VI

THE WARS OF TRAJAN

II.

TRAJAN IN THE EAST

Trajan's success in Dacia had been won at a cost, but the result seemed likely to justify his trouble and expense. It brought a return of confidence to an empire which at his accession had appeared uneasily conscious of decadence, and in every province fresh dedications testify to the honor in which the Emperor was held. It was otherwise with his Parthian war. One such triumph was enough for a generation and time was needed for recovery: to attempt a second major war within ten years was seriously to overtax the imperial resources. Yet it is easy to see the springs of such a miscalculation. The seeds of a conflict with the Parthians had been sown, whether consciously or not, as far back as the Flavian re-organization of the eastern frontier, which brought an effective military occupation to the banks of the Euphrates. In the north the trunk roads in Asia Minor, and especially behind the new legionary fortress of Satala, felt a keen continuance of Flavian development under Nerva and in Trajan's early years. Farther south, facing Mesopotamia, the annexation of Commagene in 72 had brought another legion to the river and Roman arms had pressed down it as far as Sura by Vespasian's death, tightening their control over Palmyra, and building fresh roads up to the Euphrates line. One by one the remaining petty kingdoms within the provincial area were absorbed, until by AD 100 only the Nabataean Arabs in the south-east still preserved a client independence, and since the lapse to Rome, probably about 93, of the domains of Agrippa II beyond the Jordan the inclusion of their adjoining territories could not be long delayed. Whether there were frontier incidents we do not know, but there were sufficient grounds for the decision in the need of a provincial control of Arabia to protect the potentially rich Decapolis, and, more important, to tap effectively the trade route between the Red Sea and Syria. Accordingly, the new Syrian governor for 105, A. Cornelius Palma, was sent out with orders to annex the Country.

To perform this task, he took the legion VI Ferrata and auxiliary troops, but from the fact that he carried on despite the outbreak of the Second Dacian War, it is evident that little serious resistance was anticipated; and Roman coins, beginning probably in 108, which celebrate Arabia adquisita—not capta—and show on their reverse an already peaceful province, bear out this optimism. Some opposition was indeed encountered before the outlying tribesmen would accept the stricter control of Rome, enough together with his duties in organizing the new province to earn for Palma triumphal decorations, a statue in the Forum of Augustus and a second consulship on his return home in 108: but perhaps these very honors were in part a recognition of his success in avoiding serious disturbance; and of Arabia it may fairly be said that nulla pars imperii pariter inlacessita transiit.

The new province followed fairly closely the limits of the Nabataean kingdom, though on the west some towns of the Decapolis were included in it, and in the north, where as late as 95-6 its boundaries seem to have reached the parallel of Damascus, a line drawn across the Gebel Hauran just north of Bostra assigned a large area to the Syrian administration. Bostra, which received the titles Nova Traiana, became the legionary and administrative headquarters with VI Ferrata as its garrison, though Petra remained the principal town and was later dignified with the name of metropolis. One legion was a sufficient protection, and its station suggests that its first duty was to comb out the Hauran country, where the nature of the ground presented difficulties comparable on a smaller scale to those of the Numidian frontier; and the pacification of outlying districts may have taken some years. The Arabian tribesmen were good fighters and auxiliary regiments were raised in time for the Parthian War, in which their familiarity with desert conditions made them specially useful.

Of prime importance, however, was the great arterial road running right through the province which was built between 1-114 under the governor C. Claudius Severus, and of which many milestones still survive. From the Gulf of Akaba in the south, it passed through Petra, Philadelphia and Bostra and continued to Damascus and the Syrian centres, and its purpose was as much commercial as strategic. It marked a fresh stage in the progress of Roman relations with India. A Roman fleet was stationed in the Red Sea, and it was this interest rather than his Dacian successes that brought an Indian embassy to Trajan about 107. Though the province itself was peaceful, a few strong points were fortified to protect the trunk road and its caravans against marauding Bedouin raids, and it has been thought that the forts at least of El-Leggim and Odruh are Trajanic in date. But if the province owed its incorporation to its value as a highway, its internal development was not neglected, and on this ground alone the annexation was abundantly justified by results. The provision and conservation of water supplies was undertaken at once, branch roads spread inwards from the main artery, land was rapidly reclaimed for cultivation and settled, and from the Trajanic period dates the rise of many cities, besides fresh prosperity for older foundations such as Gerasa which had already benefited by the Flavian settlement of Palestine.

