Memoirs of Hadrian

by Маргерит Юрсенар

  But important specialized studies abound; in many respects modern scholarship has thrown new light upon the history of Hadrian’s reign and administration. To cite only a few such studies, recent or at least relatively recent, and easily accessible, there are in English the chapter devoted to Hadrian’s social and financial reforms in the masterly work of M. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, 1926; the valuable studies, respectively, of R. H. Lacey, The Equestrian Officials of Trajan and Hadrian: Their Careers, with some Notes on Hadrian’s Reforms, Princeton, 1917; of Paul Alexander, Letters and Speeches of the Emperor Hadrian, Harv. Stud, in Class. Phil., XLIX, 1938; of W. D. Gray, A Study of the Life of Hadrian Prior to his Accession, Smith Coll. Stud, in Hist., 1919; of F. Pringsheim, The Legal Policy and Reforms of Hadrian, Journ. of Rom. Stud., XXIV, 1934; of R. G. Collingwood and J. N. L. Myres, Roman Britain and the English Settlements, 2nd ed., 1937, which includes an excellent chapter on Hadrian’s visit to the British Isles. Jocelyn Toynbee offers a valuable interpretation of Hadrian’s liberal and pacific policies in her Roman Empire and Modern Europe, Dublin Review, Jan., 1945. Among French scholarly studies may be mentioned the chapters devoted to Hadrian in Le Haut-Empire Romain of Leon Homo, 1933, and in L’Empire Romain of E. Albertini, 1936; the analysis of Trajan’s Parthian campaigns and Hadrian’s peace policy in Histoire de I’Asie by Rene Grousset, Vol. 1, 1921 (followed closely for the description of the Parthian campaigns in these Memoirs); the study of the literary productions of Hadrian in Les Empereurs et les Lettres latines by Henri Bardon, 1944; the respective works of Paul Graindor, Athenes sous Hadrien, 1934, Cairo, of Louis Ferret, La Titulature imperiale d’Hadrien, 1929, and of Bernard d-Or’ geval, L’Empereur Hadrien, son oeuvre legislative et administrative, 1950. But the most comprehensive studies of the sources for Hadrian and his chronology are still those of the German School, J. Dürr, Die Reisen des Kaisers Hadrian, Vienna, 1881; J. Plew, Quellenuntersuchungen zur Geschichte des Kaisers Hadrian, Strassburg, 1890; E. Kornemann, Kaiser Hadrian und der letzte grosse Historiker von Rom, Leipzig, 1905; and especially the admirable short work of Wilhelm Weber, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Kaisers Hadrianus, Leipzig, 1907. By the same Weber is the striking essay Hadrian, published in English in the Cambridge Ancient History, XI (The Imperial Peace), 1936, pp. 294-324. For the study of Hadrian’s coins (apart from those of Antinous, to be discussed below) in relation to the events of the reign, consult H. Mattingly and E. A. Sydenham, The Roman Imperial Coinage, II, 1926; P. L. Strack, Untersuchungen zur römischen Reichspragung des zweiten Jahrhunderts, II, Stuttgart, 1933.

  Much material about Hadrian is to be found in studies made on his associates, and on problems which led to, or followed, the war in Palestine. For Trajan’s reign, and in particular for his wars, see (apart from the text of Grousset mentioned above) R. Paribeni, Optimus Princeps, Messina (1927); M. Durry, Le regne de Trajan d’apres les monnaies, Revue Hist., LVII, 1932; R. P. Longden, Nerva and Trajan, and The Wars of Trajan, chapters in Cambridge Ancient History, XI, 1936; and Wilhelm Weber, Traian und Hadrian, in Meister der Politik I2, Stuttgart, 1923. On Aelius Caesar, A. S. L. Farquharson, On the Names of Aelius Caesar, Class. Quar. II, 1908, and J. Carcopino, L’Heredite dynastique chez les Antonins, 1950 (whose hypotheses have been set aside as unconvincing in favor of a more literal interpretation of the texts). On the affair of the four “consulars,” see especially A. von Premerstein, Das Attentat der Konsulare auf Hadrian in Jahre 118, in Klio, 1908; J. Carcopino, Lusius Quietus, l’homme de Qwrnyn, in Istros, 1934. On the Greek entourage of Hadrian, see more particularly A. von Premerstein, C. Julius Quadratus Bassus, in Sitz. Bayr. Akad. d. Wiss., 1934; P. Graindor, Un Milliar-daire antique: Hérode Atticus et sa famille, Cairo, 1930; A. Boulanger, Aelius Aristide et la sophistique dans la province d’Asie au IIe siecle de notre ere, in Bib. des EC. Fr. d’Athenes et de Rome, 1923; K. Horna, Die Hymnen des Mesomedes, Leipzig, 1928; G. Martellotti, Mesomede, in Scuola di Filol. Class., Rome, 1929; H. C. Puech, Numenius d’Apamee, in Melanges Bidez, Brussels, 1934. On the Jewish war, for studies in English see especially A. L. Sachar, A History of the Jews, 1950; S. Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine, 1942; and the articles of W. D. Gray, The Founding of Aelia Capitolina and the Chronology of the Jewish War under Hadrian, and New Light from Egypt on the Early Reign of Hadrian, Amer. Journ. of Semit. Lang, and Lit., 1923; R. Harris, Hadrian’s Decree of Expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem, Harv. Theol. Rev. XIX, 1926; W. Stinespring, Hadrian in Palestine, Amer. Orient. Soc. LIX, 1939. See also, apart from the German works already cited, A. von Premerstein, Alexandrinische und jiidische Gesandte vor Kaiser Hadrian, in Hermes, LVII, 1922. In French, Renan’s account of Hadrian’s war in Palestine, in L’Eglise Chretienne, 1879, is essential still. The archaeologists of Israel, too, are now steadily bringing new contributions to our still limited knowledge of the history and topography of this war.

