Conqueror of Dacia. Subduer of Parthia. The Roman Emperor Marcus Ulpius Traianus — or Trajan as he is known to history — died on August 8 in the year AD 117. By most measures, Trajan was a superior emperor. In his satirical work The Caesars, written in AD 361, the emperor Julian the Apostate puts these words into the mouth of Trajan in defense of his reign and exploits before the gods: "O Zeus and ye other gods, when I took over the empire it was in a sort of lethargy and much disordered by the tyranny that had long...