Editing Trajan (section)

=== ''Optimus princeps'' ===

[[File:CVT APX Amphitheater Traiansstatue.jpg|thumb|Statue of Trajan, posing in military garb, in front of the Amphitheatre of Colonia Ulpia Traiana in the [[Xanten]] Archaeological Park in modern-day Germany]]

In the formula developed by Pliny, however, Trajan was a "good" emperor in that, by himself, he approved or blamed the same things that the Senate would have approved or blamed.{{sfn|Veyne|2005|p=37}} If in reality Trajan was an autocrat, his deferential behavior towards his peers qualified him to be viewed as a virtuous monarch.<ref>Ryan K. Balot, ed., ''A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought''.John Wiley & Sons, 2012.</ref> The idea is that Trajan wielded autocratic power through ''moderatio'' instead of ''contumacia''{{snds}}moderation instead of insolence.<ref>Roger Rees, ed., ''Latin Panegyric'', Oxford University Press, 2012, {{ISBN|978-0-19-957671-5}}, p. 137.</ref> In short, according to the ethics for autocracy developed by most political writers of the Imperial Roman Age, Trajan was a good ruler in that he ruled less by fear, and more by acting as a role model, for, according to Pliny, "men learn better from examples".<ref>Carlos F. Noreña, "The Ethics of Autocracy in the Roman World". IN Ryan K. Balot, ed., ''A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought''. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2009, {{ISBN|978-1-4051-5143-6}}, p. 277.</ref> Eventually, Trajan's popularity among his peers was such that the Roman Senate bestowed upon him the [[honorific]] of ''optimus'', meaning "the best",<ref>Bernard W. Henderson, "Five Roman Emperors" (1927).</ref><ref>F. A. Lepper, "Trajan's Parthian War" (1948).</ref> which appears on coins from 105 on.<ref>Edward Togo Salmon,''A History of the Roman World from 30 B.C. to A.D. 138''. London: Routledge, 2004, {{ISBN|0-415-04504-5}}, p. 274.</ref> This title had mostly to do with Trajan's role as benefactor, such as in the case of his returning confiscated property.<ref>Elizabeth Forbis, ''Municipal Virtues in the Roman Empire: The Evidence of Italian Honorary Inscriptions''. Stuttgart: Teubner, 1996, {{ISBN|3-519-07628-4}}, pp. 23/24.</ref> The epithet ''optimus princeps'' had already been used for the emperors since the late republic, but Trajan was the only one officially honoured by the title.{{sfn|Hekster|Betjes|Heijnen|Iannantuono|2022}}

Pliny states that Trajan's ideal role was a conservative one, argued as well by the orations of Dio Chrysostom—in particular his four ''Orations on Kingship'', composed early during Trajan's reign. Dio, as a Greek notable and intellectual with friends in high places, and possibly an official friend to the emperor (''amicus caesaris''), saw Trajan as a defender of the ''status quo''.<ref>Christopher J. Fuhrmann, ''Policing the Roman Empire: Soldiers, Administration, and Public Order''.Oxford University Press, 2012, {{ISBN|978-0-19-973784-0}}, p. 175.</ref>{{sfn|Veyne|2005|p=241}} In his third kingship oration, Dio describes an ideal king ruling by means of "friendship"{{snds}}that is, through patronage and a network of local notables who act as mediators between the ruled and the ruler.<ref>Joshua Rice, ''Paul and Patronage: The Dynamics of Power in 1 Corinthians''. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2013, {{ISBN|978-1-62032-557-5}}, p. 84 sqq.</ref> Dio's notion of being "friend" to Trajan (or any other Roman emperor), however, was that of an ''informal'' arrangement, that involved no formal entry of such "friends" into the Roman administration.<ref>Simon Swain, ed., ''Dio Chrysostom: Politics, Letters, and Philosophy''. Oxford University Press, 2002, {{ISBN|0-19-925521-0}}, p. 90.</ref> Trajan ingratiated himself with the Greek intellectual elite by recalling to Rome many (including Dio) who had been exiled by Domitian,<ref>Yun Lee Too, Niall Livingstone, eds. ''Pedagogy and Power: Rhetorics of Classical Learning''.Cambridge University Press, 2007, {{ISBN|978-0-521-59435-6}}, p.{{nbsp}}202; Leonard L. Thompson, ''The Book of Revelation'', Oxford University Press, 1997, {{ISBN|0-19-511580-5}}, p.{{nbsp}}112.</ref> and by returning (in a process begun by Nerva) a great deal of private property that Domitian had confiscated. He also had good dealings with [[Plutarch]], who, as a notable of [[Delphi]], seems to have been favoured by the decisions taken on behalf of his home-place by one of Trajan's legates, who had arbitrated a boundary dispute between Delphi and its neighbouring cities.<ref>Lukas De Blois, ed., ''The Statesman in Plutarch's Works: Proceedings of the Sixth International Congerence of the International Plutarch Society Nijmegen/Castle Hernen, 1–5 May 2002''. Leiden: Brill, 2004, {{ISBN|90-04-13795-5}}, p. 28.</ref>

