26 The Imperial Government
Thatbringsinthesecondverysignificantfeatureofthereign.Foracon-
siderableproportionofhis19-to20-yearreignTrajanwasabsentfromRome
andItaly.AsHalfmann’sinvaluablestudyofimperialjourneysshows,^7 Trajan
wasabsent,inGermanyandPannonia,fromhisaccessionassoleEmperorin
January98toaboutOctober99;fromMarch101totheendof102,forthe
first Dacian war; from June 105 to thewinter 106/7 for the second Dacian
war;andforthefouryearsfromOctober113tohisdeathinCiliciain117.
Approximately,therefore,some9outofthe19–20yearsof hisreignwere
spentawayfromRomeandItaly.Aswewillsee,twodocumentshappento
showalsohowletterscouldbewrittenbytheEmperorfromplacesinItaly,
butoutsideRome:inthiscasebothwerewrittenfromAntium.
IntheimmediatecontextofTrajan’sreign,thatmeant,firstly,thatthose
whoneededtosendmessagestohimmusthavehadtoinstructtheirmes-
sengerstogoeithertoRomeorwherevertheEmperorwas.Whetherthis
information was necessarilyavailable in advance,we do not know. At any
ratewecanfindpartiestoalaw-suitwritingtoTrajaninDaciatoaskhimto
takeacase,whichhedulydoesonhisreturn;^8 and,inDio’swell-knownre-
port,wehearoftheearthquakewhichstruckAntiochwhenTrajanwaswin-
teringtherein115/16andcaughtembassiesfromallovertheEmpirewhich
hadgatheredthere.^9 ItfollowsfromtheEmperor’srepeatedpreoccupation
withfrontiercampaignsthatwhatevergovernmentalapparatus,orstaff,he
requiredfortheperformanceof hisimperialfunctionsmustsystematically
havetravelledwithhim.
Inthatsense,Trajanforeshadowsthepatternwhichbecameclearlyestab-
lishedinthemiddleofthesecondcentury,andwhichcontinuedunbroken
up to the end of the fourth,wherebyemperors conducted major military
campaignsinperson.Trajan’sattempttoexpandtheEmpireintheEast,abor-
tiveasitwas,alsoforeshadowedapreoccupationwhichwastodominatethe
dischargeoftheirfunctionsbytheemperorsuntilthesameperiod.^10 That
meantthataparticularlysignificantelementnowenteredtheimperialcor-
respondence, namely the letter sent by the emperoron the frontier to the
SenateinRome.Thereisaneatsymmetryinthefactthat,inTrajan’scase,
- H. Halfmann,Itinera Principum: Geschichte und Typologie der Kaiserreisen im Römischen
Reich(Stuttgart,1986),184–88. - Plin.,epist.6,31,8–9;seefurtherbelow.
- Dio68,24–25.
- C.S.Lightfoot,‘‘Trajan’sParthianWarandtheFourth-CenturyPerspective,’’JRS
80(1990):115–26;F.Millar,The Roman Near East, 31bc–ad 337 (Cambridge,Mass.,1993),
99–100.