1.
Trajan
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Trajan was Roman emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born in the city of Italica in the province of Hispania Baetica, Trajans non-patrician family was of Italian, Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in 89 Trajan supported Domitian against a revolt on the Rhine led by Antonius Saturninus, in September 96, Domitian was succeeded by Marcus Cocceius Nerva, an old and childless senator who proved to be unpopular with the army. After a brief and tumultuous year in power, culminating in a revolt by members of the Praetorian Guard, Nerva was compelled to adopt the more popular Trajan as his heir and he died on 27 January 98 and was succeeded by his adopted son without incident. Early in his reign, he annexed the Nabataean Kingdom, creating the province of Arabia Petraea and his conquest of Dacia enriched the empire greatly, as the new province possessed many valuable gold mines. However, its position north of the Danube made it susceptible to attack on three sides, and it was later abandoned by Emperor Aurelian. Trajans war against the Parthian Empire ended with the sack of the capital Ctesiphon and his campaigns expanded the Roman Empire to its greatest territorial extent. In late 117, while sailing back to Rome, Trajan fell ill and he was deified by the Senate and his ashes were laid to rest under Trajans Column. He was succeeded by his adopted son Hadrian, as an emperor, Trajans reputation has endured – he is one of the few rulers whose reputation has survived nineteen centuries. Every new emperor after him was honoured by the Senate with the wish felicior Augusto, among medieval Christian theologians, Trajan was considered a virtuous pagan. As far as ancient literary sources are concerned, an extant continuous account of Trajans reign does not exist, only fragments remain of the Getiká, a book by Trajans personal physician Titos Statilios Kriton. The Parthiká, a 17-volume account of the Parthian Wars written by Arrian, has met a similar fate, book 68 in Cassius Dios Roman History, which survives mostly as Byzantine abridgments and epitomes, is the main source for the political history of Trajans rule. Besides this, Pliny the Youngers Panegyricus and Dio of Prusas orations are the best surviving contemporary sources and it is certain that much of text of the letters that appear in this collection over Trajans signature was written and/or edited by Trajans Imperial secretary, his ab epistulis. Therefore, discussion of Trajan and his rule in modern historiography cannot avoid speculation, as well as recourse to sources such as archaeology. Marcus Ulpius Traianus was born on 18 September 53 AD in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica, Trajans birthplace of Italica was founded as a Roman military colony in 206 BC, though it is unknown when the Ulpii arrived there. Trajan was the son of Marcia, a Roman noblewoman and sister-in-law of the second Flavian Emperor Titus, and Marcus Ulpius Traianus, Marcus Ulpius Traianus the elder served Vespasian in the First Jewish-Roman War, commanding the Legio X Fretensis. Trajan himself was just one of many well-known Ulpii in a line that continued long after his own death and his elder sister was Ulpia Marciana, and his niece was Salonina Matidia. The patria of the Ulpii was Italica, in Spanish Baetica, as a young man, he rose through the ranks of the Roman army, serving in some of the most contested parts of the Empires frontier
2.
Tabula Peutingeriana
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Tabula Peutingeriana, also referred to as Peutingers Tabula or Peutinger Table, is an illustrated itinerarium showing the layout of cursus publicus, the road network in the Roman Empire. The map is a 13th-century parchment copy of the Roman original, and covers Europe, North Africa, and parts of Asia. The original map which the copy is based on is thought to date to the 4th or 5th century and was itself based on a map prepared by Agrippa during the reign of the emperor Augustus. Named after the 16th-century German antiquarian Konrad Peutinger, the map is today kept at the Austrian National Library in Vienna. After Agrippas death in 12 BC, that map was engraved in marble and put on display in the Porticus Vipsania in the Campus Agrippae area in Rome, bowersock concluded that the original source is likely the map made by Vipsanius Agrippa. The original Roman map, of which this is the surviving copy, was last revised in the 4th or early 5th century. The presence of cities of Germania Inferior that were destroyed in the mid-fifth century also provides a terminus ante quem. The Tabula Peutingeriana is the known surviving map of the Roman cursus publicus. The map itself was created by a monk in Colmar in modern-day eastern France in 1265 and it is a parchment scroll,0.34 metres high and 6.75 metres long, assembled from eleven sections, a medieval reproduction of the original scroll. The map shows many Roman settlements and the roads connecting them, as well as features such as rivers, mountains, forests. The distances between settlements are also given, in total no less than 555 cities and 3,500 other place names are shown on the map. The three most important cities of the Roman Empire at the time – Rome, Constantinople and Antioch – are represented with special iconic decoration. Besides the totality of the empire, the map also shows areas in the Near East, India and the Ganges, Sri Lanka, and even an indication of China. It even shows a Temple to Augustus at Muziris on the modern-day Malabar Coast, the map appears to be based on itineraries, lists of destinations along Roman roads, as the distances between points along the routes are indicated. Travelers would not have possessed anything so sophisticated as a modern map, the Peutinger Table represents these roads as a series of stepped lines along which destinations have been marked in order of travel. The shape of the parchment pages accounts for the rectangular layout. However, a similarity to the coordinates of Ptolemys earth-mapping gives some writers hope that some terrestrial representation was intended by the unknown original compilers. The Peutinger family kept possession of the map for more than two hundred years until it was sold in 1714 and it is today conserved at the Austrian National Library at the Hofburg palace in Vienna
3.
