Very academic. Bennett presents Trajan almost like a museum piece; he’s there somewhere, behind plexiglas, embalmed in the empire, his blood and organs removed – unreachable and untouchable – except maybe, just maybe, when wearing museum gloves.. - While he does so with impeccable scholarship, that doesn’t quite make up for this almost fanatically punctilious treatment of one of the major Roman emperors. Even the Dacian wars are described in a manner that makes them about as exciting as a law book. – It is nevertheless well researched. You get a good impression of how the expanding empire was managed; Trajan’s construction projects, financial policy and legal reforms are given due attention, and as well how the liberalitas of his regime allowed for a flourishing of literature – perhaps well symbolized by the Ulpian library that was integrated into the impressive Forum Traiani. Bennett makes an interesting comparison between the Forum and the adjacent Markets of Trajan, built in a radically different and novel style, and signalling that times were also changing amidst the prosperity and stability of the regime. (Though a degree in architecture could come in handy for it to be smooth reading or even appreciate his descriptions of those two structures.) His discussion of the Arch of Trajan at Beneventum is fascinating, and also a lot more accessible to the general reader. The 24 plates are useful, and the maps and figures are good.
Machiavelli coined the term "Five Good Emperors", including Trajan among them, and it would appear that Bennett primarily aims to explore whether Trajan really deserves to be considered one of the good emperors. Apparently, at least to a large degree, he does; and Bennett establishes that this assessment is not due to a dearth of available information, but based on a sound evaluation of his regime – although he also judges Trajan’s reign to be as autocratic as that of Domitian, only going about it more subtly and indirectly. - In the final chapter (titled "A Perfect Prince?"), Bennett comments regarding Trajan’s Parthian war: "It seems to have been brought about by the need for personal glory alone, a contemporary Falklands Factor, and conforms to a worrying and well-recognized tendency among established political leaders of any period, if especially so of the present, to seek internal prestige by diverting attention away from matters at home and interfering in the affairs of foreign states." – This comparison between Roman imperial policy and that of "political leaders of any period" might be stretching it a bit far. And perhaps Bennett's way of judging a matter such as this is also a contributing factor to why Trajan, the man himself, remains relatively obscure throughout the pages of this book – and it’s more for this reason, rather than because of the excessive dryness of the text, that I ultimately found this (imperial) biography of Trajan a bit of a disappointment. He deserves better.




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