His feats were such that a common prayer among senators was "May he be luckier than Augustus and better than Trajan" for each successive emperor, and even Christian historians saw him as a virtuous pagan, among other things for not persecuting them too hard during his reign (Catholic tradition holds that Pope Gregory I briefly raised Trajan from the dead in order to convert him). He is immortalized in Heaven in The Divine Comedy.
As mentioned, Marcus was born in the colony of Italica (modern day Santiponce, Spain, near modern Seville), although it remains unclear whether his family were Italian immigrants, Romanized natives, or a mix of both.note He began a career in the Roman army and was soon ascending through the ranks by sheer merit, meeting destinies like Syria, Germania and his own native Hispania. He was eventually appointed governor of the always dangerous Germanic frontier of the Rhine, where he warred under the orders of Emperor Domitian, and after the latter's murder, a series of political convulsions (that is, nothing unusual at the time) ended up with Trajan being adopted as heir by the next emperor, the old and unpopular Nerva, who needed a well-positioned military man in order to gain the army's support.
According to the tradition, it was Trajan's own nephew Publius Aelius Hadrianus, the future next emperor in line, who gave him the news of his new position. Hadrian was also Trajan's lover, by the way, as by this point Trajan was already known by his penchant for beautiful young men, an increasingly ill-reputed Hellenic custom that would become the only trait of his people were really willing to complain about (he was apparently also a hard drinker, but chroniclers specify he remained functional).
Trajan's rise to emperor was relatively clean, with only some suspicions that his adviser Lucius Licinius Sura, another Hispanic Roman, might have been The Man Behind the Man to ensure the ascent of his countryman. He still took time to arrive to Rome, as Trajan, always The Strategist, preferred to secure the Germanic frontiers first and en passant ensure his own control of the army, especially against those who had conspired against Domitian. His doubts were mostly unfounded — the history-turning detail that he was the very first non-Italian emperor was not lost to anybody, but the Roman Senate had been so sick and tired of the unfortunate Domitian and Nerva that he was received with optimism anyway. This helped Trajan to gain the favor of the Senate and cultivate the image of a reluctant, grounded type of ruler, while at the same time, he subtlely worked to divest the Senate from a lot of its power and functions in order to secure complete control. Few people complained, though, because it turned out Trajan made a good usage of this power: he pursued corruption and mismanagement across the empire, rarely disagreed with the Senate in practice, and was regarded as an admirable leader, ultimately earning the nickname of Optimus (roughly "The Best", the highest title someone could attain in Rome).
Trajan was not an innovator, rather espousing that good government would come from a renovation of the existing administration system. He was certainly a Hellenophile, as he favored senators of Greek origin and greatly benefited the Greek elite, even having Plutarch and Dio Chrysostom among his friends, but as usual, he carefully avoided to have them disrupting his own devices and strongly opposed to formations of oligarchies of any kind. He was also a prolific builder, and among his constructions we can count the Trajan's Bridge, an absolutely massive work by one of his Greek friends which crossed the entire Danube and served to deploy reinforcements in the frontier regardless of the climate. More of his works were the pharaonic Forum Traiani, the largest forum in Rome, and the Via Traiana, an extension of the ancient Via Appia, as well as several works of embellishment of Egyptian buildings. His homeland benefitted from this too, which you can see today in the magnificent and still functional Alcántara Bridge near modern day Cáceres. Trajan also expanded heavily the Circus Maximus, where he organized gigantic Gladiator Games to celebrate his military victories, earning the praise of orators that were even a bit startled that he successfully cared equally for public entertainments and more serious issues (not a small feat for an emperor).
This bit about gladiators might leave a sour taste in modern readers, especially after knowing that the slaughter of animals, slaves, criminals and gladiators back then reached the five digits, but Trajan also had what we would call a humanitarian side (no, not that way). He created the alimenta, an impressive welfare program that helped orphans and poor children throughout Italy by providing cash, food and subsidized education, and also promoted repopulation of Roman soil by free farmers, as well as reforming the Roman justice system to make it fairer and more efficient. Even the always uncomfortable Christians, Trajan ordered not to accept anonymous or malicious denunciations to prosecute them.