However, it was clear to Trajan that Greek intellectuals and notables were to be regarded as tools for local administration, and not be allowed to fancy themselves in a privileged position.<ref>Giuseppe Zecchini, "Plutarch as Political Theorist and Trajan" ''in'' Philip A. Stadter, L.{{nbsp}}Van der Stockt, eds.,''Sage and Emperor: Plutarch, Greek Intellectuals, and Roman Power in the Time of Trajan (98–117 A.D.)''. [[Leuven University Press]], 2002, {{ISBN|90-5867-239-5}}, p. 196.</ref> As Pliny said in one of his letters at the time, it was official policy that Greek civic elites be treated according to their status as notionally free but not put on an equal footing with their Roman rulers.<ref>Benjamin Isaac, ''The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity''. [[Princeton University Press]], 2013, {{ISBN|0-691-11691-1}}, p. 399.</ref> When the city of [[Apamea Myrlea|Apamea]] complained of an audit of its accounts by Pliny, alleging its "free" status as a Roman colony, Trajan replied by writing that it was by his own wish that such inspections had been ordered. Concern about independent local political activity is seen in Trajan's decision to forbid [[Nicomedia]] from having a corps of firemen ("If people assemble for a common purpose{{nbsp}}... they soon turn it into a political society", Trajan wrote to Pliny) as well as in his and Pliny's fears about excessive civic generosities by local notables such as distribution of money or gifts.<ref>Benjamin Isaac, 487; Albino Garzetti, ''From Tiberius to the Antonines'', 348.</ref>

Pliny's letters suggest that Trajan and his aides were as much bored as they were alarmed by the claims of Dio and other Greek notables to political influence based on what they saw as their "special connection" to their Roman overlords.{{sfn|Veyne|2005|p=240}} Pliny tells of Dio of Prusa placing a statue of Trajan in a building complex where Dio's wife and son were buried – therefore incurring a charge of treason for placing the emperor's statue near a grave. Trajan, however, dropped the charge.<ref>Simon Swain, ''Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, AD 50–250''. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996, {{ISBN|0-19-814772-4}}, p. 237.</ref> Nevertheless, while the office of ''corrector'' was intended as a tool to curb any hint of independent political activity among local notables in the Greek cities,<ref>Thérèse Renoirte (Sœur), ''Les "Conseils politiques" de Plutarque. Une lettre ouverte aux Grecs à l'époque de Trajan''. Review by Robert Flacelière, ''  L'antiquité classique'', 1952, available at [http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/antiq_0770-2817_1952_num_21_1_3210_T1_0162_0000_2] . Retrieved 12 December 2014.</ref> the ''correctores'' themselves were all men of the highest social standing entrusted with an exceptional commission. The post seems to have been conceived partly as a reward for senators who had chosen to make a career solely on the emperor's behalf. Therefore, in reality the post was conceived as a means for "taming" both Greek notables and Roman senators.<ref>E. Guerber, "Les correctores dans la partie hellénophone de l'empire Romain du règne de Trajan à l'avènement de Dioclétien : étude prosopographique"  ''Anatolia Antiqua'', V.5, no. 5, 1997; available at [http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/anata_1018-1946_1997_num_5_1_876]. Retrieved 12 December 2014.</ref> It must be added that, although Trajan was wary of the civic oligarchies in the Greek cities, he also admitted into the senate a number of prominent Eastern notables already slated for promotion during Domitian's reign by reserving for them one of the twenty posts open each year for minor magistrates (the ''[[Vigintisexviri|vigintiviri]]'').<ref>Brian Jones, ''The Emperor Domitian'', Routledge, 2002, {{ISBN|0-203-03625-5}}, p.{{nbsp}}171.</ref> Such must be the case of the Galatian notable and "leading member of the Greek community" (according to one inscription) Gaius Julius Severus, who was a descendant of several [[Hellenistic]] dynasts and client kings.<ref>Brian Jones, ''The Emperor Domitian'', 172; Petit, ''Pax Romana'', 52; Martin Goodman, ''The Roman World 44 BC–AD 180''. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013, {{ISBN|978-0-415-55978-2}}, p. 120.</ref>

