Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome

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Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome Page 42

by Anthony Everitt


  BMC III p. 281 no. 332.

  “most immense delights”

  HA Hadr 19 5.

  The Arvals recorded their generous

  Smallwood II 74–9 (p. 23).

  We have his own words

  Ibid., 114 4 (p. 56).

  “All hopes for the arts”

  Juv 71–4, 17, 20–21.

  “a charming coastal retreat”

  Juv 34.

  “at Tibur perched on its hillside”

  Ibid., 3 191.

  “But here we inhabit a city”

  Ibid., 192–97.

  “Insomnia causes most deaths here”

  Ibid., 232, 236–38.

  “however flown with wine”

  Ibid., 282–88.

  “as a special favor”

  Ibid., 301.

  “the whores pimped out”

  Ibid., 64–65.

  “When every building”

  Ibid., 302–5.

  commissioning masterworks of architecture

  This section is indebted to Opper, pp. 110–25.

  “the most blest of plains”

  Strabo 543.

  the celebrated occasion when his predecessor

  Tac Ann 4 57 and 58.

  His aim … was to “aid all the towns”

  HA Hadr 96.

  Inscriptions have been discovered at various towns

  CIL X 4574, 6652, and ILS 843.

  “a restful vacation”

  Strabo 547.

  demarch

  HA Hadr 19 1.

  According to Petronius … she lived in a cave

  Petr 48.

  XVI. THE TRAVELER

  Chief literary sources—Dio Cassius and

  Historia Augusta

  dispensed “with imperial trappings”

  Dio 69 10 1.

  “went to the relief of all the communities”

  HA Hadr 10 1.

  restitutor

  ,

  or “restorer,” of the province

  BMC III p. 350f, 521f.

  the generals of the Republic

  HA Hadr 10 2 refers to Hadrian’s debt to Scipio Aemilianus and Metellus. The information must have come from Hadrian’s lost autobiography via Marius Maximus. Hadrian would have first heard about these generals in his youth.

  “A glorious moment”

  App Pun 132.

  “There will come a day”

  Homer

  Iliad 6

  448–449.

  “[The soldiers’] food”

  App Iberica 85.

  “Stranger, you will do well to linger here”

  Sen Ep 21 10.

  “A painful inability to urinate”

  Dio Laer Epicurus 10 22.

  “You know very well, sir, [the interest I] have”

  Oliver, pp. 174ff.; Smallwood 442.

  “We have what we were so eager to obtain”

  Smallwood 442.

  “the best of all fellow-sectarians”

  Ibid.

  “inattention of previous supreme commanders”

  HA Hadr 10 3.

  a manual of military regulations

  Veg 18.

  “with a view to beauty, speed, the inspiring of terror”

  Arr Tact 32 3.

  “such camp fare as bacon, cheese, and vinegar”

  HA Hadr 10 2.

  “He generally wore the commonest clothing”

  Ibid., 10 5.

  “He personally viewed and investigated”

  Dio 69 92.

  “demolished dining rooms in the camps”

  HA Hadr 10 4.

  older men “with full beards”

  Ibid., 10 6.

  the death penalty should be used

  See Digest 49 16 6–7, and 48 3 12.

  “put a more humane interpretation”

  Smallwood 333.

  “during this period [his first provincial tour]”

  HA Hadr 12 6.

  “An encamped army”

  Ael Arist Rom 82.

  XVII. EDGE OF EMPIRE

  Chief literary sources—Dio Cassius and

  Historia Augusta

  . Also Birley and Bowman on Vindolanda.

  a still-persisting trick of the weather

  Birley Vind p. 50.

  Britunculi

  See Bowman p. 103, TVII 164.

  “I shall expect you, sister”

  Bowman, p. 135.

  “furnish me with very many friends”

  Ibid., p. 129.

  a couple of tablets reveal the efforts

  See Birley Vind p. 76.

  “Many hellos”

  Bowman, pp. 141–42.

  Archaeologists have discovered and explored

  See Birley Vind p. 76.

  Certificates were issued

  Smallwood 347.

  His reply survives

  Justin Apol App.

