The FORT RED legend — Fortuna Redux, "Fortune the Returner" — was typically invoked to celebrate a ruler's safe return from campaign or journey. Trajan's use of it in 112–114 almost certainly anticipates his Parthian expedition, making this a prospective rather than retrospective issue, an unusual inversion of the formula. The S P Q R OPTIMO PRINCIPI obverse legend, decreed by the Senate, was the highest honorific title Rome could formally bestow and remained uniquely associated with Trajan — no emperor before him received it officially.
The FORT RED legend — Fortuna Redux, "Fortune the Returner" — was typically invoked to celebrate a ruler's safe return from campaign or journey. Trajan's use of it in 112–114 almost certainly anticipates his Parthian expedition, making this a prospective rather than retrospective issue, an unusual inversion of the formula. The S P Q R OPTIMO PRINCIPI obverse legend, decreed by the Senate, was the highest honorific title Rome could formally bestow and remained uniquely associated with Trajan — no emperor before him received it officially.