Hadrian Empire

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Hadrian Empire

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Publius Aelius Hadrianus was born on 24 January AD 76, probably at Rome, though his family lived in Italica in Baetica. Having originally come from Picenum in north-eastern when this part of Spain was opened up to Roman settlement, Hadrian’s family had lived in Italica for some three centuries. With Trajan also coming from Italica, and Hadrian’s father, Publius Aelius Hadrianus Afer, being his cousin, Hadrian’s obscure provincial family now found itself possessing impressive connections.
In AD 86 Hadrian’s father died in AD 86 and he, at the age of 10, became joint ward of Acilius Attianus, a Roman equestrian, and of Trajan.
Trajan’s initial attempt to create a military career for the 15 year old Hadrian was frustrated by Hadrian’s liking the easy life. He preferred going hunting and enjoying other civilian luxuries.
And so Hadrian’s service as a military tribune stationed in Upper Germany ended with little distinction as Trajan angrily called him to Rome in order to keep a close eye on him.
Next the so far disappointing young Hadrian was set on a new career path. This time – though still very young – as a judge in an inheritance court in Rome.
And alas he shortly afterwards succeeded as a military officer in the Second Legion ‘Adiutrix’ and then in the Fifth Legion ‘Macedonia’ on the Danube.
In Ad 97 when Trajan, based in Upper Germany was adopted by Nerva, it was Hadrian who was sent form his base to carry the congratulations of his legion to the new imperial heir.
But in AD 98 Hadrian seized the great opportunity of Nerva’s to carry the news to Tajan. Uttely determined to be the first to carry this news to the new emepror he raced to Germany. With otehr also seeking to be the bearers of the good news to a no doubt grateful emperor it was quite a race, with many an obstacle being purposely placed in Hadrian’s way. But he succeeded, even travelling the last stages of his journey on foot. Trajan’s gratitude was assured and Hadrian indeed became a very close friend of the new emperor.
In AD 100 Hadrian married Vibia Sabina, the daughter of Trajan’s niece Matidia Augusta, after having accompied the new emperor to Rome.
Soon after followed the first Dacian war, during which time Hadrian served as quaestor and staff officer.
With the second Dacian war following soon after the first, Hadrian was given command of the First Legion ‘Minervia’, and once he returned to Rome he made praetor in AD 106. A year thereafter he was governor of Lower Pannonia and then consul in AD 108.
When Trajan embarked on his Parthian campaign in AD 114, Hadrian once more held a key position, this time as governor of the important military province of Syria.
There is no doubt that Hadrian was of high status during Trajan’s reign, and yet there were no immediate signs that he was intended as the imperial heir.
The details of Hadrian’s succession are indeed mysterious. Trajan might well have decided on his deathbed to make Hadrian his heir.
But the sequence of events does indeed seem suspicious. Trajan died the 8 August AD 117, on the 9th it was announced at Antioch that he had adopted Hadrian. But only by the 11th was it made public that Trajan was dead.
According to the historian Dio Cassius, Hadrian’s accession was solely due to the actions of empress Plotina, kept Trajan’s death a secret for several days. In this time she sent letters to the senate declaring Hadrian’s the new heir. These letter however carried her own signature, not that of emperor Trajan, porabalbly using the excuse that the emperor’s illness made him to feeble to write.
Yet another rumour asserted that someone had been sneeked into Trajan’s chamber by the empress, in order to impersonate his voice.
Once Hadrian’s accession was secure, and only then, did empress Plotina announce Trajan’s death.
Hadrian, already in the east as governor of Syria at the time, was present at Trajan’s cremation at Seleucia (the ashes were therafter shipped back to Rome). Though now he was there as emperor.
Right from the start Hadrian made it clear that he was his own man. One of his very first decisions was the abandonment of the eastern territories which Trajan had just conquered during his last campaign. Had Augustus a century before spelled out that his successors should keep the empire within the natural boundaries of the rivers Rhine, Danube and Euphrates, then Trajan had broken that rule and had crossed the Euphrates. On Hadrian’s order once pulled back to behind the Euphrates again.
