Trajan's Parthian campaign

Trajan's Parthian campaign
Part of the Roman–Parthian Wars
Aureus issued by Trajan to celebrate the conquest of Parthia
Date 115–117 Location Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia Result Roman victory Territorial changes Romans annexed Mesopotamia for a time period but failed to maintain control of Mesopotamia after Trajan's death. Adiabene conquered by Rome and returned to Parthia by Hadrian [1]
Belligerents
Roman Empire	Parthian Empire
Commanders and leaders
Trajan Lusius Quietus Parthamaspates	Osroes I Parthamasiris †

The extent of the Roman Empire under Trajan (117)^[2]

Anatolia, western Caucasus and northern Levant under Trajan

Trajan's Parthian campaign was engaged by Roman emperor Trajan in 115 against the Parthian Empire in Mesopotamia. The war was initially successful for the Romans, but a series of setbacks, including wide-scale Jewish uprisings in the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa and Trajan's death in 117, ended in a Roman withdrawal.

In 113, Trajan decided that the moment was ripe for a final resolution of the "eastern question" by the decisive defeat of Parthia and the annexation of Armenia. His conquests marked a deliberate change of Roman policy towards Parthia and a shift of emphasis in the empire's "grand strategy".^[3] In 114, Trajan invaded Armenia; annexed it as a Roman province and killed Parthamasiris, who had been placed on the Armenian throne by his relative, Parthian king Osroes I.^[4]

In 115, the Roman emperor overran northern Mesopotamia and annexed it to Rome as well. Its conquest was deemed necessary since otherwise, the Armenian salient could be cut off by the Parthians from the south.^[4] The Romans then captured the Parthian capital, Ctesiphon, before they sailed downriver to the Persian Gulf.

However, revolts erupted that year in the Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa and northern Mesopotamia, while a major Jewish revolt broke out in Roman territory, which severely stretched Roman military resources. Trajan failed to take Hatra, which avoided a total Parthian defeat. Parthian forces attacked key Roman positions, and Roman garrisons at Seleucia, Nisibis and Edessa were evicted by the local populaces. Trajan subdued the rebels in Mesopotamia; installed a Parthian prince, Parthamaspates, as a client ruler and withdrew to Syria. Trajan died in 117 before he could renew the war.^[5]

Trajan's Parthian campaign is considered in different ways the climax of "two centuries of political posturing and bitter rivalry".^[6] He was the first emperor to carry out a successful invasion of Mesopotamia. His grand schemes for Armenia and Mesopotamia were ultimately "cut short by circumstances created by an incorrect understanding of the strategic realities of eastern conquest and an underestimation of what insurgency can do".^[6]

Background

In 113, Trajan embarked on his last campaign, provoked by the Parthian Empire's decision to put an unacceptable king on the throne of Armenia,^[7] a kingdom over which both empires had shared hegemony since the time of Nero, some 50 years earlier.^[8]

Many modern historians consider that Trajan's decision to wage war against Parthia might have had economic motives. After Trajan's annexation of Arabia, he built a new road, Via Traiana Nova, that went from Bostra to Aila on the Red Sea.^[9] Charax on the Persian Gulf was thus the sole remaining western terminus of the Indian trade route outside direct Roman control,^[10] which was important to lower import prices and to limit the supposed drain of precious metals created by the deficit in Roman trade with the Far East.^[11]

That Charax traded with the Roman Empire is certain since actual connections with merchants from Palmyra during the period are well documented in a contemporary Palmyrene epigraph that tells of various Palmyrene citizens honoured for holding office in Charax.^[12] Also, Charax's rulers' domains possibly then included the Bahrain islands (where a Palmyrene citizen held office, shortly after Trajan's death, as satrap,^[13] but the appointment was made by a Parthian king of Charax^[14]), which offered the possibility of extending Roman hegemony into the Persian Gulf itself.^[15] The rationale behind Trajan's campaign would then be to break down a system of Far Eastern trade through small Semitic ("Arab") cities under Parthia's control and to put it under Roman control instead.^[16]

