Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome

by Anthony Everitt

  Hadrian found Aquincum to be a busy place. In addition to the II Adiutrix, a similar number of auxiliary troops were billeted there: recruited from provincials, auxiliaries did not need to be Roman citizens and played a supporting role for the legions. If many of these soldiers had a partner and offspring, not to mention a slave or two, it is reasonable to suppose a community of fifteen thousand military personnel and family members. In addition, traders and suppliers of various commodities and services, all kinds of camp followers, will have been drawn from both sides of the Danube to do business with the Romans. All in all, Aquincum played host to as many as twenty thousand souls.

  As the legate’s deputy, the young laticlavius commanded spacious and ornate accommodation. He had his own house with many rooms, and imported freedmen and slaves from his household in Rome to look after him. If he so wished he could live in grand style and pay little attention to his flock, the gregales. However, we can take it that Hadrian did not follow this course. Later in life he was well known for his unpretentious, informal manner, and was able to converse easily with every class and type of person; he won a reputation for being “an ostentatious lover of the common people.” Following Trajan’s example, he developed an uncanny memory for names, not least among ordinary legionaries and long-serving veterans, and made a point of sharing the soldiers’ simple diet. It was at Aquincum that he laid the first building blocks of this reputation.

  Only 120 miles upstream the governor, Trajan (I assume), ruled from the provincial capital, Carnuntum, keeping an eye on his ward and having him visit for the conduct of army business. We hear no more complaints of excessive hunting—despite the fact that Pannonia was famous for its hunting dogs, robust enough to pursue and fight with boars and bison.

  A scintilla of evidence suggests that Hadrian was making friends with at least one of the legion’s centurions. A soldier’s gravestone from Aquincum notes that his centurion bore the rare name of M. Turbo; he has been identified as Quintus Marcius Turbo, who years later himself became legate of the II Adiutrix and governor of Pannonia (probably Lower), ending up as prefect of the Praetorian Guard. It was a remarkable career from lowly beginnings, and Turbo became one of Hadrian’s close friends and advisers. It was at Aquincum that the two men must have first met.

  Hadrian’s tour of duty came to an end in the summer of 96. He had been a year in Pannonia and learned a good deal. Most military tribunes were only too happy to leave at the earliest opportunity for Italy and all the amenities of city life and country retreats. Exceptionally, though, Hadrian accepted a second posting as laticlavius with one of the legions of Lower Moesia, the V Macedonica. He may have been copying his guardian’s example, for (as we have seen) Trajan had spent a number of years as a military tribune and valued the in-depth professional expertise he had acquired.

  Hadrian was based at Oescus, another fortress along the Danube, at its confluence with the river Oescus (near today’s Pleven, in Bulgaria). The province was long and narrow and led to the coast of the Black Sea: hence Moesia’s alternative name of ripa Thracia, the Thracian Shore. Here at the port of Tomis a century before, the fluent and fashionable poet Ovid had dragged out long years of exile for having offended the pitiless Augustus, dying miserable and alone.

  But the real point about the Lower and Upper Moesias was that they acted as a cordon sanitaire between the dangerously aggressive kingdom of Dacia and Rome’s Mediterranean lands—Dalmatia, Thrace, and, above all, the cradle of classical culture, Greece. When Hadrian stood on the rampart at Oescus and surveyed the forests and mountains beyond the wide river, he knew that sooner or later a Roman army would be obliged to cross to the other bank and march into terra incognita. The victims of Decebalus had to be avenged.

  Toward the end of September extraordinary news arrived from Rome. Domitian was dead, killed by members of his own household. The deed was done behind closed doors in the palace and no bulletin was gazetted. Different versions percolated around the Roman world, but Hadrian and his army colleagues were able to establish the broad shape of what had occurred.

