Original subtitles

Previously, on "Rome: Rise and fall of an empire":

In 47 a.D., emperor Claudius leads a magnificent conquest to fabled Britain,

Rome's first attempt since Julius Caesar 100 years earlier.

But fueled by bloody rites and led by a charismatic warrior-prince,

the island's fierce inhabitants plunge Rome into an endless guerilla war.

Now:

Almost 40 years later, in 84 a.D.,

emperor Domitian battles against barbarians on the frontier and treachery in the senate,

until a bloody conspiracy sets Rome on a new course

and emperor Trajan brutally finishes what Domitian has started.

ROME RISE AND FALL OF AN EMPIRE

THE DACIAN WARS

Rome, 80 A.D.

By the end of the first century, the Roman empire is becoming well established.

The army is strong.

Battles are won. Dominance is gained.

It's entering into a very prosperous period that's going to last about 150 years up

until the middle of the third century A.D., when they start to run into real problems.

So Rome is entering a very prosperous period at this juncture.

Rome has grown large, but surrounding its civilized core,

barbarian tribes in Germania and Dacia-modern-day Germany and Romania-resist Roman domination.

Most troublesome of these are the dacians.

Their king, Decebalus, is busy courting smaller neighboring tribes-

offering slaves and gold in exchange for their allegiance against Rome.

He had cast about for alliances to his north and successfully gotten alliances to his north.

He had also successfully gotten alliances to his east.

So he's becoming increasingly formidable and the romans do not like this.

The romans have never liked this.

Through these efforts, king Decebalus undermines Rome's strategy

to keep the various barbarian tribes divided and weak.

The romans dealt with all of these configurations of tribes across both these borders

largely by seeking to pit them, the one against the other.

To manipulate them so that they never achieve solidarity against Rome, on the one hand.

And so that none of them ever became powerful enough in its own right by conquering all the others

that they would pose a significant enough threat.

Decebalus cements his tribal agreements against Rome, just as a precarious imperial transition is taking place.

Back in Rome, an inexperienced nobleman named Domitian stands poised to take the throne

as his brother, the emperor Titus, lies on his deathbed.

It is a turn of events that no one has predicted and that Rome is not prepared for.

There is apparent conflict between Titus and Domitian.

Titus will die of plague in 81 A.D.

And there'll be rumors of Domitian having poisoned him, having gotten rid of his brother, to gain imperial power.

Titus, a popular emperor, rules for only two years.

Domitian resents every minute of it, according to second-century biographer Suetonius.

Domitian never failed to say that he and his brother should have ruled Rome together,

but their father's will had been tampered with.

And when Titus was seized with a dangerous illness,

Domitian ordered that he be left for dead, before he had actually drawn his last breath.

Rome's might lies in the power of its army to crush the resistance of all who challenge the empire.

So, to prove he is as worthy as his brother and father, Domitian must earn his legacy on the battlefield.

In 83 A.D., he leads his soldiers to the germanic frontiers along the Rhine and Danube,

in a showy display of Roman strength.

But Domitian himself will not face the first onslaught of barbarian warriors alone.

Accompanying him as his battle commander is someone who lacks both status and experience,

someone who can never be a threat to him-Cornelius Fuscus.

The man who was most in the position to threaten the emperor,

that is, the man in command of troops at Rome,

was too low rank to actually think of himself as a significant candidate for the throne.

This was a way of protecting themselves, by putting someone lower ranked in charge of these troops.

Domitian has chosen an easy target,

an unprepared and underarmed group of German barbarians.

Emperors at the beginning of their reign often like to undertake a campaign,

particularly if they feel their position isn't altogether secure.

We can imagine that Domitian, who wasn't that much liked by many people,

wanted to strengthen his ties with the army and therefore a successful campaign against perhaps an opponent

that isn't altogether ready for the attack might be a good option.

The Germans go down in a bloody defeat and Domitian praises his triumphant legions,

raising their pay 25% and taking for himself a new honorary title, "Germanicus-conqueror of the Germans."

While Domitian actively promotes himself, a young soldier named Trajan asserts quiet authority on the Rhine frontier,

earning respect through leadership rather than violence.

He is a man of ambition and patience.