Meanwhile, the uneasy relations between Rome and Parthia had shown a growing tension. More than once under the Flavian dynasty there had been at least a threat of war. The accession of a prince of known military ambition, who had already taken part in operations which, if not open warfare, had earned triumphal honors for their author, bred anxiety in a Parthia weakened by internal rivalries which the overthrow of the Dacian king did nothing to allay. That Decebalus and Pacorus had been in correspondence was a fact which was probably known or guessed in Rome long before Pliny went to Bithynia, and among the causes of the Arabian annexation one may well have been the closing of normal trade avenues through Parthia during the First Dacian War. And if there was one lesson Trajan had learnt in Dacia, it was a distaste for compromise. Moreover, from that date, and especially from the death of Sura about 110, we may trace a strengthening of the military element in the Emperor's entourage, and like other great soldiers he grew bolder as he grew older. In these circumstances the spark of war was not slow to flare. Pacorus died about 110, and in the internal disputes which accompanied the accession of the new king Osroes, Roman prerogatives in Armenia were infringed. Trajan seized the opportunity: he had not picked the quarrel, but he was ready for the campaign, and there is no reason to doubt that he welcomed a chance to settle the troublesome Armenian question once for all time.

The course and even the chronology of the war which broke out in 113 are still far from clear; and if a reconstruction of Trajan's strategy in Dacia depends on frail deductions from a sculptured record, the historian of the Parthian campaigns must build for the most part on scraps of late evidence which are even more easily impeachable. The narrative which follows must be therefore treated with reserve and many of its conclusions as at best provisional. The peace of Corbulo in 63, while it had found a means for both parties to abandon without discredit the pitiful gymnastics of the previous ten years, and did much to enable them to recognize their common interests, possessed one vulnerable point. To secure it Rome gave up much: she virtually abandoned Armenia to the Parthians, and perhaps her contemporary statesmen were wise enough to see that the loss was more apparent than real. But on her prestige in Armenia depended the peace of the Black Sea, over whose littoral tribes she retained the overlordship. This was to the Parthians of only secondary interest, though both powers recognized the danger from the Trans-Caucasian tribes, and the terms of peace satisfied Roman requirements by conceding her the right of enfeoffment over Armenia, which henceforth accepted its kings from the Parthian royal house. More than this Rome could not surrender, and the continuance of peace therefore rested on the willingness of Parthia to observe her side of the bargain.

How long Tiridates himself survived his co-signatory is unknown, but in due course and with the approval of Rome one Axidares, a son of Pacorus, ascended the Armenian throne, and here matters stood when, after the death of Pacorus, the new Great King Osroes took it upon himself to depose this individual and proclaim another son of Pacorus, Parthamasiris, king of Armenia in his place. The reasons which prompted Osroes to this decision are obscure. His own version, when confronted by the prospect of war, was that Axidares had proved unsatisfactory to both his masters, which means no doubt that (according to Osroes) he had failed to preserve order in his kingdom; but it is probable that a more compelling motive was the need to secure a crown for Parthamasiris who, as the eldest son of the late monarch, had some title to the Parthian throne itself.

Axidares appealed to Rome and at the same time resisted his brother's invasion, which even by the summer of 114 had gained only a partial, if promising, success. The affair was thus brought to Trajan's notice as a deliberate flouting of the Roman prerogative which was the mainspring of the Neronian treaty, and no responsible government could have ignored the challenge, least of all an emperor whose deeds had already recalled Rome to a sense of her imperial mission. It might have been politic to have stopped at small measures: a personal visit to the frontier and a firm display of force would probably, though not certainly, have restored order and coerced the Parthian king; but it is scarcely surprising that Trajan chose another way. There is no evidence that he originally intended anything more than the annexation of Armenia; and for that there were persuasive reasons, even though fundamentally unsound. Armenia had been a thorn to Rome since the days of Pompey and the only thinkable solution that had not now been tried and found wanting was the clear-cut one of annexation. Such had been the fate of all the Roman protectorates one by one, generally to their material advantage. The last experiments in Dacia and Arabia were an acclaimed success, and with a like solution of the one outstanding problem Trajan might claim to have consolidated the imperial scheme of Augustus and to bequeath to his successors a State unified, respected and secure. If this were all, it had been well, however valueless Armenia might prove. But circumstances to be described drew Trajan on, and imagination—it need not be doubted—lent her wings. If eastern conquest had not yet the lure which generations of adventure, and not least his own, imparted to it, there was a glitter in the Orient even then and the success of Alexander, the failure of Crassus and Antony, were still themes to kindle one who was before all a soldier. And so, on October 27, 113, still uncertain of his final plans, the Emperor left Rome for his last and most expensive enterprise.