  “I will not allow them simply to beg”

  Ibid.

  “And this, by Hercules”

  Ibid.

  A document of May 18

  TVII 154 (see Bowman, pp. 101–2).

  “corrected many abuses”

  HA Hadr 11 2.

  “To the discipline of the emperor”

  Birley Vind p. 97.

  “ripped up their cuirasses”

  Fronto Ad L Ver 19.

  “I implore Your Clemency”

  TVII 344 (see Bowman, pp. 146–47, but NB variant translation). It is just possible that the letter was for the provincial governor, but the use of the term “Majesty” (not quoted here) suggests that Hadrian was the addressee.

  there was an amusing sequel

  For this anecdote, HA Hadr 11 6–7.

  “replaced Septicius Clarus, Praetorian prefect”

  HA Hadr 11 3. “Without his consent” translates

  iniussu eius

  , but some prefer a modern emendation

  in usu eius

  , or “in their association with her.” I prefer the former, the latter being somewhat repetitive of

  apud

  , “in the presence (or company) of.”

  because of his monstrous personality

  Epit de Caes 14 8. 222

  “the first to construct a wall”

  HA Hadr 11 2.

  “necessity of keeping intact”

  Sherk 141. Hadrian was consul in 118 and 119.

  XVIII. LAST GOOD-BYES

  Chief literary sources—

  Historia Augusta

  and Dio Cassius. Also Xenophon on reaching the sea.

  “I couldn’t bear to be Caesar”

  HA Hadr 16 3–4. This and the following quatrain is a free rendering

  of ego nolo Caesar esse / ambulare per Britannos / [latitare per Germanos] / Scythicas pati pruinas

  and

  ego nolo Florus esse / ambulare per tabernas / latitare per popinas, / culices pati rotundos

  . A line has dropped out of the first squib, but it can be reconstructed by reference to the emperor’s reply and his itinerary since accession.

  “Every woman’s breast”

  MLP Florus 3. The Latin runs:

  Mulier intra pectus omnis celat virus pestilens; / dulce de labris loquuntur, corde vivunt noxio

  .

  “the woman through whom he had secured”

  Dio 69 10 3.

  “honored her exceedingly”

  Ibid.

  “Although she asked much of me”

  Ibid., 3

  2

  .

  he famously brought down a huge boar

  Ibid.

  he broke his collarbone

  Ibid., 69 10 2.

  “Borysthenes the barbarian”

  MLP Hadr 4.

  Borysthenes Alanus, / Caesareus veredus, / per aequor et paludes / et tumulos Etruscos / volare qui solebat / … die sua peremptus / hic situs est in agro

  . The Alani were Iranian nomads who reared Borysthenes.
Also the next quotation.

  he loved his horses and dogs

  HA Hadr 20 13.

  “There you will slaughter”

  Mart 1 49 23–30.

  a certain Publius Rufius Flavus

  Sherk 180, CIL II 4332.

  “one of the slaves of the household”

  HA Hadr 12 5.

  he failed to revisit his hometown of Italica

  Dio 69 10 1.

  Suetonius’ successor as

  ab epistulis

  We know that Vestinus became Hadrian’s

  ab epistulis

  , but it is not certain that he followed immediately on Suetonius.

  Hadrian scattered cultural largesse

  Birley, p. 153. Malalas 278f.

  “very elegant” temple

  See Birley p. 153, Suda sv Jovianus.

  “War with the Parthians”

  HA Hadr 12 8.

  expeditio Augusti

  BMC III p. 425 no. 1259ff., pp. 434–35 no. 1312ff.

  Janus began to appear on the coinage

  Ibid., p. 254 no. 100, p. 437 no. 1335.

  “doorkeeper of heaven and hell”

  Macr 19 13.

  “However, when the shouting got louder”

  Xen Anab 4 7.

  memorial cairns built by the Greek soldiers

  Diod 14 29 4.

  “although [it] has been erected”

  Arrian Peri 1 3–4.

  “long street of great beauty”

  Pliny Ep 10 98 1.

  “disgusting eyesore”

  Ibid.

