Antonio de Guevara

A decade of Césares
is to know: The lives of ten Roman emperors that prevailed in the times of the good
Marco Aurelio.
Valladolid 1539

Chapter X

Of the first war that Trajan had against the Dacs.

In the year forty-fourth of his age, and second of his empire, the
new came to Trajan as Decebalus, king of the dacs, which is now
called the reign of Dinamarcha, was revealed against the Roman
Empire, which new put no small scandal in the Roman Senate, the
one because that reyno was naturally bellicoso, the other because
King Decebalo was bold and determined prince. As the Emperor
Domitian was more a friend of vices than an enemy of enemies,
in all his time King Decebalus never obeyed the Roman Empire,
so the Dakans came to great courage and the Romans lost their
credit. Trajan de yr was determined in person to that war, for
which he chose very little army, although of great effort, because
he said that, as well as at the table, only the delicacies to be eaten
should be brought, They will not be led to war except those who
have to fight. And he said more: "From experience I have
experienced it, I long to eat as well as to fight, that the many
delicacies on the table impale and the many men in the war get in
the way."
Known by the king, Decébalo that Trajan moved from Rome to
yer to conquer, was determined to go out to the road to receive,
and what gave him the thought that put to work, because he had
so little to the Romans, that he felt affrenta be surrounded by
them. As the armies were already in sight of one another, being
as were the barbarians many and the Romans so few, many
advised Trajan to make an honest peace or truce and bolivise
safely to Rome. Replied to this Trajan: "Great little would be
ours, and rightly blame us in Rome, if we suddenly raises the hand
of this war without first provide us with what their forces are
stretching, and we also see how such are our fates, because it can
to be that, if its power is great, our fortune is greater. "
King Decebalus occupied all the dangerous passages, and he had
broken the bridges and masses of all the rivers, and he had stolen
all the supplies by the Romans, and all these things were an
opportunity to acquaint Trajan with the work. they were not
powerful to disturb the way, much less to diminish the
mood; because Trajan was so eager, that fortune was more
doubtful, the victory was more certain there. Trajan took the
heights of the mountains, and there with all his army walked many
nights and days, and it was not passed by the thought to King
Decebalo that by those mountains so rugged Trajan would walk,
because he did not think that men could walk because they could
not huyr the animals.
It was necessary for King Decébalo to bolivar to the flat lands and
to fortify himself in the strong cities, and this was the end of
Trajan, in not wanting to fight in the dangerous mountains, but in
the flat fields, because he said he did not come to fight with the
mountains that raise gross animals, but to dominate the cities that
sustain the seditious men. In a very short space Trajan took five
cities and seven castles and many prisoners, among which took
Myrto, uncle and tutor and captain of King Decebalo, a man of
great gravity and much auctority.
Trajan was so rigorous with those who resisted him and so pious
with those who davan, that, some for love and others out of fear,
andava secret talk in the kingdom to surrender all to Trajan,
because they saw that each day the power crescía of Trajan and
the forces of King Decebalus were diminished.
Taking Trajano surrounded a city that was called Mirtha, having
had it in a lot of trouble, King Decébalo agreed to send him a
powerful aid, against which came Lucio Mileyo, captain of
Trajan, who fought so manly in that hour , that did not leave the
enemies or only a person who was not dead or imprisoned. As in
that battle were many dead of the Romans and came from the
many more wounded, lacking rags to bind the wounds, Trajan
broke his own shirt to tie them.
Known in the city how the relief that came to them was disrupted
and that Trajan to heal his wounded his own shirt was torn apart,
feared victory and scared of so clemency, and both these things
were in great detriment to King Decebalus, mostly as he was
superbo and proud, because the good Trajan, if with the
blunderbuss and ingenuity he overthrows the stones of the castles,
with the fame of his good deeds he robs the wills of his
armies. Taken and delivered by the Romans to the city of Mirtha,
then King Decebalus embroiderers ambushed Trajan, saying that
he wanted to subjectarse the Roman Empire, on condition that the
things that were capitulassen were talkative and the things that
were sent were readable;
The conditions that Trajan begged him to ask were to dexase the
weapons, to dismantle the army, to overthrow the castles, to hand
over the mills, to restore what was stolen, to be a friend of friends
and an enemy of the enemies of the Senate. The captains who
came to his rescue, gave up a hundred thousand gold heavies to
pay for the army and gave his son hostages for the security of the
capitulated. All these conditions was pleased King Decébalo to
swear and keep them, except that to deliver the captains who came
to favor and help him, saying that so ugly thing neither it was
convenient to the mercy of Trajan to ask it nor to his real fidelity
to grant it, because not for but he delivered himself and his lands
but to keep his allies and friends lives.
The king came to see him with Trajan and, kneeling on the ground
with his knees removed, he kissed Trajan's knee and hand, qual,
lifting him from the ground and turning the crown to the top,
Dialogue Trajan: «Dexéte kiss the knee for the rebellion that you
had me and tell to kiss the hand for the vassallazgo that deverte to
me. Agora let you assent fit me as a friend and wear the crown as
a king. By this he knows how to understand the past error and to
preserve the present benefit, because otherwise you will put me
in work and you in danger. "[386]

