62-6 6 ROMA PROVINCES DURING HADRIAN era of Good Emperor

Hadrian stayed in the East these last years was necessitated by the Jewish War. His recurrent visits to Athens stemmed from his devotion to Greek culture and the city itself, which had elected him archon while he was still a private citizen (112). He much preferred the eastern provinces, the Greek lands, to the western ones. After 128/9, he was hailed as Olympios, after 132 as Panhellenios, and also as Panionios. Otherwise, his travels were intended to gain intimate knowledge of people and provinces, of the military in all its aspects, and to help produce a better and securer life for almost all his subjects.

Domestic policy and legal activity

Hadrian was so little in Italy, compared with his time abroad, that his governmental policies at home play a lesser role in consideration of his entire principate. Yet they have significance, because they display the same tendency toward order and consolidation as his external policies. When he arrived in Rome in July 118 to a hostile reception on the part of the senate, because of the death of the four consulars, he devoted attention to matters of significance to the people. He pursued the honors due Trajan, their favorite, examined the financial ledgers of the empire and discovered that there was an enormous sum of uncollectable debts, some 900,000,000 sesterces. He determined to remove these from the accounts and begin his reign with a clean slate. Consequently the records of these debts were publicly burned, an event which, obviously, gained him public favor.[[9]] It was represented in the relief of the plutei Traiani, presently displayed in the Senate house in the Forum.[[10]] He also continued and expanded the practice of the alimenta, whereby state money was lent to individuals who paid interest to their local communities. This money supported the local economy and helped maintain orphans.[[11]] He also ensured that the grain supply upon which Rome depended became more secure with his dramatic building program in Ostia.[[12]]

The most significant legal achievement was the codification of the praetorian and aedilician edicts. This task was assigned to Salvius Julianus, who produced one of the glories of Roman legal science.

Underscoring the importance of Hadrian's work, Kunkel in his magisterial survey of Roman law indicates, "Edicts were magistral proclamations whose content and scope might be very diverse. . . . At least from the late Republic onwards litigants could, vis-à-vis a magistrate, rely on the contents of the edicts as confidently as on a statute, for magistrates were by lex Cornelia of 67 B.C. strictly bound by their edicts."[[13]]

These edicts, covering centuries, Julianus brought together into a straightforward and modern document, which became the basis of subsequent praetorian and aedilician activity in the field of law. The Edict has been lost, but many excerpts made by commentators upon it have survived in Justinian's Code.[[14]]

Many letters and rescripts of Hadrian have survived, which, in their variety, illustrate the almost infinite range of matters which were referred to the emperor. Two important ones may be exemplary. In 121, at the request of Plotina, who was deeply interested in the Epicurean School at Athens, he permits the presidency of the school to be assumed by someone who is not a Roman citizen, thereby increasing the pool of potential candidates substantially.[[15]] Hadrian's rescript to Minicius Fundanus is crucial for our understanding of the development of Rome's relations with the Christians. He essentially reiterates Trajan'sresponse to Pliny (Ep. 10.97). Minicius was governor of Asia in 124/5. Hadrian's communication replied to a question put to him by Minicius' predecessor, Serennius Granianus

Hadrian was a man of extraordinary talents, certainly one of the most gifted that Rome ever produced. He became a fine public speaker, he was a student of philosophy and other subjects, who could hold his own with the luminaries in their fields, he wrote both an autobiography and poetry, and he was a superb architect. It was in this last area that he left his greatest mark, with several of the empire's most extraordinary buildings and complexes stemming from his fertile mind. The anonymous author of the Historia Augusta described Hadrian as Fuit enim poematum et litterarum nimium studiosissimus. Arithmeticae, geometriae, picturae peritissimus.[[17]]

He rebuilt Agrippa's Pantheon into the remarkable building that survives today, reconstructing the accustomed temple facade, with columns and pediment, but attaching it to a drum which was surmounted by a coffered dome. The latter was pierced by an oculus nine meters in diameter, which was the main source of illumination. Height and diameter were identical, 43.3 meters. The dome remained the largest in the world until the twentieth century. As was his custom, he replaced the original inscription of Agrippa on the architrave; seldom did he put his own name on a monument.[[18]]

To complete Trajan's Forum, which had been planned by Apollodorus on a tremendous scale, he added a large temple dedicated to the deified Trajan and Plotina. He thereby made this forum more similar to its four imperial predecessors, each of which had a temple as its focus.[[19]]

On April 21, 121, the dies natalis of the city of Rome, Hadrian began construction of a temple unique in design and larger than any other ever built by the Romans. Its length of more than 100 meters made it the only Roman addition to the short list of temples built by the Greeks which were at least that long. Even more extraordinary was the interior, within a fully peripteral colonnade. There were two cellae, back to back, with an apse at the end in which were placed the statues of the goddesses Venus and Roma, gigantic statues which, Apollodorus is said to have sneered, would bang their heads if they got up.[[20]]The temple dominated the east end of the Roman forum, built on the heights of the Velia, overwhelming Titus' Arch and facing the Amphitheatrum Flavium. He thereby linked his own achievements as conqueror of the Jews and great builder with his Flavian predecessors. Unlike Vespasian and Trajan, who built new fora which bore their names, Hadrian was more interested in individual monuments, the novelty and magnitude of which would keep his name alive.[[21]] Late in life, he began construction of a mausoleum, larger than that of Augustus, on the other side of the Tiber and down river from it. It was approached by a new bridge across the river, the Pons Aelius. The mausoleum had not been completed at the time of his death.[[22]]His most imaginative, nay stupendous, architectural achievement was his villa at Tibur, the modern Tivoli, some 30 kilometers ENE of Rome, in the plain at the foot of the Sabine Hills. It covered some 700 acres and contained about 100 buildings, some of which were among the most daring ever attempted in antiquity. Here Hadrian reconstructed, so to speak, many of the places which he had visited in his travels, such as the Canopus of Alexandria and the vale of Tempe.[[23]]

He also left his mark on almost every city and province to which he came. He paid particular attention to Athens, where he completed the great temple of Olympian Zeus, some six centuries after construction had begun, and made it the centerpiece of a new district of the city.