  An earthquake had struck the province

  Syncellus Chron p. 659 7–8.

  XIX. THE BITHYNIAN BOY

  Chief literary sources—Plato, Plutarch, and others on love. Polemon on a possible assassination attempt.

  “building, or rather excavating”

  Pliny Ep 39 5–6.

  his birthday … November 27

  Smallwood 165, line 5.

  a cheerful, chubby-faced teenager

  Bust, Munich Glyptothek, Inv. No. GL286; head, British Museum, Inv. No. 1900. Juvenile portraits may or may not have been posthumously carved or copies of earlier ones, but, even if posthumous, are an indication of contemporaries’ understanding of Antinous’ age when first noticed.

  In about 130 we see Antinous in a carved relief

  Tondo, Arch of Constantine, Rome.

  a woman called Antinoe

  Paus 8 8 4–5. Also, after Antinous’ death, a divine cult in his honor was established at Mantinea; so the connection was credited, even if mistakenly.

  A late reference to Antinous as Hadrian’s “slave”

  Jer de vir ill 22.

  “no one keeps you from coming here”

  Plaut Curc 33–38.

  The Cretans engaged in a procedure

  Strabo 10 4 21.

  “Lovers of their own sex”

  Plato Symp 181 D.

  “the true genuine love”

  Plut Mor 751a.

  no one falls in love with an

  ugly

  youngster?

  Cic Tusc 4 33 70.

  “Lesbia of the Lesbians”

  Mart 7 70.

  Mousa Paidike

  This is Book 12, Anth Pal.

  “who used to fancy himself”

  Juv 9 46–47.

  a procurer of every luxury

  Aur Vic 14 7.

  agmen comitantium

  Ep de Caes 14 4 5.

  “cohorts … every kind of specialist”

  Ibid.

  the imperial Paedogogium in Rome

  I accept here the traditional location on the Palatine Hill, although another address places the Paedogogium on the Caelian Hill. Perhaps there were two similar or related establishments. In this section, I am indebted to Clarence A. Forbes, “Supplementary Paper: The Education and Training of Slaves in Antiquity,”

  American Philological Association

  86 (1955), 321–60; also to Lambert, pp. 61–63.

  the gravestone of one of its directors

  ILS 1831. The widow of the “paedogogus of the slave boys of our Caesar” was called Ulpia Helpis, which suggests that she won her freedom from Trajan. So Ganymedes would have died not before Trajan’s reign and very possibly in Hadrian’s.

  “colleges for the most contemptible vices”

  Colum 1 praef. 5.

  Juvenal grumpily complained

  Juv 5 121–22.

  some two hundred graffiti

  The Paedogogium had a long life, and the dating of these graffiti ranges from the first to the third century.

  tomb of the Greek warrior Ajax

  Philo Her 1 2; the reference at Paus 1 35 3 must refer to Hadrian’s visit, unless it is to be supposed that the tomb needed restoration twice in the same period.

  Hadrianutherae, or Hadrian’s Hunt

  HA Hadr 20 13.

  “select and genuinely Hellenic”

  Philo v. Soph 1 25 3.

  his Greek text

  A book called Polemon’s

  Physiognomica

  .

  “Once I accompanied the greatest king”

  Pol Physio (ed. G. Hoffmann, in R. Forster,

  Scriptores Physiognomici

  I, pp. 138ff.); also the succeeding quotations. See Birley, pp. 164–66.

  The prosperous city of Stratonicea

  Oliver, pp. 201–4.

  a woman stepped forward

  Dio 69 6 3.

  “the emperor Hadrian”

  Galen,

  The Diseases of the Mind

  , 4.

  “accomplish what kings could only attempt”

  Pliny Ep 10 41 5. 249

  “In general,” observed Dio

  Dio 70 4 2.

  “young men of the city”

  Smallwood 72b.

  a late and not altogether dependable source

  Malalas, p. 279.

  “Julianus himself”

  Digest, Constitution “Tanta …” 18.

  recast their constitution

  Jer Chron 280–81.

