Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome

by Everitt, Anthony

  The emperor and his entourage entered the city’s original central square, the Forum Romanum, and from there ascended the winding road to the summit of the Capitol, where stood the enormous temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. A sacrifice was offered in thanks for his safe return to Rome and to mark his assumption of the purple.

  The ancient priestly association, the Arvals, met on the Capitol on the same day to mark the happy “arrival of Imperator Caesar Traianus Hadrianus Augustus”; in what must have been a lengthy and messy ceremony, they sacrificed an ox to Jupiter; a cow each to Minerva, the “Public Safety of the Roman People,” “Victory,” and Vesta, protectress of the city’s undying flame; and a bull to Mars. The princeps was a new member of the priesthood ex officio, but as a rule he sent his apologies. On this occasion, Hadrian decided to put in an appearance. He was determined to please, and made himself available to everybody.

  Hadrian’s task was to relaunch his reign. The consuls convened the Senate, probably as early as the next day after his return. The mood on its benches must have been all the more gloomy for the fact that senators themselves had colluded in the deaths of the four ex-consuls. Many could recall the not-so-distant time when Domitian had insisted on their active cooperation when he struck down the final list of Stoic idealists.

  The emperor was extremely sensitive to the comments that people were making about his behavior. For him the lesson of Domitian’s end was that he had to avoid the vortex of violence and lost trust if he wanted to survive and thrive. Hadrian’s reign had opened with violence, and it was essential that he break away from the potentially dire consequences and establish a reputation as a man of peace and legality.

  He addressed the Senate as if he were making a speech for the defense at a trial, and declared on oath that he had not ordered the deaths of the four former consuls (later he repeated the denial in his autobiography). He also swore that he would never put a senator to death without the Senate’s approval. In this he followed similar assurances given by Trajan and Nerva, and while these were welcome they did not mean very much, for history showed that the Senate routinely bowed to the wishes of an angry princeps. His listeners doubtless reserved judgment on the emperor’s guilt, but will surely have attended to the passion with which he asserted his good intentions. Time would reveal whether these would translate convincingly into performance. (Somewhat cheekily, next year the emperor issued a coin boasting of his mercifulness: it showed Clemency, personified as a woman sacrificing at an altar.)

  No one would begin to believe the emperor’s assurance unless something was done about the man he was fingering as the real culprit—the elderly Attianus. The Historia Augusta has an odd tale that a murderous Hadrian wanted to do away with his former guardian because he was “unable to endure his power” and was deterred only by his existing notoriety as an executioner. There seems to have been a quarrel, and we can imagine the princeps losing his temper—but surely nothing more.

  Praetorian prefects held their job for an indefinite period. Emperors fought shy of dismissing them out of hand for fear of trouble from the Guard. With some difficulty Attianus was persuaded to resign his post as prefect. Only an eques, he was given the signal honor of ornamenta consularia—these were the appurtenances of the consulship, without the post itself. He was not allowed to attend the Senate, but was entitled to sit with former consuls at public banquets and to wear a consul’s richly embroidered toga praetexta on such occasions. Attianus was kicked upstairs.

  Attianus’ colleague as prefect was also an old man and sought permission to retire. It is a sign that the emperor was short of experienced and trustworthy talent that he refused to accept the resignation immediately. And who was to replace Attianus? The all-competent Turbo, who in little more than one year had ricocheted around the empire from Parthia, to Egypt, to Mauretania, to Pannonia and Dacia, was a wise choice and he now crowned his career with the top government job to which an eques could aspire.

  Hadrian introduced a range of reforms designed to boost his popularity. The headline measure was breathtaking—nothing less than a cancellation of all unpaid debts owed by individual citizens to the public treasury (fiscus or aerarium publicum) and, according to Dio Cassius, to the privy purse (fiscus privatus). The period covered was the previous fifteen years.

  The announcement was marked by a striking piece of street theater. In the great square of Trajan’s forum all the relevant tax documents were assembled and publicly burned, to make it clear that this was a decision that could not be revoked. (Hadrian may have got the idea for the incineration from Augustus, for Suetonius records that in 36 B.C. he had “burned the records of old debts to the treasury, which were by far the most frequent source of blackmail.”)

  Public opinion was enthusiastic and a celebratory monument was erected on the site of the pyre. The inscription has survived, praising Hadrian,

  who remitted 900 million sesterces owed to the fisci and by this generosity was the first and only one of all the emperors to have freed from care not only his present citizens but those of later generations.

  A carved relief shows the scene when Praetorian Guards entered the forum carrying wax tablets from the treasury archives. To spread the good news around the world a coin was issued showing a lictor setting fire to a pile of bonds in the presence of three taxpayers.

  One of the most irritating burdens on local authorities in Italy and elsewhere was the cost of maintaining the government courier service, the cursus publicus, where it ran on main roads through their territories. They were obliged to pay for the horses, carriages, and privately owned hotels and hostels that those traveling on official business needed. The fiscus now took over financial responsibility for the service.

  The “crown gold” was waived for Italy and reduced for the provinces; this was a contribution offered to a new emperor, in theory voluntary and in practice compulsory, to the cost of gold wreaths (in imitation of laurel) for grand imperial events such as triumphs.

