Death and Deification of Trajan; Hadrian’s Reversals

The journey home ended early. In August 117, at Selinus on Cilicia’s coast, Trajan died. The optimus princeps, who had led soldiers across the Danube and down the Tigris, now left a map more shaded than secured. Cassius Dio notes his declining health; the empire’s substance would pass to another mind [3][15].

Hadrian succeeded immediately, a man formed under Trajan who nonetheless saw different contours in the same terrain. He drew Roman power back from Mesopotamia and parts of Armenia, conceding what triumph had claimed. The decision’s sound was administrative, not dramatic: orders carried to legates, garrisons redeployed, treaties renewed. The color was the sober grey of forts, not the bright red of conquest [15][17].

Trajan did not vanish. The Senate deified him—something earned as much by years of order as by weeks of war—and Rome would honor him in an unprecedented way: by placing his ashes in the base of the Column within the forum raised on Dacian wealth. The narrative of his reign thus became also his tomb [4][15][16].

Policy and memory now moved together. Hadrian’s reversals tacitly acknowledged what the Column had already taught: engineering and legality are durable; overreach is not. The Forum’s white stones stayed bright. The eastern dust settled.

At Selinus, the sea’s salt smell and the scrape of ship hulls underscored the empire’s dependence on lines it could service. In Rome, the Forum’s calm reminded observers that greatness could be measured in order, not only in acreage. The next chapter would be about walls as much as avenues.