The Death of Trajan and the Death of Hadrian

When Trajan died in 17 BC, his closest advisers began to take seriously the consequences of his death. Names were bandied about but trajan's influential wife Pompeia plotina ensured that her former ward publius alius hadrianus would succeed him. The official rumor is that when trajan died, pompeia quickly hushed up the death and may have gone so far as to hire an actor to lay in the vacated death bed. While the veracity of this story is hard to pin down, the letters arriving in the senate announcing the last wishes of trajan and the adoption of hadrian were all signed by pompeian.