In his Dacian conquests, Trajan had already resorted to Syrian auxiliary units, whose veterans, along with Syrian traders, had an important role in the subsequent colonization of Dacia.^[17] He had recruited Palmyrene units into his army, including a camel unit,^[18] which apparently procured Palmyrene support to his ultimate goal of annexing Charax. It has even been ventured that in his campaign, when Trajan had annexed Armenia, he was bound to annex the whole of Mesopotamia to prevent the Parthians from interrupting the flux of trade from the Persian Gulf and/or fomenting trouble at the Roman frontier on the Danube.^[19]

Other historians reject those motives, as the supposed Parthian "control" over the maritime Far Eastern trade route was at best conjectural and based on a selective reading of Chinese sources: trade by land through Parthia seems to have been unhampered by Parthian authorities and left solely to the devices of private enterprise.^[20] Commercial activity in second century Mesopotamia seems to have been a general phenomenon, shared by many peoples within and without the Roman Empire, with no sign of a concerted imperial policy towards it.^[21] As in the case of the alimenta, scholars like Moses Finley and Paul Veyne have considered the whole idea of a foreign trade "policy" behind Trajan's war anachronistic. According to them, the sole Roman concern with the Far Eastern luxuries trade, besides collecting toll taxes and customs,^[22] was moral and involved frowning upon the "softness" of luxuries but no economic policy.^[23][24] In the absence of conclusive evidence, trade between Rome and India might have been far more balanced in terms of quantities of precious metals exchanged. One source for the notion of the Roman gold drain, Pliny the Younger's uncle Pliny the Elder, had earlier described the Gangetic Plains as one of the gold sources for the Roman Empire.^[25] In his controversial book on the ancient economy, Finley considers Trajan's "badly miscalculated and expensive assault on Parthia" to be an example of the many Roman "commercial wars" that existed only in the books of modern historians.^[21]

The alternative view is to see the campaign as triggered by the lure of territorial annexation and prestige,^[21] which was the sole motive ascribed by Cassius Dio.^[26]

As far as territorial conquest involved collecting taxes,^[27] especially of the 25% tax levied on all goods entering the Roman Empire, the tetarte, Trajan's Parthian War could have an "economic" motive.^[28] Also, there was the propaganda value of eastern conquests that would emulate, in Roman fashion, those of Alexander the Great.^[29] The fact that emissaries from the Kushan Empire might have attended to the commemorative ceremonies for the Dacian War may have kindled in some Greco-Roman intellectuals like Plutarch, who wrote that only about 70,000 Roman soldiers were necessary to a conquest of India, and in Trajan's closer associates, speculative dreams about the booty to be obtained by reproducing Macedonian Eastern conquests.^[30]

Also, it is possible that the attachment of Trajan to an expansionist policy was supported by a powerful circle of conservative senators from Hispania committed to a policy of imperial expansion, especially the all-powerful Sura.^[31] One can explain the campaign by the fact that for the Romans, their empire was, in principle, unlimited and that Trajan only took advantage of an opportunity to make idea and reality coincide.^[32]

Finally, there are other modern historians who think that Trajan's original aims were purely military and quite modest: to assure a more defensible eastern frontier for the empire crossing Northern Mesopotamia along the course of the Khabur River to offer cover to a Roman Armenia.^[33] That interpretation is backed by the fact that all later Roman wars against Parthia aimed at establishing a Roman presence deep into Parthia itself.^[34]

Timeline

Plans

The campaign was carefully planned in advance: ten legions were concentrated in the Eastern theatre. Since 111, the correspondence of Pliny the Younger witnesses to the fact that provincial authorities in Bithynia had to organise supplies for passing troops, and local city councils and their individual members had to shoulder part of the increased expenses by supplying troops themselves.^[35] The intended campaign, therefore, was immensely costly from its very beginning.^[36]

