and the
legions, after a long interval, beheld a military emperor at their head.
The first exploits of Trajan were against the Dacians, the most warlike
of men, who dwelt beyond the Danube, and who, during the reign of
Domitian, had insulted, with impunity, the Majesty of Rome. To the
strength and fierceness of barbarians they added a contempt for
life, which was derived from a warm persuasion of the immortality and
transmigration of the soul. Decebalus, the Dacian king, approved himself
a rival not unworthy of Trajan; nor did he despair of his own and the
public fortune, till, by the confession of his enemies, he had exhausted
every resource both of valor and policy. This memorable war, with a very
short suspension of hostilities, lasted five years; and as the emperor
could exert, without control, the whole force of the state, it was
terminated by an absolute submission of the barbarians. The new province
of Dacia, which formed a second exception to the precept of Augustus,
was about thirteen hundred miles in circumference. Its natural
boundaries were the Niester, the Teyss or Tibiscus, the Lower Danube,
and the Euxine Sea. The vestiges of a military road may still be traced
from the banks of the Danube to the neighborhood of Bender, a place
famous in modern history, and the actual frontier of the Turkish and
Russian empires.

Trajan was ambitious of fame; and as long as mankind shall continue
to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their
benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the
most exalted characters. The praises of Alexander, transmitted by a
succession of poets and historians, had kindled a dangerous emulation in
the mind of Trajan. Like him, the Roman emperor undertook an expedition
against the nations of the East; but he lamented with a sigh, that his
advanced age scarcely left him any hopes of equalling the renown of the
son of Philip. Yet the success of Trajan, however transient, was rapid
and specious. The degenerate Parthians, broken by intestine discord,
fled before his arms. He descended the River Tigris in triumph, from the
mountains of Armenia to the Persian Gulf. He enjoyed the honor of being
the first, as he was the last, of the Roman generals, who ever navigated
that remote sea. His fleets ravaged the coast of Arabia; and Trajan
vainly flattered himself that he was approaching towards the confines of
India. Every day the astonished senate received the