  In the last year or so, the emperor’s behavior had become increasingly erratic. Anxious about his future, he consulted his own and other people’s horoscopes and tried to work out the exact hour of his death. Despite the fact that he had occupied the throne for fifteen years, he still feared, or sensed, that he had not been accepted as ruler. He now unwisely began to persecute people within his circle. The most eminent of these victims was Titus Flavius Clemens, Vespasian’s nephew and the emperor’s first cousin. High in favor, Clemens served as consul ordinarius in 95 and was married to Domitian’s niece Flavia Domitilla.

  Clemens stayed in office as consul until May 1. Then, soon afterward and without warning, he and his wife faced grave accusations. According to Dio Cassius, “the charge brought against them both was that of atheism, a charge on which many others who drifted into Jewish ways were condemned.” “Jewish ways” could mean that Clemens and the rest were flirting with Judaism; Domitian would have been seriously offended that a member of the imperial family was interesting himself in the religion of a people against whom the Flavians had waged a pitiless war and expelled from their native land. The term could equally mean Christian, for many Romans were unclear about the distinction between Christianity and Judaism. There has been a long tradition that Clemens and Domitilla were, in fact, Christian converts.

  Whatever the nature of his spiritual life, Clemens left a poor impression on his contemporaries, who saw him as a “man of the most contemptible laziness.” He was executed, and Domitilla banished to Pandataria, a small island off the coast of Campania with a large imperial palace (today’s Ventotene), much favored by emperors who wished to hide away an inconvenient relative.

  What struck the people around Domitian—the amici, the Flavian “party” in the Senate, the freedmen and the relatives—was the lack of substantive evidence against Clemens, who (they felt) had been liquidated “on the slightest of suspicions.” If even members of his inner circle could fall victim to the emperor’s paranoid whims, who was safe?

  Some of them began the potentially fatal business of planning an assassination. Two leading conspirators were Stephanus, Flavia Domitilla’s procurator, or business manager, and Parthenius, the emperor’s cubicularius, master of the bedchamber or valet de chambre, with routine access to the imperial presence.

  They knew better than to act alone. They did not support an opposition party (and certainly not the Stoic opposition); rather, they wanted to act on behalf of the Flavian establishment of senators and administrators by removing an increasingly unreliable ruler who was imperiling their personal security and the stability of the imperial system. Discreet contact was made with key personalities in the regime.

  Of these by far the most important were the two prefects of the Praetorian Guard, Titus Petronius Secundus and Norbanus (this is his only appearance in history and his full name is unknown). The Praetorian Guard was a force of ten thousand highly trained and well-paid troops based in and around Rome. They were the imperial bodyguard, and were also powerful enough to deal with civil dissent. One cohort at a time stood guard in the imperial residence on the Palatine, carrying weapons but in civilian dress.

  Gradually the Praetorian Guard came to expect a role in the transition from one emperor to another, especially when no generally accepted heir had been determined in advance. In A.D. 41 when the emperor Caligula was assassinated, the guards found his uncle Claudius hiding behind a curtain in the palace, carried him triumphantly to their camp outside the city boundary, and acclaimed him as Caligula’s successor. The cowed Senate acquiesced in their decision. This proved to be a sinister precedent, and from then onward the Praetorian Guard was only too willing to dictate its wishes when occasion arose. As we have seen, Domitian was popular with the military and the Praetorian Guard was unlikely to approve of his removal, so it was important for it to be neutralized. The two prefects agreed to pacify their men.

 
; A successor had to be identified who would command general support. No more suitable Flavians existed, so the field was open. Doubtless there were ambitious provincial governors in the far corners of the empire who would wish to be considered for the top job, but conspiracies are meant to be secret and widespread discussion was out of the question. So a stopgap candidate was required, one who would not create a dynasty and would last only long enough for a permanent solution to be negotiated. The plotters believed they had found just the man.

