Trajan and the Imperial House

This chapter discusses how Trajan after his accession in 98 reconsolidated the imperial house. Trajan was from the Spanish province Baetica, his wife, Plotina, likely from Narbonese Gaul, thus dramatically enhancing the status of provincial elites in imperial Rome. The childless couple built spectacular foundations for a true dynasty through lavish formal honors to family members. Within a few years Trajan elevated his wife and his older sister, Marciana, to Augusta. In 112 Trajan divinized his (long dead) father and (recently deceased) sister, and gave his niece, Matidia, the position of Augusta. Henceforth, Trajan could claim parentage from two deified figures (his adoptive father, Nerva, and now his biological father) and signal divine ancestry for Marciana, her daughter, Matidia the Elder, and his grandnieces Sabina and Matidia the Younger. It is argued that this status shaped Sabina’s own identity, her later standing as empress, and eventually her own deification.