The Decapolis, of which Pella is a…

Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch—the first to use the term “catholic” (from Greek “Katholicos”, meaning “universal”) to distinguish the entire body of Christians from individual congregations—is condemned to death in 107 under Trajan.

En route to Rome as a captive, he writes seven letters to, respectively, the Christian communities of Ephesos, Magnesia, Tralles, Rome, Philadelphia, and Smyrna and to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna.

Holding martyrdom to be a great honor, he asks Roman Christians not to intervene, writing, "Let me be given to the wild beasts, for through them I can attain unto God."

The region of present Jordan will prosper under Roman rule, and many new towns and villages will be established.

The entire region of modern southern Jordan and northwestern Saudi Arabia, except the twelve cities known collectively as the Decapolis, is after 107 made part of the new province called Arabia Petraea.

Trajan declares Bostra to be the capital of the province, but he also awards Petra the status of metropolis.

With Roman conquest comes the imposition of Greek in official discourse.

This is standard for a province in Eastern Rome, but Arabia has far less of the history of Hellenization than its neighbors, and the language had been little used before its introduction by the Romans.

Post-conquest Arabia nevertheless adopts Greek popularly, as well as officially, practically supplanting Nabataean and Aramaic, as evidenced by inscriptions at Umm al Quttain.

Philadelphia, its name retained through Byzantine and Roman times, has been part of the Nabataean kingdom until 106 CE, when, rebuilt by the Romans, it once again becomes a city of the Decapolis (Greek: Ten Cities), a Hellenistic league of the first century BCE to the second century CE.

It appears that Philadelphia (present 'Amman), …

…Gerasa, and …

…probably Dion go to Arabia; …

…the rest of the Decapolis cities go to Judaea or Syria.

Epictetus, having spent his youth as a slave in Rome to Epaphroditus, a very wealthy freedman of Nero, and studied Stoic philosophy under the late and highly esteemed Musonius Rufus, had obtained his freedom by unknown means and eventually began to teach philosophy at Rome.

After Domitian, around 93, banished all philosophers from Rome, and ultimately, from Italy, Epictetus had traveled to Nicopolis in Epirus, Greece, where he had founded a philosophy school.

So far as is known, Epictetus himself wrote nothing.

All that remains of his work was transcribed in about 108 by his pupil Arrian (author of the Anabasis Alexandri).

The main work is The Discourses, four books of which have been preserved (out of an original eight).

Arrian also compiled a popular digest, entitled the Enchiridion, or Handbook.

In a preface to the Discourses, addressed to Lucius Gellius, Arrian states that "whatever I heard him say I used to write down, word for word, as best I could, endeavoring to preserve it as a memorial, for my own future use, of his way of thinking and the frankness of his speech".

Epictetus, focusing more on ethics than the early Stoics had, and repeatedly attributing his ideas to Socrates, holds that our aim is to be masters of our own lives.

The role of the Stoic teacher, according to Epictetus, is to encourage his students to learn, first of all, the true nature of things, which is invariable, inviolable and valid for all human beings without exceptions.

The Romans under Trajan add parts of present Romania to Moesia Inferior.

Because Moesia is a frontier region, the area must be garrisoned by Roman troops, whose legionary camps are built along the Danube River.

Several Greek cities spring up near the mouth of the Danube, and the other principal cities of Moesia grow out of the legionary camps along the Danube; these, too, have sizable Greek elements in their population, given the predominantly Greek composition of the legions here.

Gaius (or Caius) Plinius Caecilius Secundus, better known as Pliny the Younger, is a remarkable writer.

A maternal nephew of the celebrated author and naturalist Pliny the Elder, he has served the empire as consul (with Cornutus Tertullus, in 100), Propraetor of Bithynia from 103, publicly elected Augur in 103-104, Superintendent for the banks of the Tiber (curator alvei Tiberis) in 104-106, been three times a member of Trajan's judicial council from 104 to 107, and had been made the Emperor's ambassador (legatus Augusti) in Bithynia-Pontus in 110.

Pliny is over fifty in 111 when he becomes governor of Bithynia.

The only oration of Pliny’s that now survives is the Panegyricus Trajani.

Pronounced in the Senate in 100, it is a description of Trajan's figure and actions in an adulatory and emphatic form, especially contrasting him with the much-detested Emperor Domitian.

The largest body of Pliny’s surviving work is his Letters (Epistulae), a series of personal missives directed to his friends and associates.

These letters are a unique testimony of Roman administrative history and everyday life in the first century.

The style is very different from that in the Panegyricus and some commentators affirm that Pliny is the initiator of a new particular genre: the letter written for publication.

In one, not written until 112, he asks the Emperor for instructions over the policy to follow with the Christians; in another, he describes the eruption of the Vesuvius that interred his uncle and to which he attended when he was eighteen years old.

The Epistulae are usually treated as two halves: those in Books 1 to 9, which Pliny had prepared for publication between 100 and 109, and those in Book 10, all of which are written to or by the Emperor Trajan during Pliny's governorship of Bithynia-Pontus, which position he will hold until his sudden death in 113.

This final book is, significantly, not intended for publication.

Trajan has ruled as a civilian emperor in the years since the final Dacian campaign, to the same acclaim as before.

One of his notable acts is the sponsorship of a three-month gladiatorial festival in the great Colosseum in Rome (the precise date of this festival is unknown).

Combining chariot racing, beast fights and close-quarters gladiatorial bloodshed, this gory spectacle reputedly leaves eleven thousand dead (mostly slaves and criminals, plus the thousands of beasts killed alongside them) and attracts a total of five million spectators over the course of the festival.

It is during this time that he corresponds with Pliny the Younger on the subject of how to deal with the Christians of Pontus, telling Pliny to leave them alone unless they are openly practicing the religion.

He builds several new buildings, monuments and roads in Italia and his native Hispania.

His magnificent complex in Rome raised to commemorate his victories in Dacia (and largely financed from that campaign's loot)—consisting of a forum, Trajan's Column, and a shopping center—still stands in Rome today.

He is also a prolific builder of triumphal arches, many of which survive, and rebuilder of roads (Via Traiana and Via Traiana Nova).