The Wall

by Alistair Moffat

  Hadrian was sixty-two. Worn out after a reign of more than twenty years, eleven of them spent travelling around his vast domain, he had become increasingly unwell. And just as insidious, he began to attack, dismiss and even dispose of those who had been friends and companions, who had given solace and support through the loneliness of absolute power. Aulus Platorius Nepos, former Governor of Britainnia and builder of the Wall, had been very close and at one time a candidate for the succession. So confident was he in Hadrian’s favour that he dared to send the Emperor away when he had had the decency to come to Nepos’ house and enquire after his health. No one, anywhere, was ever too sick to see an Emperor – but there appear to have been no immediate repercussions. Led on by suspicions and listening to whatever was whispered about his friends, Hadrian cast Nepos out from his inner circle, calling his old comrade an enemy.

  It could have been worse. Two senators, Polyaenus and Neratius Marcellus, were compelled to suicide and two men of equestrian rank who had been imperial staff members and advisors were dismissed; Valerius Eudaemon was reduced to poverty and Avidius Heliodorus’ services were no longer required.

  Hadrian continued to be obsessed by the death of Antinous: the boy was deified and his worship formalised into a cult. Twinned with the goddess of the hunt, Diana, Antinous was to have a temple dedicated to him in a town near Rome. And in the gardens of the imperial palace on the Palatine Hill, there was a further public commemoration, a series of sculptured reliefs of Hadrian and his young lover hunting. In his temple Antinous was shown as the god Silvanus, the patron of huntsmen. Perhaps that connection supplied the tortured reason for Hadrian’s selection of Mastor as the agent of his own death. In any case it seems like a rather grandiose celebration of nothing more than happy times, of the Emperor doing what he loved best with the person he loved most alongside him.

  After his return to Rome in the mid 130s, Hadrian indulged his other passion: architecture. Building work on several imperial projects was coming to an end. In 121 the Emperor had sanctioned a temple to Venus and Rome, as usual taking a meddling hand in the design himself. There was a basic flaw. Inside, the massive colossi of the goddess and Rome were seated on thrones of some sort, but the roof over their heads was much too low. Trajan’s architect, Apollodorus, made the great mistake of pointing this out: for now, if the goddesses want to stand up and go out, they will be unable to do so. Hadrian was embarrassed at something so basic – and enraged. One historian recorded Apollodorus’ murder and, given the Emperor’s unhesitating ruthlessness with others, it may be an accurate report.

  Perhaps the grandest, most emblematic architectural project was Hadrian’s own villa. Built in the countryside around Rome, near the town of Tivoli, from which it took its name, it was both vast in scale and in conception. More than a kilometre from one sprawling end to another, Tivoli compassed the Empire, with Greek, Egyptian and Italian motifs. There was an amphitheatre, a canal, sculpture galleries, baths, an outlook tower and at its centre, at the Teatro Marittimo, a private retreat for the Emperor. Surrounded by a moat, this selfconscious symphony of curves and innovative design was supposedly where Hadrian could spend time in contemplation.

  The impression is of an epic emptiness, a show of power and patronage for its own sake, a monument rather than a pleasure palace or an idiosyncratic expression of character. As Hadrian rattled around the cavernous halls of Tivoli, becoming more and more unwell, growing increasingly embittered, loathed and lonely, he trailed a gathering cloud of misery and frustration behind him.

  Little had worked out as the Emperor had planned it. His first choice as heir, Lucius Verus, had tuberculosis. He frequently coughed up blood, but Hadrian had had the Senate confirm his adoption anyway. It seems that the Emperor’s real preference was for a boy just a shade too young to succeed to the purple. Marcus Annius Verus was only fifteen, but if Lucius Verus could stagger on for a few more years, then he would at least have had this bright young man beside him looking and learning as the throne was kept warm. But Hadrian’s extended family, not suprisingly, grew resentful and in 137 there was an attempted coup. Led by Pedianus Fuscus, the Emperor’s grandnephew, it probably did not progress beyond a plot, and it failed completely. Retribution followed swiftly as Fuscus was executed, and his grandfather, Servianus, thought to be implicated or at least a potential danger, was driven to suicide. Even though he was close to ninety years old, he was seen by Hadrian as someone who might outlive him and take the throne. Servianus made his preparations, burning incense and praying to the gods: That I am guilty of no wrong, you gods are well aware. As for Hadrian, this is my only prayer: may he long for death but be unable to die.