Armenia

Trajan marched first on Armenia, deposed the Parthian-appointed king (who was afterwards murdered while he was kept in the custody of Roman troops in an unclear incident that was later described by Fronto as a breach of Roman good faith^[37]) and annexed it to the Roman Empire as a province. He received in passing the acknowledgement of Roman hegemony by various tribes in the Caucasus and on the Eastern coast of the Black Sea, a process that kept him busy until the end of 114.^[38] At the same time, a Roman column under the legate Lusius Quietus, an outstanding cavalry general^[39] who had distinguished himself during the Dacian Wars by commanding a unit from his native Mauretania,^[40] crossed the Araxes river from Armenia into Media Atropatene and the land of the Mardians (present-day Ghilan).^[41]

It is possible that Quietus's campaign had as a goal to extend the newer more defensible Roman border eastwards towards the Caspian Sea and northwards to the foothills of the Caucasus.^[42]

Mesopotamia

The chronology of subsequent events is uncertain, but it is generally believed that in early 115, Trajan launched a Mesopotamian campaign and marched down towards the Taurus mountains to consolidate territory between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. He placed permanent garrisons along the way to secure the territory.^[43] While Trajan moved from west to east, Lusius Quietus moved with his army from the Caspian Sea towards the west, both armies performing a successful pincer movement^[44] whose apparent result was to establish a Roman presence into the Parthian Empire proper, with Trajan taking the northern Mesopotamian cities of Nisibis and Batnae and organizing a province of Mesopotamia, including the Kingdom of Osrhoene, where King Abgar VII submitted to Trajan publicly,^[45] as a Roman protectorate.^[46] The process seems to have been completed by 116, when coins were issued announcing that Armenia and Mesopotamia had been put under the authority of the Roman people.^[47] The area between the Khabur River and the mountains around Singara seems to have been considered as the new frontier and so received a road surrounded by fortresses.^[48]

Sestertius issued by the Senate (SC, Senatus Consultus) during 116 to commemorate Trajan's Parthian victories. Obverse: bust of Trajan, with laurel crown. Caption: Trajan's titulature. Reverse: Trajan standing between prostrate allegories of Armenia (crowned with a tiara) and the Rivers Tigris & Euphrates. Caption: "Armenia & Mesopotamia put under the authority of the Roman People".

Bronze bust of Trajan in his later years, Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, Turkey

After wintering in Antioch during 115/116 and, according to literary sources, barely escaping from a violent earthquake that claimed the life of one of the consuls, Marcus Pedo Vergilianus,^[49][50] Trajan again took to the field in 116, with a view to the conquest of the whole of Mesopotamia, an overambitious goal that eventually backfired on the results of his entire campaign. According to some modern historians, the aim of the campaign of 116 was to achieve a "pre+emptive demonstration" aiming not toward the conquest of Parthia but for tighter Roman control over the Eastern trade route. However, the overall scarcity of manpower for the Roman military establishment meant that the campaign was doomed from the start.^[51] It is noteworthy that no new legions were raised by Trajan before the Parthian campaign perhaps since the sources of new citizen recruits had already been overexploited.^[52]

As far as sources allow a description of the campaign, one Roman division seems to have crossed the Tigris into Adiabene, swept south and captured Adenystrae; a second followed the river south and captured Babylon; Trajan himself sailed down the Euphrates from Dura-Europos, where a triumphal arch was erected in his honour, through Ozogardana, where he erected a "tribunal" that was still seen during Julian the Apostate's campaigns in the same area. Having come to the narrow strip of land between the Euphrates and the Tigris, Trajan then dragged his fleet overland into the Tigris and captured Seleucia and finally the Parthian capital of Ctesiphon.^[53][54]

He continued southward to the Persian Gulf, and after his fleet escaped a tidal bore on the Tigris,^[55] he received the submission of Athambelus, the ruler of Charax. He declared Babylon a new province of the Empire and had his statue erected on the shore of the Persian Gulf,^[56] when he sent the Senate a laurelled letter that declared the war to be at a close and bemoaned that he was too old to go on any further and repeat the conquests of Alexander the Great.^[46]