His father had served effectively in a number of campaigns under Vespasian.

So he is of senatorial stock and he is of a consular family.

He is not of the very elite of the elite of the Roman senatorial class.

So Trajan can be said to come from relatively modest beginnings.

Trajan will continue his service to Rome, as he awaits an opportunity to prove himself to the new emperor.

But to the north in their weapons workshops, the dacians are operating overtime,

hammering the steel of swords and spears, filling the armory of their king, Decebalus.

He knows that war with the romans is drawing near and he wants his people armed and ready.

Historian Cassius Dio describes him.

"Shrewd in his understanding of warfare and shrewd also in the waging of war,

Decebalus judged well when to attack and chose the right moment to retreat;

He was an expert in ambushes and a master in pitched battles.

He knew not only how to follow up a victory well, but also how to manage a defeat."

The dacians were quite a sophisticated,

perhaps the most advanced civilization apart from the romans in the mediterranean area at this time.

So it's not surprising they could pose a serious threat-absolutely.

The dacians gather with their shaman to purify the tools needed to perform a sacred ritual

in which their heavenly god Zalmoxis will reveal their fate.

Fifth-century b.C. historian Herodotus:

"Once every 5 years, they chose by lot one of their people

and send him as a messenger to Zalmoxis, charged to tell the god of their needs.

If the messenger be killed by the cast, they believe that the gods regard them with favor;

but if he be not killed they blame the messenger himself."

Today, a dacian messenger travels far to bring Zalmoxis a wish for victory against Rome,

and the dacians will settle for nothing less.

Without warning or provocation, the dacians raid the Roman province of Moesia.

The markets of Moesia teem with the goods of a bountiful province: fruit from the orchards,

grain from the fields, pottery from the skilled artisans-and gold dug

from the moesian mines-a key source of metal for Roman coinage.

Exploiting Rome's lack of vigilance on this part of the frontier, the dacians ride in, catching the province completely off guard.

They wreak total havoc, looting, pillaging, and slaughtering anyone who tries to stop them, including the governor of Moesia.

It's unclear exactly why in 84 they go into Moesia, what this initial incursion is about.

This had traditionally been their territory.

At least part of Moesia had been their territory

and so possibly there is a desire to recover lost territory,

or perhaps just a desire for plunder and a recognition that there is a weakness that can be exploited.

Clearly, waging war on the other side of the Danube was a way to promote an elite of warriors,

and clearly Decebalus had come to power as a consequence of that.

In other words, waging war against the romans was the best way for the aristocracy to come to political prominence.

As Rome's border comes under serious assault,

the untested emperor Domitian will rally his troops against a lethal barbarian foe.

84 A.D. With the death of his brother, Domitian has unexpectedly become emperor of Rome.

Now he must prove himself against an unexpected enemy.

Unprovoked, the dacian barbarians have raided the province of Moesia and killed its governor.

The romans send Cornelius Fuscus and his legion in reprisal.

The dacians close in from all sides.

This attack on Moesia is more than an assault on Roman rule;

it's an assault on the emperor's personal prestige.

The barbaric murder of a governor cannot go unanswered by emperor Domitian.

And so what he's going to do, is he's going to put in charge a successor, Cornelius Fuscus,

who is hopefully going to take care of the problem.

The problem with Cornelius Fuscus is he's a man who likes to take risks unnecessarily.

Domitian takes a risk, too.

By appointing this man who is not of senatorial class, he is openly defying the Roman senate.

The dacian forces confront him and inflict a major defeat on him.

Such a significant defeat that his life is lost, his army is essentially annihilated, and the standards are taken.

This a major blow for the romans.

Rome pays for Domitian's misjudgment in the blood of its soldiers.

But wars have other costs, too,

and it's the wealthy citizens of Rome who are forced to fund Domitian's expensive army.

The emperor would stop at nothing to fill his coffers, writes second-century biographer Suetonius.

Reduced to financial straits by the cost of buildings and shows and the pay raises he gave to the soldiers,

Domitian eagerly resorted to every sort of robbery.

He used any charge to seize the property of the living and the dead.

In this way he became an object of terror and hatred to all.