Roman province
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In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and, until the Tetrarchy, largest territorial and administrative unit of the empires territorial possessions outside of Italy. The word province in modern English has its origins in the used by the Romans. Provinces were generally governed by politicians of senatorial rank, usually former consuls or former praetors and this exception was unique, but not contrary to Roman law, as Egypt was considered Augustus personal property, following the tradition of earlier, Hellenistic kings. The territory of a people who were defeated in war might be brought under various forms of treaty, the formal annexation of a territory created a province in the modern sense of an administrative unit geographically defined. Republican provinces were administered in one-year terms by the consuls and praetors who had held office the previous year, Rome started expanding beyond Italy during the First Punic War. The first permanent provinces to be annexed were Sicily in 241 BC, militarized expansionism kept increasing the number of these administrative provinces, until there were no longer enough qualified individuals to fill the posts. The terms of provincial governors often had to be extended for multiple years,241 BC – Sicilia taken over from the Carthaginians and annexed at the end of the First Punic War. 237 BC – Corsica et Sardinia, these two islands were taken over from the Carthaginians and annexed soon after the Mercenary War, in 238 BC and 237 BC respectively. 197 BC – Hispania Citerior, along the east coast of the,197 BC - Hispania Ulterior, along the southern coast of the, part of the territories taken over from the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War. 147 BC – Macedonia, mainland Greece and it was annexed after a rebellion by the Achaean League. 146 BC – Africa, modern day Tunisia and western Libya, home territory of Carthage and it was annexed following attacks on the allied Greek city of Massalia. 67 BC – Creta et Cyrenae, Cyrenaica was bequeathed to Rome in 78 BC, however, it was not organised as a province. 58 BC – Cilicia et Cyprus, Cilicia was created as a province in the sense of area of command in 102 BC in a campaign against piracy. The Romans controlled only a small area, in 74 BC Lycia and Pamphylia were added to the smal Roman possessions in Cilicia. Cilicia came fully under Roman control towards the end of the Third Mithridatic War - 73-63 BC, the province was reorganised by Pompey in 63 BC. Gallia Cisalpina was a province in the sense of an area of military command, during Romes expansion in Italy the Romans assigned some areas as provinces in the sense of areas of military command assigned to consuls or praetors due to risks of rebellions or invasions. This was applied to Liguria because there was a series of rebellions, Bruttium, in the early days of Roman presence in Gallia Cisalpina the issue was rebellion. Later the issue was risk of invasions by warlike peoples east of Italy, the city of Aquileia was founded to protect northern Italy form invasions
4.