  He was Marcus Cocceius Nerva, and he was conveniently old, childless, and sick. He was a handsome man, but with a large nose. His health was poor; he had a habit of vomiting up his food and was a heavy drinker of wine. Born in 35 into a family of legal experts, he was descended from Republican nobility and related to the founding house of the imperial system, the Julio-Claudians. He was a poet whose slim volumes of verse had a certain reputation. Martial observed: “Whoever is familiar with the poet Nero’s verses knows that Nerva is the Tibullus [one of Rome’s finest lyric poets] of our time.” Nero was acknowledged to be the worst poet of the age, so the compliment was distinctly double-edged.

  Nerva had thrived under Nero, but executed a neat switch of loyalty and became one of the Flavians’ stalwart supporters. He liked a quiet life and knew how to get on in the world without irritating people. A discreet and able balancer of conflicting interests, he was twice consul ordinarius, alongside Vespasian and then Domitian—tokens of high esteem. Nerva was an intimate of the Flavians in another sense, for he is reported to have seduced Domitian, who had been a pretty young man. The affair would appear to have advanced rather than damaged his prospects.

  All the pieces on the board were now in place, and it was time to act. Parthenius removed the blade of a dagger that the emperor kept under his pillow. Stephanus, who pretended an injury and had been wearing a bandage on his arm for some days, now secreted a knife inside it.

  Domitian spent the morning of September 26 judging in the law courts, and then retired to his bedroom, where he prepared to take a bath. Stephanus, claiming to have uncovered a plot, asked for an immediate audience and entered the room. A boy was also present, preparing an offering for the Lares, or household gods, statuettes in a small shrine. The freedman said, “Your great enemy, Clemens, is not dead as you suppose, but I know where he is and that he is arming himself against you.” He handed over a confirmatory document and while the emperor was reading it struck at him in the groin. Domitian shouted to the boy to get him his dagger and call the servants; but there was only a hilt and the doors were barred.

  The emperor put up a fight, pulling Stephanus to the floor and struggling with him. He alternately tried to grab the dagger and pushed his lacerated fingers into his assailant’s eyes in an attempt to gouge them out. Parthenius or one of his men rushed in to lend Stephanus a hand. At last the emperor was dead, with seven wounds on his body. Some other servants entered who knew nothing of the plot, and promptly killed Stephanus before there was a chance for explanation.

  Waiting on tenterhooks, presumably in another room of the palace, was the emperor-to-be. At first a rumor came in that Domitian was still alive. Nerva went pale and could hardly stand up, but Parthenius told him that he had nothing to fear.

  For Hadrian the news of the fall of the ruling dynasty called for careful interpretation. Signposts pointed in different directions. The Aelii and the Ulpii had done well out of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. After his long march from Spain to Germany in response to Saturninus’ ill-judged revolt, Trajan was one of the regime’s most high-profile supporters—and at times like these a high profile could be unhelpful. The fact that the assassination of Domitian was a coup by the Flavian faction did not mean that the future would be as safe and prosperous as the past.

  Senators in Rome might congratulate themselves on the overthrow of a despot, but the next year or so promised uncertainty. By definition, the caretaker emperor was ill placed to deliver firm government and stability, and the competition would soon open to identify the leader who would follow him. If past history was anything to go by, provincial governors at the head of their legions would soon be carefully eyeing one another and weighing their chances. How long before civil war broke out again?

  From his vantage point in a faraway fortress on the Danube, Hadrian was able to see that opinion in Rome was much too sanguine. Domitian had been well liked by the rank and file, and most legionaries and probably many centurions were furious about his removal. Some units of the Danubian army, perhaps in Lower Moesia, were mutinous. But without support from the general staff, without a commander to lead them, there was little they, or the Praetorian Guard in Rome, could do. For the moment the skies were calm, but a storm threatened.

  VIII

  THE EMPEROR’S SON

  The affable and cultivated Nerva got off to a surprisingly good start, working in partnership with the Senate and promoting reconciliation. He moved fast and with sure judgment.