Chapter XI

How Trajan triumphed from the Dacs and reformed the republic.
Many castles were cast and others overthrown, and paid for by
the money of the king, Decebalus the exiles, Trajan left for Rome,
taking with him the king's son for hostages and other cavalleros
for embezzlers, because it was a law widely used and kept by the
Romans. of no value was what was capitulated in the war if it
were not confirmed in the Senate of Rome. The ambassadors of
King Decebalus first came to Rome that Trajan, those who
removed their caps, and overthrown their weapons, and holding
their hands together, humbly pleaded with the Senate, would be
well to forgive King Decebalus for the rebellion that had been
done against them, and that they confirmed everything that Trajan
was going with him capitulated, because of what his king had
regretted and in the time to come he dismissed the amendment.
Many and very excited were the festivities with which the
Romans received Trajan, and very many were the riches that he
put into his triumph, and, if the Romans were happy to see his
empire rich and powerful, it was much more easy to see Come to
Trajano good and good, because it was incredible the love that
everyone had for him and they were without sacrificing the
sacrifices that he offered for him. On the day of his triumphant,
Trajan took the son of the king. He took it with him in the car, and
this was because he was a very young child, whom he later treated
not as a prisoner, but as a son of his own. In conquering the Dacos
and in visiting the Germans, Trajan stopped almost two years,
and, having paid for it in Rome, he did not find it as corrected as
he was the way to the Republic. And this is not to wonder,
because, in making the princes war against their enemies,
The day that Trajan entered triumphantly in Rome, perhaps the
one that was most noted in the games and with whom Trajan was
more pleased that day was with a master of farces who still called
Pilas, who for the prize of his work did not beg Trajan but they
gave him license to use his office. And Trajan replied: "The
princes must see that what they command is just; but, after being
sent, by no request or service they have to revoke it. What I will
do for you will be that I want to give you from my house as much
as you can win by playing in the plazas of Rome. "
Although Trajan was armed with arms, surrounded by business,
occupied in wars, interfered with in hedges, harassed by friends,
fatigued by enemies and, above all, awakened in widening his
fame and perpetuating his memory, he never lost sight of the good
governance of the republic. The baxos and ceviles businesses,
with no less attention, heard them, and with less diligence,
dispatched them than the very arduous ones of the
republic. However busy Trajan was in the things of war, he never
neglected the administration of justice. All the time I was in
Rome, once or twice every week, I was publicly assassinated to
dispatch things of justice. However retraced that Trajan was in his
house, no matter how bad he was in bed, no matter how busy he
was in the war, never a man who came to ask for justice was
denied an audience. When some one was very embarrassed and
furious to complain about someone else who was his friend or
enemy, then Trajan put his finger on one ear, saying that it stops
[388] to hear the accused. Trajan never agreed to oýr and
determine things of justice if he did not go to Emperor Titho's
door and Augustus's plaque, and asked why there, more than
elsewhere, he replied: "Assisting me, the righteous princes were
assented, because do unfair thing by remembering them. "
While Trajan was at cavallo and on his way to the second Dakar
war, a woman came to him and said: "Emperor Trajan: I am poor
and old and a widow, and, having no more than one daughter, I
was forced by one of your home. "Trajan replied:" Do not be me,
poor woman, you importunate, I swear to you by the immortal
gods that I'll do justice to you in war. "The old woman replied:"
And what safety do you have, Trajan? , what are you doing in the
war? "Oýda is such a pitiful word, then Trajan got out on the
ground and delayed the departure until he had done justice to the
poor old woman.
Trajano had the custom, in giving him a quexa, then he had it
screvir in a book that he had in his camera, and this made the good
prince to ask the judge who sent it to account, or so that he did
not forget to send it . In some things some princes with Trajan
yagualar and in others others surpassed him; but in the
righteousness of justice no prince like him in Rome, because
never a man he did injustice, nor was ever known affición or
passión in his sentence. Many times Trajan said that, to be the
prince justice, it was necessary that they themselves were just,
because the subjects and bassallos are more easily persuaded to
do what they see than to obey what they command.
Trajan was the first to put patrons in the Senate to defend the poor,
and the first also pointed out a day in the week to see their
causes. The censors in Rome were not more than two hours in the
morning and one in the afternoon to listen to causes, and Trajan
ordered them to reside for three hours in the morning and two in
the afternoon, and it was very praised for Trajan, because it was
the occasion of abbreviate the pleytos and to relieve the
pleyteantes. In the time of Trajan, no one who had a position of
justice could augment more [389] the shop, but in the state of
wealth or poverty that he began to govern, in which he was saved
to keep, and to pay for his work, beyond the mercedes. that the
prince did to him, casávale to his children of the goods of the
republic. Known by Trajan, how immortal were the pleytos in the
Senate, He ordered that Ytalia's pleytos could not last more than
a year and those of strange lands half. Trajan made many houses
in Rome to the censors concurriessen to oýr and administer
justice, and also made strong prisons and rezias, so that this good
prince provided that the good were heard and the bad
punished. [390]
Chapter XIII

