A Lesson from Roman History - An Earlier Empire's War on Iraq

The Roman emperor Trajan reigned from 98 to 117 and brought the empire to its maximum extent. He is generally considered to be one of the "good emperors" who ruled from 96 to 180, and indeed his administration was marked by relative tolerance (towards Christians, for example) and efficiency. Among his mistakes, however, was an attack on the Parthian Empire beginning in 115 or 116. He personally led his troops into Mesopotamia (what we now call Iraq) capturing the capital of Ctesiphon on the Tigris near modern Baghdad. He reached the Persian Gulf and in Edward Gibbon's words, "enjoyed the honour of being the first, as he was the last, of the Roman generals, who ever navigated that remote sea." A man of boundless ambition, he dreamed of sailing from there to far-off India.