He
kept himself free from the subtlety of its poison, from the
microbes of Rome as well.
He was in Cologne when Domitian died and Nerva accepted and
renounced the throne. It was a year before he ventured among the
seven hills. When he arrived you would have said another Augustus,
not the real Augustus, but the Augustus of legend, and the late
Mr. Gibbon. When he girt the new prefect of the pretorium with the
immemorial sword, he addressed him in copy-book phrases--"If I
rule wisely, use it for me; unwisely, against me."
Rome listened open-mouthed. The change from Domitian's formula,
"Your god and master orders it," was too abrupt to be immediately
understood. Before it was grasped Trajan was off again; this time
to the Danube and beyond it, to Dacia and her fens.
Many years later--a century or two, to be exact--a Persian satrap
loitered in a forum of Rome. "It is here," he declared, "I am
tempted to forget that man is mortal."
He had passed beneath a triumphal arch; before him was a
glittering square, grandiose, yet severe; a stretch of temples and
basilicas, in which masterpieces felt at home--the Forum of
Trajan, the compliment of a nation to a prince. Dominating it was
a column, in whose thick spirals you read to-day the one reliable
chronicle of the Dacian campaign. Was not Gautier well advised
when he said only art endures?
There were other chronicles in plenty; there were the histories of
AElius Maurus, of Marius Maximus, and that of Spartian, but they
are lost.
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