60 (1985) 159ff.
“his kindly disposition”
Marc Aur 1 1.
“the simple life”
Ibid., 13.
“solemn child from the very beginning”
HA Marc 2 1.
“in Hadrian’s lap”
Ibid., 4 1.
“erotic and fond of gladiators”
CCAG 8, 2 p. 85, 18 to p. 86, 12.
“the emperor’s health”
Smallwood 24 16.
the personification of health … feeding a snake
BMC III 476 etc.
Hope
,
Spes
,
holding up a flower
Ibid., 486.
“subcutaneous disease” … “burning”
Ep de Caes 14 9.
“it rained on his arrival”
HA Hadr 22 14.
“Caesar’s untiring concern”
Smallwood 464, col. II 4–5.
fossatum Africae
See Birley, pp. 209–10.
“Jupiter Best” … “Winds that have the power”
CIL 8 2609—10.
“Military exercises”
Sherk 148 (and the further quotations).
XXII. WHERE HAVE YOU GONE TO, MY LOVELY?
Chief literary sources—Dio Cassius and
Historia Augusta
. Also
Epitome de Caesaribus
and Aurelius Victor on Antinous. Lambert on Antinous. Betz on magic.
tetradrachm worth six sesterces
BMC III p. 395.
first citizen
Thuc 1 139.
“introduced a bill to the effect”
Plut Per 17.
He decided to launch a new Panhellenion
On Hadrian’s Panhellenion, see A. J. Spawforth and Susan Walker, “The World of the Panhellenion: I. Athens and Eleusis,”
The Journal of Roman Studies
75 (1985).
to recruit the past
Arafat, p. 30.
its shrine not far from the Roman Agora
There has been debate about its location. I follow Camp, p. 203.
“This is Athens, the onetime city”
IG II
2
5185.
“with such severity that it was believed”
HA Hadr 13 10.
“after procuring peace from many kings”
Epit de Caes 14 10.
Pharasmenes was king of the Iberi
HA Hadr 13 9, 17 11–12 and 21 13.
Paul of Tarsus called it mutilation
Phil 3 2–3.
the new city’s celebratory coinage
Birley, p. 233.
A fourth-century church father, Epiphanius
Epiph 14.
No later than the end of August
Alexandrian coinage celebrating Hadrian’s
adventus
is dated in the fourteenth year of the reign, which ended on August 28, 130. See Birley, p. 237.
“Dead men don’t bite”
Plut Pomp 77 4.
“How pitiful a tomb”
App Civil War 2 86.
investing in restoration projects
Jer Chron 197.
“By Mouseion,” wrote Philostratus
Phil v. Soph 1 22 3.
“put forward many questions”
HA Hadr 20 2.
“Although he wrote verse and composed speeches”
HA Hadr 15 10–11.
“The emperor can give you money”
Dio 69 3 5.
“extremely obscure work”
HA Hadr 16 2.
“You are giving me bad advice”
Ibid., 15 13.
“Some writers go on to record the cures”
Strabo 17 1 17.
a village called Eleusis
Ibid., 17 16.
“First Hadrian with his brass-fitted spear”
MS Gr Class d 113 (P), Bodleian Library, Oxford.
the town of Oxyrhyncus
Birley, p. 246.
“with shaved head”
Lucian Philospeud 34f.
“performed the sacrifices”
Strabo 17 1 29.
instruction in the art of a spell
Betz, pp. 82ff.
Opposite Hermopolis the riverbank curved
See Lambert, p. 127, for this description.
“wept for the youth like a woman”
HA Hadr 14 5.
“the Greeks deified him”
Ibid.
“O my daughter”
Laszlo Kakosy, “The Nile, Euthenia, and the Nymphs,”
Journal of Egyptian Archaeology
68 (1982), 295.
“Antinous … had been a favorite”
Dio 69 11 2.
“when Hadrian wanted to prolong his life”
Aur Vic 14 9–10.