  What we know of Antinous, and of the posthumous cult which was built up around him, is derived from a limited number of ancient texts, both historical and literary and most of them brief, and some of which have been cited already in this Note; from a few inscriptions, like that of the very important text on the obelisk of the Pincio mentioned above; and from the innumerable statues, bas-reliefs, and coins of the Bithynian favorite which have come down to us. That is to say, history, iconography, and esthetic evaluation are here inseparable. Up to the time of the Renaissance, the very reprobation with which Christian tradition had surrounded the deified youth helped to keep his memory alive; from the sixteenth century on, the statues discovered in Roman vineyards, as well as the counterfeits of forgers, have served to enrich the princely and papal collections with his image. In 1764 Winckelmann, in his Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums, presented with a kind of fervor the first comprehensive study of Antinous portraiture, based on the statues to be seen in the Rome of his time. Such example was soon to be followed in the course of the nineteenth century by numerous essays in the fields of historical scholarship or esthetics; unequal in value, these studies are chiefly significant for what they reveal of the tastes or the moral conventions of their period. Among them should be noted especially the Antinous of L. Dietrichson (Christiania, 1884), a work which though based on somewhat confused idealism, and decidedly outdated from the point of view of iconographic research, nevertheless lists with almost passionate care all the ancient texts and inscriptions known about Antinous at that time. The study of F. Laban, Der Gemütsausdruck des Antinous, Berlin, 1891, enumerates different reactions in those German studies of esthetics from Winckelmann to the end of the nineteenth century which discuss Antinous portraiture, but it hardly touches upon the actual iconography and history of Hadrian’s favorite. The essay on Antinous by J. Addington Symonds in his Sketches in Italy and Greece, 1900, is singularly penetrating, although the tone is now outmoded and the information on some points is outdated by recent research; unlike Laban, he tries with the help of literary and artistic documentation to approach the young Bithynian as a living reality. Symonds is one of the first critics to note the conscious revival by Hadrian of Greek erotic tradition (Note 4, p. 21, A Problem in Greek Ethics, privately printed, 1883, reimpressions, 1901, 1908). The important study published in 1923 by Pirro Marconi, Antinoo. Saggio sull’Arte dell’ Eta Adrianea, (Mon. Ant. R. Accad. Lincei, XXIX), provides a very nearly complete catalogue of statues and bas-reliefs of the favorite known at that date, with good photographic illustration; although poor in discussion of esthetic values, this work marks a great advance in the iconography of the subject (still incomplete today). Marconi’s careful scrutiny and comparison of the individual statues adds a few points to our knowledge of the history of Antinous himself and spells an end to the hazy dreaming in which even the best romantic critics had indulged with regard to that youth. The brief study of E. Holm, Das Bildnis des Antinous, Leipzig, 1933, is typical of the narrowly specialized dissertation in which iconography is wholly dissociated from psychology and from history. The se
cond volume of Robert West’s Romische Porträt-Plastik, Munich, 1941, contains notices (sometimes too absolute on points still open to question) on the life and portraits of Antinous, accompanied by good photographic reproduction of some of the best known statues and relief figures of Hadrian’s favorite. The long essay of G. Blum, Numismatique d’Antinoos, Journ. Int. d’Arch. Numismatique, XVI, Athens, 1914, is still indispensable for the study of the coins of Antinous, for which it offers the only attempt, to date, in complete cataloguing and analysis. For the coins of Antinous struck in Asia Minor, consult W. H. Wad-dington, E. Babelon and Th. Reinach, Recueil general des Monnaies Grecques d’Asie-Mineure, I-IV, 1904-12, and I, 2nd ed., 1925; for his Alexandrine coins, J. Vogt, Die Alexandrin-ischen Munzen, I-II, Stuttgart, 1924; and for some of his coins in Greece, C. Seltman, Greek Sculpture and Some Festival Coins, in Hesperia, the Journ. Amer. School of Class. Stud, at Athens, XVII, 1948.