  A supplementary distribution of free and subsidized grain for citizens living in Rome was made, despite the fact that a generous donative of three aurei (that is, gold pieces worth seventy-five sesterces in total) had already been granted before the emperor’s return.

  The Italian countryside also benefited from the general largesse. The alimenta scheme had been close to Trajan’s heart, and, as a gesture to the memory of his adoptive father, Hadrian increased its state funding.

  It was essential to offer sweeteners that directly benefited the disaffected senatorial class. Existing rules set the minimum wealth a man had to possess if he wished to enter public life at the highest level at 1 million sesterces. Sometimes senators found themselves in financial difficulties; now Hadrian supplemented their income with an allowance, provided they could show that they were impoverished through no fault of their own.

  Public office was expensive, for a consul or a praetor faced a number of necessary expenses (for example, the salaries of his lictors) and he was expected to demonstrate his liberalitas as a patron. The emperor made gifts of money to many needy officials—in effect, salaries.

  Ever since the Proscriptions launched by the young Octavian (before his elevation to the title of Augustus) and Mark Antony in 43 B.C., rulers short of cash tended to execute opponents ostensibly for political or criminal offenses but in fact to confiscate their lands and wealth. Hadrian was determined to avoid that charge in the case of the four former consuls, so he passed a law assigning the property of condemned persons not to the privy purse but to the state fiscus. In this way he could demonstrate that the emperor was gaining no private advantage from their deaths.

  Hadrian had implemented the first part of Juvenal’s gloomy slogan “bread and circuses” by providing cash and grain. It was now time for blood to flow in the arena. To mark his forty-third birthday, January 24, 119, six successive days of gladiatorial games were held; many wild animals were slaughtered too, including one hundred lions and one hundred lionesses. Large numbe
rs of little wooden balls were thrown into the audience: the names of various gifts were written on them—items of food, say, clothing, silver or gold articles, horses, cattle, and slaves—which could be claimed when presenting them later.

  The package of reforms succeeded: it was well received and stabilized the new regime. Even if members of the elite were reserving judgment, there was no talk of outright opposition or even noncooperation. Despite a shaky start Hadrian had demonstrated his competence, both militarily and domestically. The empire was quiet and in the Senate no one now had any doubt who was in charge. From managing immediate challenges, the emperor could now take his time and plan a strategy for the longer term.

  Hadrian was a man who knew his own mind and was impatient of inefficiency in others, but he also had a disarming talent for admiration. He learned much about the art of government from Trajan, but the true hero among his predecessors was Augustus.

  We learn from the Arvals that when the emperor wrote to them in February 118 proposing a co-opted member of the association, “the waxed tablets, fastened with a seal showing the head of Augustus, were opened.” For the image on Hadrian’s signet ring to have been that of the first princeps was an elegantly simple way of acknowledging indebtedness to everyone throughout the empire who mattered. Later, he asked the Senate for permission to hang an ornamental shield, preferably of silver, in Augustus’ honor in the Senate.

  Ten years into his reign, Hadrian announced to the world that, speaking symbolically, he was a reincarnation of Augustus. He issued a high-value silver coin, a tetradrachm (worth twelve sesterces), with Augustus’ head on one side, and on the other an image of himself holding corn ears, signifying prosperity, with the legend Hadrianus Augustus Pater Patriae Renatus—“Father of his People, Reborn.”

  When appointing the heads of his secretariat he chose an eques, the biographer Suetonius, to be his ab epistulis, the official secretary, who controlled the emperor’s correspondence and as such was one of the most influential people at court. A bookish protégé and friend of Pliny, he had made a name for himself ten years or so previously for his De Viribus Illustribus, “On Famous Men,” a copious collection of brief lives of literary celebrities—grammarians, rhetoricians, poets, and historians.

  Suetonius was now working on what was to be his masterpiece, De Vita Caesarum, “The Lives of the Caesars.” In the biography of Augustus, he writes of an unusual cognomen his subject was given as a boy, Thurinus—an allusion to the town of Thurii in southern Italy where his father’s family had originated and where his father had won a battle.

  That he was surnamed Thurinus I may assert on very trustworthy evidence, since I once obtained a bronze statuette, representing him as a boy and inscribed with that name in letters of iron almost illegible from age. This I presented to the emperor [Hadrian], who cherishes it among the Lares [household gods] of his bedroom.

  What was it that Hadrian valued so highly in his predecessor? Not least the conduct of his daily life. Augustus lived with conscious simplicity and so far as he could avoided open displays of his preeminence. A passage from Suetonius is almost echoed by another from the Historia Augusta. About Augustus the former observed:

  On the day of a meeting of the Senate he always greeted members in the House and in their seats, calling each man by name without a prompter; and when he left the House, he used to take leave of them in the same manner, while they remained seated. He exchanged social calls with many, and did not cease to attend all their anniversaries.

  As for Hadrian, according to the Historia Augusta,

  he frequently attended the official functions of praetors and consuls, was present at friends’ banquets, visited them twice or three times a day when they were sick, including some who were equites and freedmen, revived them with sympathetic words and supported them with advice, and always invited them to his own banquets. In short, he did everything in the style of a private citizen.

