Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 09.djvu/522

TRAJAN 460 TRANCE to a Roman province. It is supposed that it was in commemoration of this war that he erected at Rome the column which still remains under his name. In 103 he wrote the famous epistle to Pliny, governor of Pontus and Bithynia, direct- ing him not to search for Christians, but TRAJAN to punish them if brought before him. For some years Trajan occupied himself with the work of administration, but in 114 he set out on an expedition against the Parthians which resulted in the re- duction of Armenia to a Roman province. He is said to have been sensual in his private life, but his good qualities as a ruler were such that even 250 years after his death senators greeted a new em- peror with the wish that he might be more fortunate than Augustus and better than Trajan. He died in Cilicia in A. D. 117, after having nominated Hadrian as his successor. TRAJAN'S COLUMN, a celebrated monument in Rome, Italy, and the chef- d'ceuvre of Apollodorus; erected by the Roman senate and people in honor of the emperor in A. D. 114. It still stands in the Forum of Trajan, and is constructed en- tirely of marble. The shaft is 87 feet high, and whole, including pedestal and statue, 147 feet. Around the column runs a spiral band 3 feet wide and 660 feet long, covered with well-preserved reliefs from Trajan's war with the Da- cians, comprising, besides animals, etc., 2,500 human figures. Beneath the column Trajan was interred, and on it was placed his statue, for which that of St. Peter has been substituted. A staii'case in the interior, of 184 steps, leads to an open platform at the top. TRAJAN'S WALL, a line of fortifica- tions in the S. of the Dobrudscha; ex- tends from the Danube, at Czernavoda, to a point on the Black Sea, near Kustendji, a distance of 37 miles. It consists of a double (in some parts a triple) line of earth ramparts about 10 feet high, bounded on its N. side by a natural fosse formed by a marshy valley, which was long erroneously regarded as an old course of the Danube. The wall was an important defense in the Russo-Turkish War of 1854, and the invaders were twice repelled in attempts to pass it — at Kos- telli (April 10), and Czernavoda (April 20-22) . A railway was constructed along the route in 1860, and the great cost has been the main obstacle to a project of carrying a ship canal across the val- ley for the purpose of avoiding the long and difficult passage by the Sulina mouth of the Danube. Another wall of the same name, constructed by a Roman legion A. D. 105-155, stretches from the Pruth E. to the Black Sea, and is included in the territory "restored" to Russia by the treaty of Berlin, July 13, 1878. TRAMMEL, PARK, a United States senator; born in Macon co., Alabama, in 1876. As a child he was taken to Florida by his parents, where he attended the public schools until 15, when he became, first, clerk, then bookkeeper, in a store in Tampa, Fla. He studied law at Cum- berland University, in Tennessee, and was admitted to the bar in 1899. In 1900 he was elected Democratic mayor of Lakeland, Fla., and in 1903 he was elected to the Florida House of Repre- sentatives, then to the State Senate two years later. During 1909-1913 he was attorney-general of Florida. In 1913 he was elected governor for a term of four years. In 1917 he was sent to the United States Senate for the term 1917-1923. TRANCE, a condition closely allied to sleep, but differs from it as regards dura-