Hadrian (A.D. 117-138)
During a happy period of more than fourscore years, the public administration was conducted by the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines. It is the design of this and of the two succeeding chapters to describe the prosperous condition of their empire, and afterwards, from the death of Marcus Antoninus, to deduce the most important circumstances of its decline and fall, a revolution which will ever be remembered and is still felt by the nations of the earth."
So Edward Gibbon concluded the first paragraph of his massive The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, referring to a period which he also styled the happiest of mankind's history. Hadrian was the central figure of these "five good emperors," the one most responsible for changing the character and nature of the empire. He was also one of the most remarkable and talented individuals Rome ever produced.
The sources for a study of Hadrian are varied. There is no major historian for his reign, such as Tacitus or Livy. The chief literary sources are the biography in the Historia Augusta, the first surviving life in a series intended to continue Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars.[[1]] Debate about this collection of imperial biographies has been heated and contentious for more than a century. The most convincing view is that which sees the whole as the work of a single author writing in the last years of the fourth century. The information offered ranges from the precisely accurate to the most wildly imaginative.[[2]]
Cassius Dio, who wrote in the decade of the 230s, produced a long history of the empire which has survived, for the Hadrianic period, only in an abbreviated version.[[3]] Fourth century historians, such as Aurelius Victor and Eutropius, occasionally furnish bits of information. Contemporaries or near-contemporaries of Hadrian, such as Arrian, Fronto, Pausanias, and Plutarch, are also useful. Papyri, inscriptions, coins, and legal writings are extremely important. Archaeology in all its aspects contributes mightily to any attempt to probe the character of a man and emperor whose personality and thoughts defy close analysis and understanding.
Hadrian was born on January 24, 76. Where he saw the light of day was, even in antiquity, matter for debate. Italica, in Hispania Baetica, was the birthplace of Trajan and was also considered that of Hadrian. But the HA reports that he was born in Rome, and that seems the more likely choice, since it is the more unexpected. The actual place of one's birth was, however, unimportant, since it was one'spatria which was crucial. Hadrian's ancestors had come to Spain generations before, from the town of Hadria in Picenum, at the end of the Second Punic War. Italica's tribus, to which Hadrian belonged, was the Sergia. His father, P. Aelius Afer, had reached the praetorship by the time of his death in 85/86, his mother, Domitia Paulina, came from a distinguished family of Gades, one of the wealthiest cities in the empire. His sister Paulina married Servianus, who played a significant role in Hadrian's career. Trajan was the father's cousin; when Afer died, Trajan and P. Acilius Attianus, likewise of Italica, became Hadrian's guardians.[[4]]
At the age of about ten, Hadrian went to Italica for the first time (or returned, if he had been there earlier in his childhood), where he remained for only a brief time. He then returned to the capital and soon began a rapid rise through the cursus honorum; he was a military tribune of three different legions in consecutive years, a series of appointments which clearly marked him for a military career, and reached the consulate as a suffect at the age of 32, the earliest possible under the principate. At Trajan's death, he was legate of the province of Syria, with responsibility for the security of the east in the aftermath ofTrajan's Parthian War.
Hadrian's only male relative after the death of his father was M. Ulpius Traianus, his father's cousin, hence his own first cousin once removed. Trajan and his wife, Pompeia Plotina, had no children, and were surrogate parents to the child Hadrian. Trajan's influence in government was steadily increasing, both through his own merits and because of his father's great services to Vespasian in the civil wars and afterwards.[[5]] When Trajan was adopted by Nerva and designated successor in late 97, Hadrian carried the congratulations of the Moesian legions to him along the Rhine, and was kept there by Trajan to serve in a German legion. In 100, largely at the instance of Plotina, Hadrian married Trajan's grand-niece Vibia Sabina, ten years his junior. This marriage was not a happy one, although it endured until her death in 136 or 137. There were no children, and it was reported that Sabina performed an abortion upon herself in order not to produce another monster.[[6]] In spite of marital unhappiness, the union was crucial for Hadrian, because it linked him even more closely with the emperor's family. He got along very well with his mother-in-law Matidia and with the empress, whose favor enhanced his career.