All except the Roman army, whose loyalty Domitian has bought.

With a new general installed after Fuscus' death,

emperor Domitian deploys his soldiers across the border to Tapae, in Dacia.

Now more than ever, the emperor must defeat Decebalus and regain Roman honor.

He depends on auxiliary troops- foreign allies paid to fight Rome's battles.

So Rome has to do something about this, because it's not just losing two governors.

It's a matter of national prestige.

You can't have this kind of hit and run raid,

although killing two governors is much more than a hit and run raid, and not do something about it.

So Decebalus had to be dealt with in some way.

As the Roman and dacian forces clash again, Rome is determined to settle the matter once and for all.

The dacians are notoriously fierce fighters,

but the Roman army, beefed up with auxiliary troops composed of barbarian allies, won't back down.

For the dacians, the experience of fighting romans is certainly going to be a terrifying experience,

not just because you're fighting a professional military that demonstrates its capacity and its organization at every turn,

but also because you're going to be facing auxiliaries whose style of fighting that you've never encountered.

You've never encountered people who look like this or people who dress like this or people who fight like this,

and so the experience of a battle is going to be overwhelmingly a terrifying experience.

Until, at last, Decebalus and the dacians are overwhelmed, and they retreat.

But circumstances won't allow Domitian to press the advantage against the dacians.

While Domitian is preoccupied with Decebalus and the dacians, a Roman governor in Germania seizes his chance to rebel.

Domitian sends the young and loyal legionary commander named Trajan to restore order.

The revolt is crushed and the rebel leader taken captive.

The domestic problem that Domitian faced in 89 was apparently dissatisfaction

among at least one of the commanders and his legions elsewhere in the European theater.

This was the general Saturninus, who seems to have made an attempt to declare himself emperor

while Domitian was preoccupied with dacian wars.

Trajan helps quell the Saturninus rebellion, winning greater recognition from the emperor.

As a reward, Domitian makes him consul in 91.

And then it seems he's given probably two military governorships along the frontier,

both of which required great skill and also granted to him great responsibility.

But for the dacian king Decebalus,

the emperor Domitian's political and military problems provide an unexpected bonus.

Domitian, an inept leader at best,

suddenly feels vulnerable because of dissent in his ranks and the savagery of the dacian resistance.

Hoping to appease and control his defeated enemies,

the insecure Domitian sends a messenger from Rome into dacian territory

offering a generous treaty deal with the warrior-king.

It is a weak and cowardly solution.

Anytime a military leader settles with an enemy for anything less than total victory,

it's always going to be open for his critics to complain that this amounts to a cowardice,

to letting an enemy off the hook.

Witness the criticism, both in the nineties and early into this decade,

that was leveled at George W. Bush for allowing Saddam Hussein to remain in power after the first Gulf war.

In this strange reversal, Domitian's messenger delivers the spoils of war to his defeated enemy.

According to historian Cassius Dio:

"Domitian had given large sums of money to Decebalus on the spot as well as artisans of every trade

pertaining to both peace and war, and promised to keep on giving large sums in the future."

Domitian squanders Rome's wealth to buy a barbarian's loyalty.

He was forced to cut a deal that was very unfavorable

and to the permanent detriment of his reputation he had to grant the dacians a tribute.

He also had to send engineers and technicians and in essence laid the foundation for dacian resurgence.

Then, in 89 A.D., emperor Domitian follows this display of Roman weakness with another foolish action-

what he believes will be a show of Roman strength, against other barbarians across the Danube.

But Domitian underestimates their strength and devotes too few of his troops.

Domitian had felt that they had inadequately supported him during the initial stages of his dacian campaign.

So he launched a retaliatory attack on these two tribes,

probably thinking that this would be a very fast-moving and easily resolved situation.

Rome suffers a humiliating loss.

Domitian at this point, is really on a downward spiral in a sense.

Not only is he buying off decebalus, there's rumors that he's triumphed over the Germans,

but these are false triumphs, that he's been buying blonde wigs

and dressing people up as Germans to carry in as triumphs.

This sort of thing.

Things are really on the skids for Domitian.

But not all of Domitian's enemies are on the frontier.

Domitian had a habit of killing off his relatives with fantastic regularity.

