military duty, however minute, escaped the emperor's eye, and that any relaxation of discipline would be rigidly punished, yet with unwavering justice. Trajan emphasized at once his personal control and the constitutionality of his sway, by bearing on his campaigns the actual title of "proconsul," which no other emperor had done. All things considered, it is not surprising that he was able, without serious opposition from the army, to remodel the whole military institutions of the empire, and to bring them into a shape from which there was comparatively little departure so long as the army lasted. In disciplinary matters no emperor since Augustus had been able to keep so strong a control over the troops. Pliny rightly praises Trajan as the lawgiver and the founder of discipline, and Vegetius classes Augustus, Trajan, and Hadrian together as restorers of the _morale_ of the army. The confidence which existed between Trajan and his army finds expression in some of the coins of his reign. For nearly two years after his election Trajan did not appear in Rome. He had decided already what the great task of his reign should be--the establishment of security upon the dangerous north-eastern frontier. Before visiting the capital he determined to put affairs in train for the attainment of this great object. He made a thorough inspection of the great lines of defence between the Danube and the Rhine, and framed, and partly carried out, a vast scheme for strengthening and securing them. The policy of opposing uncivilized tribes by the construction of the _limes_, a raised embankment of earth or other material, intersected here and there by fortifications, was not his invention, but it owed in great measure its development to him. This grand work, which would have excited the envy of Augustus, is traceable in its main extent at the present day. Among a people of roadmakers, Trajan was one of the greatest, and we have definite evidence from inscriptions that some of the military roads in this region were constructed by him. The more secure control which the Romans now maintained over the territory within the _limes_, tended to its rapid civilization, and the Roman influence, if not the Roman arms, soon began to affect powerfully the regions beyond.