Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome

by Anthony Everitt

  Invisible in the shadows stand two lost books that underpin much of what has survived. These are Hadrian’s own autobiography, written in the last months of his life, and The Caesars (Caesares), a continuation of Suetonius by Marius Maximus; like Dio a leading senator of the Severan dynasty, he wrote in the early years of the third century. His quality as a historian is debated, but he was a substantial author and, it is supposed, influenced both Dio and the Historia Augusta.

  Of Hadrian’s contemporaries, few writers have anything to say explicitly about him; however, they fill in much of the background to his life and times. He lived out his childhood and teen years under the Flavian dynasty, covered by Suetonius’ lives of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. The invaluable correspondence of Pliny the Younger, a senator of moderate views connected to the Stoic opposition, shows how Nerva and Trajan arrived at a concordat with Rome’s estranged ruling class—a concordat that Hadrian as emperor endorsed, but placed under severe strain.

  The Histories, by the great historian Tacitus, deals with the period from the fall of Nero and the Year of the Four Emperors up to the death of Domitian. Only the first four books and part of the fifth survive; this is fortunate, for they describe Rome’s most serious crisis since the civil wars of the first century B.C.; it haunted imperial politics for many years afterward, and avoiding a repetition was a preoccupation of the ruling class. Tacitus’ Agricola is useful for observations on Domitian; taken with the Germania, it also reveals much of Roman attitudes to the tribal peoples of northern Europe. The Annals, which covers the Julio-Claudian era after the death of Augustus, sometimes comments allusively on later events.

  Specialist authors of various kinds cast light on aspects of the age. They include the great biographer and essayist Plutarch; Hadrian’s friend, the soldier and administrator Arrian, who wrote on hunting, military matters, and the philosophy of Epictetus, all of them topics dear to the emperor’s heart; the poets Martial and Statius, evocative flatterers of Domitian; Juvenal, excoriator of Roman decadence; the engineer and architect Apollodorus, who wrote a textbook on siegecraft; Aulus Gellius, who recorded instructive or curious information he came across in his reading or in conversation; Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists; the homoerotic versifier Straton; three orators—Dio Chrysostom, the valetudinarian Aelius Aristides, and the egregious Polemon; Pausanias, author of the first guidebook to Greece; and the magical-realist storyteller Apuleius. Pliny the Younger’s letters illuminate the values of Rome’s upper class, from which Hadrian and his colleagues in government sprang. Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations reveals much about the boy whom Hadrian singled out to be his ultimate successor to the throne; and Marcus’ mentor Fronto offers an insight into contemporary judgments of Hadrian. Strabo’s Geography, although written in the days of Augustus, is a mine of topographical data.

  If the main sources are gravely deficient, then, there is much useful material to offer a rounded view of the Roman world during the late first and early second centuries. And, thanks to the labors of scholars and archaeologists, the physical remains of the past have yielded an almost inexhaustible mine of inscriptions, papyri, and coins. These speak directly to the present-day reader, and mitigate a pervading anti-Hadrianic bias in many of the literary sources. Important letters, decisions, and speeches of emperors were transcribed onto stone reliefs for the public benefit, often recording their verbatim remarks. A vital medium for propaganda, coins reveal an emperor communicating with his subjects (and, of course, placing the best possible spin on events).

  Perhaps the most exciting discoveries are documents found in Judaean caves, written by Jewish fighters in the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Romans; and a papyrus describing a magical spell conducted by an Egyptian priest, whom Hadrian consulted shortly before the drowning of Antinous.

  Although important items are to be found elsewhere, three invaluable collections assemble much of this material—Harold Mattingly’s magisterial Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, volume 3; J. H. Oliver’s Greek Constitutions of Early Roman Emperors from Inscriptions and Papyri; and (in Latin or Greek only) E. Mary Smallwood’s essential Documents Illustrating the Principates of Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian.

  Most of the mainstream ancient authors appear, in both Greek or Latin and English translation, on the Loeb Classical Library’s list (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts). Hadrian’s poetry in Latin is included in Loeb’s Minor Latin Poets, volume 2; so far as I know, his attributed verses in Greek are not collected.

