Explore Imperial Rome With Airtrek

The year is 110 CE. Imperial Rome is at the height of its power under Emperor Trajan, who will soon launch the campaigns that push the empire to its greatest territorial extent. The Senate still meets. The arenas still fill. The Vestal Virgins still tend the sacred flame that protects the city. And the people who live here, senators, merchants, priestesses, physicians, see completely different cities, depending on who they are.

Airtrek puts you inside that world. You arrive in Trajan's Imperial Rome, see the setting around you, and talk with the people who live there.

The Imperial Rome you arrive in

Imperial Rome in 110 CE is the largest city in the Mediterranean world , a metropolis of perhaps one million people, drawn from every corner of the empire. Trajan has been emperor for twelve years and is popular. He is building his famous forum and will soon complete the column that commemorates his Dacian campaigns. The Senate functions, but real power rests with the emperor. The grain dole feeds the poor. The arenas entertain the crowds. The temples anchor the city's religious life.

This is not the Rome of Julius Caesar, that was 150 years earlier, during the Republic. This is not the Rome of the fall, that is centuries away. This is Imperial Rome at its peak, and the people you meet are living through that peak.

Who you can talk with

Quintus Aelius Severus

Roman Senator

A patrician, 40, who has served in the Senate for nearly a decade under Emperor Trajan. A Stoic who mentors younger senators and navigates the complex currents of imperial politics. Ask him about politics, law, the cursus honorum, or what it costs to serve under Trajan.

Julia Petronia

Roman Noblewoman & Hostess

The daughter of the wealthy merchant Gaius, 22, educated in Greek and Epicurean philosophy, unusual for a Roman woman. She hosts the most sought-after dinner parties in Imperial Rome, where senators, poets, and philosophers mingle in her father's triclinium. Her father wants her to marry Senator Marcus. She values her independence. Ask her about dining customs, social etiquette, or what a woman can and cannot do in Trajan's Rome.

Gaius Petronius

Wealthy Merchant

58, born to a freedman who worked the docks at Ostia. He built a trading empire dealing in silk from Serica, tin from Britannia, grain from Egypt, and garum from Hispania. He has traveled to Alexandria, Antioch, and beyond the Parthian frontier. His wealth rivals senators', but as an equestrian he cannot hold the highest offices. Ask him about trade, foreign lands, or what it's like to be the richest man in a room where you're officially the lowest class.

Livia Sabina

Priestess of Vesta

A Vestal Virgin, 34, chosen at age seven for her patrician lineage. She has served Vesta for twenty-seven years, tending the sacred flame that protects Rome. She can pardon condemned criminals, travels in a carpentum through streets cleared for her, and sits in the imperial box at the games. She guards the wills of the most powerful citizens, including emperors. Ask her about Roman religion, sacred rituals, or the secrets she cannot tell.

A question, three answers

Ask Quintus, Julia, and Gaius the same question, "What do you think of the emperor's power?", and you get three different Imperial Romes.

Quintus, the senator, sees imperial power as an instrument whose morality depends on the wielder: a blade under Domitian, a foundation under Trajan. Julia, the noblewoman, sees it as the weather she hosts her guests in, it decides whether a woman may read Greek philosophy without scandal. Gaius, the merchant, sees it as the ceiling he hits every day: "I'm richer than half the Senate, but I can't hold the highest offices because I'm equestrian, not patrician. The emperor's power is the ceiling I hit every day, no matter how much I've built."

Three people. One city. One question. Three Imperial Romes. This is what Airtrek is built for, not one summary of the past, but a conversation inside it. (Read a full worked example in I Asked a Poet, a King, and a Queen What Survives After Death.)

What we know, and what we don't

These characters are not real historical individuals. Quintus, Julia, Gaius, and Livia are reconstructions of types of people who plausibly lived in Imperial Rome under Trajan, built from research into Roman social structure, politics, domestic life, religion, and the arena in the early 2nd century CE.

The setting, 110 CE, Trajan's reign, the Forum, the arenas, the Vestal Virgins, the grain dole, is well-evidenced. The characters' inner lives and private conversations are reconstructed. Where the record is uncertain, the characters say so rather than inventing confident answers. See History, Interpretation, and AI in Airtrek.

Learn more