  Servianus’ curse came to pass. As Hadrian lay in agony, his groans echoing around the marble corridors of Tivoli, the plans for the succession unravelled. On the first day of 138, the consumptive Verus died and the future of the Empire was clouded with uncertainty. But, while he still breathed, Hadrian politicked. Having chosen a replacement, a respected and even well-liked senator in the shape of Antoninus Pius, he insisted that the boy he attached to Verus, the bright boy who would become Marcus Aurelius, be confirmed at the same time. In this way the Empire would be in safe hands for two reigns. Here are Hadrian’s thoughts, expressed in a speech to the Senate, probably embellished by Dio Cassius:

  But since Heaven has taken [Lucius Verus] from me, I have found as emperor for you in his place the man I now give to you, one who is noble, mild, passionate and prudent. He is neither young enough to do anything rash nor old enough to be neglectful. He has exercised authority in accordance with our ancestral customs, so that he is not ignorant of any matters which concern the imperial power, but can deal with them all. I am speaking of Aurelius Antoninus here. I know that he is not in the least inclined to be involved in affairs and is far from desiring such power, but still, I do not think that he will deliberately disregard either me or you, but will accept the rule, even against his will.

  Antoninus appears to have been less than enthusiastic. The wealthy owner of large estates in Italy, he was fifty-one when Hadrian adopted him – and he could see at first hand what the pressures of high office had done. His calm and common sense seems to have had an effect. After the episode with Mastor and the suicide of his doctor, Hadrian wrote to Antoninus with what, from an emperor, amounted to an apology:

  Above all I want you to know that I am being released from life neither prematurely nor unreasonably; I am not full of self-pity, nor am I surprised and my faculties are unimpaired – even though I may almost appear, as I have realised, to do injury to you when you are at my side, whenever I am in need of attendance, consoling me and encouraging me to rest. This why I am impelled to write to you, not – by Zeus – as one who subtly devises a tedious account contrary to the truth, but rather making a simple and accurate record of the facts themselves.

  The day finally came. On 10 July 138 Hadrian was released, it seemed, from Servianus’ curse. At the desperate last, he had aggressively disregarded medical advice and, eating and drinking whatever he pleased, the Emperor appears to have hastened his end. Without fuss or political difficulty, Antoninus became Emperor. According to the Historia Augusta, Hadrian was first buried at Cicero’s old villa at Puteoli and, in a withering final comment, the author added invisus omnium or ‘hated by all’.

  BLACK AND WHITE

  We live in a world lit by bright colours. Two thousand years ago the world was less obviously vivid – and yet the sophistication of the ancient language of colour was much greater. Perhaps this was because of the wide spectrum of subtle hues seen in nature, and the fact that more precision is required to describe it. In Latin, for example, black and white were not just black and white. Candidus meant gleaming or shiny white, and St Ninian’s Candida Casa for his very early church at Whithorn attached a more spiritual quality than a mere ‘White House’. Albus meant matt white or chalky white, as in the White Cliffs of Dover, and the adjective must be related to Albion. By contrast ater was
matt black or dead black, like a moonless night, and it had overtones of gloom or even malice. Niger was glossy black, like the fur of a sable or lustrous like the skin of a black person. Celtic languages were equally nuanced. The Gaelic adjectives odhar and lachdann describe points in the spectrum somewhere between a parchmenty sort of beige and porridge – but have no satisfactory equivalent in English.