“Concerning this incident there are varying rumors”
HA Hadr 14 6.
“malicious rumors spread”
Aur Vic 14 8.
the superannuated gigolo
See page 243 above.
“if he could find another”
Eur Alc 13–18.
“I myself believe that Achilles”
Arrian Peri 23 4.
his little horror poem
Hor Epo 5.
A new coin type shows an equally youthful Hadrian
BMC III p. 318, no. 603. The reverse shows heads of Trajan and Plotina, and another interpretation concerns the legitimacy of his adoption.
“This town was a perpetual peristyle”
Lambert, p. 198.
a shrine to house his remains … at Tibur
The account I give of the Antinoeum at Tibur is drawn from Mari and Sgalambro passim. Brick date-stamps show that building started soon after 130. The site was excavated from 1998.
“Antinous rests in this tomb”
Ibid., p. 99.
“the honor paid to him falls little short”
Origen 336.
Antinous as Iakchos
Opper p. 190.
“I never saw him in the flesh”
Paus 897.
Hadrian “set up statues”
Dio 69 11 4.
his own active websites
Current at the time of writing: sites include
http://antinous.wai-lung.com/
,
http://www.antinopolis.org/
, and the homoerotic
http://www.sacredantinous.com/
.
XXIII. “MAY HIS BONES ROT!”
Chief literary sources—Dio Cassius and Bar Kokhba papyri on Judaea. Also Christian writers and Talmudic references.
“very like the twanging”
Paus 1 42 3.
“The emperor Hadrian”
Bernand,
Les inscriptions grecques et latines du Colosse de Memnon
.
“Know that I take every opportunity”
Smallwood 445.
“they wanted to leave”
Jos AJ 12 5 1.
“endeavored to abolish Jewish superstition”
Tac His 5 8.
Hadrian was still in Egypt
Dio 69 12 2.
They armed themselves
Ibid.
“they occupied the advantageous positions”
Ibid., 69 12 3.
“I look into the future”
Numbers 24 17.
“This is the Messiah”
Midrash Rabbah
Lamentations
2 2–4.
“At first the Romans took no account”
Dio 69 13 1–2.
Roman casualties
Fronto de bell Parth 2.
“If you and your children are in health”
Dio 69 14 3.
“sent against [the Jews] his best generals”
Ibid., 13 2.
Severus was not in overall command
Regarding the Roman response I follow Eck.
“the First Year of the Redemption of Israel”
For example, Sherk 151 E.
“Soumaios to Ionathes, son of Baianos”
Ibid., 151 C.
“Shim’on Bar Kosiba”
Yadin Bar-K, p. 128.
“And if you shall not send them”
Ibid., p. 126.
“In the present war it is only the Christians”
Justin First Apol 31 5–6.
“Barcocheba, leader of a party of the Jews”
Jer Chron p. 283.
prophecy that the Messiah breathed fire
4 Ezra 13 9–11.
“fanning a lighted blade of straw”
Jer Contra Ruf.
“When military aid had been sent him”
Euseb Ch Hist 461.
“I am honored”
See Birley, p. 273.
“he would catch missiles”
Midrash Rabbah
Lamentations
24.
“In comfort you sit, eat, and drink”
Yadin Bar-K, p. 133.
Well-to-do families
Jer In Esaiam 2 12 17.
A fragmentary letter evokes the despair
Yadin Bar-K, p. 139.
“the rebels were driven to final destruction”
Euseb Ch Hist 463.
Bar Kokhba’s head was taken to Hadrian
According to Midrash Rabbah
Lamentations
2 2–4.
forbidden to enter the district around Jerusalem
Euseb Ch Hist 464.
still in place more than a century later
Jer In Esaiam 129.
a marble sow was erected
Jer Chron p. 283.
“May his bones rot!”
For example, Midrash Rabbah
Genesis
78 1.