Such withdrawal, the surrender territory for which teh Roman army had just paid in blood, will hardly have been popular.
Hadrian did not travel directly back to Rome, but first set out for the Lower Danube to deal with trouble with the Sarmatians at the border. While he was there he also confirmed Trajan’s annexation of Dacia.
The memory of Trajan, the Dacian gold mines and the army’s misgivings about withdrawing from conquered lands clearly convinced Hadrian that it might not be wise always to withdraw behind the natural boundaries advised by Augustus.
If Hadrian set out to rule as honourably as his beloved predecessor, then he got off to a bad start. He had not arrived in Rome yet and four respected senators, all ex-consuls, were dead. Men of the highest standing in Roman society, all had been killed for plotting against Hadrian. Many however saw these executions as a way by which Hadrian was removing any possible pretenders to his throne. All four had been friends of Trajan. Lusius Quietus had been a military commander and Gaius Nigrinus ha dbeen a very wealthy and influential politician; in fact so influential he had been thought a possible successor to Trajan.
But what makes the ‘affair of the four consulars’ especially unsavoury is that Hadrian refused to take any responsibility for this matter. Might other emperors have gritted their teeth and announced that a ruler needed to act ruthlessly in order to grant the empire a stable, unshakable government, then Hadrian denied everything.
He even went as far as swearing a public oath that he was not responsible. More so he said that it had been the senate who had ordered the executions (which is technically true), before placing the blame firmly on Attianus, the praetorian prefect (and his former join-guardian with Trajan).
However, if Attianus had done anything wrong in the eyes of Hadrian, it is hard to understand why the emperor would have made him consul thereafter.
Despite such an odious start to his reign, Hadrian quickly proved to be a highly capable ruler. Army discipline was tightened and the border defences were strengthened.
Trajan’s wellfare programme for the poor, the alimenta, was further expanded.
most of all though, Hadrian should beome known for his efforts to visit the imperial territories personally, where he could inspect provincial government himself.
These far-ranging journeys would begin with a visit to Gaul in AD 121 and would end ten years later on his return to Rome in AD 133-134. No other emperor would ever see this much of his empire. From as far west as Spain to as far east as the province of Pontus in modern day Turkey, from as far north as Britain to as far south as the Sahara desert in Libya, Hadrian saw it all. Though this was not mere sight-seeing. Far more Hadrian sought to gather first-hand information about the various problem the provinces faced. His secretaries compiled entier books of such information.
Perhaps the most famous result of Hadrian’s conlusions when seeing for himself the problems faced by the territories, was his order to construct the great barrier which still today runs across northern England, Hadrian’s Wall, which once shielded the British Roman province from the wild northern barbarians of the isle. Since a very young age Hadrian had held a fascination for Greek learning and sophistication. So much so, he was dubbed the ‘Greekling’ by his contemporaries. Once he became emperor his tastes for all things Greek should became a trademark of his. He visited Athens, still the great centre of learning, no fewer than three times during his reign. And his grand building programmes did not limit itself to Rome with a few grand buildings in other cities, but also Athens benefitted extensively from its great imperial patron.
Yet even this great love of art should become sullied by Hadrian’s darker side. Had he invited Trajan’s architect Apollodorus of Damascus (the designer of Trajan’s Forum) to comment on his own design for a temple, he then turned on him, once the architect showed himself little impressed. Apollodorus was first banished and later executed. Had great emperors shown themselves able to handle criticism and listen to advice, then Hadrian who at times patently was unable, or unwilling, to do so.
Hadrian appears to have been a man of mixed sexual interests. The Historia Augusta criticizes both his liking of goodlooking young men as well as his adulteries with married women.
If his relations with his wife was anything but close, then the rumour that he tried to poson her might suggest that it was even much worse than that.
When it comes to Hadrian’s apaprent homosexuality, then the accounts remain vague and unclear. Most of the attention centres on the young Antinous, whom Hadrian grew very fond of. Statues of Antinous have survived, showing that imperial patronage of this youth extended to having sculptures made of him. In AD 130 Antinous accompanied Hadrian to Egypt. It was on a trip on the Nile when Antinous met with an early and somewhat mysterious death. Officially, he fell from the boat and drowned. But a perisistent rumour spoke of Antinous having been a sacrifice in some bizarre eastern ritual.
