[104-117 A.D.] an unsuccessful campaign, which he had undertaken in Arabia. In order to abandon the fruitless undertaking without detriment to his reputation, he made the senate recall him to Rome under a fictitious pretext. He handed over the army to his general Hadrian, whom he had appointed governor of Syria, and went to Cilicia intending to sail thence to Italy. Before he could embark, death overtook him.f

In estimating the character of Trajan, we no longer have the guidance of Suetonius. The only important classical writings recording the deeds of this emperor are the somewhat fragmentary excerpts from Dion Cassius as preserved by Xiphilinus, and the panegyric of the younger Pliny. The latter, written and delivered in the year in which Pliny was consul, has been pronounced, "a piece of courtly flattery for which the only excuse which can be made is the cringing and fawning manner of the times." Pliny's letters and despatches to Trajan on the other hand are full of interest as valuable material for the historian.a

THE CORRESPONDENCE OF PLINY AND TRAJAN

The despatch respecting the Christians, written from Bithynia, A.D. 104, and the emperor's answer, are well worthy of transcription; both because reference is so often made to them, and because they throw light upon the marvellous and rapid propagation of the Gospel; the manners of the early Christians; the treatment of which their constancy exposed them, even under favourable circumstances; and the severe jealousy with which even a governor of mild and gentle temper thought it his duty to regard them. Pliny's letter to Trajan ran thus: "It is my constant practice to refer to you all subjects on which I entertain doubt. For who is better able to direct my hesitation or to instruct my ignorance? I have never been present at the trials of Christians, and therefore I do not know in what way, or to what extent, it is usual to question or to punish them. I have also felt no small difficulty in deciding whether age should make any difference, or whether those of the tenderest and those of mature years should be treated alike; whether pardon should be accorded to repentance, or whether, where a man has once been a Christian, recantation should profit him ; whether, if the name of Christian does not imply criminality, still the crimes peculiarly belonging to the name should be punished. Meanwhile, in the case of those against whom informations have been laid before me, I have pursued the following line of conduct. I have put to them, personally, the question whether they were Christians. If they confessed, I interrogated them a second and third time, and threatened them with punishment. If they still persevered, I ordered their commitment; for I had no doubt whatever, that whatever they confessed, at any rate dogged and inflexible obstinacy deserved to be punished. There were others who displayed similar madness; but, as they were Roman citizens, I ordered them to be sent back to the city. Soon persecution itself, as is generally the case, caused the crime to spread, and it appeared in new forms.

"An anonymous information was laid against a large number of persons, but they deny that they are, or ever have been, Christians. As they invoked the gods, repeating the form after me, and offered prayers, together with incense and wine, to your image, which I had ordered to be brought, together with those of the deities, and besides cursed Christ, whilst those who are true Christians, it is said, cannot be compelled to do any one of these things, I

[104-113 A.D.]

thought it right to set them at liberty. Others, when accused by an informer, confessed that they were Christians, and soon after denied the fact; they said they had been, but had ceased to be, some three, some more, not a few even twenty years previously. All these worshipped your image and those: of the gods, and cursed Christ. But they affirmed that the sum-total of their fault or their error was, that they were accustomed to assemble on a fixed day before dawn, and sing an antiphonal hymn to Christ as God; that they bound themselves by an oath, not to the commission of any wickedness,, but to abstain from theft, robbery, and adultery; never to break a promise, or to deny a deposit when it was demanded back. When these ceremonies were concluded, it was their custom to depart, and again assemble together to take food harmlessly and in common. That after my proclamation, in which, in obedience to your command, I had forbidden associations, they had desisted from this practice. For these reasons, I the more thought it necessary to investigate the real truth, by putting to the torture two maidens, who were called deaconesses; but I discovered nothing but a perverse and excessive superstition.

"I have therefore deferred taking cognizance of the matter until I had consulted you. For it seemed to me a case requiring advice, especially on account of the number of those in peril. For many of every age, sex, and rank, are and will continue to be called in question. The infection in fact. has spread not only through the cities, but also through the villages and open country; but it seems that its progress can be arrested. At any rate,, it is clear that the temples which were almost deserted begin to be frequented; and solemn sacrifices, which had been long intermitted, are again performed, and victims are being sold everywhere, for which up to this time a purchaser could rarely be found. It is therefore easy to conceive that crowds might be reclaimed if an opportunity for repentance were given." To this letter Trajan replied:

"In sifting the cases of those who have been indicted on the charge of Christianity, you have adopted, my dear Secundus, the right course of proceeding; for no certain rule can be laid down which will meet all cases. They must not be sought after, but if they are informed against and convicted, they must be punished; with this proviso, however, that if anyone denies that he is a Christian, and proves the point by offering prayers to our deities, notwithstanding the suspicions under which he has laboured, he shall be pardoned on his repentance. On no account should any anonymous charge be attended to, for it would be the worst possible precedent, and is inconsistent with the habits of our times."i

Nothing perhaps could better illustrate the judicial and tolerant temper of Trajan's mind than this letter in reference to a class of people whom the emperor could not possibly have contemplated without prejudice.