  Penguin Classics publishes Ammianus Marcellinus, The Later Roman Empire AD 354–378, trans. Walter Hamilton; Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, trans. Martin Hammond; Cicero, Selected Letters, trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey, and On Government, trans. Michael Grant; the first half of the Historia Augusta as Lives of the Later Caesars, trans. Anthony Birley; Horace, Satires of Horace and Persius, trans. Niall Rudd, and Complete Odes and Epodes, trans. W. G. Shepherd and Betty Radice; Josephus, The Jewish War, trans. G. A. Williamson, rev. E. Mary Smallwood; Juvenal, Sixteen Satires, trans. Peter Green; Martial, The Epigrams (a selection), trans. James Michie; Pausanias, Guide to Greece: Southern Greece and Central Greece (two volumes), trans. Peter Levi; Odes of Pindar, trans. Maurice Bowra; Plato, The Symposium, trans. Christopher Gill; Pliny the Elder, Natural History, trans. John F. Healey; Pliny the Younger’s Letters, trans. Betty Radice; Plutarch, Essays (a selection), trans. Robin H. Waterfield, also selected biographies under various titles from Parallel Lives; Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, trans. Robert Graves, rev. James Rives; Tacitus, Annals of Imperial Rome, trans. Michael Grant, Agricola and Germania, trans. H. Mattingly, rev. S. A. Handford, The Histories, trans. Kenneth Wellesley; Xenophon, The Persian Expedition, trans. Rex Warner.

  With rare titles, I have directed readers to Web sites, accurate and active at the time of writing.

  For works not published by Loeb, the reader may consult the following (where possible in translation).

  Aelius Aristides, P.

  Complete Works

  , trans. Charles A. Behr (Leiden: Brill, 1981–86)

  Apollodorus.

  Poliorcetica

  , see

  Siegecraft

  , trans. Dennis F. Sullivan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000)

  Apuleius.

  The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura

  , trans. H. E. Butler (Dodo Press, 2008)

  Arrian.

  Circumnavigation of the Black Sea

  , trans. Aidan Liddle (Bristol Classical Press, 2003)

  _______

  . Arrian’s Anabasis of Alexander and Indica

  , ed. E. J. Chinnock (London: George Bell and Son, 1893)

  ______

  . The Greek Historians. The Complete and Unabridged Historical Works of

  Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon and Arrian

  (New York: Random House, 1942)

  ______

  . Indica

  . See

  http://www.und.ac.za/und/classics/india/arrian.htm

  _______

  . Ars Tactica

  , trans. Ann Hyland, in

  Training the Roman Cavalry from Arrian’s Ars Tactica

  (Alan Sutton: Dover, N.H., 1993)

  _______

  . Order of Battle with Array

  . See

  http://members.tripod.com/∼S_van_Dorst/Ancient_Warfare/Rome/Sources/ektaxis.html

  _______

  . Parthica

  in

  Arrianus, Flavius: Scripta: Vol. II. Scripta minora et fragmenta

  , A. G. Roos and Gerhard Wirth (eds.),

  Biblioteca scriptorum graecorum et romanorum teubneriana

  (Leipzig: Teubner, 2002)

  Arrian and Xenophon.

  Xenophon and Arrian on Hunting

  , trans. A. A. Phillips and M. M. Willcock (Warminster, UK: Aris and Phillips, 1999)

  Aurelius Victor.

  De Caesaribus

  , trans. H. W. Bird (Liv
erpool: Liverpool University Press, 1994)

  Charisius,

  Ars Grammatica

  , ed. K. Barwick. See

  http://kaali.linguist.jussieu.fr/CGL/text.jsp

  Epiphanius.

  Weights and Measures

  . See

  http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/epiphanius_weights_03_text.htm

  Epitome de Caesaribus

  , trans. Thomas M. Banchich. See

  http://www.romanemperors.org/epitome.htm

  Eusebius.