Since Charax was a de facto independent kingdom whose connections to Palmyra were described above, Trajan's bid for the Persian Gulf may have coincided with Palmyrene interests in the region.^[57] Another hypothesis is that the rulers of Charax had expansionist designs on Parthian Babylon, which gave them a rationale for alliance with Trajan.^[58] The Parthian city of Susa was apparently also occupied by the Romans.^[59]

According to late literary sources not backed by numismatic or inscriptional evidence, a province of Assyria was also proclaimed,^[60] apparently covering the territory of Adiabene.^[61] Some measures seem to have been considered regarding the fiscal administration of Indian trade or simply about the payment of customs (portoria) on goods traded on the Euphrates and Tigris.^[62][57] It is possible that it was the "streamlining" of the administration of the newly-conquered lands according to the standard pattern of Roman provincial administration in tax collecting, requisitions and handling of local potentates' prerogatives that triggered later resistance against Trajan.^[63]

According to some modern historians, Trajan might have busied himself during his stay on the Persian Gulf by ordering raids on the Parthian coasts,^[64] probing into extending Roman suzerainty over the mountaineer tribes holding the passes across the Zagros Mountains into the Iranian Plateau eastward and establishing some sort of direct contact between Rome and the Kushan Empire.^[65] No attempt was made to expand into the Iranian Plateau itself, where the Roman army, with its relative weakness in cavalry, would have been at a disadvantage.^[66]

A coin of Trajan, found together with coins of the Kushan ruler Kanishka, at the Ahin Posh Buddhist Monastery, Afghanistan

However, as Trajan left the Persian Gulf for Babylon, where he intended to offer sacrifice to Alexander in the house in which he had died in 323 BC,^[67] a sudden outburst of Parthian resistance, led by a nephew of the Parthian king, Sanatruces, who had retained a cavalry force, possibly strengthened by the addition of Saka archers,^[68] imperilled Roman positions in Mesopotamia and Armenia, which Trajan sought to deal with by forsaking direct Roman rule in Parthia proper at least partially.^[69]

Trajan sent two armies towards Northern Mesopotamia. One, under Lusius Quietus, recovered Nisibis and Edessa from the rebels and probably had King Abgar deposed and killed in the process,^[69] Another, under Appius Maximus Santra, probably a governor of Macedonia, was defeated, with Santra being killed.^[70] Later in 116, Trajan, with the assistance of Quietus and two other legates, Marcus Erucius Clarus and Tiberius Julius Alexander Julianus,^[71][70] defeated a Parthian army in a battle in which Sanatruces was killed. After retaking and burning Seleucia, Trajan formally deposed Parthian King Osroes I and put his own puppet ruler, Parthamaspates, on the throne. That event was commemorated in a coin that was presented as the reduction of Parthia to client kingdom status: REX PARTHIS DATUS, "a king is given to the Parthians".^[72]

Trajan retreated north to retain what he could of the new provinces of Armenia, where he had already accepted an armistice in exchange for surrendering part of the territory to Sanatruces's son Vologeses^[73] and Mesopotamia.^[69]

Bust of Trajan, Glyptothek, Munich

It was then that Trajan's health started to fail him. The fortress city of Hatra, on the Tigris in his rear, continued to hold out against repeated Roman assaults. He was personally present at the siege, and it is possible that he suffered heat stroke while in the blazing heat.^[69]

Jewish uprising

Main article: Diaspora Revolt

Shortly afterwards, the Jews in the Eastern Roman Empire, in Egypt, Cyprus and Cyrene, the last province being probably the original trouble hotspot, rose in what probably was an outburst of religious rebellion against the local pagans. The widespread rebellion was later called the Diaspora Revolt.^[74] Another rebellion flared up among the Jewish communities of Northern Mesopotamia, probably as part of a general reaction against Roman occupation.^[75]