Hadrian's relationship with philosophers and other scholars was generally fractious. He often scorned their achievements while showing his own superiority. An anecdote about an argument which he had with the eminent philosopher and sophist Favorinus revealed the inequity of such disagreement. Although Favorinus was correct, he gave way to Hadrian, and when rebuked by friends, replied, "You advise me badly, friends, since you do not permit me to believe that he who commands thirty legions is the most learned of all."[[24]]

Hadrian's literary taste inclined toward the archaic and the odd. He preferred Cato to Cicero, Ennius to Vergil, Coelius Antipater to Sallust, and disapproved of Homer and Plato as well. Indeed, the epic writer Antimachus of Colophon supplanted Homer in Hadrian's estimation.[[25]] The biographer Suetonius held office under Hadrian but was discharged in 122 for disrespect to the empress.[[26]] The historian Tacitus, who may have lived into Hadrian's reign, seems to have found no favor with the emperor.

His best known literary work is the short poem which he is said to have composed shortly before his death. These five lines have caused commentators much interpretative woe.
animula vagula blandula
hospes comesque corporis
quae nunc abibis in loca
pallidula rigida nudula
nec ut soles dabis iocos! (25.9)

"Little soul, wandering and pale, guest and companion of my body, you who will now go off to places pale, stiff, and barren, nor will you make jokes as has been your wont."[[27]]

Another four lines of verse are preserved by the HA, part of an exchange with the poet Florus. [[28]] Mention is also made of his autobiography, which he had published under someone else's name.[[29]]

Antinous

Probably the aspect of Hadrian's life which is most widely known is his relationship with the handsome youth Antinous. He was a Bithynian, born about 110, whom Hadrian met when the lad was in his mid-teens. He joined Hadrian's entourage and was with him in Egypt in the fall of 130. During the course of the emperor's Nile cruise, Antinous drowned. The reason (or reasons) were not known. Conjecture of course abounded. The HA suggests that Antinous offered himself to save Hadrian's life and that there was a homosexual relationship between them. Tradition also reported that Antinous committed suicide because an oracle had stated that, if he did so, the remaining years of life that he could expect would be transferred to the emperor. There is even the unsensational possibility that the childless emperor, whose relationship with his wife was at best cool, looked upon the attractive young man as the son whom he had never had. Whatever the facts, Hadrian's grief was extravagant, and he caused the youth to be worshipped as a god throughout the empire and cities in his honor were established in many places. An Antinoopolis rose along the Nile near the spot where he drowned. Many statues of Antinous have survived, which reveal his fleshy and attractive appearance.[[30]]

End of life and problems of succession

When Hadrian returned to Rome in 136 from the east with its great responsibilities of the Jewish War, his health had deteriorated markedly. He was now 60 years old, lonely and despondent. The empress Sabina had died, Antinous was gone, few remained to whom he felt close. He therefore began to contemplate a successor, in order to avoid a situation such as had occurred before his own accession. Then, he was the obvious, indeed the only sensible choice; now, there was no one who, by military distinction or close relationship with him, would stand out. His choice, L. Ceionius Commodus, was surprising, although he was cos. ord. when adopted. Nothing particularly recommended him other than powerful political connections. His health was bad and he had no military experience, his career having been entirely in the civilian arena. Some scholars have suggested that he was Hadrian's bastard son, but that need not be believed. Nonetheless, his only recommendation was his good looks; his life was frivolous, his tastes luxurious. Hadrian's choice seems to have been an aberration of judgment.

Commodus died on the first day of the year 138. Hadrian's next choice, a much happier one, was T. Aurelius Fulvius Boionius Arrius Antoninus known to history as Antoninus Pius. The scion of a distinguished consular family, he had been born near Rome in 86, although his patria was Nemausus in Gallia Narbonensis. Consul in 120, at an early age, he soon thereafter served as one of the fourconsulares who had jurisdiction of Italy.[[31]] He reached the acme of a senatorial career with his governorship of Asia about 134/5. He was one of the most distinguished men of the age.

Hadrian caused Antoninus to adopt two young men, who were intended to succeed him in the fullness of years. One was the seven-year-old son of Commodus, now named Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus, the later Lucius Verus. The other was the seventeen year old Marcus Annius Verus, now Marcus Aelius Aurelius Verus, the later Marcus Aurelius. Upon Antoninus' death in 161, they succeeded as co-emperors; Hadrian's foresight was thus rewarded.

Hadrian was at an imperial villa at Baiae, on the Bay of Naples, when he died on July 10, 138. The senate now felt it could repay the emperor for the wrongs done it from the beginning of his reign and undertook to condemn his memory, in other words, damnatio memoriae. But Antoninus fought against this condemnation of his adoptive father and gained deification instead. It is generally thought that it was for this action that he received the name of Pius

ROMe PROVINCES DURING HADRIAN era of  Good Emperor

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