  Both Augustus and Hadrian made a point of being civiles principes, polite autocrats.

  It was not enough to placate the upper classes; it was also important to keep happy Rome’s urban masses. Audiences at the games were infuriated if an emperor in his imperial box was inattentive and worked on his papers. Nor did they appreciate arrogant behavior on his part. Whenever Augustus was present, he took care to give his entire attention to the gladiatorial displays, animal hunts, and the rest of the bloodthirsty rigmarole. Hadrian followed suit.

  He once nearly made a dangerous faux pas. The crowd was baying loudly for some favor or other, which he was unwilling to grant. He ordered the herald to call for silence. This had been Domitian’s autocratic way, and the astute herald merely lifted his arm, without uttering a word. The shouting died down. The herald then announced: “That is what he wants.” The emperor was not in the least put out, for he realized that by refusing to issue the tactless verbal order the herald had saved him from an odious comparison.

  Augustus well understood that to hold power it was not necessary to show that one was holding power; in fact, it could be positively damaging to do so. While he was consolidating his authority in the 20s B.C. he held the consulship for eight years in a row. The post no longer commanded executive imperium as it had under the Republic, but it remained a great honor. For an emperor to treat it as if it were a permanent office was felt to be insulting, as well as being unnecessary. It also reduced by 50 percent the chance for a senatorial aspirant to become consul ordinarius and have “their year” named after him and his colleague. So from 23 B.C. the princeps more or less gave up the consulship, with only two more tenures during the rest of a long life.

  By contrast, the Flavians were greedy; Vespasian held nine consulships in a ten-year reign, Titus eight, and Domitian a record-breaking seventeen. Trajan was more moderate, spreading six consulships across the reign. Hadrian followed Augustus’ example to the letter—that is, once confirmed in place, he abstained. He was consul for the third and last time in 119.

  An incoming emperor faced the challenge of making his power effective throughout such a wide domain. In this respect, there was one further characteristic of Augustus’ dominance that must have attracted Hadrian’s attention. The first princeps believed that communications were too slow and subordinates too unreliable for governing from Rome: in his view, he could run the empire only by being on the spot. For many years he spent his time on the move in the provinces, checking, settling, supervising, solving problems. And so did his dear friend and colleague in government, Agrippa. It was only with the onset of age and the coming to maturity of trustworthy young male relatives who could fill his place that Augustus abandoned his travels.

  Hadrian’s imitation of Augustus made it clear that he intended to rule in an orderly and law-abiding fashion, and his enthusiasm for great men of the past underscored his commitment to traditional romanitas, Romanness. It was on these foundations that he would build the achievements of his reign.

  Like the first princeps, Hadrian looked back to paradigms of ancient virtue to guide modern governance. Augustus liked to see himself as a new Romulus, the second founder of a restored Rome; twelve vultures had flown overhead when he assumed his first consulship in his late teens, just as they had at the city’s original establishment in 753 B.C.

  Hadrian followed in his footsteps, associating himself with Romulus’ peace-loving (and legendary) successor, Numa Pompilius. He had not forgotten those lines from Virgil about Numa that had foretold his imperial future. Known for his religious piety, the king was credited with the creation of Rome’s religious institutions and, related to these, the annual calendar of sacred and profane days.

  Florus, historian and friend of the emperor, wrote of Numa in his Epitome:

  In a word, he induced a fierce people to rule with piety and justice an empire which they had acquired by violence and injustice.

  This could have been Hadrian’s own political motto, with his strategies of nonaggression and competent administration.

  A
ccording to Plutarch, writing in Hadrian’s lifetime, Numa was a follower of the Greek mystic and mathematician Pythagoras. This was a historical impossibility, for the former lived more than a century before the latter was born. Nevertheless, the notion that the king was influenced by Greek philosophy, especially a creed with a spiritual dimension, would have appealed to the emperor. According to Aurelius Victor, “in the fashion of the Greeks or Numa Pompilius, he began to give attention to religious ceremonies, laws, schools, and teachers to such an extent that he even established a school of fine arts called the Athenaeum.” The site of the Athenaeum has not been discovered, but the building was a theater or perhaps an amphitheater and was used for readings and training in declamation. It was seen as a token of the emperor’s interest in supporting culture.

  In December 119, Hadrian was dealt a heavy personal blow. His beloved mother-in-law and Trajan’s niece, Matidia, died at the relatively early age of fifty-one. He arranged for her immediate deification and issued coinage to announce the fact: a denarius struck at Rome shows a bust of Matidia, wearing a triple diadem, and the legend The deified Augusta Matidia; on the reverse a veiled woman drops incense on an altar, the personification of pietas Augusta, or “the emperor’s sense of duty and family affection.”

  The Augusta was given a splendid funeral and a formal consecratio as a goddess. After staging the “most immense delights,” the emperor handed out spices to the people in her honor. The Arvals recorded their generous contribution in this regard by providing two pounds of perfumed ointment in their name and fifty pounds of frankincense as a gift of the association’s servants.