Trajan
Early life

Marcus Ulpius Traianus was born on 18 September AD 53 in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica (in what is now Andalusia in modern Spain), in the municipium of Italica (now in the municipal area of Santiponce, in the outskirts of Seville), a Roman colony established in 206 BC by Scipio Africanus. At the time of Trajan's birth it was a small town, without baths, theatre and amphitheatre, and with a very narrow territory under its direct administration. Trajan's year of birth is not reliably attested and may instead have been AD 56.

The epitome of Cassius Dio's Roman history describes Trajan as "an Iberian and neither an Italian nor even an Italiote", but this claim is contradicted by other ancient sources and rejected by modern scholars, who have reconstructed Trajan's Italic lineage. Appian states that Trajan's hometown of Italica was settled by and named after Italic veterans who fought in Spain under Scipio, and new settlers arrived there from Italy in the following centuries. Among the Italic settlers were the Ulpii and the Traii, who were either part of the original colonists or arrived as late as the end of the 1st century BC. Their original home, according to the description of Trajan as "Ulpius Traianus ex urbe Tudertina" in the Epitome de Caesaribus, was the town of Tuder (Todi) in the Umbria region of central Italy. This is confirmed by archeology, with epigraphic evidence placing both the Ulpii and the Traii in Umbria generally and Tuder specifically, and by linguistic studies of the family names Ulpius and Traius which show that both are of Osco-Umbrian origin.

It is unknown whether Trajan's ancestors were Roman citizens or not at their arrival in Spain. They would have certainly possessed Roman citizenship in case they arrived after the Social War (91–87 BC), when Tuder became a municipium of Roman citizens. In Spain they may well have intermarried with native Iberians, in which case they would have lost their citizenship. Had they lacked or lost the status of Roman citizens, they would have achieved it or recovered it when Italica became a municipium with Latin rights in the mid-1st century BC.

Trajan's paternal grandfather Ulpius married a Traia. Their son, Trajan's namesake father Marcus Ulpius Traianus, was born at Italica during the reign of Tiberius and became a prominent senator and general, commanding the Legio X Fretensis under Vespasian in the First Jewish-Roman War. Trajan's mother was Marcia, a Roman noblewoman of the gens Marcia and a sister-in-law of the second Flavian Emperor Titus. Little is known of her. Her father is believed to be Quintus Marcius Barea Sura. Her mother was Antonia Furnilla, daughter of Aulus Antonius Rufus and Furnia. Trajan owned some lands called Figlinae Marcianae in Ameria, another Umbrian town, located near both Tuder and Reate (the home of the Flavian dynasty) and believed to be the home of Marcia's family.

The line of the Ulpii continued long after Trajan's death. His elder sister was Ulpia Marciana, and his niece was Salonia Matidia. Very little is known about Trajan's early formative years, but it is thought likely that he spent his first months or years in Italica before moving to Rome and then, perhaps at around eight or nine years of age, he almost certainly would have returned temporarily to Italica with his father during Trajanus' governorship of Baetica (ca. 64–65). The lack of a strong local power base, caused by the size of the town from which they came, made it necessary for the Ulpii (and for the Aelii, the other important senatorial family of Italica with whom they were allied) to weave local alliances, in the Baetica (with the Annii, the Ucubi and perhaps the Dasumii from Corduba), the Tarraconense and the Narbonense, here above all through Pompeia Plotina, Trajan's wife. Many of these alliances were made not in Spain, but in Rome. The family home in Rome, the Domus Traiana, was on the Aventine Hill; excavations under the Piazza del Tempio di Diana found remains thought to be of the family's large suburban villa, with evidence of highly decorated rooms.
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