  Church History

  . See

  http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.vi.html

  Eutropius.

  Historiae romanae breviarium

  . See

  http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/eutropius.html

  ; Adamantius,

  Physiognomica

  , ed. J. G. Franzius (Altenburg: Scriptores Physiognomiae Veteres, 1780)

  Galen.

  The Diseases of the Mind

  , 4; translation from T. Wiedemann,

  Greek and

  Roman Slavery

  (London: Croom Helm, 1981)

  Hephaestio of Thebes.

  Hephaestionis Thebani Apotelesmaticorum libri tres

  , ed. D. Pingree (Leipzig: Teubner, 1973)

  Jerome.

  Chronicle

  . See

  http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/jerome_chronicle_00_eintro.htm

  _______

  . Contra Rufinum

  . See

  http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf203.vi.xii.html

  _______

  . De viris illustribus

  . See

  http://www.fourthcentury.com/index.php/jerome-famous-men

  Justin. See

  http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/justin.html

  Justinian.

  Corpus Iuris Civilis

  (including the

  Digest)

  . See

  http://web.upmfgrenoble.fr/Haiti/Cours/Ak/

  Macrobius.

  Saturnalia

  , trans. Peter Vaughan Davies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969)

  The Chronicle of John Malalas: A Translation

  , by Elizabeth Jeffreys, Michael Jeffreys, Roger Scott, et al.

  Byzantina Australiensia

  4 (Melbourne: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 1986)

  Philostratus.

  Heroicus

  . See

  http://zeus.chsdc.org/chs/heroes_test#phil_her_front_b3

  Polemon.

  De Physiognomia

  , trans. (from Arabic into Latin) G. Hoffmann (Leipzig: 1893)

  Sententiae Hadriani

  . See N. Lewis,

  Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies

  32 (1991), 267–80

  Sibylline Oracles/Books

  . See

  http://thedcl.org/heretics/misc/terrymil/thesibora/thesibora.html

  Soranus’ Gynaecology

  , trans. Owsei Temkin, et al. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1956)

  Strato.

  Puerilities: Erotic Epigrams of the Greek Anthology

  (Princeton: Yale University Press, 2001)

  Syncellus, Georgius.

  Chronographia

  . Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae, ed. B. G. Niebuhr et al., vol. 1 (Bonn, 1829)

  Talmud

  . See text links at

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talmud

  Vegetius.

  Epitoma rei militaris (Military Institutions of the Romans)

  , trans. John

  Clark (Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger Publishing, 2007)

  MODERN COMMENTARY

  Of modern studies the one on which I most depended was Anthony Birley’s Hadrian, the Restless Emperor. A quarry of scholarly information, it assembles all that is known or can be guessed about its subject; in particular, through scrutiny of the tiniest clues and clever speculation, it establishes a clear outline of Hadrian’s journeys.

  For those with a general interest in the classical world I recommend from below Balsdon’s Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome, Bowman’s Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier—Vindolanda and Its People, Connolly’s wonderful visual reconstructions in The Ancient City: Life in Classical Athens and Rome, Goldsworthy’s In the Name of Rome: The Men Who Won the Roman Empire, Hopkins and Beard’s revisionist The Colosseum, Paul Johnson’s A History of the Jews, Royston Lambert’s (somewhat overcolored) Beloved and God, Thorsten Opper’s catalogue, Hadrian—Empire and Conflict, and, of course, Marguerite Yourcenar’s study in melancholy, Memoirs of Hadrian.

  For a full bibliography, readers can consult the Cambridge Ancient History, volume 11, The High Empire. What follows is a selection of books and articles that I found useful.

  Adembri, Benedetta.

  Hadrian’s Villa

  (Rome: Ministero per I Beni e le Attività Culturali, Soprintendenza Archeologica per il Lazio, Electa 2000)

  Alexander, P. J. “Letters and Speeches of the Emperor Hadrian,”

  Harvard Studies in Classical Philology

  49, 1938

  Alon, G.