And also in moments of pique, as it seems, would discover, or claim to discover, conspiracies among senators.

And this would lead to purges of the ranking membership of the senate.

By 93 A.D., Domitian declares himself "Dominus et deus"- lord and god.

He has become unpredictable, vindictive, and dangerous.

He made virtually everyone close to him feel continually under threat.

And it was only a mater of time before someone lashed out to kill him before he killed them.

As long as Domitian lives, no one around him is safe.

His wife Domitia, her steward Stephanus, and others close to Domitian

decide to take matters into their own hands, according to biographer Suetonius.

As the conspirators were deliberating when and how to attack Domitian,

whether at the bath or at dinner, Stephanus, Domitia's steward, offered his aid.

To avoid suspicion, he wrapped up his left arm in woolen bandages for some days,

pretending that he had injured it, and concealed in them a dagger.

We know that at the time he's assassinated on September 18, 96 A.D.,

that he's hated by his wife Domitia, that he's hated by various courtiers and freedmen,

that the senate's not too fond of him.

No one likes Domitian at this point.

So there may have been a combination conspiracy

between the imperial house and various members of the senate.

The plot is worked out.

Now it's time to set it in motion.

Holding himself accountable to no one, emperor Domitian is despised by everyone.

By alienating Rome's allies and depleting its wealth, he puts himself in mortal danger.

A trusted servant, Stephanus, approaches the emperor, playing on his fears, according to Roman biographer Suetonius.

Given an audience with the emperor, by pretending to reveal a conspiracy against him,

Stephanus handed him a scroll of false evidence and then stabbed him as he read it.

Hearing the commotion, Domitian's guards rush in, too late to save the emperor, too soon for Stephanus to escape.

Domitian is only 45 at the time of his assassination.

He has reigned for 15 years.

The assassination of Domitian unfolds as a plot within, at least initially within his household.

He's assassinated by members of his court and assassinated in a private space.

In many ways, this looks like a sort of open and shut case,

but there are reasons to think that other things are happening.

With Domitian dead, the senate presses its advantage, according to historian Suetonius.

The people received the news of Domitian's death with indifference,

but the soldiers grieved and at once tried to call him Domitian the god.

The senators, on the other hand, were so overjoyed that they raced to insult the dead emperor,

pulling down his statue, chiseling his name from the buildings, and smashing his likeness before the eyes of the people.

The senate wastes no time appointing a new emperor.

In the immediate aftermath of Domitian's assassination,

the senate at Rome sought out one of its own members as a new emperor,

a man named Nerva who was an elderly man and without children and without any particular military distinction.

The reasons for their choosing him are shrouded in history now.

Nerva is acclaimed by the senate suspiciously quickly.

And Nerva is an excellent compromise candidate if you're looking to appoint an emperor that most people could deal with

because Nerva's old, Nerva's sickly, Nerva doesn't have a son,

and so he is in essence a placeholder while you figure out what you want to really do.

Nerva knows his role is only temporary, and he makes the most of it.

Rather, of course, than Nerva abdicating, or for that matter Nerva being assassinated for his weakness in controlling the troops,

he took in fact a co-emperor, one who gave him exactly those qualities that he himself lacked,

tremendous respect among the military being foremost among them.

Within a year, Nerva adopts up-and-coming general Trajan as his heir and names him co-emperor.

History is silent on the question of whether Trajan was part of the original conspiracy to assassinate Domitian.

I don't think we can say Trajan was involved,

but he likely was aware of it and that doesn't even necessarily mean he supported it.

He could have been aware of it, but recognized that this was a circumstance

that he couldn't change and was willing to accept.

3 years later, Trajan, on foot and in civilian garb, is almost unrecognizable as he arrives at Rome's gates in 98 A.D.

He has come to be declared sole emperor after Nerva's natural death.

He receives a hero's welcome, once the guards realize who he is.

When Trajan arrives in Rome, everybody is overjoyed because here is a relatively young emperor

who is keen to collaborate with the people and the senate

in governing the empire, and it's seen almost as the dawn of a new age.

From the outset, it is clear that Trajan is everything Domitian was not.