  Whatever judgement contemporaries offered, or subsequent historians made, there can be no doubt that Hadrian possessed a towering intelligence and tireless energy. Perhaps he saw something similar in Marcus Aurelius. Despite Hadrian’s cruelties and obstinacies, there was a cultured sensitivity in his nature. While he lay dying, enduring the long hours of pain, Hadrian must have thought on all that he had seen in his vast empire. From the Persian Gulf to the Strait of Gibraltar, from the Danube to the German forests and the ancient grandeur of Athens and Egypt, he had travelled more widely than any who had held his office. Perhaps in the heat of July 138, in his last days, he thought of the windy hills of northern Britannia, the place where he had planned and built the great Wall. At least that would endure, outlasting him and all who followed. His travels seemed to be much on Hadrian’s mind when he composed a remarkable and brief epitaph in a few moments when the pain had receded and he was calm. It seemed at last that he was ready to die.

  Little soul, little wanderer, little charmer,

  body’s guest and companion,

  to what places will you set out for now?

  To darkling, cold and gloomy ones –

  and you won’t make your usual jokes.

  The Senate was not amused. So powerful was their hatred for Hadrian that they at first refused to vote for his deification, an honour which had previously been automatic. When they attempted also to annul his acts, Antoninus intervened. If the Senate persisted with this, then it should realise that one of those acts was Antoninus’ own adoption as heir. Was that what the Senate wanted to see annulled? The argument was as much about respect for the authority of emperors, the integrity of the office itself, and Antoninus was sufficiently astute to suffer no challenge to that, even for someone as loathed as Hadrian.

  Where he did play to patrician sentiment was in the matter of Britain. Antoninus planned to repudiate the policy of triumphant retrenchment where it had been most emphatically made manifest. The great Wall in Britannia would become irrelevant. Exposed for what it was, a folie de grandeur like the absurd villa at Tivoli, it would be bypassed as Rome moved beyond the constraints placed on her by Hadrian. There would be conquest once more! The legions would march and the old glories (and, of course, opportunities for ambitious aristocrats) would unfurl and the eagle standards gleam again.

  As Claudius did in 43, and other emperors since, Antoninus also needed an opening blaze of prestige. Having no experience himself as a soldier, he would nevertheless bathe his reign in the glow of immediate military success. Britain was a low-risk option. Literally insulated from the European Empire and the Mediterranean, any failure there could be contained, and if there was success then remoteness could only enhance it.

  All of this was well received in Rome and, early in his principate, Antoninus acquired the honorific Pius. It means ‘faithful’ or ‘loyal’ and could have had several applications. By reviving the tradition of conquest, Antoninus Pius was being faithful to the spirit and history of Rome. A new and more harmonious relationship with the Senate, the Conscript Fathers, showed loyalty to old Republican institutions. Some might have seen Antoninus’ defence of Hadrian, his adoptive father, as filial piety of an attractively old-fashioned – if misguided – sort.

  MAGICAL MYSTERIES

  The otherwise sober-sided Antoninus Pius and his empress were both members of the eastern mystery cult of Cybele. It involved self-flagellation, frenzied dancing – and self-castration. Here is the poet Juvenal’s description of their rites: ‘And now comes in procession / Devotees of the frenzied Bellona, and Cybele, Mother of Gods / Led by a giant eunuch, the idol of his lesser / Companions in obscenity. Long ago with a sherd / He sliced off his genitals: now neither the howling rabble / Nor the kettledrums outshriek him.’ Evidence of the worship of Cybele has been found in northern Britannia. Digging at Catterick in 2005, archaeologists came across the grave of a transvestite priest. He or she castrated himself in a gruesome religious ceremony. Using a clamp, similar to one found in the Thames, he had cut off his testicles in imitation of Cybele’s lover, Attis, who had made himself a eunuch as a punishment for an extramarital affair. Mystical eastern religions were popular in the Roman north, and temples to Mithras, an eastern god much favoured by soldiers, can be found along the line of the Wall.

  Whatever the calculation and the cold reality behind all that spin, Antoninus seemed a canny political operator. While repudiating Hadrian’s wrongheaded imperial legacy, he appeared to act like a faithful son. And, while ordering the legions to march against the barbarians, he seemed to be leading Rome into a fresh, new era. In fact history turned out differently. Far from harking back to the triumphs of Trajan, Antoninus never left Italy during a long reign of twenty-three years, and never once set eyes on an army or a frontier. Unlike Hadrian, freezing in the forests of Scythia or tramping around Britain, he stayed in Rome, kept the Senate and the mob happy and never went to war unless he absolutely had to.