Of the great sieges that Trajan made in the kingdom of Dacia.

Dead the unhappy King Decébalo and coming all land held by
Trajan, made it a province, namely: that he took away the title of
reyno and the pre-eminence to be governed by consuls, but to be
called province and the governors praetors. A great number of the
Jews were those that Trajan took from Ytalia and brought in that
land, and many more were those who he brought from that land
and traxo in Ytalia; and this he did not without great prudence,
because taking out the ones asssegurava the reyno and leading the
others would live as they lived in the Roman Empire.
When Captain Longinos died, he left a brother younger in age,
more equal to him in effort, and this made Trajan Praetor of Dacia
and gave him the castle his brother died of, telling him that, of the
two things, the He gave him for his virtue and effort, and the other
for what Longinus his brother had served him. Trajan provided
that the body of his captain Longinos be sought, to which he
commanded to make such a rich sepulcher, that he dubbed
himself if he gave him so much wealth in life that he spent in
making that grave. In all the kingdom of Dacia there was no
cavallero who had an income, but they were all royal rents, of
which the king distributed to each one as merescia and as it served
him, and hence it followed that, as the king was so opulent, the
king was still very rich.
When Trajan came to Dacia the second time, King Decebalus was
very rich, so much gold as silver, one because [395] was much
what the king rents him and the other because there was little that
he robava . King Decébalo, not knowing what he would do
fortune and his reyno, determined to bury all his thesoros in a river
he drew from mother and, made in the deepest stone sepulchers
of abscondiessen his thesoro, made him return I used to run the
river. Call that river Sargecia and, because the secret was not
discovered, ordered to kill all those who went to bury that thesoro,
but little took advantage of it, that a fisherman who at that time
fished in the river discovered it later to Trajan, so that no thing so
abscondida, not discovered by human corruption.
Come those thesoros held by Trajan, divided dellos by his army,
according to the merits of what each served, and part of what he
had, the first thing he ordered hazer was a temple to the god Jovis
very sumptuosíssimo , in which he provided that he and the
Roman people should sacrifice sacrifices each year. He also
rehearsed the royal house there (that is, the kings of the dacos
used to live), which by the antiquity was already something old
and with the continuous wars not very well tracted: work by the
way was ofleytosa to see and apazible of to dwell.
He also repaired many broken bridges, he made many dams of
open mills, he marched along the roads many broken roads, in all
places he made new houses and rehedified infinities that were
burned. It broke many roads by rough mountains, again it raised
many fortresses and renewed old ones; finally, as soon as they
walked through that kingdom for a league they could not find any
memory of Trajan's hands. Not content with what was done, he
made a stone bridge over the Danube river, which was so subtle
in the hedge and so costly in its expense, that there were few
works that ygualassen and none that surpassed it. The bridge had
vents long arches, and each pillar was no more than a square
stone, and the arches were a hundred and fifty feet high, and this
without the foundations, and still from pillar to pillar one hundred
and sixty-two feet, and the width of the arches above was forty
feet, and above all it was to see the beauty of the moldings and
the richness of the stones; because the stone was of such luster
that when it seemed to me, it had to be swallowed up in
silver. Unbelievable thing seemed to human juyzio to be able to
make a bridge in that river, because the river was wide, it was
prophundo, it was clayey, it was swift and above all that nowhere
could it be thrown so that at the time of laying the foundations it
was dry. It was so extreme or, to say the least, so monstrous that
edifice, that there was a need for all the high judges to be
experienced there, for the Roman forces to employ there, that
Trajan spent all his sorrows there; because in the work a lot of
power was required and in the order of the very much
industry. and the width of the arches above was forty feet, and
above all it was to see the beauty of the moldings and the richness
of the stones; because the stone was of such luster that when it
seemed to me, it had to be swallowed up in silver. Unbelievable
thing seemed to human juyzio to be able to make a bridge in that
river, because the river was wide, it was prophundo, it was clayey,
it was swift and above all that nowhere could it be thrown so that
at the time of laying the foundations it was dry. It was so extreme
or, to say the least, so monstrous that edifice, that there was a need
for all the high judges to be experienced there, for the Roman
forces to employ there, that Trajan spent all his sorrows
there; because in the work a lot of power was required and in the
order of the very much industry. and the width of the arches above
was forty feet, and above all it was to see the beauty of the
moldings and the richness of the stones; because the stone was of
such luster that when it seemed to me, it had to be swallowed up