Since before becoming an emperor, Trajan was married to an equally dignified woman, the renowned Epicurean matrona Pompeia Plotina, although they never had children, likely on account of him being more interested in men and such, and it was rumored that she was in an affair with another member of their Hispanic circle, Publius Acilius Attianus. In any case, she contributed a lot to his humanistic policies and is herself rated among the best Roman empresses.
Now, the cool stuff. Maybe due to being born in Spain and such, Trajan would also prove to be an prolific conqueror, taking his empire to its greater expanse ever. His predecessor Domitian had spectacularly failed at waging a war in Dacia, where the king Decebalus had crushed his legions and basically forced Rome to pay tribute in order not to have its frontiers sacked since, so stopping that would be Trajan's first goal. Breaking the empire's tradition of not engaging in more great conquests, Trajan crossed his bridge over the Danube and defeated Decebalus in two long campaigns, in which he possibly first used the Roman engine called carroballista (essentially, mobile field artillery). Although Decebalus committed suicide before giving the Romans the satisfaction of his captivity, the empire would relish at having acquired the gold mines of Dacia, which was now a full-fledged Roman province. This victory earned Trajan the nickname of Dacicus, adding to a previous one of Germanicus for his exploits in Germania, and was commemorated in Trajan's Column, which still stands today too (his name is also part of his legacy, as Traian remains a popular first name in modern day Romania, whose anthem also praises the good emperor).
Around this time, Trajan also assimilated the Arabian kingdom of Nabatea after the death of its king, Rabbel II Soter, but this point remains a Noodle Incident in his career, as we know little to nothing about it. Apparently, the conquest was so fast and easy that he didn't get to earn the title Arabicus to add to the list.
His fanciest exploit, however, would be against the Parthian Empire, the Persian power that had already validated its dominance of Asia by having Marcus Licinius Crassus gruesomely executed for his clumsy invasion attempt. The causes of the campaign are unclear, as some believe Trajan wanted to punish the Parthian pretender Osroes I for his intromission in the neutral kingdom of Armenia, while others think he desired a better Roman foothold for the sea commerce with India, and others speculate he just wanted to fulfill the old dreams of Julius Caesar. In any case, there he went, capitalizing on a timely civil war that had divided the Parthians between Osroes and the king Vologases III. Trajan achieved great success in his assault: he captured Armenia, Mesopotamia and the very Parthian capital of Ctesiphon, overcoming them with the help of a fluvial fleet especially built to control the Tigris and Euphrates, and only stopped at the Persian Gulf, where Trajan's health started to fail him, making him bemoan to be too old to fully imitate Alexander and reach India. Although he missed all the elephants, yogis and et cetera, he made sure to commemorate the young king in his seat in Babylon.
The conquest of the Parthians went ultimately unfinished, though, as Parthia turned out to be harder to rule than to conquer, especially for a Roman army already quite overextended by the whole feat. Trajan found himself quelling revolts even before he could have submitted the totality of the empire and captured Osroes himself, so he decided to accelerate things by installing a Puppet King, Osroes' deserter son Parthamaspates. Then, at that point, Jewish Revolts exploded within the eastern lands of the Roman Empire, where the Messianic ringleader Lukuas initiated a extermination of all the local non-Jewish population (the irony), forcing Trajan to divide his forces to stop the bloodshed. The emperor sailed back to Rome in order to recover from his bad health, originally intending to return and solidify Roman control in all the involved lands, but he fell seriously ill and died near Cilicia.
Before his death, he appointed Hadrian his successor, or so it's claimed. Folklore has that Trajan died silent and that it were Pompeia and Attianus who fabricated the succession, hiding a slave in the bed and making him whisper the will (or alternatively, writing a will with a forged signature), but you never know. In any case, Emperor Hadrian abandoned the campaign for being too costly and gave Osroes back his empire, undoing this point of Trajan's career yet going to become equally one of the Five Good Emperors for his own merits.
In fiction
Literature- Santiago Posteguillo wrote a trilogy about Trajan, composed by The Emperor's Assassins, Circus Maximus - Trajan's rage and The Lost Legion.