  Without mentioning the discussions of portraiture of Antinous in general appraisals of Hadrianic art, which will be referred to below, we should indicate here the great number of books, articles, and archaeological notices containing descriptions of portraits of the young Bithynian newly discovered or identified, or new appreciations of those portrayals; for example, R. Lanciani and C. L. Visconti, Delle Scoperte … in Bulletino Communale di Roma, XIV, 1886, pp. 189-90, 208-14; G. Rizzo, Antinoo-Silvano, in Ausonia, III, 1908; P. Gauckler, Le Sanctuaire syrien du Janicule, 1912; R. Bar-toccini, Le Terme di Lepcis (Leptis Magna), in Africa Italiana, 1929; S. Reinach, Les tetes des medallions de I’Arc de Constantin, in Rev. Arch., Serie 4, XV, 1910; H. Bulle, Ein Jagd-denkmal des Kaisers Hadrian, in Jahr. d. arch. Inst., XXXIV, 1919; E. Buschor, Die Hadrianischen Jagdbilder, in Mitt. d. deutsch. arch. Inst., Rom. Abt. XXXVIII-IX, 1923-24; H. Kahler, Hadrian und seine Villa bei Tivoli, Berlin, 1950, note 151, pp. 177-9; C. Seltman, Approach to Greek Art, 1948. Such new research on points of iconography or numismatics has made it possible to ascertain certain aspects of the cult of Antinous and even certain dates in that short life.

  As to the religious atmosphere which seems to have surrounded Antinous’ death, see especially W. Weber, Drei U-tersuchungen zur aegyptisch-griechischen Religion, Heidelberg, 1911; likewise P. Graindor, Athenes sous Hadrien (cited above among specialized studies on Hadrian), p. 13. The problem of the exact location of the tomb of Antinous is still unsolved, despite the arguments of C. Hiilsen, Das Grab des Antinous, in Mitt. d. deutsch. arch. Inst., Rom. Abt., XI, 1896, and in Bert. Philol. Wochenschr., March 15, 1919, and the opposite view of Kahler on this point (note 158, p. 179, of his work already cited). And finally should be noted the valuable chapter of Father A. J. Festugiere, La Valeur religieuse des papyrus magiques in his book L’Ideal religieux des Grecs et I’Evangile, 1932, especially for its analysis of the sacrifice of the Esies (death by immersion with consequent attainment of divine status for the victim); though without reference to the story of Hadrian’s favorite, this study nevertheless throws light upon practices known to us hitherto only through an outworn literary tradition, and thus allows this legend of voluntary sacrifice to be taken out of the storehouse of operatic episode and fitted again into the very exact framework of a specific occult tradition.

  Most books on the general subjects of Greco-Roman and late Greek art give much space to the art which is termed Hadrianic. Mention is made here only of a few of the more substantial accessible works, all of which could have been also included among the good modern appreciations of Antinous portraiture above: H. B. Walters, The Art of the Romans, 1911, 2nd ed., 1928; Eugenie Strong, Chapter XV on The Golden Age of Hadrian in Art in Ancient Rome, II, 1929; G. Rodenwaldt, Die Kunst der Antike (Hellas und Rom), in Propylaen-Kunstgeschichte, III, 2, Berlin, 1930, and Art from Nero to the Antonines, in Cambridge Ancient History, XI, 1936. The work of Jocelyn Toynbee, The Hadrianic School: A Chapter in the History of Greek Art, 1934, is essential for Hadrianic motifs in coins and reliefs, and for their cultural and political implications. For Hadrianic portraiture in general, in addition to the book of West mentioned above, may be noted, among others, the work of P. Graindor, Busies et Statues-Portraits de I’Egypte Romaine (no date), and of F. Poulsen, Greek and Roman Portraits in English Country Houses, 1923. This much abridged list may be terminated with reference to only a few studies on Hadrian’s architectural constructions: that of P. Graindor, Athenes sous Hadrian (mentioned above) for his buildings in Greece; for his military architecture that of J. C. Bruce, Handbook to the Roman Wall, ed. by Ian A. Richmond, 10th ed., 1947, and of R. G. Collingwood, Roman Britain, cited above among specialized studies on Hadrian. For the Villa Adriana, the works of Gaston Boissier, Promenades archeologiques, Rome et Pompei, 1886, and Pierre Gusman, La Villa imperiale de Tibur, 1904, are still essential; more recent works are those of R. Paribeni, La Villa dell’ Imperatore Adriano a Tivoli, Milan (1927), and H. Kahler, Hadrian und seine Villa bei Tivoli, cited above on the subject of Antinous.