Severus was the grandfather of the prominent general [[Gaius Julius Quadratus Bassus]], consul in 105.<ref>Pergamum inscription (Smallwood NH 214), reproduced in Brian Campbell, ''The Roman Army, 31 BC – AD 337: A Sourcebook''. London: Routledge, 2006, {{ISBN|0-415-07172-0}}, p. 63.</ref> Other prominent Eastern senators included [[Gaius Julius Alexander Berenicianus]], a descendant of [[Herod the Great]], suffect consul in 116.<ref>Junghwa Choi, ''Jewish Leadership in Roman Palestine from 70 C.E. to 135 C.E.'' . Leiden: Brill, 2013, {{ISBN|978-90-04-24516-7}}, p. 162.</ref> Trajan created at least fourteen new senators from the Greek-speaking half of the empire, an unprecedented recruitment number that opens to question the issue of the "traditionally Roman" character of his reign, as well as the "Hellenism" of his successor Hadrian.<ref>Pierre Lambrechts, "Trajan et le récrutement du Sénat", ''L'antiquité classique'', 1936, 5–1, pp. 105–114. Available at [http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/antiq_0770-2817_1936_num_5_1_3014]. Retrieved 4 January 2015.</ref> But then Trajan's new Eastern senators were mostly very powerful and very wealthy men with more than local influence<ref>Stanley E. Hoffer, ''The Anxieties of Pliny, the Younger''. Oxford University Press, 1999, {{ISBN|0-7885-0565-3}}, p. 121.</ref> and much interconnected by marriage, so that many of them were not altogether "new" to the Senate.{{sfn|de Ste. Croix|1989|p=119}} On the local level, among the lower section of the Eastern propertied,{{sfn|de Ste. Croix|1989|p=466}} the alienation of most Greek notables and intellectuals towards Roman rule, and the fact that the Romans were seen by most such Greek notables as aliens, persisted well after Trajan's reign.<ref>Hildegard Temporini, ed., ''Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der Neueren Forschung. Principat, Part 2, Volume 2'' .Leiden: De Gruyter, 1975, {{ISBN|3-11-004971-6}}, pp. 367/368.</ref> One of Trajan's senatorial creations from the East, the [[Athenian]] [[Philopappos|Gaius Julius Antiochus Epiphanes Philopappos]], a member of the Royal House of [[Commagene]], left behind him a [[Philopappos Monument|funeral monument]] on the [[Mouseion Hill]] that was later disparagingly described by [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] as "a monument built to a [[Syrian]] man".<ref>K. W. Arafat, ''Pausanias' Greece: Ancient Artists and Roman Rulers''. Cambridge University Press, 2004, {{ISBN|0-521-55340-7}}, p. 192.</ref>