In mid-summer 117, when Trajan was returning from his Parthian campaigns, he fell ill while at Selinus in Cilicia and died on August 8. The following day his adoption of Hadrian was announced by Plotina and Attianus, the praetorian prefect who had earlier been Hadrian's guardian, with some question whether Trajan had indeed performed the act or whether it was posthumous, thanks to his widow. On August 11, which he considered his dies imperii, the army of Syria hailed its legate, Hadrian, as emperor, which made the senate's formal acceptance an almost meaningless event. This was an example of the historian Tacitus' famous dictum that an emperor could be made elsewhere than at Rome.[[7]]
Hadrian chose as his official title Imperator Caesar Traianus Hadrianus Augustus (for much of the decade of the 120s, he was simply known as Hadrianus Augustus). He must then have proceeded to Selinus at once from Antioch, to catch up with Attianus, Plotina, and Matidia. He then returned to his province no later than September and stayed there at least into the new year, consolidating his administration. He began the year as cos. II; whether he had been so designated by Trajan is unknown. On January 3, 118, the Arval Brethren met in Rome to offer vows for the well-being of the emperor, which shows that he was not in the capital. In June or July they sacrificed because of the arrival of the emperor who is present at the ceremony. He therefore may have taken as much as eleven months from his accession to return to Rome. He saw to the deification of his predecessor and celebrated games in honor of the consecration. Trajan's ashes were placed in the base of his column, by special dispensation, since burials were prohibited within the pomerium.
Anticipation of his arrival had been overshadowed by the execution of four men of great importance, who had all held consulates and commands. This action had been ordered by the senate, perhaps at the instigation of the praetorian prefect Attianus. Hadrian always disclaimed responsibilty but his relations with the senate were irrevocably damaged, never really to improve until his death, when the senate hoped to have posthumous revenge. The four men were Cornelius Palma (cos. II 109), who had been with Trajan in the east and had been governor of Syria, Avidius Nigrinus (cos. 110), governor of Dacia, Publilius Celsus (cos. II 113), and Lusius Quietus, a Moorish chieftain (cos. 117), governor of Judaea and one of Trajan's chief generals. Personal enmity toward Hadrian certainly existed, perhaps because of Hadrian's move away from Trajan's policy of expansion, perhaps because of jealousy that Hadrian had been preferred for the succession. Be that as it may, they were all Trajan's men, and their elimination certainly made Hadrian's course easier. But the odium thereby raised caused him dismay until the end of his days.[[8]] He was cos. III in 119, which proved to be the last consulship he held. He thereby showed himself to be different from many of predecessors: Augustus held 13, Vespasian 9, Titus 8, Domitian 17, Trajan 6. He was similarly sparing in his acceptance of other titles; he becamepater patriae only in 128.
"Hadrian travelled through one province after another, visiting the various regions and cities and inspecting all the garrisons and forts. Some of these he removed to more desirable places, some he abolished, and he also established some new ones. He personally viewed and investigated absolutely everything, not merely the usual appurtenances of camps, such as weapons, engines, trenches, ramparts and palisades, but also the private affairs of every one, both of the men serving in the ranks and of the officers themselves, - their lives, their quarters and their habits, - and he reformed and corrected in many cases practices and arrangements for living that had become too luxurious. He drilled the men for every kind of battle, honouring some and reproving others, and he taught them all what should be done. And in order that they should be benefited by observing him, he everywhere led a rigorous life and either walked or rode on horseback on all occasions, never once at this period setting foot in either a chariot or a four-wheeled vehicle. He covered his head neither in hot weather nor in cold, but alike amid German snows and under scorching Egyptian suns he went about with his head bare. In fine, both by his example and by his precepts he so trained and disciplined the whole military force throughout the entire empire that even to-day the methods then introduced by him are the soldiers' law of campaigning." (69.9.1-4; both passages in the translation of E. Cary in the Loeb edition)
These views of Hadrian stem from an historian who lived a century after the emperor's reign. He appears as a conscientious administrator, an inveterate traveler, and a general deeply concerned for the well-being of his armies, and thus of the empire. There was generally peace throughout its lands, although his principate was not entirely peaceful.
roman territories during hadrian:
121 Gallia
Germania superior
Raetia
Noricum
Germania superior
122 Germania inferior
Britannia (where he began the construction of the
Wall which bears his name)
Gallia
Gallia Narbonensis (Nemausus)
Hispania (Tarraco)
123 Mauretania (?)
Africa (?)
Libya
Cyrene
Crete
Syria
The Euphrates (Melitene)
Pontus
Bithynia
Asia
124 Thrace
Moesia
Dacia
Pannonia
Achaia
Athens
125 Achaea
Sicily
Rome
128 Africa
Rome
Athens
129 Asia
Pamphylia
Phrygia
Pisidia
Cilicia
Syria
Commagene (Samosata)
Cappadocia
Pontus
Syria (Antioch)
130 Judaea
Arabia
Egypt (Nile trip; death of Antinous; Alexandria)
131 Libyan desert
Syria
Asia
Athens
132 Rome
134 Syria
Judaea
Egypt (?)
Syria (Antioch)
135 Syria
136 Rome
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