At Athens an embassy from Osroes met him but received little satisfaction; and, crossing through Asia and Cilicia, he reached Antioch in person at the close of the year to review the situation. His arrival was greeted by envoys from Abgar, the ruler of the westernmost Mesopotamian principality of Osrhoene, who was trying, successfully as it turned out, to preserve his crown by judicious hedging between Rome and Parthia. Accepting for the moment his protest of neutrality, in the spring of 114 Trajan set out for Armenia. The composition of his army remains uncertain. There were already eight legions in the East, XII Fulminata and XVI Flavia in Cappadocia, II Traiana, III Gallica and IV Scythica in Syria, X Fretensis in Judaea and VI Ferrata in Arabia. Of these, VI Ferrata, until recently a Syrian legion, had lately seen service on campaign and its use in the Parthian War is proved. The brunt of the fighting would naturally fall on the legions of Cappadocia and Syria, but the latter seem, as often both earlier and later, to have been of doubtful fighting capacity, at any rate at first, and tried reinforcements from the Danube were accordingly summoned. It cannot be determined at what point the new drafts were sent for, but it is likely that the first serious call came with the extension of the war in 115 and intensified with the emergencies of the following year. In response, the legion XV Apollinaris came permanently to the East, and with it portions of at least four others, I Adiutrix, I Italica, VII Claudia and XXX Ulpia, while vexillationes from the other two Lower Moesian legions are not to be excluded.

From Antioch, Trajan went first to the headquarters of XII Fulminata at Melitene, on which he conferred some privileges. The place commanded the southern of the two practicable roads into Armenia, and Trajan, though his principal objective lay along the northern route, proceeded to secure his flank by sending a column up the Murad Su to take Arsamosata, one of the principal Armenian towns and the metropolis of this valley. This was accomplished without fighting, and the Emperor continued his journey to Satala, where possibly the first of the Danubian troops met him. At this point, still in strictly Roman territory, he summoned an assembly of the local kings. One of these, Anchialus, king of the Heniochi, was specially rewarded, perhaps for service in a border campaign against his neighbours the Lazae; the others did homage and were confirmed in their kingdoms. The narrow valleys between the Roman frontier and the river Phasis admitted a number of separate chiefs who swelled the gathering at Satala: of more weight were the rulers of Iberia and Colchis and of the Bosporani and Sauromatae north of the Euxine who obeyed the call to give pledges of their loyalty and to receive Trajan's instructions. There was, however, one notable absentee. Trajan had come a long way to meet Parthamasiris, and his subsequent excuse that he had been prevented by his brother's troops was not well received. The march continued up the Frat Su and in the camp at Elegeia, at the strategic centre of Armenia near Erzertim, the meeting took place.

Parthamasiris attempted to justify himself by incriminating Axidares. He declared that his appointment by the reigning Parthian monarch made him the rightful king of Armenia and reminded Trajan of the Neronian agreement, by which all that was necessary was his formal investiture at Trajan's hands. This he had now come voluntarily to receive, and taking off his diadem he laid it at the Emperor's feet. Trajan replied that it had been no part of the Neronian treaty that the Parthian king should depose Armenian rulers, once lawfully invested, at pleasure and without consulting Rome: if such were the case Rome's rights became a farce. But further argument was unnecessary, for it was no longer a question between Axidares and Parthamasiris; Armenia belonged to Rome, and was to have a Roman governor. Parthamasiris and his Parthian entourage were dismissed and were given an escort out of the country, but on the way he shared the fate of many Armenian pretenders before him, and the guilt of his death was imputed to Trajan himself3. His disappearance might doubtless be convenient, but the case is unproven; if Trajan was indeed its author he thereby closed another avenue to a recon­ciliation with Osroes, but against that the annexation itself had already locked the door.