Roman Dacia
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Roman Dacia was a province of the Roman Empire from 106 to 274–275 AD. Its territory consisted of eastern and south-eastern Transylvania, the Banat and it was from the very beginning organized as an imperial province and remained so throughout the Roman occupation. Historians estimates of the population of Roman Dacia range from 650,000 to 1,200,000, the conquest of Dacia was completed by Emperor Trajan after two major campaigns against Decebalus Dacian kingdom. The Romans did not occupy the entirety of the old Dacian kingdom, as the part of Moldavia, together with Maramureș. In 119, the Roman province was divided two departments, Dacia Superior and Dacia Inferior. In 124, Dacia Superior was divided into two provinces, Dacia Apulensis and Dacia Porolissensis, the Roman authorities undertook a massive and organized colonization of Dacia. New mines were opened and ore extraction intensified, while agriculture, stock breeding, Dacia began to supply grain not only to the military personnel stationed in the province but also to the rest of the Balkan area. It became a province, with about 10 cities known,8 of which held the highest rank of colonia. All the cities developed from old military camps, Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa, the seat of the imperial procurator for all the three subdivisions was the financial, religious, and legislative center of the province. Apulum, where the governor of the three subdivisions had his headquarters, was not simply the greatest city within the province. There were military and political threats from the beginning of Roman Dacias existence, Free Dacians who bordered the province were the first adversary, who, after allying themselves with the Sarmatians, hammered the province during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Finding it increasingly difficult to retain Dacia, the emperors were forced to abandon the province by the 270s, making it the first of Romes long-term possessions to be abandoned. Dacia was devastated by the Germanic tribes together with the Carpi in 248–250, by the Carpi and Goths in 258 and 263, ancient sources implied that Dacia was virtually lost during the reign of Gallienus, but they also report that it was Aurelian who relinquished Dacia Traiana. He evacuated his troops and civilian administration from Dacia, and founded Dacia Aureliana with its capital at Serdica in Lower Moesia, the fate of the Romanized population of the former province of Dacia Traiana has become subject of spirited controversy. The opposing theory argues that the Romanians descended from the Romanized population of the Roman provinces of the Balkan Peninsula, the Dacians and the Getae frequently interacted with the Romans prior to Dacias incorporation into the Roman Empire. However, Roman attention on the area around the lower Danube was sharpened when Burebista unified the native tribes and his kingdom extended to Pannonia in the west and reached the Black Sea to the east, while to the south his authority extended into the Balkans. By 74 BC, the Roman legions under Gaius Scribonius Curio reached the lower Danube, Roman concern over the rising power and influence of Burebista was amplified when he began to play an active part in Roman politics. As part of Caesars planned Parthian campaign of 44 BC, he planned to cross into Dacia and eliminate Burebista, although the planned expedition into Dacia did not happen due to Caesars assassination, Burebista failed to bring about any true unification of the tribes he ruled
5.
Germisara (castra)
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It was a fort in the Roman province of Dacia, in modern day Romania. List of castra Media related to Germisara at Wikimedia Commons CIMEC - Raport de cercetare 70, hunedoara Germisara Roman camp Google Maps / Earth
6.
Hectare
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The hectare is an SI accepted metric system unit of area equal to 100 ares and primarily used in the measurement of land as a metric replacement for the imperial acre. An acre is about 0.405 hectare and one hectare contains about 2.47 acres, in 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1⁄100 km2. When the metric system was further rationalised in 1960, resulting in the International System of Units, the are was not included as a recognised unit. The hectare, however, remains as a non-SI unit accepted for use with the SI units, the metric system of measurement was first given a legal basis in 1795 by the French Revolutionary government. At the first meeting of the CGPM in 1889 when a new standard metre, manufactured by Johnson Matthey & Co of London was adopted, in 1960, when the metric system was updated as the International System of Units, the are did not receive international recognition. The units that were catalogued replicated the recommendations of the CGPM, many farmers, especially older ones, still use the acre for everyday calculations, and convert to hectares only for official paperwork. Farm fields can have long histories which are resistant to change, with names such as the six acre field stretching back hundreds of years. The names centiare, deciare, decare and hectare are derived by adding the standard metric prefixes to the base unit of area. The centiare is a synonym for one square metre, the deciare is ten square metres. The are is a unit of area, equal to 100 square metres and it was defined by older forms of the metric system, but is now outside of the modern International System of Units. It is commonly used to measure real estate, in particular in Indonesia, India, and in French-, Portuguese-, Slovakian-, Serbian-, Czech-, Polish-, Dutch-, in Russia and other former Soviet Union states, the are is called sotka. It is used to describe the size of suburban dacha or allotment garden plots or small city parks where the hectare would be too large, the decare is derived from deka, the prefix for 10 and are, and is equal to 10 ares or 1000 square metres. It is used in Norway and in the former Ottoman areas of the Middle East, the hectare, although not strictly a unit of SI, is the only named unit of area that is accepted for use within the SI. The United Kingdom, United States, Burma, and to some extent Canada instead use the acre, others, such as South Africa, published conversion factors which were to be used particularly when preparing consolidation diagrams by compilation. In many countries, metrication redefined or clarified existing measures in terms of metric units, non-SI units accepted for use with the International System of Units
7.
