In Spain, for example, they are especially numerous and early (98-105; but mostly 98-100). They reflect no doubt Trajan's interest in the land of his origin, and probably still more the needs which he had observed as a legionary legate under Domitian. Some roads, notably those from Asturica to Emerita (98-9) and to Caesaraugusta (100) seem to have been entirely re-made. It is clear that orders to repair the Spanish road system were among the first which he issued as emperor.

The stones from the German provinces date from instructions given before his return to Rome in 99; the Numidian roads belong mostly to 100—i and 104-5 and are a corollary of the founding of Thamugadi, the encirclement of the Aures and the removal of the camp of leg. III Augusta to Lambaesis within this period. The work in Cappadocia was a continuation of that of the Flavians and Nerva; in Arabia, Dacia and Mesopotamia  it was the natural result of annexation and this applies indirectly to the other Danube provinces. The rest seems on the present evidence to have been merely the answer to general instructions to see that the efficiency of the roads was maintained. Among other works the great bridges at Drobetae over the Danube, built by Apollodorus about 104, and at Alcantara over the Tagus by Julius Lacer in 105 take precedence over others near Simitthu in Africa, in Spain and elsewhere; aqueducts are recorded at Iader in Dalmatia, Miletus, Smyrna, Antioch, and in Arabia and Egypt, and harbour works at Ephesus: in Egypt an old canal between the Nile and Red Sea  was reopened to traffic, and acquired the name of Trajan's river.

The private enterprise of the period, where it can be dated, belongs mainly to the period between the Dacian and Parthian wars, no doubt fulfilling many vows undertaken for the Emperor's success in Dacia.

Something more drastic, however, than the mere improvement of communications was needed to restore the prosperity of Italy and to enable her to maintain her position of supremacy within the empire; and the dominant character of the measures now inaugurated was an interest in the rising generation. The creation of trust funds for child maintenance was not a new thing in the Roman world.

At least as early as the principate of Claudius or Nero, one T. Helvius Basila had provided a sum of 400,000 sesterces for maintenance grants at Atina and for the presentation of 1000 sesterces to each child on coming of age: and it is likely that under the Flavians there were similar private benefactions of which no record has survived. It may indeed have been in Domitian's time that the younger Pliny made his provision for the people of Comum. His method was to saddle an estate of his, worth half a million sesterces or more, with a perpetual charge of 30,000 a year; and this sum, paid annually to the local authority, was to be distributed in alimenta to free-born boys and girls. The adoption of such a scheme by the State was one of Nerva's remedial measures for Italy undertaken in AD 97. The details and progress of his plan, however, are unknown, and the first local evidence belongs to the principate of Trajan.

In AD 101 a grant was made to the Ligures Baebiani near Beneventum, and in the same year the citizens of Florence co-opted T. Pomponius Bassus as a patron of their municipality in return for the way in which he had carried out similar duties as a commissioner in their district. Pomponius re-appears in the so-called Table of Veleia, which supplies fuller evidence of the system employed. The Fiscus provided the funds in the form of credit to local landowners, who charged certain of their estates in return with a perpetual interest of 5 p.c. on the sum received from the fiscus: this interest was used for maintenance grants to local children in need. The scale of payments has been preserved: boys received more than girls, sixteen sesterces a month against twelve, and more than seven times as many were supported; such details, subject to a general recommendation from the government, were perhaps left to local initiative. The children of Rome were also assisted by enrolment in the lists of those qualified to receive the distributions of free corn within the city, and by AD 100 some five thousand had already been enrolled. Pliny underlines the object of these grants, the encouragement of free Roman citizens to beget and bring up children, the spes Romani nominis. His special reference is to the City, but his sentiments have a wider application, and they find an echo in the monuments and on the coins of the reign. Already in the earlier years (but after 103) the Spes issue, both by Senate and princeps, refers to the hopes which were founded on the alimentary system, but from 108 onwards, Trajan's decennial year, when the first generation of recipients was already growing to manhood, the coins celebrate the scheme more directly in the series stamped ALIM(ENTATIO) ITAL(IAE) and ITAL(IA) REST(ITUTA), and in both it is the assistance to children which the design emphasizes. Two reliefs from the arch of Beneventum and one from a balustrade in the Forum Romanum illustrate the same theme.