After Elegeia, there was little more to do in Armenia: in the presence of Trajan's overwhelming force its inhabitants were powerless to resist and its provincial organization was undertaken at once. For the present it was to go with Armenia Minor and Cappadocia which were now separated from the Galatian complex, and the new administration was put in the hands of L. Catilius Severus, who had been consul in 110. The annexation made a profound impression at Rome, and Trajan now at last consented to the inclusion of the cognomen Optimus among his official titles, while during this year he received two and possibly three fresh imperatorial salutations. Certain details remained to be cleared up. Those chieftains who had not obeyed the summons to Satala, notably perhaps the king of the Albani, who received a new monarch at this time, reaped their reward; and Lusius Quietus with a mobile column was sent down the Araxes valley to receive the submission of the Mardi, to the east of L. Van. By mid­summer 114 or little later, the campaign was over.

Trajan was now faced by a new problem. The season was yet young and his army was fresh, having seen little fighting. Should he retrace his steps to Cappadocia or should he return by way of Mesopotamia, testing for himself the sentiments of those satraps who had sent their embassies to Antioch or met his advance with gifts? He chose the latter course, and thereby committed himself irrevocably. On his approach, the Parthian vassal-kings were divided. They were in a difficult position, for of Osroes there was no sign and Trajan's future intentions were uncertain. Descending from Armenia, he occupied Nisibis, which at this time probably belonged to Mebarsapes, whose satrapy of Adiabene covered a wide area on both sides of the river Tigris. A centurion named Sentius had been sent to Adenystrae with a message to this monarch, no doubt summoning him to meet Trajan. Mebarsapes, who had already had a brush with the Romans—perhaps with the column of Quietus on the borders of Adiabene and south-eastern Armenia—and had no doubt an inkling of what was to become of his kingdom, arrested Sentius; but on the approach of Trajan he retired behind the Tigris, and Sentius managed to deliver Adenystrae to the Romans, while Quietus continuing his journey perhaps from L. Van met the Emperor at Singara, which he had occupied without opposition. All northern Mesopotamia was now within Trajan's grasp and the ease of his conquest tempted him. In fact like other Roman demonstrations beyond the Euphrates it had been less a conquest than a triumphal progress, unopposed except by sporadic guerrilla warfare: and indeed the coin legend commemorating the double annexation—Armenia et Mesopotamia in potestatem P.R. redactae—suggests as much.

Winter was now approaching and, leaving garrisons behind him, Trajan returned towards Antioch through Osrhoene, whose king Abgar he had yet to meet. Abgar had temporized so long as he dared, but the approach of troops made his submission inevitable and he received the Emperor at Edessa with protestations of humility which, together, so Dio says, with the personal recommendations of his son, succeeded in preserving his crown. Trajan was in fact in a good humor. The year's campaigning had been successful beyond all anticipation and had yielded not one but two fresh provinces to the Empire at negligible cost. On the news of the fall of Nisibis he had been popularly accorded the title of Parthicus which appears irregularly on inscriptions from the end of 114, but which was not officially assumed until after the fall of Ctesiphon in the following winter. Abgar thus escaped, but a neighboring potentate, Sporaces of Anthemusia, was not so fortunate, and fled, leaving his territory to be annexed.

Trajan now returned to Antioch, leaving a substantial army to garrison the new provinces and prepare for a fresh campaign in the following year. The rapidity of his conquest of Armenia, as well as the strategic advantage which it conferred, had made it impossible for Osroes to defend northern Mesopotamia, and there were other reasons for his absence. The disputes following the death of Pacorus II had produced that restlessness among the subordinate Parthian rulers which was a concomitant of nearly every change in the Great Kingship; and with the approach and still more with the success of Trajan, the independence of many of these vassals broke into open rebellion. This insolence was not confined to the satrapies nearest to the Roman arms; for there are traces of revolts in Persis and Elymais, while a rival king, another Vologases, issued coins from some locality undetermined, and on the shores of the Persian Gulf Attambelus V was perhaps already showing the spirit which inspired both his welcome and loyalty to Trajan in 115-6. It was vital for Osroes to establish some sort of unity within his own realm before he could encounter Trajan, and in this year 114 we find him planning a campaign against yet another princeling, Manisarus, who had taken advantage of the disturbed conditions to possess himself of some territory bordering on Armenia and Mesopotamia which Trajan had not yet reached. Manisarus attempted to negotiate with Trajan, but his ultimate fate is unknown.

