Trajan was the first Roman emperor to have come from outside Italy. The son of a distinguished senator he was born in Italica in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica (near modern Seville, Spain) and reigned from AD 98 to 117. He was a remarkably successful military commander and the Empire reached its greatest geographical extent during his rule. He conquered Mesopotamia in the east and Dacia further west, the two wars in Dacia being commemorated to this day by the famous Trajan’s Column erected in Rome in AD 113.

This column, once topped with a gilded statue of Trajan, has a carved frieze showing the emperor addressing his troops and accompanied by animals and war machines. It formed part of an ambitious programme of civic construction which also included his Forum and Baths. He undertook this work to draw attention not only to his military successes but also to his reputation as a responsible and competent emperor in contrast to some of his predecessors.

Trajan was a conscientious administrator, managing poor relief schemes and communicating with far-flung provincial governors, such as Pliny the Younger in Bithynia, at a time when the new Christian communities were emerging in the region. He recommended that Christians should not be aggressively pursued and punished on the basis of anonymous evidence.