XXIV. NO MORE JOKES
Chief literary sources—
Historia Augusta
and Dio Cassius
the fullest record of the Roman army in the field
Arr Alan.
Other coins from this time
BMC III p. 325f, p. 329.
“allowed to dispense with attendance at schools”
Marc Aur 1 4.
“not to side with the Greens or the Blues”
Ibid., 1 5.
“set my heart on the pallet bed”
Ibid., 1 6.
“not to give credence to the claims of miracle-mongers”
Ibid.
a bust of him in his teens
MC279 Musei Capitolini, Rome.
“get back to your drawing exercises”
Dio 69 4 2. Literally, “get back to drawing your gourds.” These were plants like pumpkins or squash and resembled domes being built at the time.
“ought to have been built on high ground”
Ibid., 4 4–5.
the emperor’s huge mausoleum
For a fuller description see Opper, pp. 208f.
The text on the obelisk
See H. Meyer,
Der Obelisk des Antinoos: Eine kommentierte Edition
, Munich, 1994.
A portrait study from … Diktynna in Crete
The bust is in the Archaeological Museum of Chania, Crete. See illustration in photo section.
an innate cruelty
Dio 69 18 3.
He now held him “in the greatest abhorrence”
HA Hadr 23 4.
“he spent the entire day”
Dio 18 1–2.
Turbo was removed
It is conceivable that he was somehow caught up in the Pedanius Fuscus plot—see below.
The
Historia Augusta
asserts
The
Life of Aelius
is largely fiction, but the details quoted in this paragraph are plausible: see HA Ael 5 3 and 9.
“his sole recommendation was his beauty”
HA Hadr 23 10.
“not discreditable but somewhat unfocused”
HA Ael 5 3.
their love for each other
Fronto,
On Love
, 5; Marc Aur to Fronto 1, Epist Graecae 7.
he staged a coup
It is possible that Pedanius acted before the public announcement of the adoption: that is the order of events in the
Historia Augusta
.
“the degrees of the Horoscopos”
CCAG No. L 76, 90–91.
“of an illustrious family”
Sherk 159.
instructed to commit suicide
HA Hadr 23 8. 313
“he gave a feast for slaves”
Ibid., 8–9.
“That I have done nothing wrong”
Dio 69 17 2.
“many others”
HA Hadr 23.
“many from the Senate”
Epit de Caes 14 9.
A late source reports that “his wife, Sabina”
Ibid., 14 8.
Her apotheosis
Smallwood 145 b.
a rumor that he poisoned her
HA Hadr 23 9.
“His enthusiasm for philosophy”
HA Marc 4 9–10.
he had by no means been a failure
HA Ael 3 6.
“universal opposition”
HA Hadr 23 11.
“My friends, I have not been permitted”
Dio 69 20 2.
“with the dignity of a bygone age”
Pliny Ep 431.
bad dreams
HA Hadr 26 10.
affairs of state
Ibid., 24 11.
“charms and magic rituals”
Dio 69 22 1.
congestive … heart disease
The suggestion that diagonal creases in earlobes, as seen in some portrait busts of Hadrian, are an indicator of heart disease (e.g., see Opper pp. 57–59) is now discounted by cardiac specialists, according to Philip Hayward (see Acknowledgments).
“partly by threatening him”
Dio 69 22 2.
He now drew up a will
HA Hadr 24 12–13.
a suicide watch
Ep de Caes 14 12.
“I want you to know”
Smallwood 123.
owing more to Hadrian’s favorite, Ennius
Lines 3–4 in Hadrian’s poem recalls Ennius’ evocation of the underworld as
“pallida leto, nubila
tenebris loca.”
animula vagula blandula
HA Hadr 25 9.
“Many doctors killed a king”
Dio 69 22 4.
XXV. PEACE AND WAR
“mixed justice with kindheartedness”
Smallwood 454b 7–8.
“Hadrian was hated by the people”
Dio 69 23 2.