TRAJAN'S COLUMN

If literary remains dealing with history of the time of Trajan are meagre, amends are made for the deficit by the sculptures and bas-reliefs that ornament the Column of Trajan previously mentioned, which still stands in an excellent state of preservation amidst the ruins of a forum. This column of marble, now weathered to a bronze-like hue, is covered throughout its entire height by a spiral column of figures representing all manner of military operations. More than twenty-five hundred human figures are said to

་

[103 A.D.] The basThe

be depicted, and all of these are executed with lifelike fidelity. reliefs represent the expeditions of Trajan against the Dacians. column is thus described by Burn:

"The bas-relief" representing the first campaign against the Dacians begins at the base by a representation of the banks of the Save, down which the Roman army passed, and shows military storehouses, piles of wood, stacks of hay, and wooden huts. Then follow forts with soldiers on guard, and boats carrying barrels of provisions. The river god Danube then appears and looks on with astonishment at the bridge of boats over which the Roman army is passing. The baggage of the soldiers on the march, tied to the top of the vallum or palisade which they carry, and the different military standards, are very distinctly shown. Many of the men are without covering on their heads, but some wear lions' skins. The emperor and his staff are then introduced. He is sitting upon a suggestus or platform, and Lucius, the prætorian prefect, sits beside him. The suovetaurilia, a grand sacrificial celebration, is the next scene, with priests in the cinctus gabinus and trumpeters. After this the emperor is seen making a speech to the army, and a little farther on the building of a stone encampment enclosing huts is being carried on with great vigour, and bridges are being thrown across a river, over which cavalry are passing.

66

A battle seems then to take place, and the heads of two enemies are being brought to the emperor. The Dacian army with the dragon ensign and the Dacian cap, the symbol of superior rank, seen upon the statues of the Dacian prisoners on the Arch of Constantine, appears. Jupiter gives the victory to the Romans, the Dacian camp is burned, and the Dacians fly. Numerous representations of forts, boats, different kinds of troops, skirmishes, and sieges follow, ending with the surrender of Decebalus and the return of Trajan to Rome, where a great festival is celebrated. The arrival at Rome, and the crowd of Romans going to meet the great conqueror, are very vividly drawn. An immense number of bulls for sacrifice, altars, camilli, and half-naked popæ are introduced into the triumphal rejoicings, and the first campaign ends with the figure of Trajan offering incense on the altar of Jupiter Capitolinus.

"A somewhat similar series of scenes are represented in the sculptures which depict the second campaign. Perhaps the most interesting is that of the great bridge over the Danube, made of wood supported on stone piers, the foundations of which may still be seen in the bed of the river. Apollodorus, the architect of the Forum, designed this immense work, which crossed the Danube at a spot where it is not less than 1300 yards wide, near the village of Gieli. A permanent road into Dacia and secure communications with his basis of operations having thus been secured, Trajan gradually advanced from post to post, driving the Dacians into the mountainous parts of the country. The sculptures represent a number of skirmishes and assaults upon fortified places, but no regular pitched battle. At last the ghastly spectacle of the head and hands of Decebalus is exhibited on a board by two soldiers in front of the Prætorium. This disgusting scene is followed by a representation of the storming of the last strongholds of the enemy in the mountains, and a mournful procession of fugitives carrying away their goods and driving their cattle into exile forms the close of the sculptured history of the Dacian campaigns of Trajan.

"In these curious bas-reliefs," Burn continues, "we have a treasury of information on the religion, the military science, the habits and dress of the Romans of the empire far more valuable than ten thousand pages of descrip

[113 A.D.]

tive writing. The lover of Roman antiquities will learn more by studying Fabretti's engravings of these reliefs, or the casts at the French Academy at Rome, and at the Kensington Museum, than by much book-labour. The descriptions of Livy and Polybius, Cæsar and Tacitus, receive life and movement and interest as we look at the actual figures (oculis subjecta fidelibus) of the general and his staff; the Prætorian guards marked by their belts over the left shoulder; the fierce-looking standard-bearers and centurions with their heads covered by lions' skins, the shaggy manes of which stream down their backs; the rank and file carrying enormous stakes; the master masons, sappers, and pioneers, with their axes and crowbars; the lancers, heavy and light cavalry, and royal chargers; the Sarmatian horsemen, clothed, both riders and steeds, in complete scale armour, and the Moorish cavalry, riding without

reins.