The reasons for the young man’s death might not be clear, but was is known is that Hadrian grieved deeply for Antinous. He even founded a city along the banks of the Nile where Antinous had drowned, Antinoopolis. Touching as this might have seemed to some, it was an act deemed unbefitting an emperor and drew much ridicule.
If the founding of Antinoopolis had caused some eyebrows to be raised then Hadrian’s attempts to re-found Jerusalem were little more than disastrous.
Had Jerusalem been destroyed by Titus in AD 71 then it had never been rebuilt since. At least not officially. And so, Hadrian, seeking to make a great historical gesture, sought to build a new city there, to be called Aelia Capitolina. Hadrian planning a grand imperial Roman city, it was to boast a grand temple to Juliter Capitolinus on the temple mount. The Jews, however, were hardly to stand by and watch in silence while the emperor desecrated their holiest place, the ancient site of the Temple of Salomon. And so, with Simeon Bar-Kochba as its leader, an embittered Jewish revolt arose in AD 132. Only by the end of AD 135 was the situation back under control, with over half a million Jews having lost their lives in the the fighting.
This might have been Hadrian’s only war, and yet it was a war for which only really one man could be blamed – emperor Hadrian.
Though it must be added that the troubles surrounding the Jewish insurrection and its brutal crushing were unusual in Hadrian’s reign. His government was, but for this occasion, moderate and careful.
Hadrian showed a great interest in law and appointed a famous African jurist, Lucius Salvius Julianus, to create a definitive revision of the edicts which had been pronounced every year by the Roman praetors for centuries.
This collection of laws was a milestone in Roman law and provided the poor with at least a chance of gaining some limited knowledge of the legal safeguards to which they were entitled.
In AD 136 Hadrian, whose health began to fail, sought an heir before he would die, leaving the empire without a leader. He was 60 years old now. Perhaps he feared that, being without an heir might make him vulnerable to a challenge to the throne as he grew more frail. Or he simply sought to secure a peaceful transition for the empire. Whichever version is true, Hadrian adopted Lucius Ceionius Commodus as his successor.
Once more the more menacing side of Hadrian showed as he order the suicide of those he suspected opposed to Commodus’ accession, most notably the distinguished senator and Hadrian’s brother-in-law Lucius Julius Ursus Servianus.
Though the chosen heir, though only in his thirties, suffered from bad health and so Commodus was already dead by 1 January AD 138.
A month after Commodus’ death, Hadrian adopted Antoninus Pius, a highly respected senator, on the condition that the childless Antoninus in turn would adopt Hadrian’s promising young nephew Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus (the son of Commodus) as heirs.
Hadrian’s final days were a grim affair. He became eve more ill and spent extended periods in severe distress. As he sought to end his life with either a blade or poison, his servants grew ever more vigilant to keep such items from his grasp. At one point he even convinced a barbarian servant by name of Mastor to kill him. But at the last moment Mastor failed to obey.
Despairing, Hadrian left government in the hands of Antoninus Pius, and retired, dying soon afterwards at the pleasure resort of Baiae on 10 July AD 138.
Had Hadrian been a brilliant administrator and had he provided the empire with a period of stability and relative peace for 20 years, he died a very unpopular man.
He had been a cultured man, devoted to religion, law, the arts – devoted to civilization. And yet, he also bore that dark side in him which could reveal him similar to a Nero or a Domitian at times. And so he was feared. And feared men are hardly ever popular.
His body was buried twice in different places before finally his ashes should be laid to rest in the mausoleum he had built for himself at Rome.
It was only with reluctance that the senate accepted Antoninus Pius’ request to deify Hadrian.
