On 28 January AD 118, four days after his 42nd birthday, Hadrian celebrated the 20th anniversary of Trajan's accession, the first since the emperor's death at Selinus five months earlier. Festivities took place throughout the empire as Roman citizens remembered the Optimus Princeps as a successful soldier-emperor who presided over the greatest military expansion in Roman… Continue reading 28 January AD 118 – Hadrian celebrates the 20th anniversary of Trajan’s accession (#Hadrian1900)
After the death of Trajan on 8th August 117, Hadrian drafted from Syria a 'carefully worded' letter to the Senate in Rome in which he reported his accession and requested divine honours for his adoptive father. He also apologised for having assumed the imperial title only on the acclamation of the army, on the ground that… Continue reading Late September AD 117 – Hadrian receives the Senate’s response to his letter (#Hadrian1900)
On 12 August AD 117, Trajan's freedman and personal servant, the twenty-eight-year-old Marcus Ulpius Phaedimus, died in Selinus in Cilicia just a few days after his master and within a day of Hadrian receiving the news of Trajan's death. This coincidence only deepened the mystery surrounding the circumstances of Hadrian's adoption. Phaedimus, who had presumably… Continue reading 12 August AD 117 – A mysterious death occurs in Selinus (#Hadrian1900)
On 9 August AD 117, Trajan's letter of adoption (litteras adoptionis) was made public when it reached Hadrian in Antioch. Hadrian was now Caesar. As previously mentioned (see here), there was some uncertainty about whether or not Trajan had adopted Hadrian as his son and successor before his death or whether the adoption was staged… Continue reading 9 August AD 117 – Trajan’s letter of adoption reaches Hadrian (#Hadrian1900)
On 8 August AD 117, after a 19-year reign of military glory, Emperor Trajan died at the coastal town of Selinus in western Cilicia (present-day Gazipaşa, about 180 km to the East of Antalya on the southern coast of Turkey). According to Cassius Dio, Trajan fell seriously ill after an unsuccessful siege of the Mesopotamian… Continue reading 8 August AD 117 – Trajan dies at Selinus (#Hadrian1900)
Built in 1974 over the remains of a Roman villa, the Romano-Germanic Museum in Cologne houses an extensive collection of Roman artefacts from the Roman settlement of Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (named after Agrippina the Younger, born in Cologne), the capital of the Imperial Province of Germania Inferior. The museum houses the largest collection of… Continue reading The Nerva-Antonines in Cologne
Today we celebrate the anniversary of the accession of Trajan to the imperial throne (28 January 98 AD). As a tribute, here is a selection of images from the Temple of Trajan at Pergamon, an ancient Greek city in Aeolis. The Temple of Trajan (Trajaneum) was one of the most spectacular structures built on the… Continue reading Photoset: The Temple of Trajan on the Upper Acropolis of Pergamon (Turkey)
On 9th August 117 AD (or it might have been the 7th or 8th), the Emperor Trajan died suddenly from a stroke at Selinus in Cilicia on his way from Syria to Rome. This event prompted the renaming of the city as Trajanopolis and the building of a cenotaph to Trajan. Trajan lived 63 years and… Continue reading The death of Trajan and accession of Hadrian
Column of Trajan, Carrara marble, completed in 113 AD, Trajan's Forum, Rome On this day (26th May) 107 AD, Trajan celebrates a triumph for his victories over the Dacians. The celebrations lasted 123 days and entertained the populace with a vast display of gladiators and animals. In Rome, Apollodorus of Damascus designed and built in the huge… Continue reading The Column of Trajan, Rome