The historian Pliny celebrates the new emperor's gloriously modest arrival.

"The very method of your entry won delight and surprise,

for your predecessors chose to be carried in, not satisfied even to be drawn by 4 white horses,

but lifted up on human shoulders in their overbearing pride.

You towered above us only because of your own splendid physique."

He had due respect for the groups that mattered,

and perhaps more importantly for the groups that wrote history,

and that's why Trajan goes down as being such a good emperor.

Trajan inherits Rome's humiliating and costly treaty with the dacians.

Thanks to Domitian, in exchange for peace,

these barbarians are entitled to Roman weaponry, Roman deserters,

and each year, another large portion of Roman wealth.

And Trajan won't tolerate that.

Trajan, and probably many like Trajan,

looked at the defeat that the dacians have inflicted on Domitian,

or at least the treaty that the dacians had inflicted on Domitian, as a real black eye for the romans.

And so there was incentive to do something about this and to fix this situation.

Trajan doesn't stay in Rome long.

He and nine Roman legions and auxiliary troops head to the Danube to take care of unfinished business.

He fortifies Rome's military presence on the frontier, preparing for a long engagement along the Danube.

But before he can confront the dacians, he must build the infrastructure to support his troops.

Only then, according to the historian Cassius Dio,

will he be ready to repair the damage wrought by Domitian

and restore Rome's honor by settling the score with the dacians.

He took into account their past deeds and was grieved at the amount of money they were receiving annually,

and he also observed that their power and their pride were increasing.

But vengeance might not have been Trajan's sole motivation.

There are any number of motives that Trajan could have had for going after Decebalus at this point.

It could have been revenge and national honor.

It could be a matter of a new emperor who wants to gain prestige and authority and solidify his position

so he's going to go off and make war, maybe both of those.

The campaign is a huge undertaking.

Trajan spends a year building forts, roads, and bridges in preparation.

It's a very difficult area for the romans to penetrate

and a lot of engineering work has to be carried out,

first of all, to cross the Danube there, there's lots of narrow gorges and so on.

By 101 A.D., Trajan is ready.

Trajan's reputation as a master commander precedes him,

and the dacian king Decebalus wants to undermine his efforts by making sure he doesn't profit.

To keep the dacian treasury from falling into Roman hands, Decebalus buries his riches.

Only he and his henchman Bicilis know where.

Dacia is a relatively rich area.

If the romans were to expand, Dacia would be a natural choice.

The resources are there to make this, if not a profitable campaign,

at least a campaign that could potentially pay for itself.

And so if we are willing to accept that Trajan had greater ambitions

for conquest and greater ambitions for himself and his state,

it would be natural for him to look to Dacia.

In the year 101 A.D., the dacians know their years of peace are about to end.

Many of them pack up and flee for their lives.

Though the dacians have done battle with the romans before,

this time is very different, according to historian Cassius Dio:

"Decebalus, learning of Trajan's advance, became frightened,

since he well knew that before, it was not the romans that he had conquered but Domitian,

and now he would be fighting against both the romans and Trajan the emperor.

Dacian families head for safer ground, knowing this time there will be no negotiations.

Trajan throughout his reign is renowned for traveling with his armies

and enduring some of the same difficulties that his army endures.

And I think this is what endears Trajan very much to the soldiers serving under his command eventually.

He appreciated the struggles that they were going through, and was willing to share some of these struggles himself.

And now, that struggle will take the Roman troops to Dacia.

The new Roman emperor Trajan has reconciled the senate and the military.

And now he seeks Roman glory and personal honor by confronting the troublesome dacians at Tapae (Tapia).

By 101 A.D., the dacian king Decebalus has grown familiar with Roman fighting tactics-

and with making friends with Rome's enemies.

Decebalus worked assiduously in building up a nexus of alliances

not just amongst foreign peoples but also amongst his nobles.

And he'll create a fighting force that's formidable but it's not as formidable as the romans'.

However, they are organized and they are a formidable enough force that they can beat the romans at times,

and that's important to remember.

But it is not enough, and Decebalus knows it.

Faltering, he even sends Trajan a plea for peace.

Trajan rejects it.