Trajan was forced to withdraw his army to put down the revolts and saw the withdrawal as simply a temporary setback, but he was destined never to command an army in the field again. He turned his eastern armies over to Lusius Quietus, who had been made governor of Judaea and might have had to deal earlier with some kind of Jewish unrest in the province.^[76] Quietus discharged his commission so successfully that the Kitos War in Judaea was afterward named after him, Kitos being a corruption of Quietus.^[77]

Quietus was promised a consulate^[78] in the following year (118) for his victories, but he was killed before that could occur during the bloody purge that opened Hadrian's reign, in which Quietus and three other former consuls were sentenced to death after they had been tried on a vague charge of conspiracy by the secret court of Praetorian Prefect Attianus.^[79]

It has been theorised that Quietus and his colleagues were executed on Hadrian's direct orders out of fear of their popular standing with the army and their close connections to Trajan.^[73][80]

In contrast, the next prominent Roman figure in charge of the repression of the Jewish revolt, the equestrian Marcius Turbo, who had dealt with the rebel leader from Cyrene, Lukuas,^[81] retained Hadrian's trust and eventually became his Praetorian Prefect. Apparently, Hadrian could not allow the continued existence alongside him of a group of independently-minded senatorial generals inherited from his predecessor.^[82] As all four consulars were senators of the highest standing and so were generally regarded as able to take imperial power (capaces imperii), Hadrian seems to have decided on a pre-emptive strike against those prospective rivals.^[83]

Sources

As the surviving literary accounts of Trajan's Parthian War are fragmentary and scattered,^[84] it is difficult to assign them a proper context, which has led to a long-running controversy about the war's precise events and ultimate aims.