The united testimony of the evidence, written, sculptural, and numismatic, compels the inference that the main purpose of the alimentary scheme was the encouragement of population. But whether convenience was the only reason for the form of security chosen is more questionable. If the loans made to farmers were on easier terms than they could otherwise obtain, the system also provided valuable assistance to Italian agriculture. The rate of interest given on the Baebian table is 2’1/5 per cent., which is of course inordinately low, but it is possible that this represents a half-yearly payment; a 5 per cent. rate is quoted at Veleia. Even this, however, the farmers may have been glad to accept; Pliny's thirty thousand on an estate worth half a million indicates a rate of 6 per cent. and some Veleian landowners may indeed have found it difficult to obtain money on any practicable terms. This is, however, a conjecture based on the assumption that depression in Italian agriculture was widespread. The evidence of Pliny's letters and further enactments of Trajan indeed suggest that in certain districts at least this was so, and the absence of a proper circulation of capital was perhaps partly to blame. In that event, the provision of what amounted to cheap agricultural credits was an additional and important merit of the scheme. A rather different view would see here an attempt, concurrently with the effort to check depopulation, to restore the cultivation of the soil, and the evidence of early imperial grants comes from areas where saltus predominated. It is plain that some at least of the Veleian loans were taken up by rich men who could easily have raised capital in the open market, and it is possible that the credits were earmarked for land reclamation, and that direct encouragement was given to farmers to undertake this service to the community. The provisions of the Henchir Mettich inscription show Trajan's keenness on such work in his own African estates. The progress of the distribution was gradual, nor was the scheme fully developed even locally at first. Either, as seems probable, the fiscus was enabled after the Dacian wars to provide funds on a more generous scale, or if the plan was made to depend on the willingness of the local farmers to accept the loans, the demand increased as its advantages were perceived or greater pressure was brought to bear. If the whole of Italy was provided for, the cost to the government must have been enormous; but in some places it was relieved by private generosity and no doubt the most necessitous areas were dealt with first. The expense of organization appears to have been borne by the local authority; at least at Veleia the whole of the cash returns were absorbed in the distributions themselves, and from now onwards the title of quaestor alimentorum appears among the local officials. A general control was, however, maintained by the central government, which delegated the duties where possible to the senatorial curators of the public roads.

If, among Trajan's measures for the recovery of Italy, alimenta and public works took pride of place, they did not stand alone. The obligation enforced on senators to have at least one-third of their capital invested in Italian land had the effect of at any rate temporarily raising the value of such property, though it is doubtful whether this was the Emperor's primary motive for the order. Some Italian cities were probably reinforced by settlements of veterans and it is possible that emigration from Italy was forbidden. Finally an attempt was made to check the mis­management of their own affairs by Italian cities by the appointment of special curators.

In the further assistance from the relief of certain taxes, the provincials as well as the Italians shared. The aurum coronarium, a provincial contribution on the accession of a new princeps, was remitted; and with a similar aim certain reliefs seem to have been made in the compulsory services and contributions levied from the provincials. The Fiscus also renounced its claim to the goods of those condemned to relegation, and the virtual abolition of trials for maiestas deprived it of what had whether by accident or design been in the past a steady source of income. The exemptions from the succession duty which Nerva had made were further extended. Sons were now free whether in patria potestate or not, as were fathers, grand-parents and brothers. The minimum was raised and certain deductions allowed for in arriving at the net figure for assessment; and lastly the provisions were made retrospective, thus absolving a large number of recent heirs from accumulated debt. It is this, perhaps, which is commemorated on the second of the two balustrades in the Forum Romanum.

