Ancient Rome is an important source of Western civilization. How big was the territory of ancient Rome?

The territory of ancient Rome reached its peak during the reign of Trajan in 117 AD. It controlled about 5 million square kilometers of land and ruled a population of about 70 million, which was equivalent to the world's population at that time. 21%.

Trajan (Marcus Ulpius Nerva Traianus, September 18, 53 AD - August 9, 117 AD), was born in Italy in Betica, Spain in 53 AD. He was the first outside Italy. Born Roman Emperor. During his reign, he made outstanding military exploits and brought the Roman Empire to its peak under his rule.

Trajan broke the traditional boundaries established by Augustus, gave up the defensive approach that had been used since the establishment of the Roman Empire, and regained the aggressive tendencies of the Roman Revolution. From 101 to 102 and from 105 to 106, Trajan twice attacked the Dacians in the lower reaches of the Danube River and overthrew the rule of the Dacian king Decebalus. After the war, Dacia became a province of Rome, and a large number of Roman soldiers and poor people moved to the rebuilt province of Dacia.

Afterwards, Trajan turned his expansion direction to Asia and fought against the Parthian Empire, the Roman Empire’s eastern rival. Since the middle of the first century BC, Parthia had been at war with Rome many times, and the two sides were at loggerheads. Parthia defeated the Roman army led by Crassus in 53 BC. Antony also crossed the Euphrates River to attack Parthia in 36 BC, but was eventually forced to retreat to the west of the Euphrates River and used this as its boundary. From 105 to 106, Trajan ordered the Roman legions stationed in Syria to occupy most of the area between Palestine and the Arabian Desert and the Sinai Peninsula, and establish the province of Arabia. In 113, Trajan refused to recognize the Armenian king supported by Parthia, and used this as an excuse to personally lead a large army to attack Parthia. After the Roman legions occupied Armenia, they immediately went south to attack the Mesopotamia and captured the Parthian capital Ctesiphon. Trajan announced in 116 that he would depose the Parthian king Euthroes I from the throne and support Parthamaspartis as the puppet Parthian king controlled by Rome. Three provinces were established in the occupied lands: Armenia, Assyria and Mesopotamia. His military campaigns successfully expanded the territory of the Roman Empire to its largest extent, stretching from Mesopotamia in the east, most of Britain in the west, North Africa in the south, and Dacia north of the Rhine and Danube rivers in the north.

However, these victories achieved by Trajan in southwestern Asia were short-lived. In 115 AD, the Greek-Jewish conflict evolved into serious Jewish riots in the Judean province, and gradually spread to Egypt, Cyrenaica, and Cyprus, where large Jewish communities lived. Trajan was forced to return from the Mesopotamia to suppress the riots, and appointed his adopted son Hadrian as the commander-in-chief of the Parthian War. However, he contracted an illness on the way and finally died of illness in Selinus in southern Asia Minor in August 117. After Trajan's death, Hadrian quickly abandoned his Mesopotamian victories, and the Roman Empire once again fell back to the borders it had held before Trajan's war.