References

1. The Persian Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia [2 volumes]: A Historical ... "The Roman emperor Hadrian, who succeeded Trajan in 117 CE, withdrew his forces from the territories they had occupied during Trajan's invasion, although Adiabene remained under Roman control" "100 great wars of history , Ali Qafuri (2007) ".
2. Bennett, J. Trajan: Optimus Princeps. 1997. Fig. 1
3. Lightfoot (1990), 115: "Trajan succeeded in acquiring territory in these lands with a view to annexation, something which had not seriously been attempted before [...]. Although Hadrian abandoned all of Trajan's conquests [...] the trend was not to be reversed. Further wars of annexation followed under Lucius Verus and Septimius Severus". Sicker (2000), 167–168
4. Sicker (2000), 167
5. Sicker (2000), 167–168
6. Sheldon, Rose Mary (2010). Rome's Wars in Parthia: Blood in the Sand. London: Vallentine Mitchell. p. 143.
7. Edwell 2007, p. 39.
8. Bradford 2001, p. 228.
9. Sidebotham 1986, p. 154.
10. Christol & Nony, Rome, 171
11. Young 2001, p. 181.
12. Daniel T. Potts, ed., Araby the Blest: Studies in Arabian Archaeology. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1988, ISBN 87-7289-051-7, page 142
13. Veyne 2005, p. 279.
14. Julian Reade, ed.,The Indian Ocean In Antiquity. London: Routledge, 2013, ISBN 0-7103-0435-8, page 279
15. Potts, 143
16. George Fadlo Hourani, Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times. Princeton University Press, 1995, ISBN 0-691-00170-7, page 15
17. Găzdac 2010, p. 59.
18. Pat Southern, Empress Zenobia: Palmyra's Rebel Queen. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2008, ISBN 978-1-84725-034-6 , page 25
19. Freya Stark, Rome on the Euphrates: The Story of a Frontier.London: I. B. Tauris, 2012, ISBN 978-1-84885-314-0, page 211
20. Young 2001, p. 176 sqq.
21. Finley 1999, p. 158.
22. Paul Erdkamp, The Grain Market in the Roman Empire: A Social, Political and Economic Study. Cambridge University Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0-521-83878-8 , page 5
23. Finley 1999, p. 132.
24. Veyne 2001, p. 163/215.
25. Veyne 2001, p. 181.
26. Bennett 2001, p. 188.
27. Michael Alexander Speidel: "Bellicosissimus Princeps". In: Annette Nünnerich-Asmus ed., Traian. Ein Kaiser der Superlative am Beginn einer Umbruchzeit? Mainz 2002, pages 23/40.
28. Sidebotham 1986, p. 144.
29. Nathanael John Andrade, "Imitation Greeks": Being Syrian in the Greco-Roman World (175 BCE – 275 CE). Doctoral Thesis, University of Michigan, 2009, page 192. Available at [1]. Retrieved June 11, 2014
30. Raoul McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East: Trade Routes to the Ancient Lands of Arabia, India and China. London: Continuum, 2010, ISBN 978-1-84725-235-7, page 130
31. Des Boscs-Plateaux 2005, p. 304 & 311.
32. Dexter Hoyos, ed., A Companion to Roman Imperialism. Leiden: Brill, 2012, ISBN 978-90-04-23593-9, page 262
33. Luttwak 1979, p. 108.
34. David Kennedy & Derrick Riley, Rome's Desert Frontiers. London: B.T. Datsford Limited, 2004, ISBN 0-7134-6262-0, pages 31/32
35. Fergus Millar, The Roman Near East, 31 B.C. – A.D. 337 (Harvard: University Press, 1993), ISBN 0-674-77886-3, p. 103
36. Michel Christol & D. Nony, Rome et son Empire (Paris: Hachette, 2003), ISBN 2-01-145542-1, p. 171
37. John Rich,Graham Shipley, eds., War and Society in the Roman World. London: Routledge, 1993, ISBN 0-415-06644-1, page 235
38. Bennett 2001, p. 194–195.
39. Hermann Bengtson, Römische Geschichte: Republik und Kaiserzeit bis 284 n. Chr. Munich: Beck, 2001, ISBN 3-406-02505-6 , page 289
40. Alfred S. Bradford, With Arrow, Sword, and Spear: A History of Warfare in the Ancient World. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2001, ISBN 0-275-95259-2 , page 232
41. Choisnel 2004, p. 164.
42. S.J. De Laet, review of Lepper, Trajan's Parthian War. L'Antiquité Classique, 18-2, 1949, pages 487–489
43. Sheldon, Rose Mary (2010). Rome's Wars in Parthia: Blood in the Sand. London: Vallentine Mitchell. p. 133.
44. Bennett 2001, p. 195.
45. Maurice Sartre,The Middle East Under Rome. Harvard University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-674-01683-1, p. 146. According to Cassius Dio, the deal between Trajan and Abgaros was sealed by the king's son offering himself as Trajan's paramour—Bennett, 199
46. Bennett 2001, p. 199.
47. Bennett, Trajan, 196; Christol & Nony, Rome,171
48. Petit 1976, p. 44.
49. Fergus Millar, The Roman Near East, 31 B.C. – A.D. 337. Harvard University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-674-77886-3, p. 101
50. Birley 2013, p. 71.