“The following words, it seems to me”
Arr Tact 44 3.
T. Bergk Terpander,
Poetae Lyrici Graeci
, 4th ed., Leipzig, iii 12 frag 6.
The army … the arts … and holy justice
I owe this elegant observation to Alexander, p. 175.
“in the gardens of Domitia”
HA Ant 5 1. HA is confusing, for elsewhere it claims that Antoninus “built a temple for [Hadrian] at Puteoli instead of a tomb” (HA Hadr 27 3). Why would he have commissioned a new building, with the mausoleum at Rome nearing completion? Perhaps the allusion is to a temple in Hadrian’s honor.
The consecration ceremony
See Opper, pp. 209–10; Suet Aug 100 for Augustus’ apotheosis; Dio 75 4–5 and Herodian 4 2 for two later emperors, Pertinax and Septimius Severus.
omnium curiositatum explorator
Tert Apol 5.
“diverse, manifold, and multiform”
Ep de Caes 14 6.
“Do not be upset”
Marc Aur 8 5.
“I wished to ap
pease and propitiate”
Fronto ad M Caes 2 1.
“saw Hadrian to his grave”
Marc Aur 8 25.
Chabrias and Diotimus
Ibid., 8 37.
“Even today the methods”
Dio 69 9 4.
“The sea is not a hindrance”
Ael Arist Rom 59–60.
“immeasurable majesty of the Roman peace”
Pliny NH 27 3.
“Wars, if they once occurred”
Ael Arist Rom 70.
“He can stay quietly where he is”
Ibid., 33.
SOURCES
ANCIENT HISTORY
The prime challenge facing the biographer of Hadrian is the inadequacy of the leading literary sources.
The first of these is the Historia Augusta, an abbreviation of its traditional title, “The Lives of Various Emperors and Tyrants from the Deified Hadrian to Numerianus, Composed by Various Hands.” The names of six authors are listed, and a number of references suggest that the book was written in the early fourth century after the abdication of Diocletian and before the death of Constantius. However, other allusions and anachronisms do not fit with this dating.
The mystery was solved by a German scholar in the nineteenth century who convincingly argued that in fact the book was the product of one writer only, and had been written nearly a century later than previously thought, toward the end of the fourth century.
The strangeness of the Historia Augusta does not cease with its authorship. The text itself is mendacious, mixing historical fact with fantasy and citing bogus sources. Fortunately, the life of Hadrian, the first in the series, is more or less free of base matter, although the same cannot be said of the brief account of his adopted son, Aelius Caesar—and indeed of many of the later lives.
We will never know who wrote the Historia Augusta, and what he was thinking of when he did. Maybe he was a hoaxer, sharing some kind of private joke with a coterie of friends.
Although the life of Hadrian does not include much fantasy, it is poor-quality history. Written in the manner of Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars, it is clumsily put together and dully written. It is sometimes difficult to disentangle the order or dating of events, and incidents are described with obscure brevity.
All of that allowed, the Historia Augusta contains much useful information, often confirming and usually being consistent with evidence from other sources.
By contrast, the Roman History of Dio Cassius is a serious, if uninspired, work. A leading imperial politician who flourished around the turn of the third century, a onetime consul and provincial governor, Dio wrote a history of Rome in eighty volumes, beginning with the Trojan prince Aeneas’ landfall in Latium after the fall of Troy and ending with the year A.D. 229. The difficulty in his case is that much of the narrative, including everything concerning the events of Hadrian’s lifetime, survives only in fragments and an inadequate summary by an eleventh-century monk, John Xiphilinus.
Two fourth-century texts, one attributed to Aurelius Victor and the other by an unknown hand, offer minibiographies of emperors, each the length of a substantial paragraph—helpful if handled with care. Bits and pieces can be gleaned from Christian writers such as Jerome and Eusebius, especially on Christian and Jewish matters.
Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome Page 43
