Trajan divides the Pannonian province into Pannonia…

The eunuch Zheng Zhong had served as the director of imperial gardens during the time of Empress Dowager Dou's regency over Emperor He, and had been among the eunuchs who had not endeared himself to Empress Dowager Dou's clan.

In 92, Emperor He, apparently dissatisfied with his suppression by the Dou clan, had plotted a coup d'etat with his brother Liu Qing the Prince of Qinghe, and Zheng.

They had been successful in carrying out the overthrow of the Dous, and as a reward, Emperor He had promoted Zheng to the post of the empress' palace's head of household.

Zheng had accepted the post but declined most of the monetary rewards that Emperor He gave him, a fact that made Emperor He even more impressed with him.

Emperor He often consulted with him on major affairs of state, and this started a precedent of eunuchs becoming involved in imperial governance.

In 102, breaking past precedent, Emperor He had created Zheng the Marquess of Chaoxiang, making him the first Eastern Han Dynasty eunuch to be created a marquess.

The first Han Dynasty eunuch with true power in government, Zheng has continued to be powerful after Emperor He's death, during the regency of Empress Deng Sui over Emperor Shang and Emperor An.

For his support, she adds three hundred households to his march in 107.

He dies later in the year.

Emperor Trajan annexes Damascus, a former Nabataean possession, probably attaching it to the province of Suria; it replaces Gadara as capital of the Decapolis.

The exact number of member cities varies over time, and at one stage, fourteen cities are reported to have been members.

Damascus lies the farthest north.

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.

The Decapolis, of which Pella is a member, ends as a political entity when Arabia is annexed in 106; the cities are distributed among the three provinces of Arabia, Judaea, and Syria.

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.