Hadrian

The succession of the next emperor, Hadrian (ruled 117-38), proved controversial. Hadrian was a cousin of Trajan’s (and also his great-nephew by marriage). He claimed that he had been officially designated as his successor by Trajan on his deathbed. He was certainly the most favoured of Trajan’s associates, held consular rank, and was commander of the forces in Syria (to whom he immediately offered a double bonus payment on Trajan’s death). Yet the senate was shocked to hear the news. No emperor had ever died outside Italy, and many suspected a coup, especially when other claimants were eliminated. It is not known whether Hadrian was directly involved in these deaths but they did nothing to restore his reputation with the senate and the relationship remained troubled for the rest of his reign. (The biography by Anthony Birley, Hadrian: The Restless Emperor, London and New York, 1997, is superb.)

There were other reasons why the relationship may never have worked. Hadrian was a versatile but restless man. His character has proved impossible to fathom. ‘Changeable, manifold, fickle, born as if to be a judge of vice and virtues, controlling his passionate spirit by some kind of artifice, he expertly concealed his envious, unhappy and wanton character, immoderate in his urge for display; feigning self-restraint, affability and mildness and disguising his desire for glory’ was the account of one who was clearly exasperated by him. He was certainly much happier away from Rome. No less than twelve of his twenty-one years of rule were spent in the provinces. After two or three years in the capital he embarked on a tour that lasted five years. It took in Gaul, the German border, Britain, Spain, Mauretania, and finally two years in Greece, the emperor’s favourite part of the empire. He returned to Italy in 126 but between 128 and 134 he was away again. This time his travels included Greece but also Egypt and Palestine. When his beloved favourite Antinous was drowned in the Nile, Hadrian decreed that he should be worshipped as a god. Throughout the empire thousands of statues of Antinous were produced, as permanent reminders of the emperor’s loss. In Palestine he refounded Jerusalem, a deserted site since 70, as a Roman colony. (The intrusion onto this sacred site led to yet another Jewish uprising, suppressed in the usual ruthless way.)

Hadrian is remembered above all as a builder. In Rome there is the Pantheon, and his mausoleum (now the Castel San Angelo). Outside Rome is his villa at Tivoli where his eastern tastes were allowed full sway. (See further Interlude 9.) However, he was a benefactor throughout the empire. Many cities, particularly those in the east, enjoyed his patronage (200 individual benefactions in no less than 150 cities have been recorded) and Athens gained a whole new suburb through his generosity (see below, p. 452 for further details). In short, his patronage was critical in fostering the integration of the Greek provinces more fully into the empire. It is telling that on the front of the cuirass in which the emperor was shown in many of his statues, Athena appears as a warrior being crowned by two Victories while she stands on the back of a wolf that is suckling Romulus and Remus. (M. T. Boatwright, Hadrian and the Cities of the Roman Empire, Princeton and London, 2000, details the building projects.)

However, Hadrian was more than just a builder and cultural inspiration. He recognized that the empire was becoming overstretched and it was vital that it should be settled within defensible frontiers. He quickly surrendered Trajan’s conquests in the east (it may have been this that affronted the senators who conspired against him) and established the first unbroken border fortifications. A wooden palisade was constructed between the Rhine and the Danube and this was followed by one of his most famous creations, Hadrian’s Wall, crossing northern Britain from sea to sea. One of the implications of the settled borders was that the army’s role became more limited and thus there was a risk of declining morale. Hadrian understood this and there are surviving accounts of him inspecting troops and insisting on regular manoeuvres to maintain discipline.

One consequence of Hadrian’s continuous travels was that imperial decisionmaking was consolidated independently of the senate in Rome. When they were in Rome the more sensitive emperors worked with the senate. The normal practice was for the emperor to outline a desired policy and for the senate then to accede to it. The fiction was maintained that the senate was involved in the making of policy (and it continued to make decisions on its own account when the emperor was not present). However, by Hadrian’s reign it is clear that the emperor’s decisions on matters brought to him directly were now also considered to have the force of law. Such decisions were known as rescripts and some of Hadrian’s are quoted in Justinian’s great Digest of Roman law (see p. 658). The range of matters an emperor dealt with was wide and there was certainly no area of public life to which the senate could any longer claim exclusivity. A possibly ironical comment attributed to Tacitus sums it up well. ‘What need is there for long speeches in the senate when the top people come swiftly to agreement? What need for endless harangues at public meetings, now that policy is settled not by the inexperienced masses but by a supremely wise man and one alone?’ Increasingly the magistracies became ceremonial posts whose main function was the demanding one of distributing largesse and games. The philosopher Epictetus wrote:

If you want to be consul you must give up your sleep, run around, kiss men’s hands. . . send gifts to many and daily tokens to some. And what is the result? Twelve bundles of rods [the fasces carried by the twelve lictors [the consul’s attendants]], sitting three or four times in the tribunal, giving games in the circus and distributing meals in little baskets.

These posts were, however, important as stepping-stones to governorships and military commands.

One of the most intriguing features of the busts of Hadrian is that his earlobes are shown with creases. It is only recently that this has been recognized as a known symptom of heart disease, and he certainly experienced a steady decline in his health over the last two years of his life. His earlier plans to find an heir having failed, he secured the succession by adopting a respected senator, Antoninus Pius, as he became known when emperor. He ensured the succession in the longer term by ordering Antoninus to adopt two promising young men who would succeed indeed as joint emperors in 161 (as Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, see below, p. 558). For once these successions took place smoothly, none of the legions or the senate offering any murmur of dissent.

The contrast between Hadrian and his successor Antoninus Pius (emperor 138-61) could not have been greater. Antoninus, whose family originated in Nimes in Gaul but whose father and grandfather had been consuls in Rome, was already in his fifties when he succeeded. He had been a proconsul in Asia and an adviser of Hadrian. His reign was a peaceful one. The only recorded campaign was an unsuccessful attempt to conquer Scotland (the so-called Antonine Wall was built to the north of Hadrian’s but abandoned twenty years later). Antoninus remained in Rome, ‘like a spider in the centre of a web, as one observer put it, and ruled autocratically but benevolently. His achievements were recognized by his adopted son Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations. ‘Nowhere harsh, merciless or blustering but everything nicely calculated and divided into its times as by a leisured man; no bustle, complete order, strength, consistency.’