in silver. Unbelievable thing seemed to human juyzio to be able
to make bridge in that river, because the river was wide, was
prophundo, it was clayey, it was swift and above all that nowhere
could it be thrown so that at the time of laying the foundations it
was dry. It was so extreme or, to say the least, so monstrous that
edifice, that there was a need for all the high judges to be
experienced there, for the Romans to use their forces there, that
Trajan spent all his sorrows there; because in the work a lot of
power was required and in the order of the very much
industry. and above all it was [396] to see the beauty of the
moldings and the richness of the stones; because the stone was of
such luster that when it seemed to me, it had to be swallowed up
in silver. Unbelievable thing seemed to human juyzio to be able
to make bridge in that river, because the river was wide, was
prophundo, it was clayey, it was swift and above all that nowhere
could it be thrown so that at the time of laying the foundations it
was dry. It was so extreme or, to say the least, so monstrous that
edifice, that there was a need for all the high judges to be
experienced there, for the Romans to use their forces there, that
Trajan spent all his sorrows there; because in the work a lot of
power was required and in the order of the very much
industry. and above all it was [396] to see the beauty of the
moldings and the richness of the stones; because the stone was of
such luster that when it seemed to me, it had to be swallowed up
in silver. Unbelievable thing seemed to human juyzio to be able
to make bridge in that river, because the river was wide, was
prophundo, it was clayey, it was swift and above all that nowhere
could it be thrown so that at the time of laying the foundations it
was dry. It was so extreme or, to say the least, so monstrous that
edifice, that there was a need for all the high judges to be
experienced there, for the Romans to use their forces there, that
Trajan spent all his sorrows there; because in the work a lot of
power was required and in the order of the very much
industry. that when I felt like it, I deserved to be swallowed up in
silver. Unbelievable thing seemed to human juyzio to be able to
make bridge in that river, because the river was wide, was
prophundo, it was clayey, it was swift and above all that nowhere
could it be thrown so that at the time of laying the foundations it
was dry. It was so extreme or, to say the least, so monstrous that
edifice, that there was a need for all the high judges to be
experienced there, for the Romans to use their forces there, that
Trajan spent all his sorrows there; because in the work a lot of
power was required and in the order of the very much
industry. that when I felt like it, I deserved to be swallowed up in
silver. Unbelievable thing seemed to human juyzio to be able to
make bridge in that river, because the river was wide, was
prophundo, it was clayey, it was swift and above all that nowhere
could it be thrown so that at the time of laying the foundations it
was dry. It was so extreme or, to say the least, so monstrous that
edifice, that there was a need for all the high judges to be
experienced there, for the Romans to use their forces there, that
Trajan spent all his sorrows there; because in the work a lot of
power was required and in the order of the very much industry. It
was swift and above all that nowhere could it be thrown so that at
the time of laying the foundations it was dry. It was so extreme
or, to say the least, so monstrous that edifice, that there was a need
for all the high judges to be experienced there, for the Roman
forces to employ there, that Trajan spent all his sorrows
there; because in the work a lot of power was required and in the
order of the very much industry. It was swift and above all that
nowhere could it be thrown so that at the time of laying the
foundations it was dry. It was so extreme or, to say the least, so
monstrous that edifice, that there was a need for all the high
judges to be experienced there, for the Roman forces to employ
there, that Trajan spent all his sorrows there; because in the work
a lot of power was required and in the order of the very much
industry.
Very little is what can increase the pen with respect to what would
be frightened the one who saw it by sight, and to be more credible,
and day assoman the pillars on the fierce waters, showing the
arrogance of power and wealth of the emperor. Trajan wanted to
stink those who were bivos and admire all the Advenders, so that
it was evident argument that there was nothing so impossible or
so arduous, that with the hands of men could not be undertaken
and with the Roman riches not It could be finished. The cause of
Trajan in making this bridge so costly and so monstrous was to
say that he was doing it so that the barbarians who lived from the
other side of the Danube could come to fight with the Romans,
even if the river was frozen, and also because the Romans who
lived there did not take any pleasure in planning and thinking,
thinking that the enemy had an eye. The Emperor Domitian did
not have such encouragement or effort, for fear that the barbarian
people would not come to fight with the Roman forces
commanded to overthrow the arches of that bridge, so that the one
made a bridge to combine the enemies to fight and the another
overthrown for fear of fighting. [396]