Trajan's Dacian campaigns, concluded in 102 and 106 AD, reshaped the empire's northeastern frontier and flooded Rome with enough plunder to fund a building program unmatched in the first century of imperial rule. The title OPTIMO PRINCIPI — "best of princes" — was formally voted to Trajan by the Senate in 114 AD, but it appears on coinage considerably earlier, reflecting a deliberate propaganda effort to cement his reputation while the Dacian wars were still within living memory.
The Securitas type speaks directly to that postwar framing: Roman security, in official rhetoric, rested on the permanent subjugation of Dacia. RIC II #518 falls within a broad emission spanning nearly a decade of relatively stable mint output under a single principate.
Trajan's Dacian campaigns, concluded in 102 and 106 AD, reshaped the empire's northeastern frontier and flooded Rome with enough plunder to fund a building program unmatched in the first century of imperial rule. The title OPTIMO PRINCIPI — "best of princes" — was formally voted to Trajan by the Senate in 114 AD, but it appears on coinage considerably earlier, reflecting a deliberate propaganda effort to cement his reputation while the Dacian wars were still within living memory.
The Securitas type speaks directly to that postwar framing: Roman security, in official rhetoric, rested on the permanent subjugation of Dacia. RIC II #518 falls within a broad emission spanning nearly a decade of relatively stable mint output under a single principate.