Roman legion
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A Roman legion was the largest unit of the Roman army involving from 3000 men in early times to over 5200 men in imperial times, consisting of centuries as the basic units. Until the middle of the first century,10 cohorts made up a Roman Legion and this was later changed to nine cohorts of standard size and one cohort, the first cohort, of double strength. In the early Roman Kingdom the legion may have meant the entire Roman army but sources on this period are few, Legions also included a small ala or cavalry unit. By the third century AD, the legion was a smaller unit of about 1,000 to 1,500 men. In the fourth century AD, East Roman border guard legions may have even smaller. The Roman army, for most of the Imperial period, consisted mostly of auxiliaries rather than legions, because legions were not permanent units until the Marian reforms, and were instead created, used, and disbanded again, several hundred legions were named and numbered throughout Roman history. To date, about 50 have been identified, toward the end of the 2nd Century BC, Rome started to experience manpower shortages brought about by property and financial qualifications to join the army. In the time of Augustus, there were nearly 50 upon his succession but this was reduced to about 25–35 permanent standing legions, a legion consisted of several cohorts of heavy infantry known as legionaries. The recruitment of non-citizens was rare but appears to have occurred in times of great need, For example, Caesar appears to have recruited the Legio V Alaudae mostly from non-citizen Gauls. In the period before the raising of the legio and the years of the Roman Kingdom. These centuries were grouped together as required and answered to the leader who had hired or raised them, the roles of century leader, second in command and standard bearer are referenced in this early period. Much Roman history of the era is shrouded in legend, but it is believed that during the reign of Servius Tullius, the census was introduced. Joining the army was both a duty and a mark of Roman citizenship, during the entire pre-Marian period the wealthiest land owners performed the most years of military service. These individuals would have had the most to lose should the state have fallen. The first and wealthiest common class was armed in the fashion of the hoplite with spear, sword, helmet, breast plate and round shield, there were 82 centuries of these, Roman soldiers had to purchase their own equipment. The second and third class also acted as spearmen but were heavily armoured and carried a larger oval or rectangular shield. The fourth class could afford no armour, perhaps bearing a shield and armed with spear. All three of the latter made up about 26 centuries
8.
Legio XIII Gemina
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Legio tertia decima Geminia, in English the 13th Twin Legion, also known as Legio tertia decima Gemina, was a legion of the Imperial Roman army. It was one of Julius Caesars key units in Gaul and in the civil war, the legion appears to have still been in existence in the 5th century AD. Legio XIII was levied by Julius Caesar in 57 BC, before marching against the Belgae, after the end of the Gallic wars, the Roman Senate refused Caesar his second consulship, ordered him to give up his commands, and demanded he return to Rome to face prosecution. Forced to choose either the end of his career or civil war, Caesar brought Legio XIII across the Rubicon river. The legion remained faithful to Caesar during the civil war between Caesar and the conservative Optimates faction of the senate, whose legions were commanded by Pompey. Legio XIII was active throughout the war, fighting at Dyrrhachium. After Munda, Caesar disbanded the legion, retired his veterans, augustus reconstituted the legion once again in 41 BC to deal with the rebellion of Sextus Pompeius in Sicily. Legio XIII acquired the cognomen Gemina after being reinforced with legionaries from other legions following the war against Mark Antony. Augustus then sent the legion to Burnum, in Illyricum, a Roman province in the Adriatic Sea, in 16 BC, the legion was transferred to Emona in Pannonia, where it dealt with local rebellions. Emperor Claudius sent them back to Pannonia around 45 and the legion built its legionary fortress at Poetovium, in the year of the four emperors, XIII Gemina supported first Otho and then Vespasian against Vitellius, fighting in the two Battles of Bedriacum. Under Trajan the legion took part in both Dacian wars, and it was transferred by Trajan in 106 to the conquered province of Dacia to garrison it. Vexillationes of the XIII Gemina fought under Emperor Gallienus in northern Italy, the emperor issued a legionary antoninianus celebrating the legion, and showing the legions lion. Another vexillatio was present in the army of the emperor of the Gallic Empire Victorinus, in 271, the legion was relocated when the Dacia province was evacuated, and restationed in Dacia Aureliana. - Marco Cornelio Marci filio Galeria Nigrino / Curiatio Materno consuli - / - tribuno militum legionis XIIII Geminae, - Caio Iulio Galeria Lepido Iessonensi primi pilari centurioni legionis XIII Geminae Piae Fidelis centurioni. Roman legion List of Roman legions Dacia Ripensis Notitia Dignitatum, media related to Legio XIII Gemina at Wikimedia Commons LEGIO XIII GEMINA Blog LEG XIII GEM, Austrian re-enactment group Legio XIIII Gemina Martia Victrix
Romania
National Historical Monument
Media related to Apulum (castra) at Wikimedia Commons