Life: AD 189 - 211 Name: Publius Septimius GetaBorn on 7 March AD 189 at Rome.Consul AD 205.Became co-emperor in 4 February AD 211.Wife: none.Died at Rome, December AD 211.…
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Life: AD 52 - 117 Name: Marcus Ulpius TrajanusBorn on 18 September AD 53 at Italica in Spain.Consul AD 91, 98, 100, 101, 103, 112.Became emperor in 28 January AD…
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The new British Museum exhibition Hadrian: Empire and Conflict is clearly a big success: but who was Hadrian? The subtitle of the exhibition, Empire and Conflict , is surely ambiguous. It is fashionable today to see Rome as being a military dictatorship, ‘perpetrators of extreme violence and destruction’, with the implication that every emperor must have been involved in conflict. But how far is this true of Hadrian? Was he essentially a warmonger and a man of conflict? Or was he, on the other hand, an Empire builder, an administrator who established the pax Romana ? Which side was Hadrian on?
Hadrian (117-138 AD) was the second most important Roman emperor after Augustus, and indeed the second of the four emperors who formed Rome’s golden age in the 2nd century AD. Like Augustus, Hadrian established, or re-established, many of the principles on which Rome’s success depended. But, like Augustus, Hadrian was essentially a manager rather than a fighter, and one of the first things he did was to draw back from some of his predecessor’s conquests, notably in Iraq. The major conflict in his reign was suppression of the Jewish Revolt in 130-136 AD.
The Jews of Cyrene and other cities had already rebelled against Roman rule at the end of Trajan’s reign. Now, at the end of his own reign, Hadrian suppressed their next uprising. This revolt is illustrated in the exhibition by a number of small items from the so-called Cave of Letters, excavated in the 1960s, where a number of the rebels sought refuge. Among the exhibits is a letter from Simon bar Kokhba, the leader of the revolt, showing him in somewhat testy mode, threatening severe punishments to those who disobeyed him: ‘any man from Teko’an who is found with you, the houses in which they dwell will be burned, and you too will be punished’. There is also a set of keys which they brought with them from the homes to which they would never return. But there is also a fine glass bowl showing that despite the difficulties, they were able to bring a certain number of valuables with them and hauled them up to the almost inaccessible cave.
One of his principal achievements was to fix the boundaries of the Roman Empire notably by building the wall across Northern England that bears his name. But it is difficult to do much about frontiers in an exhibition like this: the most interesting display for me was that of the three souvenir cups known from Hadrian’s Wall, the Rudge cup from Alnwick Castle, the Moorlands pan now in the British Museum and the Amiens skillet from France, all of which have inscriptions referring to the wall: all were much smaller than I had thought them to be.
Certainly, Hadrian had a passion for building and for architecture. A surprise exhibit was some pilaster capitals from the Pantheon in Rome which had been rescued and brought to the British Museum when the Pantheon was being restored in 1747. It was particularly appropriate that the exhibition is held in the former Reading room of the British Museum, which in itself was modelled on the Pantheon, and is only a couple of feet smaller in diameter than the original.
The exhibition is dominated by statues of Hadrian, his family, friends and colleagues. The highlight is the huge new statue recently discovered at Sagalossos in Turkey and never before put on display. Also on show is the famous statue discovered in Cyrene in 1867, and currently held in the British Museum, which appears to show him in Greek dress. Indeed, Hadrian was a hellenophile – and was known as Graeculus, the little Greek. However, a detailed re-examination of this statue has shown that the original restorers put the wrong head on the wrong body: Hadrian was not quite as Greek as had been made out.
A statue of his wife Sabina is also on display. But this was a diplomatic marriage, his real passion was for his boyfriend Antinous, who drowned in the Nile and whom he attempted to make into a god. The Romans were scandalised, not because Hadrian was homosexual but because he attempted to make his boyfriend into a god. The exhibition includes a famous bust, once thought to be of Antinous, but now thought to be a copy of a head of Hermes dating from the 4th century BC. The exhibition is also accompanied by an exhibition tome (sadly not a catalogue) by the curator Thorsten Opper.
We attended the opening ceremony, which was dominated by a virtuoso performance by Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, who began with a rendition in Latin, and went on to a dazzling exhibition of wit and oratory. Ultimately, I felt that the exhibition presents Hadrian as a superb business manager, but it is an interesting and stimulating exhibition, and a great achievement for its curator.
This article is an extract from the full article published in World Archaeology Issue 31. Click here to subscribe
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