  The first step was to sweep away the evidence of his predecessor’s reign. The Senate withheld the compliment of deification, which they had conferred on his father and brother, and endorsed a condemnation of his memory—damnatio memoriae. Now that the tyrant was dead, this was the worst punishment they could inflict. His body was disposed of with the minimum of ceremony, buried by his nurse in the temple of the Flavian clan. Innumerable statues and arches, symbols of Domitian’s personality cult, were removed. To refill a depleted treasury, imperial possessions, from estates to clothes, were sold off.

  Rome did not possess the bureaucracy to establish a police state, but Domitian had gone as far in that direction as possible through the use of denunciation and what were in effect show trials, with death or banishment the almost invariable outcomes. Now all those facing trial for treason, or maiestas, were immediately released, and all the exiles recalled. For the future, maiestas charges were outlawed, as was the accusation of “adopting the Jewish mode of life”: in other words, Flavius Clemens was rehabilitated. The emperor swore never himself to put a senator to death.

  These negative, if necessary, measures underpinned a positive vision that carried signs of forethought. Nerva used the coinage as a universal means of conveying his message. An aureus, a gold coin worth one hundred sesterces, showed the head of the new emperor on one side and on the other the personification of Liberty holding a pileus and a ruler’s scepter: a pileus was a felt cap shaped like half an egg that was given to a slave on his enfranchisement. A legend read “Public Liberty.”

  Other coins marked achievements, either real or wished for, that indicated fault lines about which the regime was worried. One of them celebrated the provision of grain for the capital city, underlining Nerva’s anxiety to keep the plebs on his side. They had welcomed Domitian’s departure but needed practical reassurance that the new emperor could feed them. Another numismatic image reflected hope rather than experience—beneath a pair of clasped hands a slogan read “Harmony of the armies.” It was still unclear whether or not the military would accept Domitian’s demise.

  This in no way signified a return to the old days of the Republic. Even the most idealistic “noble Roman” could see that a rowdy six-hundred-strong committee, the Senate, was a defective mechanism of government. Nerva’s clever trick was to transform the Flavian despotism into something approaching a constitutional monarchy. The emperor kept his all-trumping imperium, but framed it within the rule of law and institutional convention. The days of the dominus et deus were over and the old term devised by Augustus—princeps or leading citizen, first among equals—regained its common use. Tacitus, ferocious critic of imperial misrule, offered words of warm praise:

  Assuredly we have been given a signal proof of our submissiveness; and even as former generations witnessed the utmost excesses of liberty, so we have the extremes of slavery … Now at last heart is coming back to us. From the first, from the outset of this happy age, Nerva has united things long incompatible—autocracy and liberty.
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  In the opening weeks of the new reign, vengeful prosecutions had been brought against run-of-the-mill delatores. One of the consuls remarked that it was a bad thing to have an emperor under whom no one was allowed to do anything, but worse to have one under whom anyone was allowed to do anything. Nerva agreed, and ordered that cases of this kind should cease.

  Despite the embargo, Pliny the Younger found it unjust that no senator had yet been charged. “Once Domitian was dead,” he confessed, “I decided on reflection that this was a truly splendid opportunity for attacking the guilty, avenging the injured, and making oneself known.”

  His colleagues in the Senate did not agree. “Let us survivors stay alive,” one of them said. Too many of their number had compromised themselves under Domitian, and they were determined that bygones should be bygones.

  Nerva appointed many onetime supporters of the Flavian dynasty to high office, and had no intention whatsoever to revisit the “bloodstained servility” of the recent past. A discreet forgetfulness veiled it from view. An exchange at a small dinner party summed up the situation well. Nerva was lying next to one of Domitian’s closest supporters, a noted delator. The conversation turned to another even more celebrated delator, the blind Lucius Valerius Catullus Messalinus, a man “whose loss of sight increased his cruel disposition.” An amicus, he was a member of Domitian’s consilium.

  “I wonder what would have happened to him if he were alive today,” Nerva remarked.