But while these troubles made it impossible for Osroes to hold the line of the upper Euphrates or the Chabur, it was otherwise with the Tigris. The vassal-king of Adiabene, Mebarsapes, remained loyal and on his success in maintaining his position on the Roman left flank depended the fate of the Parthian capital at Ctesiphon, lower down the river. To subdue Mebarsapes was therefore Trajan's next task, and during the winter the woods round Nisibis were heavily requisitioned for the boats and pontoons needed for crossing the river. Meanwhile, in Syria a disastrous earthquake occurred, the force of which fell most severely on Antioch, now overcrowded with court attendants and camp followers of one and another kind and during Trajan's presence virtually the seat of the Roman government. The Emperor himself was only slightly injured, but among the dead was M. Pedo Vergilianus, one of the consules ordinarii for 11 5, and a third of the city lay in ruins.

Trajan, however, was undeterred by this misfortune, and with the approach of spring departed for the Tigris. His main objective was now Ctesiphon itself, and serious opposition was to be anticipated. A further difficulty lay in the problem of communications and supply, since the invading forces must now leave the tolerably fertile land of northern Mesopotamia for desert conditions. In the circumstances, the use of the Euphrates as well as the Tigris was plainly right. That some advance had been made down this river in the previous year is likely enough, though not yet definitely proved: but in any case vessels of reasonably substantial draught could navigate the river from the Syrian frontier and establish a satisfactory line of communications from that base, while the Euphrates expedition could hope to find supplies in the Greek riverain cities on their route. The major military problem lay before the Tigris force, and it was accordingly here that Trajan took command in person. 

The river crossing was fiercely contested, but by distracting the enemy with numerous feints and covering the engineers by a barrage from infantry and archers stationed on ships anchored in the stream, a bridge of boats was eventually built and with the arrival of the Roman forces on the left bank the opposition of Mebarsapes collapsed and the whole of Adiabene lay open. Leaving a force to complete its conquest, for it was destined to be annexed also, Trajan descended the river and halted his army short of Ctesiphon, perhaps in the neighborhood of Baghdad. Meanwhile, the Euphrates force had descended unmolested into Babylonia, possibly as far as Babylon itself. Osroes was still occupied with civil troubles, but it is evident that a defence of Ctesiphon was expected, and a further problem now arose of transferring to the Tigris the larger vessels of the Euphrates force, suitable for a siege of the city. The original idea of constructing a canal or utilizing the Naharmalcha was rejected as impracticable, and the ships were somehow dragged across the intervening desert. The exact tactics which led to the fall of Ctesiphon are obscure, but it does not seem to have held out long. Osroes himself escaped, but his daughter and his golden throne were among the Roman prizes when Trajan entered the city in triumph.

The fall of the Parthian capital was greeted with rapturous enthusiasm by the Senate, who voted to Trajan the right to celebrate as many triumphs as he wished; and the war seemed over. Into the highlands of Iran it was neither practicable nor desirable to pursue the Parthian king, and Trajan himself reluctantly disclaimed the idea of treading in the footsteps of Alexander. It remained to organize the new provinces. Their occupation lasted so short a time that it has left behind it little trace, and their governors and garrisons are alike unknown. For the latter some if not all of the Syrian legions could now be spared, but the lengthening of the frontier line and the policing of the new possessions must have meant either a permanent weakening of the Danube force, perhaps the removal of I Adiutrix from Dacia, or the raising of fresh units. Events forestalled this need, but roads could not wait; and a milestone of 115-6 has been found in the Gebel Sinjar on the road from Singara to Nisibis. But before proceeding to supervise the final settlement, Trajan took one last step forward. In the winter of 115-6 he descended the Tigris to its mouth and received the personal submission of Attambelus, the king of Mesene, whose territory included the important trading centre of Spasinu Charax and who was confirmed in his dominions as a tributary client-king. With the extension of the Roman authority to the Persian Gulf, the whole of the Mesopotamian trade route to the Far East, which had perhaps been closed to Rome for some years; fell into her hands. To secure it may have been a powerful incentive towards the annexation of Mesopotamia, though that it was the original cause of the war is much more doubtful. The Emperor returned to Babylon, but while he was engaged in drawing up a fresh tariff for this trade and deciding its administration in detail, news was brought of a very serious nature: a Parthian army had appeared in Adiabene and the whole of the conquered provinces were in revolt. Not for the first time, the Roman armies had advanced too fast and too far.