"Bridges are constructed,

Roman causeways laid, forts attacked with all kinds of military engines; the charge of cavalry, the rout and confusion of a defeated army, are all most vividly depicted. Trajan in person traverses the ranks on foot, or mounts the suggestus and harangues his men, or receives with simple dignity the submission of the enemy, or marches with all the pomp of a Roman procession under the triumphal arch. The soldier-like simplicity of the great military emperor is strikingly portrayed. There is no silken tent, or richly decorated chariot, or throne, or canopy of state to be seen. His colonel of the guards sits beside him, as an equal, on the suggestus. In the midst of a battle the emperor tears up his robe to bind the wounds of his soldiers; he is present everywhere, wearing a sword and fighting in person.

Nothing could be more illustrative of the state of Roman affairs in that iron age, when again, as in the olden times, a rough and unlettered warrior, fresh from the camp, swayed the destinies of the empire." k

This Column of Trajan originally stood surrounded by buildings forming a court only about forty feet square, the intention being apparently that the figures should be viewed from the surrounding structures. Notwithstanding this the sculptures are progressively larger toward the top, the perspective effect when looking from below being obvious in the artist's mind. To-day the column stands in lonely grandeur in Trajan's Forum; discoloured and weather-worn, but otherwise little altered from the original state except at the very top, where, incongruously enough, a statue of St. Peter now takes the place of the colossal figure of Trajan himself which once occupied

[117-118 A.D.]

the pedestal. Sixtus V placed the effigy of the Christian there, the pagan image having been taken away some time in the early Middle Ages. The substitution was a characteristic act of piety, which could have been permitted only by an equally characteristic lack of humour. But quite regardless of its incongruous apex, the column remains as the most important historical document relating to military customs of classical antiquity that has come down to us.a

HADRIAN (P. ÆLIUS HADRIANUS), 117–138 A.d.

Hadrian was by descent a Spaniard, and of the same city where Trajan was born. He was nephew to Trajan, and married to Sabina, his grandniece. When Trajan was adopted by Nerva, Hadrian was a tribune of the army in Moesia, and sent by the troops to congratulate the emperor on his advancement. But his brother-in-law, who desired to have an opportunity of congratulating Trajan himself, supplied Hadrian with a carriage that broke down on the way. Hadrian, however, was resolved to lose no time, so the story goes, and performed the rest of the journey on foot. This assiduity was very pleasing. But the emperor was believed to dislike Hadrian for several reasons. He was expensive, and involved in debt. He was, besides, inconstant, capricious, and apt to envy another's reputation. These faults, in Trajan's opinion, could not be compensated either by Hadrian's learning or his talents. His great skill in the Greek and Latin languages, his intimate acquaintance with the laws of his country and the philosophy of the times, were no inducements to Trajan, who, being bred himself a soldier, desired to have a military man to succeed him. For this reason it was that the dying emperor would by no means appoint a successor; fearful, perhaps, of injuring his great reputation, by adopting a person that was unworthy. His death, therefore, was concealed for some time by Plotina, his wife, till Hadrian had sounded the inclinations of the army, and found them firm in his interests. They then produced a forged instrument, importing that Hadrian was adopted to succeed in the empire. By this artifice he was elected by all orders of the state, though absent from Rome, being then at Antioch, as general of the forces in the East.1

Upon Hadrian's election, his first care was to write to the senate, excusing himself for assuming the empire without their previous approbation; imputing it to the hasty zeal of the army, who rightly judged that the senate ought not long to remain without a head. He then began to pursue a course quite opposite to that of his predecessor, taking every method of declining war, and promoting the arts of peace. He was quite satisfied with preserving the ancient limits of the empire, with the Euphrates as the boundary.

Having thus settled the affairs of the East, and leaving Severus governor of Syria, he took his journey by land to Rome, sending the ashes of Trajan thither by sea. Upon his approach to the city, he was informed that a magnificent triumph was preparing for him; but this he modestly declined, desiring that those honours might be paid to Trajan's memory which they had designed for him. In consequence of this command, a most superb triumph was decreed, in which Trajan's statue was carried as the principal figure in the procession, it being remarked that he was the only man that ever triumphed after he was dead.

[There are other accounts; some claiming that Trajan "loved Hadrian as his son."]