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See Works, 33.216 [n/a] on Ruskin's view of the significance of Trajan in the 5th Capital, in the 36th capital, and in Dante. In the 1844 edition of Cary's translation of Dante's Purgatorio, a widow appealed to Trajan (Purgatory, Canto X, line 73ff):
“Grant vengeance, Sire! for woe beshrew this heart,
My son is murder’d.” ' He replying seem’d:
“Wait now till I return.” And she, as one
Made hasty by her grief: “O Sire! if thou
Dost not return?” - “Where I am, who then is,
May right thee.” - “What to thee is other's good,
If thou neglect thy own? - Now comfort thee;”
At length he answers. “It beseemeth well
My duty be perform’d, ere I move hence:
So justice wills; and pity bids me stay.”
Perhaps as important to the iconographic scheme are other aspects of Trajan’s reputation. He killed Jews, he executed mutinous members of the Praetorian Guard, and like Augustus and Vespasian he imposed peace on the Empire, secured its borders, and undertook major building works in Rome.
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[Version 0.05: May 2008]