The citizens of Rome itself were the recipients of even greater indulgence. Pliny's emphasis in the Panegyric is proof of Trajan's concern with the proper working of the corn supply. The additional granaries of Nerva and his programme of public works had this end in view, and it was furthered by Trajan's improvements at Ostia. Meanwhile the situation was not such as to prevent him from relieving a serious famine in Egypt in 99 by calling on the accumulated grain reserves in Rome. Special concessions were made to the bakers of the city, who were besides allowed to form a college (no doubt under close supervision) and the transporters may have received some though not all of these privileges. The admission of children to the corn distributions and congiaria has already been mentioned; the sum total of the latter, however, rose under Trajan to an unprecedented height, though even this was surpassed by later emperors. Trajan gave at least three congiaria, the first on his return to Rome in 99, the second and third in 102 and 107 after his two Dacian wars. The normal sum distributed on such occasions was 75 denarii a head to those qualified for grant, and the silence of Pliny proves that this sum was not exceeded in 99. The total of Trajan's generosity reached the figure, according to our only authority, of 65o denarii; but the first two distributions are recorded only in the senatorial coinage, while the third is accompanied by a special imperial issue with the motif of Liberalitas. It is a reasonable assumption that this, celebrating the final victory over Dacia and its annexation, completes the series and was of extraordinary size: the figures ran perhaps 75 in 99 and 102 and 500 in 107.

It is usual to condemn the congiaria off-hand as an unwarran­table indulgence to the pampered populace of Rome; there is, however, something to be said on the other side. The prevalence of poverty in Rome is an undeniable fact, and it is likely that it was amongst the free-born citizens that it was most widespread. The revival of land-allotment, which Nerva had attempted, had fatal practical objections, the monthly dole was a palliative and provided no permanent solution, while the small congiaria previously distributed were little better, welcome as no doubt they were. A substantial outright grant, however, if wisely expended, would enable many to rise above subsistence level, and like the alimenta it represented the hope of creating a population eventually independent of public charity. But if the figure given be correct, the cost would absorb some two-thirds of a year's total state revenue, and it must next be considered whether the state of the imperial exchequer could justify so large an expenditure at this time.

The bulk of expenditure so far recorded follows the Dacian wars. It is highly unlikely that any of the great works finished in 108-113 was begun before 10: without delays such as strikes and under the present direction of an eager author they would, certainly be pushed on quickly. Their completion was signalized in nearly every case by extensive games, of which the new fragments of the Fasti Ostienses have provided some particulars. Dio relates that on Trajan's return to Rome in 107 public entertainments were held over a period of 123 days in which ten thousand gladiators took part and eleven thousand animals were killed. The celebrations of the next five years were scarcely less lavish. We know too little of the expense of the games to estimate the total cost with any accuracy: but it is noteworthy that in the eight exhibitions given by Augustus during his principate at different times, a total of about 10,000 gladiators took part. This figure was equalled by Trajan in the games of 107 alone, and between 1o6 and 114 over 23,000 performers appear to have fought. The Emperor, whose favorite recreation was hunting, was notoriously fond of the games and his exhibitions no doubt added to his popularity; and besides these displays ludi Herculei were instituted at Rome, and founders of provincial games might be sure of the Emperor's approval.