The records of the revolt which have survived are too fragmentary and obscure for any detailed reconstruction of the course of events; but enough is known to enable a bare outline to be drawn. At least three separate Roman forces were engaged in its repression, and their movements give some indication of the nature of the attack. The Parthians themselves had concentrated in Media, the strongest province still intact, and from that point launched a simultaneous offensive against Armenia and Adiabene, now the Roman province of Assyria. At the same time a sympathetic revolt broke out in Mesopotamia, where Abgar of Osrhoene threw in his lot with the insurgents, while in the south the city of Seleuceia expelled its Roman garrison and closed its gates. Only Attambelus, moved perhaps by the proximity of Trajan himself, remained loyal.

The conflict began with a disaster for Rome. Appius Maximus Santra, a consular and perhaps the governor of either Assyria or Mesopotamia, was defeated and killed, according to a probable reading of Fronto, ad Balcia Taurii, which, if correct, implies an army of invasion descending into Mesopotamia from the north­east. This force was led by a certain Sanatruces, perhaps another brother of Parthamasiris, who after his death would become the Parthian claimant to the Armenian throne, and his son Parthamaspates: and at the same time a second son Vologases entered Armenia and was only checked by the concession of some territory. Meanwhile, in southern Mesopotamia, where, it may be guessed, the bulk of the army of invasion was still encamped, the Romans were more successful and two legions under Erucius Clarus and Julius Alexander recaptured Seleuceia and burnt it. This restored order in the south, and Trajan was free to march north to the heart of the trouble.

That the successful opponents of Maximus now entered Syria, denuded of its troops, and even captured Antioch can scarcely be maintained on the authority of Malalas in view of the silence of Dio, who indeed knows nothing of Sanatruces' part in the affair, and ignores the share of the Parthians altogether. According to Malalas, Trajan defeated Sanatruces, who was killed, after his son Parthamaspates had deserted to the Romans: Dio states only that Lusius Quietus, now given command of a substantial army and probably already adlectus inter praetorios for his services in 114, successfully recovered northern Mesopotamia, retaking Nisibis and Edessa, which was sacked and burnt, while Abgar lost his crown and probably his life also. Of Trajan's presence in this field Dio says nothing, and it has been supposed that Malalas here enshrines a tradition which elsewhere also confused the deeds of the Emperor and his formidable lieutenant. In any case it is not to be doubted that in northern as in southern Mesopotamia the Romans were eventually successful in regaining the upper hand, but the fate of Assyria is much more dubious and Trajan's subsequent actions suggest that it was already lost to Rome.

He had now a difficult decision to take. Whether the revolt had been backed by a Parthian force under Sanatruces or not, Osroes was still intact and might be expected to make a fresh attempt to recover his losses; moreover, the outbreak of the Jews in the Levant, which had begun in the preceding year, had quickly spread and already assumed dangerous proportions. In these circumstances, Trajan resigned himself to a curtailment of his plans. Southern Mesopotamia was detached from the province and reconstituted as a Parthian kingdom under Parthamaspates, who was crowned at Ctesiphon as a client-king. This was a makeshift, certainly, but the Euphrates trade route was at least nominally retained under Roman control. Armenia and northern Mesopotamia were maintained as provinces, and Trajan himself turned aside on his journey back from Ctesiphon to direct the siege of Hatra, a desert stronghold where the rebels still held out. Like Septimius Severus after him, he failed to take it by assault and local conditions forced him to withdraw his troops and return to Antioch. The hardships of desert campaigning and the strain of the past few months had told heavily on his constitution—he was now past sixty—and shortly after his return his health began to fail.