  As to Antinoöpolis, we know something of its appearance from travelers’ accounts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (a sentence from a Sieur Paul Lucas, who described the ruins in 1714, in the second edition of his Voyage au Levant, has been incorporated in the present work), but our detailed information comes from the admirable drawings of Edmé Jomard, made for the monumental Description de I’Egypte (Vol. IV, Paris, 1817), begun at Napoleon’s order during the Egyptian campaign. They offer a very moving record of the ruined city, completely destroyed since that time. For, about the year I860, the ancient materials of the triumphal arch, the colonnades, and the theater were converted into cement or used otherwise to build factories in a neighboring Arab town. The French archaeologist Albert Gayet was the first to excavate on the site of Antinoöpolis, at the end of the last century; among his many findings were mummies of officiating attendants in the Antinous cult, together with their funeral equipment, but hardly a vestige was recovered of anything dating from the actual time of the city’s founding by Hadrian. Gayet’s Exploration des Ruines d’Antinoe, in Annales of the Guimet Museum, XXVI, 3, 1897, and other notes published in those Annales on that subject, through rather unmethodical, remain essential for study of the site. The papyri of Antinoöpolis and those of Oxyrhynchus, in the same district, in successive publication since 1898, have afforded no new details about the architecture of the Hadrianic city or the cult of the favorite there, but they provide a very complete list of its religious and administrative divisions, which evidently come down from Hadrian himself and bear witness to the strong influence of Eleusinian ritual on his thought. Weber, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Kaisers Hadrianus, and Graindor, Athenes sous Hadrien, both cited before, give some discussion of this list, as do two other studies: E. Kühn, Antinoöpolis, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Hellenismus in römischen Aegypten, Gottingen, 1913, and B. Kiibler, Antinoupolis, Leipzig, 1914. The brief article of M. J. de Johnson, Antinoe and its Papyri, in Journ. of Egypt. Arch., I, 1914, gives an excellent summary of the topography of the ancient city. The Italian archaeologist Evaristo Breccia has also studied the site of Antinoöpolis, and has contributed an article on the subject to the Enciclopedia Italiana (1928) which includes a useful bibliography.

  History has its rules, though they are not always followed even by professional historians; poetry, too, has its laws. The two are not necessarily irreconcilable. The perspectives chosen for this narrative made necessary some rearrangements of detail, together with certain simplifications or modifications intended to eliminate repetitions, lagging, or confusion which only didactic explanation would have dispelled. It was important that these adjustments, all relating only to very small points, should in no way change the spirit or the significance of the incident or the fact in question. In other cases, the lack of authentic details for some given episode of Hadrian’s life has obliged the writer to prudent filling in of such lacunae from information furnished by contemporary texts treating of analogous experiences or events; these joinings had, of course, to be kept to the indispensable minim
um. And last, this work, which tries to evoke Hadrian not only as he was but also as his contemporaries saw him, and sometimes imagined him, could even make some sparing use of legendary material, provided that the material thus chosen corresponded to the conception that the men of his time (and he himself, perhaps) had of his personality. The method of making such changes and additions is best explained by specific examples, with which this Note is hereby concluded.

  The character Marullinus is built upon a name, that of an ancestor of Hadrian, and upon a tradition which says that an uncle (and not the grandfather) of the future emperor foretold the boy’s fortune; the portrait of the old man and the circumstances of his death are imaginary. The character Gallus is based on an historical Gallus who played the part described here, but the detail of his final discomfiture is created only in order to emphasize one of Hadrian’s traits most often mentioned, his capacity for bitter resentment. The episode of Mithraic initiation is invented; that cult was already in vogue in the army at the time, and it is possible, but not proved, that Hadrian desired to be initiated into it while he was still a young officer. Likewise, it is only a possibility that Antinous submitted himself to the ritual blood bath in Palmyra; Turbo, Meles Agrippa, and Castoras are all historical figures, but their participation in the respective initiations is invented. Hadrian’s meeting with the Gymnosophist is not given by history; it has been built from first-and second-century texts which describe episodes of the same kind. All details concerning Attianus are authentic except for one or two allusions to his private life, of which we know nothing. The chapter on the mistresses has been constructed out of two lines of Spartianus (XI, 7-8) on this subject; the effort has been to stay within the most plausible general outlines, supplementing by invention where it was essential to do so.