"The emperor will stop at nothing short of victory, though it comes it a high price."

writes historian Cassius Dio.

"Trajan engaged the foe, and saw many wounded on his own side and killed many of the enemy.

And when bandages gave out, he is said not to have spared even his own clothing, but to have cut it up into strips.

A dacian warrior will choose death over capture, and they treat their own prisoners with abject cruelty.

Roman captives are handed over to dacian women to be humiliated, tortured, and eventually killed.

Ultimately, Trajan prevails over Decebalus, bending the barbarian to Rome's will.

The vanquished king will surrender all that he has gained from the previous treaties,

and swear his allegiance.

Cassius Dio recounts the terms.

"So Decebalus reluctantly engaged to surrender his arms,

to give back the deserters, to demolish the forts, to withdraw from captured territory,

and furthermore, to consider the same persons enemies and friends as the romans did."

With the terms of the treaty agreed upon,

Trajan has converted a fierce adversary into an ally, and can return to Italy a proud man.

But the treaty falls short of its mark- it can't curtail Decebalus' blood-thirsty ambition.

And it can't force him to surrender his knowledge of Roman technology.

The dacians are not to be trusted.

Denied Roman weaponry, they begin to construct their own, breaking their word by building their armories.

With sharpened blades and bolstered ranks, they expand their territory in defiance of Rome.

It's very unclear why Decebalus should break the treaty.

Probably the answer was that it was a question of inevitability.

Decebalus no doubt saw that a war with Rome, another showdown, was inevitable.

The region was not big enough for the two of them, if you like,

and therefore he thought he would get his attack in first.

He took in deserters, he made various menacing moves,

and perhaps he hoped he could seize the initiative,

take over more of the region and therefore forestall the attack by Trajan

which he no doubt thought was inevitable.

While Decebalus is rebuilding his war machine in Dacia, Trajan travels from Italy to sabotage it.

Where Decebalus relies on force, Trajan employs diplomacy.

He courts the quadi, marcomanni, and other barbarians sympathetic to the dacians

but swayed by Roman wealth.

By winning them over to Rome's side, Trajan deprives Decebalus of fighting power.

If Decebalus means to wage this war, he'll have to fight it alone.

Trajan's responded to Decebalus' very skillful way to wage war against the romans

with an equally skillful way to engage basically every little group in the area or surrounding the dacian kingdom.

So there's a lot of desperation on the part of Decebalus at this juncture and his allies are growing restless.

They want to leave him.

And they're making overtures to the romans.

So what's going on at this point is Decebalus certainly knows he's in a grave, grave situation.

106 A.D.

Not settling for half-measures, Trajan leads his expansive forces to the political center of the dacian kingdom-

Sarmizegethusa, in present-day Romania.

Within the walls of the fortress city, soldiers and citizens prepare for the invasion by Roman troops.

The dacians put their faith in their stout walls and strong army.

But should the romans breach the gates, the citizens will be ready.

Armed with torches and oil, they will leave the romans with nothing worth taking.

And for themselves a poison is prepared so that no dacian, man, woman, or child

will suffer capture and Roman slavery.

If they are defeated, they will all be joined in death.

To reach the dacian capital, Trajan runs the gantlet of dacian forces

defending the route that leads to the gates of the city.

This was a big, fortified place that was extremely difficult to take

and the romans had to just proceed very slowly, taking each place, one after the other

and, as you can imagine, taking a lot of losses as they did so.

It was a bitter struggle.

An impenetrable gate will confront Trajan's iron will.

106 A.D.

For more than two decades, the hostile dacians have tormented Rome.

Now, as they once again break their treaty, emperor Trajan mobilizes his troops

to break their will by breaching their stronghold.

The dacians have fought mightily to keep the romans from the gates of their citadel at Sarmizegethusa.

Although the dacian equipment was not as good,

they were fighting for their homeland and they were occupying extremely strong positions,

and as I said about the capital, this was a big fortified place. It was a bitter struggle.

The Roman efforts pay off as their forces penetrate the doomed city.

But the dacians, who choose death over defeat, have poisoned themselves and set the city ablaze.

Decebalus, cornered by Roman soldiers, will not be taken alive.

But his aide Bicilis pleads for his own life and is captured.