At a severe cost, then, the bulk of Trajan's conquests had been preserved, and their surrender is an event not of his but of Hadrian's principate. But the shock to the Roman arms had had a serious effect elsewhere. The most pressing diversion came from a Jewish outbreak of savage ferocity which starting apparently from Cyrene soon spread all over the Levant. The trouble arose in the usual way with racial conflict between Jews and Greeks, but rapidly developed into a desperate struggle of the Jews against the imperial government. It began in 115 and in Cyrene the Jews under a certain Andrew (or Lukuas) quickly gained control. The numbers of their victims and the appalling barbarities they committed may be an exaggeration of anti-Semite propaganda; but it is a fact that buildings and even roads were destroyed and the province stripped of its cultivators and reduced to ruins. The fury spread to Egypt and Cyprus, and in 116, fanned by the news from Mesopotamia, it reached alarming heights. In Egypt, where the absence of many troops in the East made firm repression impossible, the insurgents were less successful and in Alexandria the Greeks won the day; but the city was badly damaged and in many of the country districts the Jews were masters. After the failure of the prefect, M. Rutilius Lupus, to preserve order, a failure for which he was not altogether to blame, command against the rebels was given to Q. Marcius Turbo, commander of the expeditionary fleet in 143, and peace was gradually restored, though a trail of desolation remained and the campaign was not over till after Trajan's death. The Jews of Cyprus, who had destroyed the capital, Salamis, after annihilating its non-Jewish inhabitants, were more easily coerced by troops of whom a detachment of the legion VII Claudia certainly formed part, and a decree was issued forbidding any Jew ever to set foot in the island again on pain of death. Meanwhile, the Emperor feared fresh trouble from the numerous Jews in Mesopotamia, and Lusius Quietus, an obvious choice, was sent back there with a mission of ruthless pacification. On his return he was given a fresh charge. Judaea itself, despite the presence of a Roman forces, had inevitably shown signs of a sympathetic restlessness, and its reward in 117 was to receive as governor the sinister Moor, now promoted to consular rank and higher than ever in the imperial favour. With the suppression of the Palestinian Jews the rebellion subsided; in the face of disciplined troops the fanaticism of the rebels was mere suicide.

But the eastward drain of the army and the rumors of its failure, the same causes that had inflamed the Jewish outbreak, were being felt further afield. On the lower Danube the Roxolani were restless, and away in Britain—though here from other causes—the northern garrisons were already in retreat. Though by the summer of 117 order had returned in the eastern provinces, the Mesopotamian frontier was still unsettled and the precarious hold of the Roman nominee at Ctesiphon already slipping. The resources of the Empire were severely strained, and there was need of vigorous direction if the recent conquests should be maintained. But this was lacking. The Emperor was worn out, and for some months now his health had shown alarming symptoms. He nevertheless determined on a fresh campaign, but before he could leave Antioch a stroke left him partly paralyzed; his dropsy was increasing, and at the end of July I 17 he reluctantly set out by sea for Italy, leaving Hadrian in charge of the army in Syria. But he was not destined to see Rome or enjoy his doubtful triumph. A sudden change for the worse compelled him to halt at Selinus in Cilicia, afterwards Traianopolis, and there probably on August 9th, after declaring his long delayed adoption of Hadrian, he died.

In his introduction to a history of the Parthian campaigns of L. Verus, Fronto has much to say of the example of Trajan. After touching on his warlike exploits, he remarks that even Spartacus and Viriathus had considerable military ability, but that in the arts of peace vix quisquam Traiano ad populum, si qui adaeque, acceptior extitit. The foregoing pages illustrate the facts on which his estimate was based: and from them the man's personality gradually emerges. His personal tastes were simple: his recreations virile. Learning, as it was then fashionable at Rome, he lacked, but he encouraged its practice and favored philosophers, and among those closest to him Plotina, Sosius Senecio and perhaps Licinius Sura, were keen patrons of the subject. In matters of religion he made no claims to personal worship, but on the death of Marciana in 112 he deified both her and his own natural father; his patron saint among the gods was Hercules, the comparison of whose career with the labors of the princeps could not escape comment. In contrast to the deviousness of some of his predecessors, he liked to be thought of as sincere and straightforward, and there is no reason to think that he wore a mask: his administration and legislation show alike that he tried to foster these qualities. Yet his bluntness did not amount to rigidity: he showed himself ready to treat all matters referred to him on their merits, and his kindliness became a byword. The Emperor Julian, writing many years later, makes the gods decide that Trajan excelled all other emperors in clemency. Such a man was needed in the Roman Empire when Trajan lived, a strong man and a just man; Trajan, whatever the wisdom of his military adventures, was both, and he served the needs of his time. And when in the fourth century the Senate, echoing the sentiment that had prompted Trajan's favorite title, prayed for a new princeps that he might be felicior Augusto, melior Traiano, they paid a tribute that was well deserved. As subordinate and prince, in peace and in war, through fifty years of arduous service to his country Trajan had earned his proud epitaph.