The Roman Emperor Trajan took office in the year AD 98. This new emperor was a friend of Roman soldiers, and he seem poised to expand Roman influence into the farthest reaches of the known world. His first aggressive step was to subjugate the treacherous Dacians—a people rich in gold and silver, and who harassed Roman forts along the Empire’s northern boundaries. But the Dacian king Decebalus was a crafty and clever strategists, with a proven track record against Rome’s legions. Once the war broke out, Trajan quickly found himself outmaneuvered by the Dacian king. As we learned last time, Trajan surged deep into the mountains of what is now modern Romania, but king Decebalus shocked the emperor, and led hordes of Dacians—perhaps more than 100,000 in the opposite direction, towards the Roman Empire’s now undermanned borders. How did Trajan rescue the Empire from such a terrifying threat, overcome a blunder that could have ended his reign barely before it even began and discover a one the largest hoards of buried treasure ever found in human history?

Under Trajan, members of the Roman Senate had to face facts: the republic was gone, and elements of the military were equally if not more important than them. To us, this sounds like the kind of junta or military dictatorship that rarely lasts long—but in fact, with the accession of Trajan, the Roman Empire would enter its most dominant and prosperous period; it would also be an era free from major civil wars or usurpations; but how did Trajan manage to get this most remarkable phase of the Pax Romana off on the right foot?

With the death of Domitian, we now enter the age that some historians call the High Roman Empire—the pinnacle of the pinnacle. For just shy of a century, from AD 96 to 180, Rome is ruled by a succession of five emperors. And while each of them had their flaws, some more obvious than others, they are generally regarded as among the best that Rome had to offer. Edward Gibbon, who wrote The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in 1776, would call this span of time: “the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous”. Lofty words, but are they true? Were these years the best years in Roman history, let alone the history of the whole human race?

Augustus Caesar set up a military autocracy in which he, and he alone, would be supreme leader. He then wrapped that autocracy in the tattered remains of Rome’s shredded Republican constitution. Emperors came and went, many of them claiming to secure and uphold the republican system; in reality, the new autocratic system became permanent. As we learned last time, the year AD 81 would mark the beginning of a new and infamous regime—that of the hated emperor Domitian. Ancient writers universally condemn Domitian as one of if not the worst Roman emperor. But was Domitian Rome’s worst emperor?

Primary Sources Referenced:

Suetonius, Life of Domitian 3.

Pliny, Letters 1.12.

Suetonius, Life of Domitian 23.

The reign of the emperor Titus, the son of Vespasian, was short—just a little over two years—but boy was it eventful. And for once, these events have little to do with the emperor—by all accounts Titus was a decent leader—but rather, it was nature that wreaked havoc on tens of thousands of Romans. First, the famous eruption of Vesuvius, the volcanos burial of the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Then a major fire in Rome. And finally, a plague that at least once source claims killed 10,000 Romans—in just a single day. But if the Romans thought these deadly natural disasters were the worst that could happen under the new dynasty, they were wrong. Because as we’ll see on this next episode, Titus was soon succeeded by perhaps one of the Pax Romana’s most infamous emperors.

Primary Sources Referenced:

Pliny’s Letters 56.

Vespasian wrestled control of the empire away from several other claimants through a violent civil war. He marched into Rome with a fresh foreign triumph under his belt; Vespasian, through his son Titus, claimed conquest over the rebellious Jews in Judea. But despite his superficial similarities to Augustus, would Vespasian succeed in founding a lasting dynasty, and leave his mark on the Pax Romana?

Primary Sources Referenced:

Lex de Imperio Vespasiani (CIL 4.930).

Suetonius, Life of Vespasian 7.

Mark 8:23

In AD 70, the second dynasty of the Pax Romana was about to commence. Its founder, Vespasian, earned his opportunity to claim the empire largely because of victories in one of the empire’s most contentious provinces: Judea—the territory which now resides in the modern state of Israel. The relationship between Roman occupiers and the Jewish people gradually soured in the first century AD—culminating in a lengthy and bloody revolt in which Jerusalem, and the historic Jewish temple it contained—were destroyed.

On January 15, AD 69, the Praetorian Guard made Otho, legate of the now deceased Galba, the third emperor in less than a year. The military autocracy established by Augustus was developing serious fractures. Nero and then Galba had been assassinated in Rome. The new emperor, Otho, was hardly established. With so much uncertainty at Rome, ongoing conflicts and rebellions in places like Britain, Germany and Judea offered ambitious generals and governors opportunities to earn victories so epic that their soldiers might decide to proclaim them emperor. That is exactly what happened.

Primary Sources Referenced:

Cassius Dio 64.13.

In the tumultuous year of AD 69, four emperors rose and fell in rapid succession--a period known as the Year of the Four Emperors. Among these fleeting rulers was Galba, an elderly general who seized power after the overthrow of Nero. Galba's reign, however, was short-lived. The new emperor attempted to reinstitute conservative governance, but ended up alienating his own soldiers. Within just a few months, he would be publicly beheaded in Rome's forum.