  The Jews in Their Land in the Talmudic Age II

  (Harvard University Press, 1984)

  Antinous: The Face of the Antique

  , exhibition catalogue (Leeds, UK: Henry Moore Institute, 2006)

  Arafat, K. W.

  Pausanias’s Greece, Ancient Artists and Roman Rulers

  (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996)

  Balsdon, J.P.V.D.

  Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome

  (London: The Bodley Head, 1969)

  Beard, Mary, John North, and Simon Price.

  Religions of Rome

  , vol. 1:

  A History

  (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998)

  Benario, H. W.

  A Commentary on the Vita Hadriani in the

  Historia Augusta (The Scholars Press, 1980)

  Bennett, Julian.

  Trajan: Optimus Princeps

  , 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2001)

  Bernand, A., and E. Bernand.

  Les Inscriptions grecques et latines du Colosse de Memnon

  (Archeolog Caire, 1960)

  Betz, H. D.

  The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation

  , 2nd ed. (University of Chicago Press, 1992)

  Birley, Anthony.

  Garrison Life at Vindolanda—A Band of Brothers

  (Stroud, UK: Tempus, 2002)

  ———.

  Hadrian, the Restless Emperor

  (London and New York: Routledge, 1997)

  .——–

  Marcus Aurelius: A Biography

  (London: Batsford, 1987)

  Boatwright, Mary T.

  Hadrian and the Cities of the Roman Empire

  (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000)

  ———

  . Hadrian and the City of Rome

  (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987)

  Bowerstock, G. W.

  Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire

  (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969)

  Bowman, Alan K.

  Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier—Vindolanda and Its People

  , 3rd ed. (London: British Museum Press, 2003)

  Brunt, P. A.

  Roman Imperial Themes

  (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990)

  Burkert, Walter.

  Greek Religion

  (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985)

  Cambridge Ancient History

  , vol. 11:

  The High Empire

  (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005)

  Camp, J. M.

  The Archaeology of Athens

  (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004)

  Cantarelli, L.

  Gli scritti latini di Adriano imperatore, Studi e documenti di storia e diritto

&nb
sp; 19 (1898), 113–70

  Castle, E. B.

  Ancient Education and Today

  (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1961)

  Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum

  , 12 vols. (Bruxelles: Lamertin, 1898– 1953)

  Claridge, A. “Hadrian’s Column

  of Trajan,” Journal of Roman Archaeology

  6, 1993

  Clarke, John R.

  Looking at Lovemaking: Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art 100 BC–AD 250

  (University of California Press, 2001)

  Coarelli, Filippo.

  Rome and Environs

  (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2008)

  Collingwood, R. G., and R. P. Wright.

  Roman Inscriptions of Britain I: Inscriptions on Stone

  (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965)

  Connolly, Peter, and Hazel Dodge.

  The Ancient City: Life in Classical Athens and Rome

  (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998)

  Connor, W. R.

  The Acts of the Pagan Martyrs/Acta Alexandrinorum (Greek Texts and Commentaries)

  (Ayer Co. Publications, New Hampshire)

  Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum

  (Berlin: Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1893–2003)

  Corpus Papyrorum Judaicorum I–III

  . V. A. Techerikover and A. Fuks, eds. (London and Cambridge, Mass.: 1957–64)

  Duncan-Jones, R. P.

  Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy

  (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press: 1990)

  Dupont, Florence.

  Daily Life in Ancient Rome

  (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992)

  Eck, Werner. “The Bar Kokhba Revolt: The Roman Point of

  View.” Journal of Roman Studies

  89 (1999)

  Encyclopedia Judaica

  . Cecil Roth, ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1972)

  Epigrammata Graeca

  . Georg Kaibel, ed. (Berlin: 1888)

  Fontes iuris romani antejustiniani in usum scholarum [FIRA]

  . S. Riccobono et al., eds. (Florence: S.A.G. Barbèra, 1941–64)

  Fuks, Alexander. “Aspects of the Jewish Revolt in A.D. 115–117.”

  The Journal of Roman Studies

  51, parts 1 and 2 (1961), 98–104

  Gibbon, Edward.