A better prize is Decebalus' head, which Trajan's soldiers collect as the ultimate trophy.

They will later parade it victoriously through the streets of Rome.

It was the first big military success by a reigning emperor since the days of Augustus and Julius Caesar.

This was a remarkable achievement.

The victory reaps material benefits as well.

Bicilis leads Roman soldiers to his king's treasure.

The amount of gold that Trajan received, or took, in his conquest of Dacia was enormous by any stretch.

And it had actually been hidden by the dacians under the river Sergetia.

These riches, along with the active gold mines of Dacia, replenish the Roman treasury.

According to the chronicles, Rome recovers 225 tons of gold, 500 tons of silver, and 50,000 slaves.

The gold and silver coming from the booty that he had collected from the dacian wars

was used to fund fantastic program, building program in Rome, on a scale that Rome did not see before.

The spoils of war provide Trajan with the funds he needs

to build a new forum complex in Rome, the largest ever built.

Though the forum was magnificent in its day, little but the centerpiece column remains.

But it's enough.

This astonishing edifice, called Trajan's column, provides a cryptic pictorial narrative

of the dacian wars that returned Rome to her glory.

Trajan's column was about 100-foot high with 155 different scenes from the war against the dacians.

It's not a blow by blow account, of course. It's got, as it were, symbolic sort of scenes.

We also can see barbarians of various kinds and their equipment and so on.

But by and large, of course, it is the triumphal advance of the romans and their two victories in the two wars.

The column represents a multi-faceted piece of propaganda.

It both shows the engineering accomplishments of Trajan's reign

and also demonstrates the great military achievements that Trajan had brought about.

The colossal spoils of war and the success in battle will go to Trajan's head and whet his appetite for power.

His reign is punctuated by conquest,

and a decade after the dacian wars, he begins an ambitious campaign

against Parthia to the east, in the area now known as Iraq.

As far as we know, there were no strategic reasons for Trajan to wage war against Parthia at this time.

It is most likely his and his advisors' war-mongering attitude that led to an open conflict with Parthia.

Trajan enjoys the success he's come to expect.

But he has underestimated his enemy.

The parthians melt against this onslaught of this enormous military machine.

It's the Roman army.

And the parthians are so shocked by how easily the romans came in

that they manage in the next year to stage an enormous insurrection.

They kill or drive out the Roman garrisons that are in their country.

It's not exactly similar, but it's somewhat similar to the situation the United States faced in Iraq

where you enter with enormous military power, but you end up with an insurgency all over the place.

Trajan, now aging and ill, imagines himself to be the new Alexander, conqueror of the world.

But by 117, it is clear that his dream will never be realized.

His plans for expansion have stretched Rome to its limit and into a hostile landscape.

Holding onto the territory across these inhospitable swaths of desert is very, very hard.

And Trajan found himself, especially fighting in the north, middle, and south at the same time,

that he'd overextended his resources.

At last, in old age, Trajan retreats,

abandoning his campaign and heading back to Rome, but he dies before he gets there.

The situation that Trajan found himself in in the last year of his life

is in many ways similar to the situation that the United States and its allies finds itself in-same part of the world,

with the same porous defenses, the same porous natural frontiers,

and the same desire in essence to fight a war that ought to have taken a long time in a relatively short span of time,

with a plan for winning a military victory,

but no plan for absorbing the territory and organizing the territory.

Trajan is considered one of the greatest emperors.

But his ambitions could not be maintained.

The great failure of Trajan's policy is revealed almost immediately after his death,

when Hadrian withdraws from most of the territory that Trajan took.

Even the hard-won province of Dacia is eventually given up.

An empire is molded by its leaders.

History judges Trajan and Domitian differently-

one good emperor, one bad.

But both ultimately forsake the needs of the empire in order to chase personal glory.

They won't be the only emperors to walk this dangerous path,

a path that will eventually lead to the end of the empire.

Next on "Rome, rise and fall of an empire"

In 160 A.D., Rome stands supreme.

But peace and prosperity lull the empire into a dangerous complacency.

When Rome's enemies sense its weakness,

emperor Marcus Aurelius must rally Rome to fight for its very way of life.