Trajan

Trajan extended the Roman empire to its greatest extent and was remembered as its best emperor. Born at Italica in Spain in AD 53, he was the first emperor from a provincial family, and made his career entirely in the army — a decade as a tribune, service in Syria and Spain, and command in Upper Germany. Nerva, facing a mutinous praetorian guard and needing military credibility, adopted him in AD 97 without ever having met him, and died three months later. He did not hurry to Rome, finishing his business on the frontier first, and entered the city on foot. His relations with the Senate were genuinely good. He took the title optimus princeps, refused divine honours in his lifetime, and Pliny the Younger's correspondence with him shows an emperor answering detailed provincial questions personally and sensibly. He conquered Dacia in two wars, in 101-102 and 105-106, taking a kingdom rich in gold and financing an enormous building programme from it: Trajan's Forum, the markets, a new harbour at Ostia, roads and bridges across the empire, and the column whose spiral relief records the campaigns in some 155 scenes. He annexed Nabataean Arabia in 106, and in 114 invaded Parthia, taking Armenia, Mesopotamia and Ctesiphon and reaching the Persian Gulf, where he is said to have regretted being too old to follow Alexander further. Revolt broke out behind him and he withdrew. He extended the alimenta, funding poor children in Italy. He died in Cilicia in AD 117. Later senators greeted each emperor with the wish that he be luckier than Augustus and better than Trajan.

• Lived: 53 CE – 117 CE
• Nationality: Roman
• Roles: ruler, general