  XX. THE ISLES OF GREECE

  Chief literary source—Pausanias on Greece. Also Burkert on Eleusis.

  The piglet squealed

  For my account of the Mysteries I am mainly indebted to Burkert, especially pp. 285–90. There are many theories of what took place during the rites, but I try to take a conservative line. The first section concerns what were called the Lesser Mysteries, where initiates were purified; these usually took place in March, but could be held at other times. Special arrangements were surely put in place for an emperor. It appears that Hadrian was not initiated during his previous visit to Athens.

  for more than one thousand years

  Legend has it that the Mysteries started in 1500 B.C. Their popularity was long sustained. Peter Levi writes: “As late as 1801 Demeter was still worshipped at Eleusis; when her last cult image, a two-ton kistophorus from the inner porch, was stolen by Professor E. D. Clarke of Cambridge, the visitors were terrified. An ox ran up, butted the statue repeatedly and fled bellowing. The people prophesied the shipwreck of Clarke’s ship: it occurred off Beachy Head, but the statue is now in Cambridge.” Paus vol. 1, book 1, note 231.

  “We have learned from them the beginnings of life”

  Cic Leg 2 14 36.

  weapons were banned

  HA Hadr 13 2.

  “uncovered her shame”

  Clem 2 176–77.

  a new bridge over the river Kephisos

  Jer Chron 280–81.

  “ruler of the wide, unharvested earth”

  Smallwood 71a.

  “Hadrian, god and Panhellene”

  IG 2

  22958

  .

  When he was at Eleusis

  It is a reasonable assumption that the

  princeps

  noticed the distorted market in fish during his visit to Eleusis, but it

  is


  only an assumption.

  “I want the vendors to have been stopped”

  Oliver, pp. 193–95.

  a tour of the Peloponnese

  See Birley, pp. 177–182.

  “a peacock in gold”

  Paus 2 17 6.

  “founder, lawgiver, benefactor”

  IG VII 70–72, 3491.

  “not even the emperor”

  Paus 1363.

  buried at the roadside

  Ibid., 8 11 7–8.

  an annual celebration

  Xen Anab 5 3 9–10.

  “He wore local dress”

  Dio 69 16 1.

  “Do not detract from anyone’s dignity”

  Pliny Ep 8 24.

  “Those who introduce the emperor’s opinion”

  Plut Mor 814—15.

  “hundred columns, walls and colonnades”

  Paus 1 18 9.

  a complicated dispute

  CIG 1713.

  “very magnificent and splendid”

  Plut Mor 748—49.

  “be gracious, kindly receive”

  IG 7 1828.

  “the soul from the world”

  Plut Mor 764—65.

  XXI. HOME AND ABROAD

  Chief literary source—

  Historia Augusta

  . Also the guidebook, and MacDonald and Pinto, on Hadrian’s villa; and the speech at Lambaesis.

  “many-colored, it is said, like a rainbow”

  HA Hadr 13 3.

  entire crest had been blown off

  M. Coltelli, P. Del Carlo, and L. Vezzoli, “Discovery of a Plinian basaltic eruption of Roman age at Etna Volcano, Italy,”

  Geology 26

  (1998), 1095–98.

  “the Aelian villa with the colorful walls”

  CIL 14 3911.

  rus in urbe

  Mart 12 57 21.

  “built his villa at Tibur”

  HA Hadr 26 5.

  his “house at Tibur”

  Oliver, p. 74 bis.

  Some scholars suggest … a cult theater

  MacDonald, pp. 162ff.

  “devoted to music and flute players”

  Fronto de fer Als 4.

  His most astonishing architectural innovation

  It is possible that Hadrian was influenced by the palace of Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse, which was isolated by a canal, and the Herodion, Herod the Great’s circular palace-fortress.

  He had been born in or about 113

  Dio has Pedanius Fuscus about six years younger. An ancient horoscope places his birth in 113, and because of its broad contemporaneity (it would have been published not long after his death when he was still “news”) is more likely to be accurate.

  an odd little congratulatory poem

  ILS 5173. It survives in an inscription. See the inspired interpretation by Edward Champlin in

  Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik

 

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