  Contemporary commentators had the delicate task of reconciling the competing images of a powerful war leader at the head of his legions, in spirit if not quite in body, with that of an Emperor who had decided to stay in Rome. In 142, the year of his consulship and the successful conclusion of the war in Britain, Cornelius Fronto managed this awkwardness very adroitly. Here is part of his speech to the Senate:

  Although he [Antoninus] had committed the conduct of the campaign to others, while sitting at home himself in the Imperial Palace in Rome, yet like the helmsman at the tiller of a ship of war, the glory of the whole navigation and voyage belonged to him.

  Amongst Antoninus Pius’ earliest acts was the appointment of Lollius Urbicus to the governorship of Britannia. In 139 Urbicus was at Corbridge, rebuilding the military depot, no doubt inspecting the Wall garrison, gathering intelligence, making his plans. Dere Street, the old invasion road, crossed the Tyne nearby and the legions would soon be marching north. It seems that there had been war in Britain. The Greek writer Pausanias reported it in this enigmatic passage:

  Also he [Antoninus Pius] deprived the Brigantes in Britannia of most of their territory because they had taken up arms and invaded the Genounian district of which the people are subject to the Romans.

  Genounia is a mystery (it may be a garbled rendering of an Old Welsh place-name cognate to gwyn or even Guotodin, but it seems unlikely) and its inclusion in a notice of what was happening in Britain may simply have been a blunder. There was a district known as Genaunia in the province of Raetia, modern Switzerland. The use of Brigantes looks like a catch-all for northern British barbarians much in the way that Siberia came to stand for a vast tract of the north-east of the old Soviet Union even though the name originally referred only to the lands immediately to the east of the Urals. Brigantes probably included the Selgovae of the Southern Uplands and the Ettrick Forest, the Anavionenses of Annandale and the Novantae of Galloway. They were, in any case, allies of the Brigantes, part of the great federation of northern hill peoples. The later dispositions of forts in southern Scotland also strongly suggest that the Damnonii of the Clyde basin had sent warbands to attack the Romans.

  In the second century AD the kingdoms of lowland Scotland were vigorous. Archaeology has revealed an expanding population and a growing density of settlement. It may be that the kings in the west and the south had turned on the Votadini of the Lothians and the Tweed basin. They had been Roman allies and suppliers, if not exactly subjects, but probably bound to them by treaty. One interpretation of Genounian district holds that it refers to the territory of the Votadini and their cousins across the Forth in Fife, the Venicones. Not part of the Empire
in 139, they had briefly been subjects of Rome when Agricola was provincial Governor. Perhaps Antoninus Pius and Lollius Urbicus planned to bring them back into the fold after Hadrian’s badly sited Wall had excluded them, leaving them to the mercy of their covetous neighbours.

  In the summer of 140, the new Governor at last rode at the head of an invading army. Their route or routes to the north are not known for certain but they may have followed Agricola’s lines of advance up Dere Street in the east and the modern A74 in the west. Forts were built and rebuilt along these approaches. Three legions were stationed in Britannia in 140, and later inscriptions suggest that the VI Victrix based in York and the XX Valeria Victrix at Chester sent only detachments. Only the II Augusta came in its entirety from Caerleon on the Welsh border, probably leaving behind only a skeleton garrison. This at first glance appears perverse – most men travelling the longest distance, but it probably reflects the pattern of unrest in Britannia at the time. The south was sufficiently secure and quiet to allow all of the II to march north, while the Pennines and the territories either side of them needed watching. Enough legionaries to deal with an emergency had to be left at Chester and York.

  Of the auxiliary regiments, the Batavians were serving in Europe, but the feared Tungrians almost certainly formed part of Urbicus’ strike force. Others, such as the Hamian Archers from Carvoran and the cavalry, the Ala Augusta, from Chesters had raised their banners and were going to war.