Decius Traianus
201 – 251 · Generation XIII · Roman emperor (r. AD 249–251)
Decius (AD 201 – AD 251). Roman emperor (r. AD 249–251). Married Herennia around AD 220. The first emperor to die in battle against a foreign enemy, cut down with his son in the marshes at Abritus. Before the throne he was a distinguished senator — suffect consul, governor of Moesia, Germania Inferior and Hispania Tarraconensis, urban prefect of Rome — trusted by Philip the Arab with a Danube command. Sent to quell Pacatian’s revolt, he let the troops proclaim him instead, defeated and killed Philip near Verona, and received from the Senate the name Traianus, after the emperor Trajan. He set out to restore the state’s strength and its ancestral religion: his edict of 249 required every inhabitant to sacrifice for the empire’s safety, and the refusals it provoked became the first organized persecution of Christians, claiming Pope Fabian among others. He also tried to revive the old office of censor — the Senate’s chosen candidate, the future emperor Valerian, declined the dangerous honour — raised the Baths of Decius on the Aventine, and repaired the lightning-damaged Colosseum, while spending much of his short reign chasing Cniva’s Goths across Moesia and Thrace.
Partners
- Married Herennia Etruscilla (209 – 253) in 220 — 2 children together
Children
- Herennius Etruscus (227 – 251)
- Hostilian Quintus (230 – 251)
Life
- 201 — Born
- 220 — Married Herennia
- 251 — Died