Selling Trajan's Saeculum: Destiny, Abundance, Assurance

Abstract

There had already been some flirtation with the idea that Trajan’s principate would mark the beginning of a new era in the propaganda of the first two years of his reign. Domitian’s openly autocratic dealings with the senate, Nerva’s lack of control, Trajan’s close relationship with the army and his outward show of deference to the fathers all compelled and enabled him to advertise a break with the past, even in the first twenty-four months of his rule when continuity with his predecessor’s image should have been emphasised as the legal premise of his accession. The notion of a new beginning and an era of abundance gained immediate currency in the literature of the period. Tacitus used the phrase ‘felicitas temporum’ (‘the good-fortune of the times’), while Pliny called Trajan’s reign a ‘saeculum’; later, Trajan himself would refer to his administration in these same terms...