Note 489 — CANTO THE FOURTH[375]

{411} Trajan was proverbially the best of the Roman princes; and it would be easier to find a sovereign uniting exactly the opposite characteristics, than one possessed of all the happy qualities ascribed to this emperor. "When he mounted the throne," says the historian Dion, "he was strong in body, he was vigorous in mind; age had impaired none of his faculties; he was altogether free from envy and from detraction; he honoured all the good, and he advanced them: and on this account they could not be the objects of his fear, or of his hate; he never listened to informers; he gave not way to his anger; he abstained equally from unfair exactions and unjust punishments; he had rather be loved as a man than honoured as a sovereign; he was affable with his people, respectful to the senate, and universally beloved by both; he inspired none with dread but the enemies of his country." (See Eutrop., Hist. Rom. Brev. lib. viii. cap. v.; Dion, Hist. Rom., lib. lxiii. caps, vi., vii.)

[M. Ulpius Trajanus (A.D. 52-117) celebrated a triumph over the Dacians in 103 and 106. It is supposed that the column which stands at the north end of the Forum Trajanum commemorated the Dacian victories. In 115-16 he conquered the Parthians, and added the province of Armenia Minor to the empire. It was not, however, an absolute or a final victory. The little desert stronghold of Atræ, or Hatra, in Mesopotamia, remained uncaptured; and, instead of incorporating the Parthians in the empire, he thought it wiser to leave them to be governed by a native prince under the suzerainty of Rome. His conquests were surrendered by Hadrian, and henceforth the tide of victory began to ebb. He died on his way back to Rome, at Selinus, in Cilicia, in August, 117.

Trajan's "moderation was known unto all men." Pliny, in his Panegyricus (xxii.), describes his first entry into Rome. He might have assumed the state of a monarch or popular hero, but he walked afoot, conspicuous, pre-eminent, a head and shoulders above the crowd—a triumphal entry; but it was imperial arrogance, not civil liberty, over which he triumphed. "You were our king," he says, "and we your subjects; but we obeyed you as the embodiment of our laws." Martial (Epig., x. 72) hails him not as a tyrant, but an emperor—yea, more than an emperor—as the most righteous of lawgivers and senators, who had brought back plain Truth to the light of day; and Claudian (viii. 318) maintains that his glory will live, not because the Parthians had been annexed, but because he was "mitis patriæ." The divine honours which he caused to be paid to his adopted father, Nerva, he refused for himself. "For just reasons," says Pliny, "did the Senate and people of Rome assign thee the name and title of Optimus." Another honour awaited him: "Il est seul Empereur," writes M. De La Berge, "dont les restes aient reposé dans l'enceinte de la ville Eternelle." (See Pliny's Panegyricus, passim; and Essai sur le règne de Trajan, Bibliothèque de L'Ecole des Hautes Études, Paris, 1877.)]