Trajan mother Marcia
Early life
Marcus Ulpius Trajanus was born on 18 September 53 AD in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica (in what is now Andalusia in modern Spain), in the municipium of Italica (now in the municipal area of Santiponce, in the outskirts of Seville), a Roman colony established in 206 BC by Scipio Africanus. At the time of Trajan's birth, it was a small town, without baths, theatre and amphitheatre, and with a very narrow territory under its direct administration. His year of birth is not reliably attested and may have been 56 AD.Greek author Cassius Dio claimed that Trajan was the first emperor of non-Italic origins, referring to him as "an Iberian, and neither an Italian nor even an Italiote", but this assertion is rejected by scholars. Trajan was, according to the academic consensus, Hispaniensis by birthplace and Italic by lineage. In fact, as asserted by Appian and inferred from the name of the city, Trajan's hometown of Italica in Hispania Baetica was an Italic settlement: in particular, according to Sextus Aurelius Victor's description of Trajan as "Ulpius Traianus ex urbe Tudertina", his family, the Ulpi Traianii, derived from the town of Tuder (Todi) in the Umbria region of Italia. This is confirmed by archeological attestations, with epigraphic evidence of the Ulpii and the Traii in Umbria at large and Tuder specifically, and by linguistic studies on the family names Ulpius and Traius, both Osco-Umbrian in origin. Intermarriage  between the Ulpii and the Traii resulted in the Ulpii Traiani; it's unknown if they were co-founders of Italica or later Italic migrants that arrived in the town at an unknown time.It is possible that Trajan's ancestors married non-citizen locals and lost their citizenship at some point, but they would have certainly recovered their status when the city became a municipium with Latin citizenship in the mid-1st century BC. One author has argued that the Traii ancestors of Trajan were a family of indigenous Iberian Turdetani rather than Italic settlers, but this view departs from the prevailing view in academia.Trajan's father was Marcus Ulpius Trajanus, a prominent senator and general, and his mother was Marcia, a Roman noblewoman of the gens  Marcia and a  and sister-in-law of the second Flavian Emperor Titus. Marcus Ulpius Trajanus the elder served Vespasian in the First Jewish-Roman War, commanding the Legio X Fretensis.Trajan himself was just one of many well-known Ulpii in a line that continued long after his own death. His elder sister was Ulpia Marciana, and his niece was Salonia Matidia. Very little is known about Trajan's early formative years, but it is thought likely that he spent his first months or years in Italica before moving to Rome and then, perhaps at around eight or nine years of age, he almost certainly would have returned temporarily to Italica with his father during Trajanus’ governorship of Baetica (ca. 64–65). The lack of a strong local power base caused by the size of the town from which they came, made it necessary for the Ulpii (and for the Aelii, the other important senatorial family of Italica with whom they were allied) to weave local alliances, in the Baetica (with the Annii, the Ucubi and perhaps the Dasumii from Corduba), the Tarraconense and the Narbonense, here above all through Pompeia Plotina, Trajan's wife. Many of these alliances were made not in Spain, but in Rome.
The family home in Rome, the Domus Traiana, was on the Aventine Hill, and excavation findings under a car park in the Piazza del Tempio di Diana are thought to be the family's large suburban villa with exquisitely decorated rooms.
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