51. Patrick Le Roux, IN Ségolène Demougin, ed., H.-G. Pflaum, un historien du XXe siècle: actes du colloque international, Paris les 21, 22 et 23 octobre 2004. Geneva: Droz, 2006, ISBN 2-600-01099-8 , pages 182/183
52. Petit 1976, p. 45.
53. Bennett 2001, p. 197/199.
54. Birley 2013, p. 72.
55. Longden, "Notes on the Parthian Campaigns", 8
56. T. Olajos, "Le monument du triomphe de Trajan en Parthie. Quelques renseignements inobservés (Jean d'Ephèse, Anthologie Grecque XVI 72)". Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 1981, vol. 29, no1-4, pp. 379–383. The statue was torn down by Sassanids in 571/572
57. Edwell 2007, p. 21.
58. E. J. Keall, "Parthian Nippur and Vologases' Southern Strategy: A Hypothesis". Journal of the American Oriental Society Vol. 95, No. 4 (Oct. – Dec. 1975), pp. 620–632
59. George Rawlinson, Parthia. New York: Cosimo, 2007, ISBN 978-1-60206-136-1 , page 310
60. Christopher S. Mackay, Ancient Rome: A Military and Political History.Cambridge University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-521-80918-5 , p. 227
61. Various authors have discussed the existence of the province and its location: André Maricq (La province d'Assyrie créée par Trajan. A propos de la guerre parthique de Trajan. In: Maricq: Classica et orientalia, Paris 1965, pages 103/111) identifies Assyria with Southern Mesopotamia; Chris S. Lightfood ("Trajan's Parthian War and the Fourth-Century Perspective", Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990), pp. 115–126), doubts the actual existence of the province; Maria G. Angeli Bertinelli ("I Romani oltre l'Eufrate nel II secolo d. C. - le provincie di Assiria, di Mesopotamia e di Osroene", In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, Bd. 9.1, Berlin 1976, pp. 3-45) puts Assyria between Mesopotamia and Adiabene; Lepper (1948, page 146) considers Assyria and Adiabene to be the same province.
62. Luttwak 1979, p. 110.
63. Janos Harmatta and others, eds., History of Civilizations of Central Asia: The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations, 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1999, ISBN 81-208-1408-8, p. 135
64. Pirouz Mojtahed-Zadeh, Security and Territoriality in the Persian Gulf: A Maritime Political Geography,London: Routledge, 2013, ISBN 0-7007-1098-1, page 120
65. Choisnel 2004, p. 164/165.
66. Axel Kristinsson, Expansions: Competition and Conquest in Europe Since the Bronze Age. Reykjavík: ReykjavíkurAkademían, 2010, ISBN 978-9979-9922-1-9 , p. 129
67. Bennett, Trajan, 199
68. Kaveh Farrokh, Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War. Oxford: Osprey, 2007, ISBN 978-1-84603-108-3 , p. 162
69. Bennett 2001, p. 200.
70. Julián González, ed., Trajano Emperador De Roma, p. 216
71. The last two were made consuls (suffecti) for the year 117
72. Mommsen 1999, p. 289.
73. Bennett 2001, p. 203.
74. James J. Bloom, The Jewish Revolts Against Rome, A.D. 66–135: A Military Analysis. McFarland, 2010, p. 191
75. Bloom, p. 194
76. A precise description of events in Judaea is impossible, because of the non-historical character of the Jewish (rabbinic) sources and the silence of the non-Jewish ones: William David Davies,Louis Finkelstein,Steven T. Katz, eds., The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 4, The Late Roman–Rabbinic Period.Cambridge U. Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-521-77248-8 , p. 100
77. Bloom, p. 190
78. He was already consul in absentia: Tanja Gawlich, Der Aufstand der jüdischen Diaspora unter Traian. GRIN Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-640-32753-9, p. 11
79. Margret Fell, ed., Erziehung, Bildung, Recht. Berlim: Dunker & Hunblot, 1994, ISBN 3-428-08069-6 , p 448
80. Histoire des Juifs, Troisième période, I – Chapitre III – Soulèvement des Judéens sous Trajan et Adrien
81. Bloom, pp. 195, 196
82. Hoyos, A Companion to Roman Imperialism, p. 325
83. Gabriele Marasco, ed., Political Autobiographies and Memoirs in Antiquity: A Brill Companion. Leiden: Brill, 2011, ISBN 978-90-04-18299-8 , p. 377
84. R. P. Longden, "Notes on the Parthian Campaigns of Trajan". The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 21 (1931), pp. 1–35. Available at [2]. Retrieved November 15, 2014

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• Veyne, Paul (2001). La Société Romaine (in French). Paris: Seuil. ISBN 978-2-02-052360-8.
• Veyne, Paul (2005). L'Empire Gréco-Romain (in French). Paris: Seuil. ISBN 978-2-02-057798-4.
• Young, Gary K. (2001). Rome's Eastern Trade: International Commerce and Imperial Policy 31 BC – AD 305. Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-203-47093-0.