This orgy of spending from 107 onwards, on buildings, games, congiaria (and probably a donative) and alimenta suggests very powerfully the recent acquisition of much ready money; and there is evidence available to confirm the suggestion. In the de Magistratibus Johannes Lydus quotes Trajan's doctor, T. Statilius Crito, who accompanied him to Dacia, for the statement that Trajan brought back 5 million pounds weight of gold, the double of silver, besides a prodigious quantity of other plunder and over 500,000 very bellicose prisoners with their arms. Crito is good authority, but these figures are frankly impossible; a simple palaeographical error has however been alleged for their multiplication tenfold in transmission. Divided by ten, the results are still striking. The fifty thousand warlike prisoners may easily have provided for the shows; and in effect Trajan had received in addition a cash windfall of the value of 225o million sesterces in gold alone, together with about 43o million in silver (on the existing standard) besides the worth of the other articles. This total, of at least 2700 million sesterces, is considerably greater than the whole sum of disbursements recorded by Augustus in the Res Gestae, and the expenditure of Trajan in the following years sinks into proportion. Further, there was reason to expect a permanent rise in the income from the Dacian mines, which were at once re-opened under the surveillance of imperial officials: The acquisition of so great an amount of gold and the prospect of a steady fresh supply caused a dislocation in the exchange relations of the two precious metals. A papyrus seems to show that in Egypt between 107-112 the price of gold fell in terms of silver by about 4 per cent., and the prefect was asked to adjust the rate of exchange between the drachma and the aureus. This represents a very large fall, but it gains support from the increase at about this time of the alloy in the denarius from 10 to 15 per cent. There remain a few items of expenditure of which the date is still uncertain. Chief among these are the two legions XXX Ulpia and II Traiana, which it is natural to suppose were raised for the Dacian wars, though a later date is not impossible: the double annexation of Dacia and Arabia would need fresh garrisons. The new auxiliaries were all raised after the wars; as for the equites singulares, if they were not a corps already instituted by the Flavians, their introduction by Trajan belongs probably to the early years.

The balance of evidence does in fact mark 107 as the turning-point in the financial history of the reign. Trajan inherited from Nerva if not an actual deficit at least the prospect of financial difficulty once the reserve of Domitian's confiscations had been spent: he inherited also a new programme of Italian reconstruction. It was important to maintain confidence until new sources of revenue could be tapped, and this he achieved. Certain economies were effected. The donative to the troops was halved, the congiarium postponed for eighteen months. The renunciation of aurum coronarium was perhaps a necessity, since it had presumably been paid only a little over a year before. The schemes for Italian reconstruction went on slowly: but meanwhile an impression of security was being given; and with 107 an era of prosperity dawned for the fiscus. It did not set in Trajan's lifetime. His Eastern wars were no doubt costly and perhaps bore heavily on the provinces behind the frontier; Hadrian's decision to renounce the territory annexed gave no chance for the conquests to pay for themselves: the Jewish revolt had devastated large areas even within the empire: yet it is on the whole to a prosperous world and a fair financial outlook that Hadrian succeeded.

The remaining legislation, which is here grouped together without special regard to the forms of particular enactments, is marked on the whole by humanity and a desire for efficiency and dispatch in the discharge of business. In criminal procedure, the conduct of trials was accelerated; possessors of bona vacantia could save half their illegal gains by confession (part of an attempt to check informers); anonymous accusations and leading questions were forbidden; defendants condemned in absence had a right to a retrial; and a special warning was issued against conviction in any case where the least doubt remained. On the other hand the existing practice of torture for servile witnesses was extended and, in the case of a master murdered in his own house, those whom he had freed during his life-time might be tortured along with his slaves and testamentary freedmen. Looking further afield, Trajan laid down that a parent who had maltreated his son must emancipate him and lost all rights over his inheritance, and that free-born children exposed at birth and brought up by the finder could claim their freedom without repaying the cost of their maintenance. He also tightened the regulations of the tutela in the interests of minors and others subject to its provisions. The use of false weights was made punishable by relegation. A law was passed against ambitus, limiting the expenses of candidates for office. An advance in the matter of fides-commissary manumission was marked by the S. C. Rubrianum which provided that if an heir did not obey the wishes of the testator and failed to appear when the slave applied to the praetor the slave was freed and the heir lost the rights of patronage; certain anomalies which arose from the working of this decree were subsequently rectified in the reign of Hadrian. However, if a Latin obtained full citizenship directly without his patron's consent, he lost his testamentary rights. In view of the recurrent difficulties about the wills of soldiers, which were often technically invalidated by the ignorance of the testator, Trajan decided that the wishes of the soldiers where they could be ascertained, must be paramount and flaws in drafting overlooked. By another answer, however, he laid down that public holidays were no concern of the army. A further significant reply dealt with the practice of mutilating children to prevent them from being called up for levies; this no doubt belongs to one of the war periods. Lastly the well-known decision in the case of the Christians  reflects a genuine endeavour to strike a compromise between discipline and humanitarianism.

 

IV. IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION