ANCIENT HISTORY ENCYCLOPEDIA

hrsg. v. Jan van der Crabben u.a.

Commodus

by Donald L. Wasson
published on 29 August 2013

[URL: http://www.ancient.eu.com/commodus/]

With the death of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius in March of 180 CE, the long reign of the five good emperors came to an end and with it so did the Pax Romana (the Roman Peace). Those emperors who followed for the next century would witness a time of both chaos and decline. The first of these inept emperors was Commodus, the son of Marcus Aurelius, who, according to most historians, was not only debauched and corrupt but also a megalomaniac, seeing himself as the reincarnation of the Greek god Hercules.

Lucius Aurelius Commodus was born to the philosopher/king and Faustina the Younger at Lanuvium, a city fourteen miles southeast of Rome on August 31, 161 CE. He was the tenth of fourteen children and the only son to survive – his twin brother Titus Aurelius Fulvus Antonius died at the age of four. He would be the first emperor born while his father was the emperor and the last to inherit the throne as the previous five emperors (including Marcus) had obtained the throne through adoption.

It did not take long for the future emperor to become a disappointment to his father for although he enjoyed the benefits of a quality education, Commodus inherited none of his father’s work ethic and would find government life tedious and some believed this gave evidence that he was illegitimate, owing to his mother’s supposed affairs. After serving alongside Marcus in battle on the northern frontier in 178 and 179 CE, Commodus returned to Rome in 180 CE after his father’s death  (he was only eighteen) and negotiated a peace settlement, a peace surprisingly favorable to Rome. Eventually, he would leave the reins of power in the hands of others while he devoted his time to worldly pleasures. One of the first to assume some of the emperor’s responsibility was Saoterus whose relationship with Commodus would soon incur the ire of those in both the Senate and imperial household.

Although Commodus considered his twelve-year-reign a new “golden age,” his lack of concern for political matters together with his life of leisure and extreme paranoia brought about what others might consider a reign of terror. Historian Cassius Dio, who called it the kingdom of “iron and rust,” wrote, “This man was not naturally wicked, but, on the contrary, as guileless as any man that ever lived. His great simplicity, however, together with his cowardice, missed the better life and then was led on into lustful and cruel habits, which soon became second nature.” Because he relied on others to rule in his place, those around him realized that he could be easily manipulated, allowing for a number of conspiracies against his life to develop – one was even initiated by his older sister Lucilla and a number of senators in 182 CE.

Lucilla believed she and her husband Lucius Verus had been passed over by Marcus Aurelius as potential heirs to the throne. The plot was simple enough: Claudius Pompeianus Quintianus, her nephew, was to lie in wait until the emperor entered the Colosseum and then stab him; however, the assassination was bungled when Quintianus raised his dagger and instead of quickly stabbing Commodus he shouted “This is what the senate has sent you.” Before he could complete his sentence, he was seized by the Praetorian Guard. This foiled attempt upon his life, together with the recent death of the emperor’s trusted chamberlain Saoterus, caused Commodus to take decisive action – those implicated in the plot were all executed. Contrary to some authors, Lucilla was not immediately executed; instead, she was exiled and executed much later. Commodus also took the opportunity to execute Paternus, the commander of the Praetorian Guard, who had been implicated in both Saoterus’ assassination as well as Lucilla’s plot.

During this traumatic time in Commodus’s life, Tigidius Perennis, who had served as the joint commander of the Praetorian Guard with Paternus, seized the opportunity and began to get closer to the vulnerable emperor, assuming considerable governmental power, something that allowed Commodus to pursue other interests. After his sister’s plot, the emperor refused to appear in public and all communication went through the new chamberlain. Perennis took his new role seriously and proved to be both brutal and efficient, eliminating any rivals to his authority while making numerous enemies along the way. As he amassed great wealth and Commodus pulled further away from governmental responsibilities, he began to believe himself to the true emperor, not Commodus, even going so far as to plot to do away with the emperor and prepare his own sons for succession. Herodotus, in his History of the Roman Empire, wrote, “Perennis assumed full personal charge of the empire, driven by his insatiable lust for money, his contempt for what he had, and his greedy longing for what was not yet his.” Unfortunately, he had made one enemy, the former slave and member of the imperial household, Cleander, who would bring him to ruin. In 185 CE, through a group of 1500 soldiers returning from Britain, Cleander leaked information to Commodus of Perennis’s plot to overthrow him and assume power – Perennis’s execution (and that of his sons) was immediately ordered.

Cleander stepped in as the emperor’s new chamberlain, and as with Perennis, Commodus was freed to return to his life of pleasure, and as with his predecessor, Cleander destroyed all opposition.  Everything was for sale – senatorial seats as well as governorships, and, of course, a portion of the money went to Commodus. However, like Perennis, Cleander would not remain for long. In 190 CE a grain supply shortage would bring him down. The grain commissioner, Papeirius Dionysius, cut off all grain to the populace, blaming Cleander and his greed – Cleander has supposedly bought all the grain. The people were incensed and a few days later, while gathered at the Circus Maximus, a riot erupted. The people cried for the head of Cleander and they marched through the streets to the emperor’s residence at the Villa of the Quintilli. Commodus feared for his life and when attempts to quell the mob failed, Commodus gave them what they wanted – the head of Cleander which was placed on a pole and marched through the street of Rome. Afterwards, Commodus realized that he would have to take over the reins of government himself.

A new Commodus emerged, one that saw himself as a reborn Hercules who appeared in public wearing a cloak made out of the hide of a lion over his head (a reference to the Nemean Lion of Hercules’s Twelve Labors). The Senate was even made to declare him a living god. Herodotus wrote, “First he discarded his family name and issued orders that he was to be called not Commodus, son of Marcus, but Hercules, son of Zeus. Abandoning the Roman and imperial mode of dress, he donned the lion skin, and carried the club of Hercules. … He erected statues of himself throughout the city …. for he wished even his statues to inspire fear of him.” Next, he renamed the twelve months, and after a fire in 191 CE destroyed much of the city (including the Temple of Peace and Temple of Vesta) he seized the opportunity to completely rebuild Rome. Because he considered himself the new founder, he renamed Rome Colonia Lucia Annia Commodiana; the people became known as Commodiani. To the surprise of everyone, he even took part in gladiatorial contests, fighting against the physically handicapped and an array of beasts from a raised platform which included a tiger, an elephant and even a hippo.

When he decided to fight in the arena on New Year’s Day in 193 CE to celebrate the city’s rebirth, his mistress Marcia (his wife Bruttia Crispina had been banished and executed in 191 CE) as well as his new chamberlain (Electus) and new commander of the Praetorian Guard (Quintas Aemilius Laetus) realized he had gone too far.  After they failed to talk him out of his ridiculous plans, he became incensed and threatened to add their names to a long list of people he wanted executed.  Later, as usual, Marcia brought Commodus a glass of wine prior to his bath; however, this time it was laced with poison. When the poison failed, Commodus’s fitness coach, Narcissus (a professional wrestler by trade) entered and choked him to death. Although many wanted to drag his body through the streets of Rome, Pertinax (who oddly enough would succeed Commodus) seized the body, prevented its desecration and, finally, Commodus was laid to rest in Hadrian’s Mausoleum.

Written by Donald L. Wasson, published on 29 August 2013 under the following license: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms.

DE IMPERATORIBUS ROMANIS

An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Rulers

DIR Atlas

Lucius Verus (161 – 169 A.D.)

Phoebe B. Peacock

Library of Congress

Abb.: http://www.luc.edu/roman-emperors/lverus.jpg

Sources

Sources for the study of Lucius Verus are disappointing. There is neither a corpus of correspondence nor the chronicle of a major historian. The biography of Verus in Historia Augusta is our chief literary source, supplemented by the HA biographies of Marcus and Antoninus. The Historia Augusta collection of imperial biographies has been the subject of heated scholarly controversy since the end of the nineteenth century, and there remains no definitive statement of its exact value. Today’s consensus is that it is the work of a single author of the fourth century, and its accuracy varies from exact to imaginative folklore. Accurate, or imaginative, multiple authors, or single author, there is little doubt that it is „propaganda directed to a popular audience.“[[1]] The popular propaganda issue is clearly visible in both SH Verus and SH Marcus where the personal life style and personality traits of Lucius Verus pervade evaluations of his accomplishments as emperor. [[2]]Insight into Verus and his reign is gleaned from the letters of his teacher and friend, the historian and orator, M. Cornelius Fronto. Cassio Dio’s history of Rome provides valuable details, and the writings of fourth-century Roman historians such as Eutropius and Festus are helpful. Archaeology and art history, with the associated commentaries, as well as coins and inscriptions add to the corpus of source material on Lucius Verus and the context of his life. Legal compilations such as the Code of Justinian preserve relevant records. Also useful are some of the early church writers such as Anastasius, Orosius, and Eusebius.

Introduction

Lucius Verus was co-emperor with Marcus Aurelius, but beyond this imperial partnership there was also a significant personal connection. Through adoption by the same father, Marcus and Lucius were brothers. Marcus was also father-in-law to Lucius. Being the younger brother, younger partner, and son-in-law to Marcus Aurelius could not have been an easy position in life. Yet this is the role played by Lucius Verus. He was a well educated, active participant in military and political affairs. He had a colorful personality. He is reputed to have been one of the most handsome of emperors whose vanity allowed him to highlight his blond hair with gold dust. [[3]] Reviews of his personal character and his accomplishments are mixed. The letters of Marcus Cornelius Fronto, teacher to Marcus and Lucius, are far gentler in their portrayal of Lucius‘ personality and grand life style than are the historical accounts of the biographies included in the Historia Augusta. Whether out of true respect or devoted brotherly love, it is evident that Marcus Aurelius treated Lucius as a partner in governing the empire and commanding its military forces. Typical of his tolerance of others, Marcus Aurelius chronically ignored or defused the questionable behavior and friendships of his brother. Indeed the Meditations of the older emperor express thanksgiving for Lucius Verus as a brother. [[4]]

Early Life

Lucius Ceionius Commodus, the future Lucius Verus, was the son of Lucius Aelius Caesar, the Emperor Hadrian’s first choice as a successor. He was born December 15 A.D., 130. [[5]] His mother’s name was Avidia. He did not add Aelius or Aurelius or Aelius Aurelius to his name until after the adoption. Verus was not added until 161 when Marcus transferred the name Verus from himself to his co-emperor in order to establish a family connection after the death of Antoninus, the father they shared through adoption. [[6]] Lucius retained Commodus as part of his name throughout his life. [[7]]

On the first day of January A.D. 138, Lucius‘ father died when the boy was only seven years old. Having lost his first choice as successor, Hadrian designated Antoninus Pius (Titus Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus; Titus Aurelius Antoninus Pius) to be his successor. In February 138 Hadrian adopted the fifty-year-old Antoninus and required him in turn to adopt Lucius as well as Hadrian’s nephew by marriage, Marcus Aurelius, aged sixteen, almost seventeen.[[8]]Hadrian also stipulated that Antoninus should betroth his surviving daughter, Faustina (Annia Galeria Faustina), to the child Lucius.[[9]]

The Historia Augusta lists eleven teachers for Lucius‘ study of Latin and Greek. He was well educated. His earliest instruction came from grammatici, [[10]] and were not the same as those who provided primary instruction to Marcus. As a young boy Lucius enjoyed writing poetry, and later on, oratory.[[11]] Like his older brother, he studied Latin oratory with Marcus Cornelius Fronto, whose own writings indicate an enduring fondness for both men. Lucius studied philosophy with Apollonius of Chalcedon and Sextus of Chaeronea. In a nanny-like manner, Nicomedes, a devoted freedman of Lucius‘ biological father, watched over Lucius‘ daily care. [[12]]

Rise to Power

Hadrian died on July 10, A.D. 138. Titus Antoninus succeeded him as emperor and the name Pius was bestowed upon him. After his adoption Lucius Ceionius Commodus was given the names Aelius or Aurelius or Aelius Aurelius, used in addition to Commodus. Although reared with his brother Marcus, he was treated in an inferior manner, and his lesser status was emphasized by his place in the imperial progresses. Although Marcus rode with his emperor father, Lucius rode with the attendant praetorian prefect.[[13]] Lucius was designated quaestor in 152, to serve in 153, one year before the legal age for this office. He became consul in 154, nine years earlier than the traditional youngest age of thirty-two, and without ever having been praetor. In A.D. 161 Lucius and Marcus both held the office of consul; for Marcus it was his third appointment to this position..[[14]] When Antoninus died on March 7, A.D. 161, Marcus succeeded him as emperor (Imperator Caesar M. Aurelius Antoninus Augustus) with Lucius (Imperator Caesar Lucius Aurelius Verus Augustus). Marcus welcomed Lucius as a younger more physically able partner who was better suited to the military demands of the empire.[[15]] Never before had Rome been ruled jointly by two emperors, „duobus aequo iure imperium administrantibus,“[[16]] but their authority was not shared equally. Marcus clearly had more power than his younger brother, although officially his only additional title was „pontifex maximus,“ while Lucius was simply „pontifex..“[[17]] They came to power at a time of military crisis in the East amid the misery of floods and famine in Rome.

Family Life

When Titus Antoninus became emperor in 138, the betrothal of Lucius to Faustina was canceled, as was the betrothal of Marcus to the sister of Lucius, Ceionia Fabia. Instead, Marcus became betrothed to Faustina. It was not until 161 that marriage was once again arranged for Lucius. This time Marcus betrothed his daughter, Lucilla, to his co-emperor, [[18]] soon afterward in early 162 Lucius set out to fight the Parthian War in Syria. It is said that he became quite fond of a beautiful woman from Smyrna. Her name was Panthea and tales of this relationship prompted Marcus to hasten the wedding of Lucius to Lucilla.[[19]]. The ceremony took place midway through the war. Marcus accompanied the bride-to-be as far as Brundisium; from there she was put in the custody of her sister and Civica, an uncle to Lucius. Lucius met the bridal party in Ephesus, where the wedding took place, removed from the Eastern battle front.[[20]] Lucilla and Lucius had three children, two daughters and one son. Although the elder daughter and the son had short lives, the younger daughter lived to be involved in a plot against Commodus in 182. [[21]]

Parthian Campaign

In 162 Marcus sent Lucius eastward to lead the Parthian campaign. There he was to settle disturbances in Rome’s Eastern empire where the Euphrates River served as the boundary with the Parthian kingdom. According to reports transcribed in the Historia Augusta, Lucius partied his way along the path to war. Lucius became seriously ill by the time he reached Canusium in southern Italy. On receiving this news Marcus left Rome to join his ailing brother. Lucius, however, recovered and Marcus returned home, whence he sent good wishes of the Senate. [[22]] In its descriptions of the trip to Persia after Lucius departed Italay, the Historia Augusta includes tales of gluttony and an accompanying imperial theatrical entourage of actors and musicians; and Panthea of Smyrna, the emperor’s concubine.[[23]] Fronto, always as kind as possible in interpreting the behavior of Lucius, compares the emperor’s close relationship with actors to that of Trajan, as a politically wise, inclusive practice because of the popular appeal of theater to the Roman people. [[24]] After enjoying himself in Corinth and Athens, as well as in the smaller towns of Asia Minor, Lucius finally reached Syria. There, he established his headquarters on the coast rather than inland near the battle front. In order to be sure his Roman troops remained focused in spite of Lucius‘ activities, Marcus Aurelius appointed a seasoned general, Avidius Cassius, to command the forces in Syria.[[25]] Indeed, all the best generals of the era were appointed to this war by Marcus. [[26]]Dio tells us that Lucius was efficient in his practice of delegating authority to capable generals as well as in the procurement and distribution of necessary military supplies.[[27]] Two chroniclers of the Parthian War, Marius Maximus and Asinius Quadratus, are sources for both Capitolinus and Gallicanus, whose reports are part of the Historia Augusta. Eutropius credits Lucius with being able to simultaneously enjoy himself and accomplish much because he appointed able generals to administer the business at hand. [[28]] Fronto gives Lucius rather than Marcus credit for improving the morale of Roman troops. [[29]] The Historia Augusta author jests that the end of the Parthian War was in fact the end of the Thespian War. [[30]] Afterward, Marcus agreed to share the triumphal titles and celebrations with Verus.[[31]] This celebration was held in October of A.D. 166 [[32]] and the procession included Verus and Marcus, as well as the latter’s sons and unmarried daughters. All members of the imperial party, wearing triumphal dress, rode together and watched the games together. [[33]] But in spite of their victory in the East these were not good times for Rome. The plague had spread throughout the city and the northern frontier was threatened by war. In A.D. 168 the twin emperors Marcus and Lucius escaped the plagued city of Rome to go North to the Danubian provinces, where they mounted a military offensive against the threatening Germanic tribes.

Between the Wars

Having become accustomed to a life of self-indulgent pleasures of many kinds while in the East, Lucius found a way to continue this lifestyle once back in Rome. According to the Historia Augusta, when he returned home in triumph to celebrate the Roman victory, he took along his entourage of actors and musicians. He even kept favorites with him to help celebrate and continued to befriend them with his patronage. Lucius had a tavern built in his house where he spent his post-dinner hours with a wide spectrum of acquaintances to gamble all night, or to eat and drink until he fell asleep and had to be carried to bed. For a change from partying at home, he would dress as a common traveler to visit taverns and brothels, often partaking in drunken brawls, apparently unrecognized. [[34]] These activities were interspersed and enriched with circuses and contests between gladiators, but Lucius Verus ranked chariot racing above all other „sports.“ Volucer, his favorite horse, is buried on the Vatican Hill. [[35]]Marcus disapproved of the vast sums of money Lucius spent on himself and his ostentatious villa, located on the Clodian Way. With the intent of humoring or including Marcus, Lucius invited his brother to be a houseguest and enjoy a lavish lifestyle. For the entire fifteen-day visit Marcus worked on various affairs of state, but Lucius partied on with little regard for his brother’s serious pursuits.[[36]] After returning from the East, Lucius showed far less deference to his brother and far less interest in his own official responsibilities than he had prior to the Parthian War. As Lucius continued to neglect the obligations of state another conflict erupted, this time on the empire’s northern perimeter. As hostilities increased along the frontiers they only added to Marcus‘ burdens. At this point the leading enemies of Rome were the Marcomanni, a Germanic tribe. But because other Germanic tribes were also involved, the war became known as bellum Germanicum, and is described as such by the Historia Augusta. [[37]]

Germanic War

These tribal incursions, that came to be known as the Germanic War, lasted from 167-180, and were fought in three distinct phases. Lucius participated in the first campaign although he was not given the leadership assignment he had abused during the Parthian War. Marcus persuaded the Senate that both he and Lucius were needed at the battle front. [[38]] The older emperor had undoubtedly learned that he should neither send Lucius to war alone nor leave him at home to indulge himself further in the debauchery that had become his unsupervised lifestyle. Thus both emperors set out for the northern front in the spring of 168.

Death

As Marcus and Lucius were returning home in169, Lucius suddenly became ill, near Altinum (Altino). He was taken from his carriage and bled. Then, so ill that he could not speak, he was carried into Altinum. Three days later, at the age of 38, Lucius Verus was dead. [[39]] There were rumors that this was the result of a plot by his mother-in-law, Faustina, with whom there was some suspicion of an incestuous relationship. But there was also talk of his having been poisoned by Marcus, although such an act would have been totally out of character for the older emperor. Murderous activity on the part of Faustina has also been disproved.[[40]] Bringing his brother’s body with him, Marcus returned to Rome where he oversaw the funeral. He also provided ample support for the deceased emperor’s family and freedmen. Imperator Lucius Verus was deified under the name of Divus Verus. [[41]]

Bibliography

Anastasius,. Historia de Vitis Ponitificum Romanorum. Patrologia Latina database [computer file, CD-ROM] vol. 127 (Chadwyck-Healey, 1995)

Barnes, T. D. „Hadrian and Lucius Verus“ in JRS 57 (1967) 65-79

Barta, G. „Lucius Verus and the Marcomannic Wars“ in Acta Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis 7 (1971) 67-71

Baynes, N. The Historia Augusta: Its date and purpose. (Oxford, 1925)

Birley, A.R. Marcus Aurelius (London, 1966)

Brock, M.D. Studies in Fronto and His Age (Cambridge, 1911)

Capes, W.W. The Roman Empire of the Second Century (New York, 1884)

Champlin, E. Fronto and Antonine Rome (Cambridge, MA, 1980)

Delande, F. „La fonction des ‚Vies secondaires‘ dans les biographies antonines de l‘Histoire Auguste,“ CEA 1993 (28) 135-144

Den Boer, W. Some Minor Roman Historians (Leiden, 1972)

Desvergers, N. Essai sur Marc-Aurele (Paris, 1860)

Dio. Roman History (translated by E. Cary. London, 1914-1927)

Dove, C. C. Marcus Aurelius: His life and times (London, 1930)

Eusebius. Ecclesiastical history (translated by C.F. Cruse. Grand Rapids, 1955)

Eutropius. Breviarum ab urbe condita (Stuttgart, 1975)

Fronto, M.C. The Correspondence of Marcus Cornelius Fronto (London, 1919-1920)

________.. M. Cornelii Frontonis Epistulae (Leipzig, 1988)

Garzetti, A. From Tiberius to the Antonines (translated by J.R. Foster. London, 1974)

Gilliam, J. F., „The Plague under Marcus Aurelius,“ AJP 82 (1961)225-51

Grant, M. The Antonines: The Roman empire in transition (London and New York, 1994)

Hanslik, R. „Verus,“ in Der Kleine Pauly, 5.1221-1223

Histoire Auguste (Scriptores Historiae Augustae. Latin and French. Paris, 1994)

Hout, M.P.J. van den. A Commentary on the letters of M. Cornelius Fronto (Leiden and Boston, 1999)

Justin, Cornelius Nepos, and Eutropius (translated by J.S. Watson. London, 1876)

Lambrechts, P. „L’Empereur Lucius Verus,“ AC 3.1 (May 1934) 173-208

Marcus Aurelius. Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (translated by G. Long. Chicago, 1882)

Marcus Aurelius. Meditations (New York, 1997)

Orosius. Historiae. Patrologia Latina database [computer file CD-ROM], vol. 31 (Chadwyck-Healey, 1995)

Perowne, S. Caesars and Saints (New York, 1963)

Prosopographia Imperii Romani Saec. I.II.III (Berlin, 1897-98)

Rufus. The Breviarum of Festus (London, 1967)

Stanton, G.R. „Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus, and Commodus, 1962-1972“ in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 2.2., 479-459

Syme, R. Emperors and Biography, studies in the Histoiria Augusta (Oxford, 1971)

Von Rohden, P. . „Ceionius 8“ in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie (1899), 3.1832-1857

Footnotes:

[[1]] Baynes, p. 57.

[[2]] Barta, p. 67-71 ; Lambrechts, p. 173-208

[[3]] HA Verus 10.7

[[4]] Meditations 1.17

[[5]] HA Verus 1.8 ; Von. Rohden, p. 1834

[[6]] HA Verus 4.1; See Grant, p. 27

[[7]] PIR2 C606

[[8]] HA Antoninus Pius 4.6 ; For discussion of exact date see Dove, p. 8 (Feb. 15) and Birley, p. 55 (Feb 25)

[[9]] HA Verus 2.3.; Marcus 6.2

[[10]] HA Verus 2. 5-7; 2.9

[[11]] HA Verus 2.7

[[12]] HA Verus 2.5-9

[[13]] HA Verus 3.4-5

[[14]] HA Verus 3.2-3; See Birley, p. 114

[[15]] Dio. 71.3

[[16]] Eutropius 8.9

[[17]] HA Verus 3.3-5; HA Verus 4.2; BMC IV, M. Aurelius and L. Verus, nos. 1 ff, 25 ff; See Birley, p. 153 ff.

[[18]] HA M. Antoninus 7.5-11

[[19]] HA Verus 7; see Birley, p. 131

[[20]] HA M. Antoninus 9; HA Verus 7

[[21]] See Birley, p. 247

[[22]] HA M. Antoninus 8; Fronto. Ad Ver. Imp. 2, 6

[[23]] HA Verus 8.11; HA M. Antoninus 8.2; Fronto Ep. Ad Ver. Imp. 2. 6; Meditations 8.37

[[24]] Fronto. Princ. Hist. 2.17-18

[[25]] HA Verus 7; Dio 72.1

[[26]] See Garzetti, p. 477

[[27]] Dio 71.2

[[28]] Eutropius 8.10; see Dove, p. 119

[[29]] Fronto. Ad Ver. Imp. 2.1

[[30]] HA Verus 8.11

[[31]] HA Verus 7.9; HA M Antoninus 12.7-8

[[32]] See Dove, p. 120 and Des Vergers, p. 39

[[33]] HA M. Antoninus 12

[[34]] HA Verus 4.6

[[35]] HA Verus 6

[[36]] HA Verus 9.8-11

[[37]] HA M. Antoninus 12.14

[[38]] HA M. Antoninus 2.14

[[39]] HA Marcus 14. 7-8; HA Verus 9.10-11

[[40]] HA Verus 10-11

[[41]] HA M. Antoninus 15

Copyright (C) 2001, Phoebe B. Peacock. This file may be copied on the condition that the entire contents, including the header and this copyright notice, remain intact.

Comments to: Phoebe B. Peacock.

Updated: 30 January 2001

WIKIPEDIA

Die freie Enzyklopädie

Mark Aurel

Von der Wikipedia-Community als lesenswert ausgezeichneter Artikel
Version v. 26. April 2006

Mark Aurel (* 26. April 121 in Rom; † 17. März 180 wahrscheinlich in Vindobona) war von 161 bis 180 römischer Kaiser. Marcus Annius Verus (oder Marcus Catilius Severus, wie er zunächst hieß) nahm nach seiner Adoption durch Kaiser Antoninus Pius den Namen Marcus Aelius Aurelius Verus an. Als Kaiser nannte er sich Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus. Er gilt neben dem freigelassenen Sklaven Epiktet als Hauptvertreter der späten Stoa.

Mit Mark Aurels Tod endete die Reihe der sogenannten Adoptivkaiser. Er musste nach einer längeren Friedenszeit wieder an mehreren Fronten gegen eindringende Feinde vorgehen. Insbesondere waren der Osten des Reiches durch die Parther und der Donauraum durch die Markomannen bedroht; damit endete die dauerhafteste Phase der Prosperität des Römischen Reiches, die durch eine innere und äußere Stabilität gekennzeichnet war. Sein letztes Lebensjahrzehnt verbrachte Mark Aurel daher vorwiegend im Feldlager. Hier verfasste er die Selbstbetrachtungen, die ihn der Nachwelt als Philosophenkaiser überliefert haben. (Alle nachfolgenden Zitate aus den Selbstbetrachtungen entstammen der Übertragung von Albert Wittstock; s.u.: Literatur / Ausgaben)

Herkunft und Werdegang

Antoninus Pius

Der Urgroßvater Mark Aurels war aus den hispanischen Provinzen nach Rom gekommen. Unter Kaiser Vespasian hatte er es bis zum Praetor gebracht. Sein Sohn, der Großvater Mark Aurels, bekleidete bereits dreimal das Amt des Konsuls. Er verheiratete seinen Sohn Annius Verus, Mark Aurels Vater, mit Domitia Lucilla, einer Verwandten Kaiser Hadrians, deren Familie durch den Besitz von Ziegeleien reich geworden war. Nach dem frühen Tod des Vaters 128 wuchs Marcus im Haus seines Großvaters auf.

Das in der Ämterlaufbahn erworbene Ansehen der Familie und das ernsthafte Naturell des jungen Marcus verschafften ihm frühzeitig die Beachtung Kaiser Hadrians, der ihn wegen seiner Wahrheitsliebe scherzhaft mit dem Spitznamen Verissimus (der Wahrhaftigste) belegte und den Achtjährigen in das Priesterkollegium der Salier aufnehmen ließ. Im Zuge seiner Nachfolgeregelung adoptierte er im Februar 138 den Antoninus Pius mit der Maßgabe, dass dieser wiederum seinen Neffen Marcus zu adoptieren hatte. Nach dem Tode Hadrians im Juli desselben Jahres zog der nun siebzehnjährige Mark Aurel zu Antoninus Pius, seinem Adoptivvater und neuen Kaiser, in den Regierungspalast. Schwerpunkte der Ausbildung waren zunächst Studien zur griechischen und lateinischen Rhetorik bei den Lehrern Herodes Atticus und Marcus Cornelius Fronto. Mit letzterem führte er einen regen Briefwechsel, der in Teilen erhalten ist.

Philosophische Orientierung

Deutsche Übersetzung der Selbstbetrachtungen (1727, Archiv Gymnasium Langenberg)

Die stoischen Philosophen unter seinen Lehrern, denen Mark Aurel zeitlebens dankbar war, mögen entscheidend zu einer Wendung beigetragen haben, die bereits der zwölfjährige Marcus genommen hat, als er sich in den Mantel der Philosophen kleidete und fortan auf unbequemer Bretterunterlage nächtigte, nur durch ein von der Mutter noch mit Mühe verordnetes Tierfell gepolstert. Hier hat offenbar eine Lebenshaltung ihren Anfang genommen, die in den auf Griechisch verfassten Selbstbetrachtungen (ta eis heautòn) der späten Jahre festgehalten wurde. Dabei dürften die Grundlagen der dort formulierten Überzeugungen bereits frühzeitig gegolten haben, denn sie fußten auf einer bald 500-jährigen und gleichwohl lebendigen Tradition stoischen Philosophierens. Qualifizierungsprozess und Herrschaftspraxis sind gerade darum in engem Zusammenhang mit seinen Selbstbetrachtungen zu sehen, weil die Einheit von Denken und Handeln, von Wort und Tat für seine Daseinsauffassung vorrangig war:

„Es kommt nicht darauf an, über die notwendigen Eigenschaften eines guten Mannes dich zu besprechen – vielmehr ein solcher zu sein.“ (X, 16)

„Du kannst nicht im Schreiben und Lesen unterrichten, wenn du es nicht selber kannst; viel weniger lehren, wie man recht leben soll, wenn du es nicht selber tust.“ (XI, 29)

Ebenso deutlich akzentuiert hat Mark Aurel das Bewusstsein für Wahrheit und Wirklichkeit, das schon Hadrian an ihm geschätzt hatte:

„Kann mir jemand überzeugend dartun, dass ich nicht richtig urteile oder verfahre, so will ich’s mit Freuden anders machen. Suche ich ja nur die Wahrheit, sie, von der niemand je Schaden erlitten hat. Wohl aber erleidet derjenige Schaden, der auf seinem Irrtum und auf seiner Unwissenheit beharrt.“ (VI, 21)

„So oft du an der Unverschämtheit jemandes Anstoß nimmst, frage dich sogleich: Ist es auch möglich, daß es in der Welt keine unverschämten Leute gibt? Das ist nicht möglich. Verlange also nicht das Unmögliche.“ (IX, 42)

Der Stellenwert dieser Notate für die Lebenspraxis Mark Aurels erschließt sich aus dem Entstehungszusammenhang der Selbstbetrachtungen. Es handelte sich um eine Form geistiger Übungen, die darauf zielten, eine mit den Grundsätzen der Stoa übereinstimmende Lebensführung im Bewusstsein wachzuhalten und zu aktualisieren (Adrogans) sowie abweichende Emotionen zu kontrollieren. Darum ging es u.a. auch in der Einstellung zu den Mitmenschen:

„Die Menschen sind füreinander da. Also belehre oder dulde sie.“ (VIII, 59)

„Willst du dir ein Vergnügen machen, so betrachte die Vorzüge deiner Zeitgenossen, so die Tatkraft des einen, die Bescheidenheit des andern, die Freigebigkeit eines Dritten und so an einem Vierten wieder eine andere Tugend. Denn nichts erfreut so sehr wie die Muster der Tugenden , die aus den Handlungen unserer Zeitgenossen uns in reicher Fülle in die Augen fallen. Darum habe sie auch stets vor Augen.“ (VI, 48)

Vielerlei Unangenehmes zu verarbeiten, Schicksalsschläge durchzustehen und mit der eigenen Unvollkommenheit auszukommen, auch dazu qualifizierten ihn Reflexionen im Geiste der Stoa in besonderem Maße:

„Rührt ein Übel von dir selbst her, warum tust du’s? Kommt es von einem andern, wem machst du Vorwürfe? Etwa den Atomen oder den Göttern? Beides ist unsinnig. Hier ist niemand anzuklagen. Denn, kannst du, so bessere den Urheber; kannst du das aber nicht, so bessere wenigstens die Sache selbst; kannst du aber auch das nicht, wozu frommt dir das Anklagen? Denn ohne Zweck soll man nichts tun.“ (VIII, 17)

„Empfinde keinen Ekel, laß deinen Eifer und Mut nicht sinken, wenn es dir nicht vollständig gelingt, alles nach richtigen Grundsätzen auszuführen; fange vielmehr, wenn dir etwas mißlungen ist, von neuem an und sei zufrieden, wenn die Mehrzahl deiner Handlungen der Menschennatur gemäß ist, und behalte das lieb, worauf du zurückkommst.“ (V, 9)

Mitunter ist kritisch gegen Mark Aurels Selbstbetrachtungen eingewandt worden, dass sie der philosophischen Originalität entbehrten. Dabei wurde in der Regel außer Acht gelassen, dass ein Anspruch auf Originalität im gemeinten Sinne mit den Aufzeichnungen Mark Aurels zweifellos gar nicht verbunden war. Der Kaiser hat sie für sich geschrieben, nicht für die Philosophiegeschichte.

Einarbeitung in die Regierungsgeschäfte

Eine bessere Vorbereitung auf politische Verantwortungsübernahme, als sie Mark Aurel durchlaufen hat, ist kaum vorstellbar. Bis zum Antritt der eigenen Herrschaft hatte er 23 Jahre lang (138-161) die umfassend genutzte Gelegenheit, sich auf die Anforderungen des Amtes einzustellen, sich in die Verwaltungsstrukturen des Römischen Reiches einzuarbeiten und alle wichtigen Bewerber und Inhaber einflussreicher Ämter kennen zu lernen. Er erlangte dabei einen so sicheren Blick für die menschliche und aufgabenbezogene Eignung der Amtsträger und Postenkandidaten, dass Antoninus Pius sich schließlich in allen Stellenbesetzungsfragen auf das Urteil des Marcus stützte. Die von Hadrian aufeinander Verwiesenen harmonierten auch von ihrem ganzen Naturell her. Die Charakterisierung des Antoninus, die Mark Aurel im Ersten Buch der Selbstbetrachtungen gibt, dürfte sowohl die Vorbildfunktion wie auch die Wesensverwandtschaft zum Ausdruck bringen, die den Jüngeren mit seinem Adoptivvater verbunden hat:

„An meinem Vater bemerkte ich Sanftmut, verbunden mit einer strengen Unbeugsamkeit in seinen nach reiflicher Erwägung gewonnenen Urteilen. Er verachtete den eitlen Ruhm, den beanspruchte Ehrenbezeigungen verleihen, liebte die Arbeit und die Ausdauer, hörte bereitwilligst gemeinnützige Vorschläge anderer, behandelte stets jeden nach Verdienst, hatte das richtige Gefühl, wo Strenge oder Nachgiebigkeit angebracht ist, verzichtete auf unnatürliche Liebe und lebte nur dem Staatswohl. (…) Niemand konnte sagen, er sei ein Sophist, ein Einfältiger, ein Pedant, sondern jeder erkannte in ihm einen reifen und vollkommenen Mann, erhaben über Schmeicheleien, fähig, sowohl seine eigenen Angelegenheiten als die der andern zu besorgen. Dazu ehrte er die wahren Philosophen und zeigte sich nichtsdestoweniger nachsichtig gegen diejenigen, die es nur zum Scheine waren. Im Umgang war er höchst angenehm, er scherzte gern, jedoch ohne Übertreibung.“ (I, 16)

Angesichts dieser engen inneren Bindung Mark Aurels an Antoninus Pius hätte es der zusätzlichen verwandtschaftlichen Bande kaum bedurft, die dadurch hergestellt wurden, dass Mark Aurel eine bestehende Verlobung zu lösen hatte, um Faustina, die Tochter des Antoninus zu heiraten. Aus dieser Ehe gingen insgesamt 13 Kinder hervor, die in der Mehrzahl allerdings noch im Kindesalter starben.

Politische Leitsätze

Statue Mark Aurels im Britischen Museum

Das über alle geschichtlichen Epochen hinweg fortwirkende Charisma Mark Aurels liegt sicher nicht zuletzt begründet im Bilde des Philosophen auf dem Thron, in der mit ihm auch Gestalt gewordenen Verknüpfung von politischer Philosophie und Herrschaftspraxis. Die Belege für das politische Denken Mark Aurels sind ebenfalls seinen Selbstbetrachtungen zu entnehmen. Manches davon erscheint wie zeitlos und in der Gegenwart keineswegs überholt.

„Severus war mir ein Beispiel in der Liebe zu unseren Verwandten wie auch in der Wahrheits- und Gerechtigkeitsliebe (…), durch ihn bekam ich einen Begriff, was zu einem freien Staate gehört, wo vollkommene Rechtsgleichheit für alle ohne Unterschied herrscht und nichts höher geachtet wird als die Freiheit der Bürger.“ (I, 14)

Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit, vor allem im Sinne gleichen Rechts für alle, gehörten also zu den früh angeeigneten und stets beibehaltenen politischen Leitvorstellungen Mark Aurels. Gegen die Versuchungen absolutistischen Machtmissbrauchs, denen er in seiner Stellung unvermeidlich ausgesetzt war, schützten ihn sein philosophischer Reflexionshintergrund und Selbstermahnungen wie die folgende:

„Hüte dich, dass du nicht ein tyrannischer Kaiser wirst! Nimm einen solchen Anstrich nicht an, denn es geschieht so leicht. […] Ringe danach, dass du der Mann bleibest, zu dem dich die Philosophie bilden wollte.“ (VI, 30)

Nur zu bewusst war Mark Aurel sich der Grenzen seiner politischen Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten und der Hinfälligkeit utopischer Gesellschaftsmodelle:

„Hoffe auch nicht auf einen platonischen Staat, sondern sei zufrieden, wenn es auch nur ein klein wenig vorwärts geht, und halte auch einen solchen kleinen Fortschritt nicht für unbedeutend. Denn wer kann die Grundsätze der Leute ändern? Was ist aber ohne eine Änderung der Grundsätze anders zu erwarten als ein Knechtsdienst unter Seufzen, ein erheuchelter Gehorsam?“ (IX, 29)

Dass Mentalitäten nicht ohne weiteres formbar und disponibel sind und daher im politischen Handeln berücksichtigt werden müssen, war für Mark Aurel klar, weil er der Bürgerfreiheit auch in der Meinungsäußerung Priorität einräumte.

Worauf es ihm ankam, war ein vernunftgeleiteter und gemeinwohlorientierter Machtgebrauch, der mit den Grenzen der eigenen Kompetenz rechnete und dem größeren Sachverstand den Vortritt ließ bzw. die Problemlösung übertrug:

„Reicht mein Verstand zu diesem Geschäft hin oder nicht? Reicht er hin, so verwende ich ihn dazu als ein von der Allnatur mir verliehenes Werkzeug. Im entgegengesetzten Falle überlasse ich das Werk dem, der es besser ausrichten kann, wenn anders es nicht zu meinen Pflichten gehört, oder ich vollbringe es, so gut ich’s vermag, und nehme dabei einen andern zu Hilfe, der, von meiner Geisteskraft unterstützt, vollbringen kann, was dem Gemeinwohl gerade jetzt dienlich und zuträglich ist.“ (VII, 5)

In der Rechtspflege lag für Mark Aurel der Kern der guten gesellschaftlichen Ordnung und der Bereich, für den er sich persönlich am meisten verantwortlich fühlte:

„Wenn du Scharfsinn besitzest, so zeige ihn in weisen Urteilen.“ (VIII, 38)

Im Zeitalter der Globalisierung verdient Beachtung, dass Mark Aurel seinem Dasein auch eine kosmopolitische Komponente zugeordnet hat und sogar bereits ökologisches Bewusstsein aufscheinen ließ:

„Meine Natur aber ist eine vernünftige und für das Gemeinwesen bestimmte; meine Stadt und mein Vaterland aber ist, insofern ich Antonin heiße, Rom, insofern ich ein Mensch bin, die Welt. Nur das also, was diesen Staaten frommt, ist für mich ein Gut.“ (VI, 44)

„Die Allnatur aber hat außerhalb ihres eigenen Kreises nichts. Das ist gerade das Bewundernswerte an ihrer Kunstfertigkeit, daß sie in ihrer Selbstbegrenzung alles, was in ihr zu verderben, zu veralten und unbrauchbar zu werden droht, in ihr eigenes Wesen umwandelt und eben daraus wieder andere neue Gegenstände bildet. Sie bedarf zu dem Ende ebensowenig eines außer ihr befindlichen Stoffes, als sie eine Stätte nötig hat, um das Morsche dorthin zu werfen. Sie hat vielmehr an ihrem eigenen Raum, ihrem eigenen Stoff und an ihrer eigenen Kunstfertigkeit genug.“ (VIII, 50)

Innenpolitische Akzente des Philosophenkaisers

Denar Mark Aurels

Mit dem Tode des Antoninus Pius ging das Kaisertum auf Mark Aurel über, der sogleich eine Probe seines reflektierten Verhältnisses zur eigenen Machtvollkommenheit gab, indem er seinen Adoptivbruder Lucius Verus zum gleichberechtigten Mitkaiser erhob. An auctoritas freilich war Marcus überlegen, zumal er auch das Amt des Pontifex maximus für sich behielt. Verus hat sich zeitlebens in dieses Arrangement gefügt; 164 heiratete er die Tochter Mark Aurels, Lucilla.

Beide Kaiser standen binnen kurzem einer im Vergleich zu den vorhergehenden Jahrzehnten des äußeren Friedens veränderten Situation gegenüber, als ab 161 die Parther die Ostgrenze des Römischen Reiches in Frage stellten und die Germanen im Donauraum von 168 an ernsthaft die Nordgrenze bedrängten. Die Aufgabenteilung der beiden Kaiser ergab, dass Mark Aurel faktisch das Reich regierte, während Lucius Verus bis zu seinem Tode die Durchführung wichtiger Militäroperationen oblag.

Innere Belastungen für das Römische Reich ergaben sich bereits in der Anfangsphase der Regierungszeit Mark Aurels aus einer verheerenden Tiberüberschwemmung und vor allem aus einer Pestepidemie (so genannte Antoninische Pest), die 166/167 von den aus dem Osten zurückkehrenden Truppen eingeschleppt worden war und nahezu das ganze Römische Reich und auch die dicht besiedelte Hauptstadt Rom heimsuchte.

Seinen philosophischen Überzeugungen entsprechend, konzentrierte Mark Aurel sein Regierungshandeln, solange ihm dies möglich war, auf die inneren Strukturen des Reiches. Das besondere Augenmerk galt dabei den Schwachen und Benachteiligten der römischen Gesellschaft, den Sklaven, Frauen und Kindern, deren Situation er zu erleichtern suchte. Mehr als die Hälfte der überlieferten Gesetzgebungsakte des „Philosophen auf dem Kaiserthron“ zielten auf Verbesserung der Rechtsstellung und Freiheitsfähigkeit dieser Bevölkerungsgruppen. In gleicher Richtung hat er auch als oberstes Rechtsprechungsorgan des Reiches gewirkt, ein Amt, das er mit mustergültiger Sorgfalt und beispielloser Hingabe ausgeübt hat. Die Anzahl der Gerichtstage pro Jahr wurde auf seine Anordnung erhöht, so dass schließlich 230 Tage für Verhandlungen und Schlichtungstermine vorgesehen waren. Als er 168 selber gegen die Germanen ins Feld zog – mit Lucius Verus zunächst noch, nach dessen Tod 169 aber ganz auf sich gestellt -, hat er seine richterliche Tätigkeit vor Ort fortgesetzt. Die Prozessbeteiligten mussten ggf. zur Verhandlung im Feldlager anreisen. Der Historiker Cassius Dio berichtet darüber:

„Sooft ihm der Krieg etwas freie Zeit ließ, sprach er Recht. Den Rednern ließ er die Wasseruhren [wie sie bei Gericht gebräuchlich waren] reichlich füllen, und er beschäftigte sich sehr ausführlich mit den einleitenden Untersuchungen und Vernehmungen, um ein allseits gerechtes Urteil zu fällen. So verwandte er oft bis zu elf oder zwölf Tage auf die Verhandlung eines einzigen Falles, obwohl er manchmal sogar nachts Sitzungen abhielt. Denn er war fleißig und widmete sich den Aufgaben seines Amtes mit der größten Sorgfalt. Nie sprach, schrieb oder tat er etwas, als ob es sich um etwas Unwichtiges handle, sondern verbrachte bisweilen ganze Tage über irgend einer winzigen Kleinigkeit, weil er glaubte, es stehe einem Kaiser nicht an, etwas nur obenhin zu tun. Er war nämlich davon überzeugt, daß schon das geringste Versehen ein schlechtes Licht auch auf all seine übrigen Handlungen werfen werde.“ (zitiert nach Birley 1977, S. 326f.)

Tiberüberschwemmung, Pestepidemie, Kriegskosten: Es war in einer äußerst bedrängten Lage, dass Mark Aurel sich auch in der Führung des Staatshaushalts zu bewähren hatte. Eine mit der Verminderung des Edelmetallgehalts der Münzen verbundene verdeckte Inflation war unter solchen Umständen wohl kaum vermeidbar. Ansonsten aber trug der Kaiser durch vorbildliche Zurückhaltung in der eigenen Lebensführung dazu bei, dass Ausgabenbegrenzungen etwa im Bereich der Zirkusspiele dem Volk vermittelbar waren. Auch zur Kriegsfinanzierung leistete das Kaiserhaus seinen Beitrag, indem eine Vielzahl wertvoller Gegenstände aus kaiserlichen Besitzständen auf dem Forum zur Versteigerung gebracht wurden. Der Historiker Cassius Dio (Senator unter Commodus; unter Severus Alexander Statthalter der Provinzen Africa, Dalmatien und Oberpannonien) zeigte sich besonders beeindruckt von Mark Aurels Auftreten gegenüber den im Felde siegreichen Soldaten, die als Siegprämie eine Sonderzahlung verlangten. Der Kaiser lehnte dies strikt ab und verwies darauf, dass jede solche Zahlung u.a. den Eltern und Verwandten der Legionäre abgepresst werden müsste.

Militärische Herausforderungen

Schon zur Regierungszeit des Antoninus Pius hatte der Partherkönig Vologaeses IV. wohl einen Krieg gegen Rom vorbereitet, um den römischen Einfluss in Armenien zurückzudrängen. Vielleicht haben ihn der Thronwechsel und das noch unerprobte Doppelkaisertum von Mark Aurel und Lucius Verus dann ermutigt, unverzüglich loszuschlagen. Als der römische Statthalter von Kappadokien eine Niederlage erlitt, wurde Lucius Verus mit einem Heer in den Osten entsandt. Verus, den noch vor der Einschiffung eine längere Erkrankung bei Canusium festhielt, gelangte erst Ende 162/Anfang 163 nach Antiochia am Orontes und widmete sich dort zunächst der Reorganisation des demoralisierten Heeres und der Koordination des Nachschubs. Wie Mark Aurel hatte er persönlich keinerlei militärische Erfahrung. Die operative Führung der römischen Gegenoffensive, die 163 begann, oblag daher hauptsächlich erfahrenen Offizieren wie dem aus Syrien stammenden Avidius Cassius. Die Römer drangen schließlich nach Armenien vor, wo der pro-römische Arsakidenprinz Sohaemus als König eingesetzt wurde. 164 begann die römische Hauptoffensive in Mesopotamien; die Osrhoene wurde besetzt, und schließlich fiel 165 die parthische Doppelhauptstadt Seleukia-Ktesiphon in römische Hand, wobei die Königsburg zerstört wurde. Römische Truppen drangen sogar bis nach Medien vor. Der Krieg konnte im Jahr darauf erfolgreich beendet werden, wobei Rom aufgrund der Pestepidemie (siehe oben) aber keinen größeren Gewinn aus dem Sieg ziehen konnte.

War bis zum Sieg über die Parther die Lage im Donau-Grenzraum zwar auch bereits angespannt, aber doch im Wesentlichen beherrschbar geblieben, so änderte sich dies 167/168, als in Pannonien gegen die einfallenden Langobarden und Obier eine erste Schlacht geschlagen werden musste. Dies geschah auch im Zeichen einer Schwächung durch die Pest, die die vom östlichen Kriegsschauplatz zurückgekehrten Legionäre eingeschleppt hatten. Der Statthalter von Oberpannonien trat danach in Verhandlungen mit den Germanen, erreichte aber nur eine vorübergehende Beruhigung der Lage mit Hilfe des Markomannenkönigs Ballomar. Denn bereits 169 drangen Ballomars Markomannen gemeinsam mit den Quaden bis über die Alpen nach Norditalien vor und zerstörten die Stadt Opitergium. Noch auf Ammianus Marcellinus, den großen Historiker der Spätantike, verfehlte der Einbruch der Germanen nicht seine Wirkung (vgl. Ammian 29,6,1). Aus späterer Perspektive konnten diese Ereignisse wie Vorboten der großen Völkerwanderung wirken.

Unterdessen hatten sich 168 auch Mark Aurel und Lucius Verus an der Donaufront eingefunden, um Truppeninspektionen durchzuführen und die Lage zu sondieren. Als Ergebnis wurde in der Folge eine spezifische Militärverwaltungszone mit großen Verteidigungsstützpunkten eingerichtet, die „praetentura Italiae et Alpium“. Das Hauptquartier befand sich zu dieser Zeit unweit östlich von Opitergium in Aquileia. Als auch hier die Pest sich ausbreitete, reisten die Imperatoren auf Anraten von Mark Aurels Leibarzt Galen nach Rom ab. Auf diesem Wege verstarb Lucius Verus Anfang 169, vermutlich infolge eines Schlaganfalls. Seine nun verwitwete Tochter Lucilla vermählte Mark Aurel auch gegen deren Widerstand mit Pompeianus, einem besonders fähigen Offizier syrischer Herkunft, den er für die Germanenkriege an sich binden wollte.

Die Datierung der militärischen Operationen im Zuge der Markomannenkriege steht unter dem Vorbehalt einer nicht sehr ergiebigen Quellenlage, deren Deutung eher auf – mehr oder minder große – Wahrscheinlichkeiten hinausläuft als auf gesichertes Wissen.

170 überrannten Germanen und Jazygen das strategisch exponierte Dakien und stießen anschließend bis nach Obermoesien vor. Wohl ebenfalls in dieser Zeit scheiterte eine Offensive unter Mark Aurel äußerst verlustreich: 20 000 Legionäre kamen dabei ums Leben. Auch zwei neu ausgehobene Legionen konnten zunächst nicht verhindern, dass die gesamte Donaufront bedenklich bröckelte; in anderen Teilen des Reiches kam es zu Aufständen und Räubereinfällen. Der Osten wurde zu einem großen Militärdistrikt zusammengefasst und Avidius Cassius unterstellt.

Szene aus den Markomannenkriegen: Mark Aurel begnadigt Germanenhäuptlinge

Nur mit bedeutenden Anstrengungen auch hinsichtlich der Kriegsfinanzierung (s.o.) und unter temporärer Ausweitung der Rekrutierungsbasis des Heeres z.B. auf Gladiatoren-Sklaven gelang es den Römern in der Folge, auch im germanischen Vorfeld jenseits der Donau wieder Fuß zu fassen, die Angreifer zurückzuschlagen und die verschiedenen germanischen Stämme je nach Einschätzung ihrer Zuverlässigkeit durch unterschiedlich bevorzugte Behandlung bei Vertragsschlüssen gegeneinander auszuspielen. In Teilen wurden sie nun auch als Hilfstruppen der Römer an den jeweils aktuellen Kriegsschauplätzen verwendet. Außerdem kam es zu allerdings wenig erfolgreichen Versuchen, begrenzte germanische Bevölkerungskontingente durch Ansiedlung innerhalb der Reichsgrenzen zu integrieren.

Die Lager im Grenzbereich, von denen aus Mark Aurel die militärischen Operationen leitete, wechselten mit den Erfordernissen der Situation. Als Noricum wieder vollständig in römischer Hand war, verlegte er sein Hauptquartier nach Carnuntum. Weitere Standquartiere befanden sich in Sirmium und Vindobona. Für mehrere im Zuge der Markomannenkriege an der Donau stationierte Legionen wurden neue Lager gegründet, so 179 Castra Regina, das heutige Regensburg.

In einer Offensive eroberten die Römer 172 die Region Moravia (Mähren), womit die ebenfalls feindlich gesonnenen Sarmaten von den Quaden abgeschnitten waren, und unterwarfen schließlich bis ins Jahr 174 auch die Markomannen und Quaden. Die Gefahr, die von den Iazygen ausgegegangen war, wurde gebannt, als Marcus von Sirmium aus gegen sie vorging.

Der wiederholte Hinweis in der Marcusbiographie der Historia Augusta, Mark Aurel habe jenseits der Donau die Einrichtung zweier neuer Provinzen, Marcomannia und Sarmatia, geplant, wird in der Forschung angesichts mangelnder Bestätigung aus anderen Quellen angezweifelt und kontrovers diskutiert. Einerseits hätten Gebirgszüge wie das Riesengebirge eine leichter zu verteidigende Grenze ergeben können, als es die Donau war; andererseits hätten Einrichtung und Ausbau zweier neuer Provinzen Ressourcen erfordert, die in der gegebenen, auf das Äußerste gespannten Lage kaum zur Verfügung standen. Sollte Mark Aurel sich aber tatsächlich mit solchen Absichten getragen haben, dann wurde er 175 durch den Usurpator Avidius Cassius und 180 durch den eigenen Tod an dem Versuch ihrer Verwirklichung gehindert.

Christenverfolgungen

In der Regierungszeit Mark Aurels kam es zu den härtesten Christenverfolgungen seit Nero. In den Jahren 166–168 – vermutlich im Zusammenhang mit der Pestepidemie – waren Christen zunächst in dem durch die Partherkriege in Mitleidenschaft gezogenen Ostteil des Römischen Reiches Opfer örtlichen Volkszorns, nicht jedoch einer staatlich gelenkten Initiative. Mark Aurel hielt gegenüber den Christen an der Linie fest, die seit Trajan galt: Sie sollten nicht behördlich belangt werden, solange sie auf öffentliche Bekenntnisse zu ihrem Glauben verzichteten. Im Privatleben konnten sie ihr Christentum demnach in der Regel ungestört praktizieren. Unter krisenhaft veränderten äußeren und inneren Bedingungen gewährleistete diese Regelung jedoch nicht überall die persönliche Sicherheit. So konnten z.B. Erlasse mit Aufforderungen an die Bevölkerung, die Staatsgötter angesichts der Pest durch Opfer zu versöhnen, zu Aversionen gegenüber den Christen führen, die solche Opfer aus Glaubensgründen verweigern mussten.

Weitere Christenverfolgungen fanden 177 in Gallien statt. Hierbei waren die bereits erwähnten angespannten Staatsfinanzen als mitursächlich anzusehen. Gladiatoren für die Veranstaltung von Zirkusspielen wurden zunehmend knapp und teuer, da sie teilweise zu Verstärkung der Legionen im Krieg gegen die Germanen verwendet wurden. So stiegen die Kosten für die Veranstaltung derartiger Spiele, die von den Amtsinhabern der städtischen Selbstverwaltungen in den Provinzen zu bestreiten waren, über das erträgliche Maß hinaus. Diesbezügliche Beschwerden aus Gallien dürften dazu geführt haben, dass Kaiser und Senat ein Dekret erließen, wonach zum Tode verurteilte Verbrecher künftig zu Billigpreisen als Gladiatoren in der Arena eingesetzt werden durften. In Lugdunum (Lyon) machten sich daraufhin Teile der Bevölkerung daran, Christen aufzuspüren und sie im Zusammenwirken mit den örtlichen Zuständigen aburteilen zu lassen, sofern sie ihrem Bekenntnis nicht abschworen. Auch eine fremdenfeindliche Komponente könnte zusätzlich bei diesen Vorgängen eine Rolle gespielt haben, denn unter den Märtyrern waren griechische Namen zahlreich vertreten. Der zuständige Prokurator sicherte die Verurteilung der bekennenden Christen durch eine Anfrage in Rom ab. Das kaiserliche Reskript verwies auf die seit Trajan gängige Regelung. Folglich erlitt die Todesstrafe, wer sich öffentlich zum Christentum bekannte.

Dass damit eine stattgefundene Treibjagd auf Christen als Billignachschub für Arenaspiele an ihr Ziel gelangte, dürfte Mark Aurel nicht bewusst gewesen sein. Nachdem die standhaften Christen in Lugdunum 177 der Sensationslüsternheit des Volkes in der Arena zum Opfer gefallen waren, sind weitere Christenverfolgungen in der Regierungszeit Mark Aurels jedenfalls nicht überliefert. Vielleicht hat er nach Kenntnisnahme des Geschehensablaufs entsprechende Vorkehrungen getroffen. (vgl. P. Keresztes in R. Klein (Hrsg.), Marc Aurel. Darmstadt 1979, S. 261–303)

Die Usurpation des Avidius Cassius und das Nachfolgeproblem

Im Jahre 175 erhob sich als Usurpator – eventuell ausgelöst durch das Gerücht, Mark Aurel sei gestorben – der syrische Statthalter Avidius Cassius. Angesichts des Übergewichts der Donaulegionen, bei denen er keine Anerkennung fand, war die Lage für Cassius von Anfang an wenig aussichtsreich. Zu einem Bürgerkrieg kam es aber gar nicht erst, da Cassius kurz darauf aus den eigenen Reihen ermordet wurde. Noch an der Donaugrenze ließ Mark Aurel seinen Sohn Commodus aus Rom kommen, schloss mit den Sarmaten Frieden und zog in den Osten des Reichs, um die Lage in den dortigen Provinzen nach dem Aufstand des Avidius Cassius zu beruhigen. Bei dieser Reise starb Mark Aurels Ehefrau Faustina im Alter von 46 Jahren. Ihr hat man Untreue gegenüber ihrem Gatten nachgesagt. Vielleicht im Wissen darum hatte Mark Aurel sie an die Donaufront kommen lassen und sie zur „Mutter des Feldlagers“ erhoben. Auch nach ihrem Tod hat er ihr ein ehrendes Andenken nicht verweigert, was ihn andererseits nicht hinderte, alsbald eine Konkubine zu erwählen. Die Rückreise führte den Kaiser über Athen, wo er für die vier großen, traditionsreichen Philosophenschulen (die Platonische Akademie, das Aristotelische Lykeion, die Stoa und den Epikureismus) je einen Lehrstuhl stiftete.

Am 23. Dezember des Jahres 176 feierte Mark Aurel zusammen mit seinem Sohn Commodus in Rom den Triumph über die Germanen und Sarmaten (siehe oben). Am 1. Januar 177 machte er ihn (der Zwillingsbruder Annius Verus war als Siebenjähriger verstorben) zum gleichberechtigten Mitkaiser. Es war das für alle Welt unübersehbare Signal: Commodus würde Mark Aurel nachfolgen. Das ist Marcus in der einschlägigen Literatur teilweise als gravierende Schwäche ausgelegt worden. Wäre es nicht gerade an ihm gewesen, die Tradition seiner Amtsvorgänger fortzusetzen und vermittels einer Adoption die Geschicke des Reiches in die bestmöglichen Hände zu übergeben? Hatte sich Commodus nicht schon in jungen Jahren durch unkalkulierbares, auf Genusssucht angelegtes Verhalten für Herrschaftsaufgaben disqualifiziert?

Solche Fragen könnte Mark Aurel sich tatsächlich als Erster gestellt – und letztlich mit sich selbst ausgemacht haben. Zweierlei macht seine Entscheidung erklärbar: Keiner der Adoptivkaiser vor ihm besaß einen leiblichen männlichen Erben, den er hätte zum Nachfolger machen können. Commodus′ Anspruch – er war mit dem Titel „Caesar“ bereits als Fünfjähriger zum Nachfolgeanwärter geworden – war daher durch die von den Amtsvorgängern Mark Aurels während des laufenden Jahrhunderts eingeübte Adoptionspraxis nicht grundsätzlich in Frage gestellt. Den endgültigen Ausschlag gegeben hat aber wohl – nach dem Gang der Ereignisse zu urteilen – der Usurpationsversuch des Avidius Cassius, der zeigte, dass die angeschlagene Gesundheit bzw. das Ableben des Kaisers (175 als Gerücht bereits gezielt gestreut) bei ungeregelter Nachfolgefrage zum Bürgerkrieg hätte führen können. Als verbindliche und möglichst unanfechtbare Lösung bot sich in der gegebenen Situation nur Commodus an.

Mark Aurel, der die problematischen Wesenszüge seines Sohnes registriert haben muss, blieb immerhin die Hoffnung, dass Commodus nach der Pubertät in seine Aufgaben hineinwachsen würde. Reisen und Feldzüge seines Vaters hatte er jedenfalls von Mitte des Jahres 175 an – und bis zu dessen Ende im März 180 – als bereits bestätigter Thronfolger zu begleiten.

Tod und Nachwirkung

Reiterstatue in Rom

Am 3. August 178 brachen Mark Aurel und Commodus zum zweiten Markomannenkrieg auf. Auf diesem Feldzug starb der Kaiser am 17. März 180, vermutlich in Vindobona, dem heutigen Wien (Tertullian nennt allerdings Sirmium als Sterbeort). Seine Asche wurde in Rom im Mausoleum Kaiser Hadrians, der späteren Engelsburg, beigesetzt. Ihm zur Ehren ließ der Senat von Rom eine Ehrensäule (Mark-Aurel-Säule) errichten. Diese ist auf der nach ihr benannten Piazza Colonna in Rom zu finden. Die bekannteste Darstellung Mark Aurels ist sein bronzenes Reiterstandbild, das seit der Renaissance auf dem von Michelangelo gestalteten Platz (Piazza del Campidoglio) des Kapitols in Rom aufgestellt ist (jetzt in Nachbildung, das Original im benachbarten Museum). Ein weiterer Abguss der Reiterstatue steht in Tulln an der Donau. Die Statue soll an die jahrhundertelange Anwesenheit der Römer an der Donaugrenze erinnern.

Das Bild, das Mark Aurel als Herrscher geboten hat, sowie seine überlieferten philosophischen Reflexionen haben ihm unter Zeitgenossen und Nachgeborenen vielfach Respekt und Bewunderung eingetragen, in breiten Bevölkerungskreisen des Römischen Reiches wie unter Aristokraten und Herrschern. Septimius Severus hat sich z.B. in seine Nachfolge gestellt, in der Spätantike Julian Apostata. Den Christen galt er – trotz der Christenverfolgungen in seiner Regierungszeit – als guter Kaiser. Von der Neuzeit bis in die Gegenwart haben sich bedeutende Persönlichkeiten als seine Anhänger bekannt, darunter politisch Verantwortliche wie der aufgeklärte preußische Monarch Friedrich II. oder der deutsche Altbundeskanzler Helmut Schmidt, aber auch z.B. russische Literaten wie Anton Tschechow oder Literaturnobelpreisträger Joseph Brodsky.

Seine eigene Sicht zur Frage des Nachruhms hat Mark Aurel in den Selbstbetrachtungen behandelt:

„Einst gebräuchliche Worte sind jetzt unverständliche Ausdrücke. So geht es auch mit den Namen ehemals hochgepriesener Männer wie Camillus, Kaeso, Volesus, Leonnatus, und in kurzer Zeit wird das auch mit einem Scipio und Cato, nachher mit Augustus und dann mit Hadrian und Antoninus der Fall sein. Alles vergeht und wird bald zum Märchen und sinkt rasch in völlige Vergessenheit…“ (IV, 33)

Literatur

Quellen

Neben den Selbstbetrachtungen (siehe unten):

• Historia Augusta, Vita des Marcus Aurelius, Teil 1 und Teil 2 (lateinischer Text und englische Übersetzung)
• Cassius Dio, Buch 71 und 72 (englische Übersetzung)
• Fronto, Epistulae
• Eusebius von Caesarea, Historia ecclesiastica, fünftes Buch

Eine detailliertere Darstellung der Quellensituation bietet Birley (Mark Aurel, 1977, S. 409ff.; bzw. Marcus Aurelius, 1987, S. 226ff.).

Die Selbstbetrachtungen

• F. C. Schneider (Übers.): Selbstbetrachtungen bei Project Gutenberg.
• Wilhelm Capelle (Übers.): Selbstbetrachtungen. Kröner: Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-520-00412-7.
• Rainer Nickel (Übers.): Wege zu sich selbst. Piper: München 2003, ISBN 3-492-23816-5.
• Albert Wittstock: Selbstbetrachtungen. Stuttgart 1979, ISBN 3-15-0011241-4

Es sei vor allem aber auf die englische Ausgabe mit Übersetzung und Kommentar von Farquharson hingewiesen:

• A.S.L. Farquharson: The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus. 2 Bde., Oxford 1944 (Zahlreiche Nachdrucke, auch ohne Originaltext und Kommentar.)

Sekundärliteratur

Historisch-biographische Literatur

• Anthony R. Birley: Mark Aurel. Kaiser und Philosoph. 2. durchgesehene und erweiterte Auflage. Beck, München 1977, ISBN 3-406-06760-3. Überarbeitete Ausgabe auf Englisch: Marcus Aurelius. A biography. Batsford, London 1987, ISBN 0-7134-5428-8. (Standardwerk)
• Richard P. Duncan-Jones: The impact of the Antonine plague. In: Journal of Roman Archaeology 9 (1996), S. 108–136.
• Pierre Grimal: Marc Aurèle. Paris 1991.
• Richard Klein (Hrsg.): Marc Aurel. Darmstadt 1979, ISBN 3-534-07802-2. (Wichtige Aufsatzsammlung)
• Klaus Rosen: Marc Aurel. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1997, ISBN 3-499-50539-8. (Knappe, aber nützliche Einführung.)
• Klaus Rosen: Die angebliche Samtherrschaft von Marc Aurel und Lucius Verus. Ein Beitrag der Historia Augusta zum Staatsrecht der Römischen Kaiserzeit. In: Historiae Augustae Colloquia, Nov.Ser. I, Macerata 1991, S. 271–285.
• Greg R. Stanton: Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus, and Commodus. 1962-1972. In: Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 2 (1975), S. 478–549. (Älterer Forschungsüberblick)
• Detlev von der Burg (Hrsg.): Marc Aurel. Der Reiter auf dem Kapitol. Hirmer, München 1999, ISBN 3-7774-8340-0. (Kunsthistorische Studie bezüglich der Reiterstatue.)

Sekundärliteratur zu den Selbstbetrachtungen

• A.E. Adrogans: Marc Aurel als Kompassnadel – Lebenskunst in der Weltgesellschaft. Norderstedt 2004, ISBN 3-8334-1703-X.
• Pierre Hadot: Die innere Burg. Anleitung zu einer Lektüre Marc Aurels. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-8218-0642-7. (Wichtiges Standardwerk)
• R.B. Rutherford: The meditations of Marcus Aurelius. A study. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1989 und Nachdrucke, ISBN 0-19-814755-4.

Erzählende (nichtwissenschaftliche) Literatur

• Ignaz Aurelius Fessler: Marc Aurel. Breslau 1790–92.
• Carl August Buchholz: Marc-Aurel. Berlin 1806.
• Alexander Giese: Wie ein Fremder im Vaterland. Ein Mark-Aurel-Roman. Zsolnay, Wien 1975, ISBN 3-552-02703-3.
• Gisbert Haefs: Roma. Der erste Tod des Mark Aurel. Heyne, München 2003, ISBN 3-453-86982-6.

Weblinks

 Wikiquote: Mark Aurel – Zitate

 Commons: Mark Aurel – Album mit Bildern, Videos und Audiodateien

• PND 118577468 (Vorlage veraltet, bitte Vorlage:Normdaten und/oder Vorlage:DNB-Portal verwenden!)
• {{{2}}}: Fachwissenschaftliche Kurzbiografie (englisch) aus De Imperatoribus Romanis (inkl. Literaturangaben).
• Biografie aus der Historia Augusta (englisch)
• Linksammlung und Literaturangaben
• Verschiedene Porträts Mark Aurels
• Weitere Romane über Mark Aurel

Vorlage:Gesprochene Wikipedia

Vorlage:Navigationsleiste Römische Kaiser

Quelle: http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mark_Aurel&oldid=15959294; Bearbeiter: http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mark_Aurel&action=history; Lizenz: CC BY-SA-3.0 [wiki]

ANCIENT HISTORY ENCYCLOPEDIA

hrsg. v. Jan van der Crabben u.a.

Antoninus Pius

by Donald L. Wasson
published on 25 June 2013

[URL: http://www.ancient.eu.com/Antoninus_Pius/]

When Roman Emperor Hadrian died on July 10, 138 CE, he left, as did his predecessors, an adopted son as his successor, Antoninus Pius (138 – 161 CE). Antoninus – whose last name means dutiful – was a just and compassionate man, well-liked and respected by the common people as well as those in government. For the next 23 years his reign (second only in length to Augustus) would be one of relative peace, assuring him a place among the Five Good Emperors.

In actuality Antoninus Pius was not Hadrian’s initial choice; he wasn’t even his second. In 136 CE, with Hadrian in failing health and on the verge of suicide, he realized that without sons of his own his only option was to adopt. He chose a consul, Lucius Ceionius Commodus, as his heir. The newly adopted Lucius was immediately dispatched to Pannonia to serve as governor but unfortunately for both men, Lucius died of tuberculosis in January of 138 CE. Hadrian was at a crossroad. While he wanted the much younger Marcus Aurelius (he was only 16) to succeed him, the dying emperor realized Marcus was far too young and chose instead the highly valued and elderly Antoninus who was thought to be “safe” until the young Marcus matured.

To everyone’s surprise not only did Antoninus live a lot longer than anyone expected, but he also proved to be a capable, if not dedicated, emperor. In the words of the historian Cassius Dio, “Antoninus is said to have been of an enquiring mind and not to have held aloof from careful investigation of even small and commonplace matters.” He added, “Antoninus is admitted by all to have been noble and good, neither oppressive to the Christians nor severe to any of his other subjects…”

Although his family originally came from southern Gaul, Antoninus Pius was born in Lanuvium, 20 miles south of Rome, on September 19, 86 CE as Titus Aurelius Fulvus Boinus Arrius Antoninus, a name he shared with his father. His mother was Arria Fadilla, daughter of two-time consul Arrius Antoninus. Both his father and paternal grandfather had served as consuls. The young Antoninus was raised on a large estate at Lorium, first by his paternal grandfather and later by his maternal grandfather. The property he inherited – where he would later build a palace – made him extremely rich and even though he had no military experience, he ably served as consul, praetor, and quaestor, as well as governor in Asia Minor from 135 to 136 CE.

Little information about Antoninus and his time in power has survived. Most of what is known comes from his biographer Julius Capitolinus who wrote, “

In personal appearance he was strikingly handsome, in natural talents brilliant, in temperament kindly; he was aristocratic in countenance and calm in nature, a singularly gifted speaker and an elegant scholar, conspicuously thrifty, a conscientious landholder, gentle, generous, and mindful of other’s rights. He possessed all these qualities, moreover, in the proper mean and without ostentation, and, in fine, was praiseworthy in every way and, in the minds of all good men.

On January 24, 138 CE Emperor Hadrian announced that he intended to adopt the 51 year old Antoninus as his son and heir, and on February 28, 138 CE the adoption took place. The adoption, however, came with a “condition.”. Capitolinus wrote,

The manner of his adoption, they say, was somewhat thus: At any rate, when Hadrian announced a desire to adopt him, he was given time for deciding whether he wanted to be adopted. This condition was attached to his adoption, that as Hadrian took Antoninus as his son, so he in turn should take Marcus Antoninus, his wife’s nephew, and Lucius Verus.

This dual ceremony allowed Marcus to be groomed as Antoninus’s successor. Later, Marcus’s claim to the throne became even more secure when he married Antoninus’s daughter and only surviving child, Faustina the Younger.

On July 10, 138 CE the even-tempered Antoninus Pius assumed the reins of the Roman Empire with the assumption that he would simply carry on the policies of Hadrian. Although the reason behind his last name varies, “Pius” was a name given to him by the Senate supposedly because of his loyalty to the memory of Hadrian. One of his first priorities was to have his “father” Hadrian deified, something the Senate reluctantly approved. While there were minor disturbances in Mauretania, Germany, and Egypt, he trusted his commanders to handle the situation and he never left the safety of Rome (some believe it was too expensive to leave), ruling instead from the city or his estate.

As expected he carried on many of Hadrian’s policies; however, Antoninus still left his imprint on the city and empire. He insisted that the administration of the law be fair and impartial, even freeing many of the men the former emperor had imprisoned (he convinced the Senate that this had been Hadrian’s wish). Trade and commerce flourished and his strict control of finances allowed for a state surplus by the time of his death. His one extravagance was the celebration of the 900th anniversary of Rome. He completed many of Hadrian’s construction projects and he built monuments which included the Temple of the Deified Hadrian and, in memory of his wife, the Temple of the Deified Faustina. He also repaired many public buildings, including the decaying Colosseum. In Scotland, Hadrian’s Wall was abandoned and a new one, the Antonine Wall, was built 40 miles to the north from the Firth of Clyde to the Firth of Forth – this wall would later be abandoned and the Roman’s would retreat to Hadrian’s Wall. His biographer wrote, “He gave largess to the people, and, in addition, a donation to the soldiers….Besides all this, he helped many communities to erect new buildings and to restore the old. “

On March 9, 161 CE Antonius died of a fever, supposedly after a meal of Alpine cheese. His reign would be remembered as one of relative peace. He was laid to rest in Hadrian’s Mausoleum next to his wife and sons. The reins of power were handed over to his adopted sons Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.

Written by Donald L. Wasson, published on 25 June 2013 under the following license: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Bibliography

• Boak, Arthur and Sinnegen, William. A History of Rome to AD 565. MacMillian and Co., 1995.
• Capitolinus, Julius. The Life of Antoninus Pius.
• Cassius Dio. Roman History.
• Hornblower, Simon ed.. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 1996.
• Potter, David. The Emperors of Rome. Metro Books, 2007.
• Scarre, Chris. Chronicles of the Roman Emperors. Thames and Hudson, 1995.

DE IMPERATORIBUS ROMANIS

An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Rulers

DIR Atlas

Hadrian (117-138 A.D.)

Herbert W. Benario, Emory University

Abb.: http://www.luc.edu/roman-emperors/trjan-s1.jpe

Introduction and Sources

„During a happy period of more than fourscore years, the public administrationwas conducted by the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines. It is the design of this and of the two succeeding chaptersto describe the prosperous condition of their empire, and afterwards, fromthe death of Marcus Antoninus, to deduce the most important circumstancesof its decline and fall, a revolution which will ever be remembered andis still felt by the nations of the earth.“

So Edward Gibbon concluded the first paragraph of his massive TheDecline and Fall of the Roman Empire, referring to a period which healso styled the happiest of mankind’s history. Hadrian was the centralfigure of these „five good emperors,“ the one most responsible for changingthe character and nature of the empire. He was also one of the most remarkableand talented individuals Rome ever produced.

The sources for a study of Hadrian are varied. There is no major historianfor his reign, such as Tacitus or Livy. The chief literary sources arethe biography in the Historia Augusta, the first surviving lifein a series intended to continue Suetonius‘ Lives of the Caesars.[[1]]Debate about this collection of imperial biographies has been heated andcontentious for more than a century. The most convincing view is that whichsees the whole as the work of a single author writing in the last yearsof the fourth century. The information offered ranges from the preciselyaccurate to the most wildly imaginative.[[2]]

Cassius Dio, who wrote in the decade of the 230s, produced a long historyof the empire which has survived, for the Hadrianic period, only in anabbreviated version.[[3]] Fourth century historians,such as Aurelius Victor and Eutropius, occasionally furnish bits of information.Contemporaries or near-contemporaries of Hadrian, such as Arrian, Fronto,Pausanias, and Plutarch, are also useful. Papyri, inscriptions, coins,and legal writings are extremely important. Archaeology in all its aspectscontributes mightily to any attempt to probe the character of a man andemperor whose personality and thoughts defy close analysis and understanding.

Early Life and Career

Hadrian was born on January 24, 76. Where he saw the light of day was,even in antiquity, matter for debate. Italica, in Hispania Baetica, wasthe birthplace of Trajan and was also consideredthat of Hadrian. But the HA reports that he was born in Rome, andthat seems the more likely choice, since it is the more unexpected. Theactual place of one’s birth was, however, unimportant, since it was one’spatriawhich was crucial. Hadrian’s ancestors had come to Spain generations before,from the town of Hadria in Picenum, at the end of the Second Punic War.Italica’s tribus, to which Hadrian belonged, was the Sergia.His father, P. Aelius Afer, had reached the praetorship by the time ofhis death in 85/86, his mother, Domitia Paulina, came from a distinguishedfamily of Gades, one of the wealthiest cities in the empire. His sisterPaulina married Servianus, who played a significant role in Hadrian’s career.Trajanwas the father’s cousin; when Afer died, Trajanand P. Acilius Attianus, likewise of Italica, became Hadrian’s guardians.[[4]]

At the age of about ten, Hadrian went to Italica for the first time(or returned, if he had been there earlier in his childhood), where heremained for only a brief time. He then returned to the capital and soonbegan a rapid rise through the cursus honorum; he was a militarytribune of three different legions in consecutive years, a series of appointmentswhich clearly marked him for a military career, and reached the consulateas a suffect at the age of 32, the earliest possible under the principate.At Trajan’s death, he was legate of theprovince of Syria, with responsibility for the security of the east inthe aftermath of Trajan’s Parthian War.

His career as a privatus follows:

decemvir stlitibus iudicandis
sevir turmae equitum Romanorum
praefectus urbi feriarum Latinarum
trib. militum legionis II Adiutricis Piae Fidelis (95, in Pannoniainferior)
trib. militum legionis V Macedonicae (96, in Moesia inferior)
trib. militum legionis XXII Primigeniae Piae Fidelis (97, inGermania superior)
quaestor (101)
ab actis senatus
tribunus plebis (105)
praetor (106)
legatus legionis I Minerviae Piae Fidelis (106, in Germaniainferior)
legatus Augusti pro praetore Pannoniae inferioris (107)
consul suffectus (108)
septemvir epulonum (before 112)
sodalis Augustalis (before 112)
archon Athenis (112/13)
legatus Syriae (117)

(Some of these dates are less than secure; important for much of thisinformation is the Athens inscription [Smallwood 109]).

Relationship to Trajan, Marriage, and Adoption

Hadrian’s only male relative after the death of his father was M.Ulpius Traianus, his father’s cousin, hence his own first cousinonce removed. Trajan and his wife, PompeiaPlotina, had no children, and were surrogate parents to the child Hadrian.Trajan’s influence in government was steadily increasing, both throughhis own merits and because of his father’s great services to Vespasianin the civil wars and afterwards.[[5]] WhenTrajanwas adopted by Nerva and designated successorin late 97, Hadrian carried the congratulations of the Moesian legionsto him along the Rhine, and was kept there by Trajanto serve in a German legion. In 100, largely at the instance of Plotina, Hadrianmarried Trajan’s grand-niece Vibia Sabina,ten years his junior. This marriage was not a happy one, although it endureduntil her death in 136 or 137. There were no children, and it was reportedthat Sabina performed an abortion upon herself in order not to produceanother monster.[[6]] In spite of marital unhappiness,the union was crucial for Hadrian, because it linked him even more closelywith the emperor’s family. He got along very well with his mother-in-lawMatidia and with the empress, whose favor enhanced his career.

In mid-summer 117, when Trajan was returningfrom his Parthian campaigns, he fell ill while at Selinus in Cilicia anddied on August 8. The following day his adoption of Hadrian was announcedby Plotina and Attianus, the praetorian prefect who had earlier been Hadrian’sguardian, with some question whether Trajanhad indeed performed the act or whether it was posthumous, thanks to hiswidow. On August 11, which he considered his dies imperii, the armyof Syria hailed its legate, Hadrian, as emperor, which made the senate’sformal acceptance an almost meaningless event. This was an example of thehistorian Tacitus‘ famous dictum that an emperor could be made elsewherethan at Rome.[[7]]

Succession and the Affair of the Four Consulars

Hadrian chose as his official title Imperator Caesar Traianus HadrianusAugustus (for much of the decade of the 120s, he was simply known asHadrianus Augustus). He must then have proceeded to Selinus at once fromAntioch, to catch up with Attianus, Plotina, and Matidia. He then returnedto his province no later than September and stayed there at least intothe new year, consolidating his administration. He began the year as cos.II; whether he had been so designated by Trajanis unknown. On January 3, 118, the Arval Brethren met in Rome to offervows for the well-being of the emperor, which shows that he was not inthe capital. In June or July they sacrificed because of the arrival ofthe emperor who is present at the ceremony. He therefore may have takenas much as eleven months from his accession to return to Rome. He saw tothe deification of his predecessor and celebrated games in honor of theconsecration. Trajan’s ashes were placedin the base of his column, by special dispensation, since burials wereprohibited within the pomerium.

Anticipation of his arrival had been overshadowed by the execution offour men of great importance, who had all held consulates and commands.This action had been ordered by the senate, perhaps at the instigationof the praetorian prefect Attianus. Hadrian always disclaimed responsibiltybut his relations with the senate were irrevocably damaged, never reallyto improve until his death, when the senate hoped to have posthumous revenge.The four men were Cornelius Palma (cos. II 109), who had been withTrajanin the east and had been governor of Syria, Avidius Nigrinus (cos.110), governor of Dacia, Publilius Celsus (cos. II 113), and LusiusQuietus, a Moorish chieftain (cos. 117), governor of Judaea andone of Trajan’s chief generals. Personalenmity toward Hadrian certainly existed, perhaps because of Hadrian’s moveaway from Trajan’s policy of expansion,perhaps because of jealousy that Hadrian had been preferred for the succession.Be that as it may, they were all Trajan’smen,and their elimination certainly made Hadrian’s course easier. But the odiumthereby raised caused him dismay until the end of his days.[[8]]He was cos. III in 119, which proved to be the last consulship heheld. He thereby showed himself to be different from many of predecessors:Augustus held 13, Vespasian 9, Titus8, Domitian 17, Trajan 6. He was similarly sparing in his acceptance of other titles; he becamepaterpatriae only in 128.

Foreign policy, wars, and travel

In two important passages, Cassius Dio sets the tone for this section:

„Once, when a woman made a request of him as he passed by on a journey,he at first said to her, ‚I haven’t time,‘ but afterwards, when she criedout, ‚Cease, then, being emperor,‘ he turned about and granted her a hearing.“(69.6.3)

„Hadrian travelled through one province after another, visiting thevarious regions and cities and inspecting all the garrisons and forts.Some of these he removed to more desirable places, some he abolished, andhe also established some new ones. He personally viewed and investigatedabsolutely everything, not merely the usual appurtenances of camps, suchas weapons, engines, trenches, ramparts and palisades, but also the privateaffairs of every one, both of the men serving in the ranks and of the officersthemselves, – their lives, their quarters and their habits, – and he reformedand corrected in many cases practices and arrangements for living thathad become too luxurious. He drilled the men for every kind of battle,honouring some and reproving others, and he taught them all what shouldbe done. And in order that they should be benefited by observing him, heeverywhere led a rigorous life and either walked or rode on horseback onall occasions, never once at this period setting foot in either a chariotor a four-wheeled vehicle. He covered his head neither in hot weather norin cold, but alike amid German snows and under scorching Egyptian sunshe went about with his head bare. In fine, both by his example and by hisprecepts he so trained and disciplined the whole military force throughoutthe entire empire that even to-day the methods then introduced by him arethe soldiers‘ law of campaigning.“ (69.9.1-4; both passages in the translation of E. Cary in the Loeb edition)

These views of Hadrian stem from an historian who lived a century afterthe emperor’s reign. He appears as a conscientious administrator, an inveteratetraveler, and a general deeply concerned for the well-being of his armies,and thus of the empire. There was generally peace throughout its lands,although his principate was not entirely peaceful.

First of all, he had to quash the Jewish uprising which had begun underTrajanand spread throughout the diaspora. Then there were disturbances in Mauretania,Dacia, and in northern Britain. Late in his reign, after deciding to resettlethe site of Jerusalem as the city of Aelia Capitolina and build a templeto Jupiter on the site of the Jewish temple, another uprising occurred,more bitter still than its recent predecessor.

Hadrian’s goal as emperor was to establish natural or man-made boundariesfor the empire. He had realized that its extent had severely strained theempire’s capacity to maintain and protect it. Consolidation was his policy,not expansion, and this brought him enmity in the early years, when Trajan’seastern conquests were abandoned (a process already begun by Trajan)and withdrawal from Dacia was contemplated.

Hadrian’s own military experience was extensive. He had served in provincesin the east, along the Danube, and along the Rhine. Soon after his arrivalin Rome, he began the lengthy journeys which took him to almost every province.He was absent from Italy from 121 to 125, from 128 to 132, and from 134to 136. He spent more than half his reign traveling; he displayed a Wanderlustunlike that of any of his predecessors, and sharply contrasting with thepractice of his successor, who never left Italy.

Evidence for his precise routes and his goals is often entirely absent.One must frequently infer from what is known, and most lists differ insome details. The following is exemplary:

121 Gallia
Germania superior
Raetia
Noricum
Germania superior
122 Germania inferior
Britannia (where he began the construction of the
Wall which bears his name)
Gallia
Gallia Narbonensis (Nemausus)
Hispania (Tarraco)
123 Mauretania (?)
Africa (?)
Libya
Cyrene
Crete
Syria
The Euphrates (Melitene)
Pontus
Bithynia
Asia
124 Thrace
Moesia
Dacia
Pannonia
Achaia
Athens
125 Achaea
Sicily
Rome
128 Africa
Rome
Athens
129 Asia
Pamphylia
Phrygia
Pisidia
Cilicia
Syria
Commagene (Samosata)
Cappadocia
Pontus
Syria (Antioch)
130 Judaea
Arabia
Egypt (Nile trip; death of Antinous; Alexandria)
131 Libyan desert
Syria
Asia
Athens
132 Rome
134 Syria
Judaea
Egypt (?)
Syria (Antioch)
135 Syria
136 Rome

His stay in the East these last years was necessitated by the JewishWar. His recurrent visits to Athens stemmed from his devotion to Greekculture and the city itself, which had elected him archon while he wasstill a private citizen (112). He much preferred the eastern provinces,the Greek lands, to the western ones. After 128/9, he was hailed as Olympios,after 132 as Panhellenios, and also as Panionios. Otherwise,his travels were intended to gain intimate knowledge of people and provinces,of the military in all its aspects, and to help produce a better and securerlife for almost all his subjects.

Domestic policy and legal activity

Hadrian was so little in Italy, compared with his time abroad, thathis governmental policies at home play a lesser role in consideration ofhis entire principate. Yet they have significance, because they displaythe same tendency toward order and consolidation as his external policies.When he arrived in Rome in July 118 to a hostile reception on the partof the senate, because of the death of the four consulars, he devoted attentionto matters of significance to the people. He pursued the honors due Trajan,their favorite, examined the financial ledgers of the empire and discoveredthat there was an enormous sum of uncollectable debts, some 900,000,000sesterces. He determined to remove these from the accounts and begin hisreign with a clean slate. Consequently the records of these debts werepublicly burned, an event which, obviously, gained him public favor.[[9]]It was represented in the relief of the plutei Traiani, presentlydisplayed in the Senate house in the Forum.[[10]]He also continued and expanded the practice of the alimenta, wherebystate money was lent to individuals who paid interest to their local communities.This money supported the local economy and helped maintain orphans.[[11]]He also ensured that the grain supply upon which Rome depended became moresecure with his dramatic building program in Ostia.[[12]]

The most significant legal achievement was the codification of the praetorianand aedilician edicts. This task was assigned to Salvius Julianus, whoproduced one of the glories of Roman legal science.

Underscoring the importance of Hadrian’s work, Kunkel in his magisterialsurvey of Roman law indicates, „Edicts were magistral proclamations whosecontent and scope might be very diverse. . . . At least from the late Republiconwards litigants could, vis-à-vis a magistrate, rely onthe contents of the edicts as confidently as on a statute, for magistrateswere by lex Cornelia of 67 B.C. strictly bound by their edicts.“[[13]]

These edicts, covering centuries, Julianus brought together into a straightforwardand modern document, which became the basis of subsequent praetorian andaedilician activity in the field of law. The Edict has been lost, but manyexcerpts made by commentators upon it have survived in Justinian’s Code.[[14]]

Many letters and rescripts of Hadrian have survived, which, in theirvariety, illustrate the almost infinite range of matters which were referredto the emperor. Two important ones may be exemplary. In 121, at the requestof Plotina, who was deeply interested in the Epicurean School at Athens,he permits the presidency of the school to be assumed by someone who isnot a Roman citizen, thereby increasing the pool of potential candidatessubstantially.[[15]] Hadrian’s rescript toMinicius Fundanus is crucial for our understanding of the development ofRome’s relations with the Christians. He essentially reiterates Trajan’sresponse to Pliny (Ep. 10.97). Minicius was governor of Asia in124/5. Hadrian’s communication replied to a question put to him by Minicius’predecessor, Serennius Granianus.[[16]]

Literary and artistic achievements

Hadrian was a man of extraordinary talents, certainly one of the mostgifted that Rome ever produced. He became a fine public speaker, he wasa student of philosophy and other subjects, who could hold his own withthe luminaries in their fields, he wrote both an autobiography and poetry,and he was a superb architect. It was in this last area that he left hisgreatest mark, with several of the empire’s most extraordinary buildingsand complexes stemming from his fertile mind. The anonymous author of theHistoriaAugusta described Hadrian as Fuit enim poematum et litterarum nimiumstudiosissimus. Arithmeticae, geometriae, picturae peritissimus.[[17]]

He rebuilt Agrippa’s Pantheon into the remarkable building that survivestoday, reconstructing the accustomed temple facade, with columns and pediment,but attaching it to a drum which was surmounted by a coffered dome. Thelatter was pierced by an oculus nine meters in diameter, which wasthe main source of illumination. Height and diameter were identical, 43.3meters. The dome remained the largest in the world until the twentiethcentury. As was his custom, he replaced the original inscription of Agrippaon the architrave; seldom did he put his own name on a monument.[[18]]
To complete Trajan’s Forum, which hadbeen planned by Apollodorus on a tremendous scale, he added a large templededicated to the deified Trajan and Plotina.He thereby made this forum more similar to its four imperial predecessors,each of which had a temple as its focus.[[19]]

On April 21, 121, the dies natalis of the city of Rome, Hadrianbegan construction of a temple unique in design and larger than any otherever built by the Romans. Its length of more than 100 meters made it theonly Roman addition to the short list of temples built by the Greeks whichwere at least that long. Even more extraordinary was the interior, withina fully peripteral colonnade. There were two cellae, back to back, withan apse at the end in which were placed the statues of the goddesses Venusand Roma, gigantic statues which, Apollodorus is said to have sneered,would bang their heads if they got up.[[20]]The temple dominated the east end of the Roman forum, built on the heightsof the Velia, overwhelming Titus‘ Arch andfacing the Amphitheatrum Flavium. He thereby linked his own achievementsas conqueror of the Jews and great builder with his Flavian predecessors.Unlike Vespasian and Trajan,who built new fora which bore their names, Hadrian was more interestedin individual monuments, the novelty and magnitude of which would keephis name alive.[[21]] Late in life, he beganconstruction of a mausoleum, larger than that of Augustus, on the otherside of the Tiber and down river from it. It was approached by a new bridgeacross the river, the Pons Aelius. The mausoleum had not been completedat the time of his death.[[22]]His most imaginative,nay stupendous, architectural achievement was his villa at Tibur, the modernTivoli, some 30 kilometers ENE of Rome, in the plain at the foot of theSabine Hills. It covered some 700 acres and contained about 100 buildings,some of which were among the most daring ever attempted in antiquity. HereHadrian reconstructed, so to speak, many of the places which he had visitedin his travels, such as the Canopus of Alexandria and the vale of Tempe.[[23]]

He also left his mark on almost every city and province to which hecame. He paid particular attention to Athens, where he completed the greattemple of Olympian Zeus, some six centuries after construction had begun,and made it the centerpiece of a new district of the city.

Hadrian’s relationship with philosophers and other scholars was generallyfractious. He often scorned their achievements while showing his own superiority.An anecdote about an argument which he had with the eminent philosopherand sophist Favorinus revealed the inequity of such disagreement. AlthoughFavorinus was correct, he gave way to Hadrian, and when rebuked by friends,replied, „You advise me badly, friends, since you do not permit me to believethat he who commands thirty legions is the most learned of all.“[[24]]

Hadrian’s literary taste inclined toward the archaic and the odd. Hepreferred Cato to Cicero, Ennius to Vergil, Coelius Antipater to Sallust,and disapproved of Homer and Plato as well. Indeed, the epic writer Antimachusof Colophon supplanted Homer in Hadrian’s estimation.[[25]]The biographer Suetonius held office under Hadrian but was discharged in122 for disrespect to the empress.[[26]] Thehistorian Tacitus, who may have lived into Hadrian’s reign, seems to havefound no favor with the emperor.

His best known literary work is the short poem which he is said to havecomposed shortly before his death. These five lines have caused commentatorsmuch interpretative woe.

animula vagula blandula
hospes comesque corporis
quae nunc abibis in loca
pallidula rigida nudula
nec ut soles dabis iocos! (25.9)

„Little soul, wandering and pale, guest and companion of my body, youwho will now go off to places pale, stiff, and barren, nor will you makejokes as has been your wont.“[[27]]

Another four lines of verse are preserved by the HA, part ofan exchange with the poet Florus. [[28]] Mentionis also made of his autobiography, which he had published under someoneelse’s name.[[29]]

Antinous

Probably the aspect of Hadrian’s life which is most widely known ishis relationship with the handsome youth Antinous. He was a Bithynian,born about 110, whom Hadrian met when the lad was in his mid-teens. Hejoined Hadrian’s entourage and was with him in Egypt in the fall of 130.During the course of the emperor’s Nile cruise, Antinous drowned. The reason(or reasons) were not known. Conjecture of course abounded. The HAsuggests that Antinous offered himself to save Hadrian’s life and thatthere was a homosexual relationship between them. Tradition also reportedthat Antinous committed suicide because an oracle had stated that, if hedid so, the remaining years of life that he could expect would be transferredto the emperor. There is even the unsensational possibility that the childlessemperor, whose relationship with his wife was at best cool, looked uponthe attractive young man as the son whom he had never had. Whatever thefacts, Hadrian’s grief was extravagant, and he caused the youth to be worshippedas a god throughout the empire and cities in his honor were establishedin many places. An Antinoopolis rose along the Nile near the spot wherehe drowned. Many statues of Antinous have survived, which reveal his fleshyand attractive appearance.[[30]]

End of life and problems of succession

When Hadrian returned to Rome in 136 from the east with its great responsibilitiesof the Jewish War, his health had deteriorated markedly. He was now 60years old, lonely and despondent. The empress Sabina had died, Antinouswas gone, few remained to whom he felt close. He therefore began to contemplatea successor, in order to avoid a situation such as had occurred beforehis own accession. Then, he was the obvious, indeed the only sensible choice;now, there was no one who, by military distinction or close relationshipwith him, would stand out. His choice, L. Ceionius Commodus, was surprising,although he was cos. ord. when adopted. Nothing particularly recommendedhim other than powerful political connections. His health was bad and hehad no military experience, his career having been entirely in the civilianarena. Some scholars have suggested that he was Hadrian’s bastard son,but that need not be believed. Nonetheless, his only recommendation washis good looks; his life was frivolous, his tastes luxurious. Hadrian’schoice seems to have been an aberration of judgment.

Commodus died on the first day of the year 138. Hadrian’s next choice,a much happier one, was T. Aurelius Fulvius BoioniusArrius Antoninus known to history as AntoninusPius. The scion of a distinguished consular family, he had beenborn near Rome in 86, although his patria was Nemausus in GalliaNarbonensis. Consul in 120, at an early age, he soon thereafter servedas one of the four consulares who had jurisdiction of Italy.[[31]]He reached the acme of a senatorial career with his governorship of Asiaabout 134/5. He was one of the most distinguished men of the age.

Hadrian caused Antoninus to adopt twoyoung men, who were intended to succeed him in the fullness of years. Onewas the seven-year-old son of Commodus, now named LuciusAelius Aurelius Commodus, the later LuciusVerus. The other was the seventeen year old MarcusAnnius Verus, now Marcus Aelius AureliusVerus, the later Marcus Aurelius.Upon Antoninus‘ death in 161, they succeededas co-emperors; Hadrian’s foresight was thus rewarded.

Hadrian was at an imperial villa at Baiae, on the Bay of Naples, whenhe died on July 10, 138. The senate now felt it could repay the emperorfor the wrongs done it from the beginning of his reign and undertook tocondemn his memory, in other words, damnatio memoriae. But Antoninusfought against this condemnation of his adoptive father and gained deificationinstead. It is generally thought that it was for this action that he receivedthe name of Pius.[[32]]

Hadrian’s ashes were placed in his mausoleum and he received the customaryhonors of having been recognized as a divus, which above all recognizedthat he had ruled constitutionally. A great temple in the Campus Martiuswas built to his memory in the early 140s, now called the Hadrianeum, oneof the largest in Rome. A substantial part survives. The tall stylobatewas decorated with alternating reliefs of provinces and victories. In alllikelihood, there was a relief of each of the 36 provinces which existedat the time of Hadrian’s death.[[33]]

Reputation

Hadrian died invisus omnibus, according to the author of theVita.[[34]]But his deification placed him in the list of „good“ emperors, a worthysuccessor to the optimus princeps Trajan.Hadrian played a significant role both in developing the foreign policiesof the empire and in its continuing centralization in administration. Fewwould disagree that he was one of the most remarkable men Rome ever produced,and that the empire was fortunate to have him as its head. When AeliusAristides delivered his oration To Rome in 143, he had Hadrian’sempire in mind when he said,
„But there is that which very decidedly deserves as much attention andadmiration now as all the rest together. I mean your magnificent citizenshipwith its grand conception, because there is nothing like it in the recordsof all mankind. Dividing into two groups all those in your empire – andwith this word I have indicated the entire civilized world – you have everywhereappointed to your citizenship, or even to kinship with you, the betterpart of the world’s talent, courage, and leadership, while the rest yourecognizedas a league under your hegemony. Neither sea nor intervening continentare bars to citizenship, nor are Asia and Europe divided in their treatmenthere. In your empire all paths are open to all. No one worthy of rule ortrust remains an alien, but a civil community of the World has been establishedas a Free Republic under one, the best, ruler and teacher of order; andall come together as into a common civic center, in order to receive eachman his due.[[35]]

That being the case, it seems somewhat odd that he is best known tomost people, not from Gibbon’s narrative nor from any specific scholarlytreatment, but from a work of fiction. This is the quite splendid Memoirsof Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar, which became a best-seller abouthalf a century ago. She presents a Hadrian as he might have been, and,although she commands a wide range of source material, the reader mustalways be alert to the fact that this Hadrian is not necessarily the historicalHadrian.[[36]]

Scholarly work on the emperor, above all biographies, has been variedin quality. Much the best, as the most recent, is by A.R. Birley, who presentsall that is known but underscores how much is conjecture, nay even guesswork.We still do not really know the man. An enigma he was to many while alive,and so he remains for us. Semper in omnibus varius; omnium curiositatumexplorator; varius multiplex multiformis: these are descriptions ofhim from antiquity.[[37]] They are still validmore than 1900 years after the emperor’s death.
Appendix: Historians and their Craft: TheEvolution of the Historical Hadrian by Andrew Hill

Bibliography

Bardon, H., Les Empereurs et les Lettres Latines d’Auguste àHadrien (Paris, 1968²)
Benario, H.W., A Commentary on the Vita Hadriani in the HistoriaAugusta (Chico, CA, 1980)
Birley, A.R., Lives of the Later Caesars (Harmondsworth, 1976)
________., Hadrian, The Restless Emperor (London, 1997)
Boatwright, M.T., Hadrian and the City of Rome (Princeton, 1987)
Bowersock, G.W., Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire (Oxford,1969)
Braund, D., Rome and the Friendly King: The Character of theClient Kingship (London, 1984)
Chevallier, R., and R. Poignault, L’Empereur Hadrien (Paris,1998)
Clark, E., Rome and a Villa (Garden City, NY, 1952) 141-94
Crook, J.A., Consilium Principis. Imperial Councils and Counsellorsfrom Augustus to Diocletain (Cambridge, 1955)
de Serviez, J.R., tr. B. Molesworth, The Roman Empresses (London,1752; New York, 1913) II 1-20
Eck, W., „Hadrianus,“ in Der Neue Pauly 5 (1998) cols. 59-64
Fein, S., Die Beziehungen der Kaiser Trajan und Hadrian zu den litterati(Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1994)
Garzetti, A., From Tiberius to the Antonines (translated by J.R.Foster, London, 1974)
Gibbon, E., The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1,(London, 1776)
Halfmann, H., Itinera principum (Stuttgart 1986)
Hammond, M., The Antonine Monarchy (Rome, 1959)
Lambert, R., Beloved and God. The Story of Hadrian and Antinous(New York, 1984)
Levi, M.A., Adriano Augusto. Studi e ricerche (Rome, 1993)
________. Adriano. Un Ventennio di Cambiamento (Milan,1994)
Macdonald, W.L., The Pantheon (Cambridge, MA, 1976)
Mattern, S.P., Rome and the Enemy. Imperial Strategy in the Principate(Berkeley, 1999)
Millar, F., A Study of Cassius Dio (Oxford, 1964)
________., The Emperor in the Roman World (Ithaca, NY, 1977)
Nash, E., Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome, two volumes (London,1961-62)
Perowne, S., Hadrian (London, 1960)
Smallwood, E.M., Documents Illustrating the Principates of NervaTrajan and Hadrian (Cambridge, 1966)
Syme, R., „Hadrian and Italica,“ in Roman Papers II (Oxford,1979) 617-28
________., „Hadrian and the Vassal Princes,“ in Roman Papers III(Oxford, 1984) 1436-46
________., „Hadrian as Philhellene,“ in Roman Papers V (Oxford,1988) 546-62
________., „The Career of Arrian,“ in Roman Papers V (Oxford,1988) 21-49
________., „Hadrian and the Senate,“ in Roman Papers V (Oxford,1988) 295-324
________., „Hadrian the Intellectual,“ in Roman Papers VI (Oxford,1991) 103-14
________., „Fictional History Old and New: Hadrian,“ in Roman PapersVI (Oxford, 1991) 157-81
________., „Journeys of Hadrian,“ in Roman Papers VI (Oxford,1991) 346-57
________., „Hadrian’s Autobiography: Servianus and Sura,“ in RomanPapers (Oxford, 1991) 398-408
Toynbee, J.M.C., The Hadrianic School (Cambridge, 1934)
Weber, W., „Hadrian,“ in Cambridge Ancient History XI (Cambridge,1936) 294-324
Yourcenar, M., Memoirs of Hadrian (New York, 1954)

Footnotes

[[1]] See Benario, A Commentary, and Birley,Lives.
[[2]] See Syme, The Historia Augusta.
[[3]] See Millar, Cassius Dio.
[[4]] HA Vita Hadriani 1, PIR²A 184.
[[5]] M. Durry, „Sur Trajan père,“ in LesEmpereurs Romains d’Espagne (Paris, 1965) 45-54.
[[6]] Epitome de Caesaribus 14.8.
[[7]] Historiae 1.4.2.
[[8]] Dio 69.2.5-6.
[[9]] Dio 69.8.1.
[[10]] Nash II 176-77.
[[11]] See M. Rostovtzeff, Social and EconomicHistory of the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1957) chap. 8.
[[12]] See W.L. MacDonald, The Architecture ofthe Roman Empire
II (New Haven, 1986) 253-54.
[[13]] W. Kunkel, An Introduction to Roman Legaland Constitutional History, tr. J.M. Kelly, (Oxford, 1966)88-89.
[[14]] S. Riccobono, Fontes Iuris Romani Antejustiniani(Florence, 1941) 335-91.
[[15]] Smallwood 442.
[[16]] Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 4.8.6,4.9. See R. Freudenberger, Das Verhalten der römischen Behördengegen die Christen im 2. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1967) 216-34.
[[17]] VH 14.8-9; see also Dio 69.3.
[[18]] See MacDonald (above, note 12) I (New Haven,1965) 94-121; Nash II 170-75.
[[19]] Nash I 450-56.
[[20]] MacDonald (above, note 12) I 129-37; Dio69.4.
[[21]] Nash II 496-99.
[[22]] Nash II 44-48.
[[23]] W.L. MacDonald & J.A. Pinto, Hadrian’sVilla and Its Legacy (New Haven, 1995)
[[24]] VH 15.12-13.
[[25]] VH 16.2; Dio 69.4.6.
[[26]] VH 11.3.
[[27]] See B. Baldwin, „Hadrian’s farewell to life.Some arguments for authenticity,“ CQ 20 (1970) 372-74.
[[28]] VH 16.3-4.
[[29]] See Bardon, 393-424.
[[30]] Dio 69.11; see Lambert.
[[31]] VH 22.3.
[[32]] Dio 69.17.
[[33]] Nash I 457-61; see Toynbee.
[[34]] VH 25.7.
[[35]] J.H. Oliver, The Ruling Power (Philadelphia,1953), chaps. 59 and 60, 901.
[[36]] See Syme, Fictional History.
[[37]] VH 14.11; Tertullian, Apologetica5.7; Epitome de Caesaribus 14.6.

Copyright (C) 2000, Herbert W. Benario. This file may be copied onthe condition that the entire contents, including the header and this copyrightnotice, remain intact.

Comments to: Herbert W. Benario.
Updated: 24 September 2008

Unveränd. Zweitpubl. v. Herbert W. Benario: Hadrian (98-117 A.D.), in: De Imperatoribus Romanis. An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Rulers [24.09.2008], http://www.luc.edu/roman-emperors/hadrian.htm.

DE IMPERATORIBUS ROMANIS

An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Rulers

DIR Atlas

Trajan (98-117 A.D.)

Herbert W. Benario, Emory University

Abb.: http://www.luc.edu/roman-emperors/trjan-s1.jpe

Introduction and Sources

„During a happy period of more than fourscore years, the public administration was conducted by the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines. It is the design of this and of the two succeeding chapters to describe the prosperous condition of their empire, and afterwards, from the death of Marcus Antoninus, to deduce the most important circumstances of its decline and fall, a revolution which will ever be remembered and is still felt by the nations of the earth.“ [[1]]

This is perhaps the most important and best known of all Edward Gibbon’s famous dicta about his vast subject, and particularly that period which he admired the most. It was a concatenation of chance and events which brought to the first position of the principate five men, each very different from the others, who each, in his own way, brought integrity and a sense of public duty to his tasks. Nerva’s tenure was brief, as many no doubt had expected and hoped it would be, and perhaps his greatest achievement was to choose Trajan as his adoptive son and intended successor. It was a splendid choice. Trajan was one of Rome’s most admirable figures, a man who merited the renown which he enjoyed in his lifetime and in subsequent generations.

The sources for the man and his principate are disappointingly skimpy. There is no contemporaneous historian who can illuminate the period. Tacitus speaks only occasionally of Trajan, there is no biography by Suetonius, nor even one by the author of the late and largely fraudulent Historia Augusta. (However, a modern version of what such a life might have been like has been composed by A. Birley, entirely based upon ancient evidence. It is very useful.) Pliny the Younger tells us the most, in his Panegyricus, his long address of thanks to the emperor upon assuming the consulship in late 100, and in his letters. Pliny was a wordy and congenial man, who reveals a great deal about his senatorial peers and their relations with the emperor, above all, of course, his own. The most important part is the tenth book of his Epistulae, which contains the correspondence between him, while serving in Bithynia, and the emperor, to whom he referred all manner of problems, important as well as trivial. Best known are the pair (96,97) dealing with the Christians and what was to be done with them. These would be extraordinarily valuable if we could be sure that the imperial replies stemmed directly from Trajan, but that is more than one can claim. The imperial chancellery had developed greatly in previous decades and might pen these communications after only the most general directions from the emperor. The letters are nonetheless unique in the insight they offer into the emperor’s mind. [[2]]

Cassius Dio, who wrote in the decade of the 230s, wrote a long imperial history which has survived only in abbreviated form in book LXVIII for the Trajanic period. [[3]] The rhetorician Dio of Prusa, a contemporary of the emperor, offers little of value. Fourth-century epitomators, Aurelius Victor and Eutropius, offer some useful material. Inscriptions, coins, papyri, and legal texts are of major importance. Since Trajan was a builder of many significant projects, archaeology contributes mightily to our understanding of the man.

Early Life and Career

The patria of the Ulpii was Italica, in Spanish Baetica [[4]], where their ancestors had settled late in the third century B.C. This indicates that the Italian origin was paramount, yet it has recently been cogently argued that the family’s ancestry was local, with Trajan senior actually a Traius who was adopted into the family of the Ulpii.[[4a]] Trajan’s father was the first member of the family to pursue a senatorial career; it proved to be a very successful one. Born probably about the year 30, he perhaps commanded a legion under Corbulo in the early sixties and then was legate of legio X Fretensis under Vespasian, governor of Judaea. Success in the Jewish War was rewarded by the governorship of an unknown province and then a consulate in 70. He was thereafter adlected by the emperor in patricios and sent to govern Baetica. Then followed the governorship of one of the major military provinces, Syria, where he prevented a Parthian threat of invasion, and in 79/80 he was proconsul of Asia, one of the two provinces (the other was Africa) which capped a senatorial career. His public service now effectively over, he lived on in honor and distinction, in all likelihood seeing his son emperor. He probably died before 100. He was deified in 113 and his titulature read divus Traianus pater. Since his son was also the adoptive son of Nerva, the emperor had officially two fathers, a unique circumstance. [[5]]

The son was born in Italica on September 18, 53; his mother was Marcia, who had given birth to a daughter, Ulpia Marciana, five years before the birth of the son. In the mid seventies, he was a legionary legate under his father in Syria. He then married a lady from Nemausus (Nimes) in Gallia Narbonensis, Pompeia Plotina, was quaestor about 78 and praetor about 84. In 86, he became one of the child Hadrian’s guardians. He was then appointed legate of legio VII Gemina in Hispania Tarraconensis, from which he marched at Domitian’s orders in 89 to crush the uprising of Antonius Saturninus along the Rhine. He next fought in Domitian’s war against the Germans along Rhine and Danube and was rewarded with an ordinary consulship in 91. Soon followed the governorship of Moesia inferior and then that of Germania superior, with his headquarters at Moguntiacum (Mainz), whither Hadrian brought him the news in autumn 97 that he had been adopted by the emperor Nerva, as co-ruler and intended successor. Already recipient of the title imperator and possessor of the tribunician power, when Nerva died on January 27, 98, Trajan became emperor in a smooth transition of power which marked the next three quarters of a century.

Early Years through the Dacian Wars

Trajan did not return immediately to Rome. He chose to stay in his German province and settle affairs on that frontier. He showed that he approved Domitian’s arrangements, with the establishment of two provinces, their large military garrisons, and the beginnings of the limes. [[6]] Those who might have wished for a renewed war of conquest against the Germans were disappointed. The historian Tacitus may well have been one of these. [[7]]

Trajan then visited the crucial Danube provinces of Pannonia and Moesia, where the Dacian king Decebalus had caused much difficulty for the Romans and had inflicted a heavy defeat upon a Roman army about a decade before. Domitian had established a modus vivendi with Decebalus, essentially buying his good behavior, but the latter had then continued his activities hostile to Rome. Trajan clearly thought that this corner of empire would require his personal attention and a lasting and satisfactory solution. [[8]]

Trajan spent the year 100 in Rome, seeing to the honors and deification of his predecessor, establishing good and sensitive relations with the senate, in sharp contrast with Domitian’s „war against the senate.“ [[9]] Yet his policies essentially continued Domitian’s; he was no less master of the state and the ultimate authority over individuals, but his good nature and respect for those who had until recently been his peers if not his superiors won him great favor. [[10]] He was called optimus by the people and that word began to appear among his titulature, although it had not been decreed by the senate. Yet his thoughts were ever on the Danube. Preparations for a great campaign were under way, particularly with transfers of legions and their attendant auxiliaries from Germany and Britain and other provinces and the establishment of two new ones, II Traiana and XXX Ulpia, which brought the total muster to 30, the highest number yet reached in the empire’s history.

In 101 the emperor took the field. The war was one which required all his military abilities and all the engineering and discipline for which the Roman army was renowned. Trajan was fortunate to have Apollodorus of Damascus in his service, who built a roadway through the Iron Gates by cantilevering it from the sheer face of the rock so that the army seemingly marched on water. He was also to build a great bridge across the Danube, with 60 stone piers (traces of this bridge still survive). When Trajan was ready to move he moved with great speed, probably driving into the heart of Dacian territory with two columns, until, in 102, Decebalus chose to capitulate. He prostrated himself before Trajan and swore obedience; he was to become a client king. Trajan returned to Rome and added the title Dacicus to his titulature.

Decebalus, however, once left to his own devices, undertook to challenge Rome again, by raids across the Danube into Roman territory and by attempting to stir up some of the tribes north of the river against her. Trajan took the field again in 106, intending this time to finish the job of Decebalus‘ subjugation. It was a brutal struggle, with some of the characteristics of a war of extirpation, until the Dacian king, driven from his capital of Sarmizegethusa and hunted like an animal, chose to commit suicide rather than to be paraded in a Roman triumph and then be put to death.

The war was over. It had taxed Roman resources, with 11 legions involved, but the rewards were great. Trajan celebrated a great triumph, which lasted 123 days and entertained the populace with a vast display of gladiators and animals. The land was established as a province, the first on the north side of the Danube. Much of the native population which had survived warfare was killed or enslaved, their place taken by immigrants from other parts of the empire. The vast wealth of Dacian mines came to Rome as war booty, enabling Trajan to support an extensive building program almost everywhere, but above all in Italy and in Rome. In the capital, Apollodorus designed and built in the huge forum already under construction a sculpted column, precisely 100 Roman feet high, with 23 spiral bands filled with 2500 figures, which depicted, like a scroll being unwound, the history of both Dacian wars. It was, and still is, one of the great achievements of imperial „propaganda.“ [[11]] In southern Dacia, at Adamklissi, a large tropaeum was built on a hill, visible from a great distance, as a tangible statement of Rome’s domination. Its effect was similar to that of Augustus‘ monument at La Turbie above Monaco; both were constant reminders for the inhabitants who gazed at it that they had once been free and were now subjects of a greater power. [[12]]

Administration and Social Policy

The chief feature of Trajan’s administration was his good relations with the senate, which allowed him to accomplish whatever he wished without general opposition. His auctoritas was more important than his imperium. At the very beginning of Trajan’s reign, the historian Tacitus, in the biography of his father-in-law Agricola, spoke of the newly won compatibility of one-man rule and individual liberty established by Nerva and expanded by Trajan (Agr. 3.1, primo statim beatissimi saeculi ortu Nerva Caesar res olim dissociabiles miscuerit, principatum ac libertatem, augeatque cotidie felicitatem temporum Nerva Traianus,….) [13] At the end of the work, Tacitus comments, when speaking of Agricola’s death, that he had forecast the principate of Trajan but had died too soon to see it (Agr. 44.5, ei non licuit durare in hanc beatissimi saeculi lucem ac principem Traianum videre, quod augurio votisque apud nostras aures ominabatur,….) Whether one believes that principate and liberty had truly been made compatible or not, this evidently was the belief of the aristocracy of Rome. Trajan, by character and actions, contributed to this belief, and he undertook to reward his associates with high office and significant promotions. During his principate, he himself held only 6 consulates, while arranging for third consulates for several of his friends. Vespasian had been consul 9 times, Titus 8, Domitian 17! In the history of the empire there were only 12 or 13 privati who reached the eminence of third consulates. Agrippa had been the first, L. Vitellius the second. Under Trajan there were 3: Sex. Iulius Frontinus (100), T. Vestricius Spurinna (100), and L. Licinius Sura (107). There were also 10 who held second consulships: L. Iulius Ursus Servianus (102), M.‘ Laberius Maximus (103), Q. Glitius Atilius Agricola (103), P. Metilius Sabinus Nepos (103?), Sex. Attius Suburanus Aemilianus (104), Ti. Iulius Candidus Marius Celsus (105), C. Antius A. Iulius Quadratus (105), Q. Sosius Senecio (107), A. Cornelius Palma Frontonianus (109), and L. Publilius Celsus (113). These men were essentially his close associates from pre-imperial days and his prime military commanders in the Dacian wars.

One major administrative innovation can be credited to Trajan. This was the introduction of curatores who, as representatives of the central government, assumed financial control of local communities, both in Italy and the provinces. Pliny in Bithynia is the best known of these imperial officials. The inexorable shift from freedmen to equestrians in the imperial ministries continued, to culminate under Hadrian, [[14]] and he devoted much attention and considerable state resources to the expansion of the alimentary system, which purposed to support orphans throughout Italy. [[15]] The splendid arch at Beneventum represents Trajan as a civilian emperor, with scenes of ordinary life and numerous children depicted, which underscored the prosperity of Italy. [[16]]

The satirist Juvenal, a contemporary of the emperor, in one of his best known judgments, laments that the citizen of Rome, once master of the world, is now content only with „bread and circuses.“

Nam qui dabat olim / imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se / continet, atque duas tantum res anxius optat, / panem et circenses. (X 78-81)

Trajan certainly took advantage of that mood, indeed exacerbated it, by improving the reliabilty of the grain supply (the harbor at Ostia and the distribution system as exemplified in the Mercati in Rome). [[17]] Fronto did not entirely approve, if indeed he approved at all. [[18]] The plebs esteemed the emperor for the glory he had brought Rome, for the great wealth he had won which he turned to public uses, and for his personality and manner. Though emperor, he prided himself upon being civilis, a term which indicated comportment suitable for a Roman citizen. [[19]]

There was only one major addition to the Rome’s empire other than Dacia in the first decade and a half of Trajan’s reign. This was the province of Arabia, which followed upon the absorption of the Nabataean kingdom (105-106). [[20]]

Building Projects

Trajan had significant effect upon the infrastructure of both Rome and Italy. His greatest monument in the city, if the single word „monument“ can effectively describe the complex, was the forum which bore his name, much the largest, and the last, of the series known as the „imperial fora.“ Excavation for a new forum had already begun under Domitian, but it was Apollodorus who designed and built the whole. Enormous in its extent, the Basilica Ulpia was the centerpiece, the largest wood roofed building in the Roman world. In the open courtyard before it was an equestrian statue of Trajan, behind it was the column; there were libraries, one for Latin scrolls, the other for Greek, on each side. A significant omission was a temple; this circumstance was later rectified by Hadrian, who built a large temple to the deified Trajan and Plotina.

The column was both a history in stone and the intended mausoleum for the emperor, whose ashes were indeed placed in the column base. An inscription over the doorway, somewhat cryptic because part of the text has disappeared, reads as follows:

Senatus populusque Romanus imp. Caesari divi Nervae f. Nervae Traiano Aug. Germ. Dacico pontif. Maximo trib. pot. XVII imp. VI p.p. ad declarandum quantae altitudinis mons et locus tant[is oper]ibus sit egestus

(Smallwood 378)

On the north side of the forum, built into the slopes of the Quirinal hill, were the Markets of Trajan, which served as a shopping mall and the headquarters of the annona, the agency responsible for the receipt and distribution of grain. [[21]]

On the Esquiline hill was constructed the first of the huge imperial baths, using a large part of Nero’sDomus Aurea as its foundations. On the other side of the river a new aqueduct was constructed, which drew its water from Lake Bracciano and ran some 60 kilometers to the heights of the Janiculum Hill. It was dedicated in 109. A section of its channel survives in the basement of the American Academy in Rome. [[22]]

The arch in Beneventum is the most significant monument elsewhere in Italy. It was dedicated in 114, to mark the beginning of the new Via Traiana, which offered an easier route to Brundisium than that of the ancient Via Appia. [[23]]

Trajan devoted much attention to the construction and improvement of harbors. His new hexagonal harbor at Ostia at last made that port the most significant in Italy, supplanting Puteoli, so that henceforth the grain ships docked there and their cargo was shipped by barge up the Tiber to Rome. Terracina benefited as well from harbor improvements, and the Via Appia now ran directly through the city along a new route, with some 130 Roman feet of sheer cliff being cut away so that the highway could bend along the coast. Ancona on the Adriatic Sea became the major harbor on that coast for central Italy in 114-115, and Trajan’s activity was commemorated by an arch. The inscription reports that the senate and people dedicated it to the providentissimo principi quod accessum Italiae hoc etiam addito ex pecunia sua portu tutiorem navigantibus reddiderit (Smallwood 387). Centumcellae, the modern Civitavecchia, also profited from a new harbor. The emperor enjoyed staying there, and on at least one occasion summoned his consilium there. [[24]]

Elsewhere in the empire the great bridge at Alcantara in Spain, spanning the Tagus River, still in use, [[25]] testifies to the significant attention the emperor gave to the improvement of communication throughout his entire domain.

Family Relations; the Women

After the death of his father, Trajan had no close male relatives. His life was as closely linked with his wife and female relations as that of any of his predecessors; these women played enormously important roles in the empire’s public life, and received honors perhaps unparalleled. His wife, Pompeia Plotina, is reported to have said, when she entered the imperial palace in Rome for the first time, that she hoped she would leave it the same person she was when she entered. [[26]] She received the title Augusta no later than 105. She survived Trajan, dying probably in 121, and was honored by Hadrian with a temple, which she shared with her husband, in the great forum which the latter had built.

His sister Marciana, five years his elder, and he shared a close affection. She received the title Augusta, along with Plotina, in 105 and was deified in 112 upon her death. Her daughter Matidia became Augusta upon her mother’s death, and in her turn was deified in 119. Both women received substantial monuments in the Campus Martius, there being basilicas of each and a temple of divae Matidiae. Hadrian was responsible for these buildings, which were located near the later temple of the deified Hadrian, not far from the column of Marcus Aurelius. [[27]]

Matidia’s daughter, Sabina, was married to Hadrian in the year 100. The union survived almost to the end of Hadrian’s subsequent principate, in spite of the mutual loathing that they had for each other. Sabina was Trajan’s great niece, and thereby furnished Hadrian a crucial link to Trajan.

The women played public roles as significant as any of their predecessors. They traveled with the emperor on public business and were involved in major decisions. They were honored throughout the empire, on monuments as well as in inscriptions. Plotina, Marciana, and Matidia, for example, were all honored on the arch at Ancona along with Trajan. [[28]]

The Parthian War

In 113, Trajan began preparations for a decisive war against Parthia. He had been a „civilian“ emperor for seven years, since his victory over the Dacians, and may well have yearned for a last, great military achievement, which would rival that of Alexander the Great. Yet there was a significant cause for war in the Realpolitik of Roman-Parthian relations, since the Parthians had placed a candidate of their choice upon the throne of Armenia without consultation and approval of Rome. When Trajan departed Rome for Antioch, in a leisurely tour of the eastern empire while his army was being mustered, he probably intended to destroy at last Parthia’s capabilities to rival Rome’s power and to reduce her to the status of a province (or provinces). It was a great enterprise, marked by initial success but ultimate disappointment and failure.

In 114 he attacked the enemy through Armenia and then, over three more years, turned east and south, passing through Mesopotamia and taking Babylon and the capital of Ctesiphon. He then is said to have reached the Persian Gulf and to have lamented that he was too old to go further in Alexander’s footsteps. In early 116 he received the title Parthicus.

The territories, however, which had been handily won, were much more difficult to hold. Uprisings among the conquered peoples, and particularly among the Jews in Palestine and the Diaspora, caused him to gradually resign Roman rule over these newly-established provinces as he returned westward. The revolts were brutally suppressed. In mid 117, Trajan, now a sick man, was slowly returning to Italy, having left Hadrian in command in the east, when he died in Selinus of Cilicia on August 9, having designated Hadrian as his successor while on his death bed. Rumor had it that Plotina and Matidia were responsible for the choice, made when the emperor was already dead. Be that as it may, there was no realistic rival to Hadrian, linked by blood and marriage to Trajan and now in command of the empire’s largest military forces. Hadrian received notification of his designation on August 11, and that day marked his dies imperii. Among Hadrian’s first acts was to give up all of Trajan’s eastern conquests.

Trajan’s honors and reputation

Hadrian saw to it that Trajan received all customary honors: the late emperor was declared a divus, his victories were commemorated in a great triumph, and his ashes were placed in the base of his column. Trajan’s reputation remained unimpaired, in spite of the ultimate failure of his last campaigns. Early in his principate, he had unofficially been honored with the title optimus, „the best,“ which long described him even before it became, in 114, part of his official titulature. His correspondence with Pliny enables posterity to gain an intimate sense of the emperor in action. His concern for justice and the well-being of his subjects is underscored by his comment to Pliny, when faced with the question of the Christians, that they were not to be sought out, „nor is it appropriate to our age.“ [[29]] At the onset of his principate, Tacitus called Trajan’s accession the beginning of a beatissimum saeculum, [[30]] and so it remained in the public mind. Admired by the people, respected by the senatorial aristocracy, he faced no internal difficulties, with no rival nor opposition. His powers were as extensive as Domitian’s had been, but his use and display of these powers were very different from those of his predecessor, who had claimed to be deus et dominus. Not claiming to be a god, he was recognized in the official iconography of sculpture as Jupiter’s viceregent on earth, so depicted on the attic reliefs of the Beneventan arch. [[31]] The passage of time increased Trajan’s aura rather than diminished it. In the late fourth century, when the Roman Empire had dramatically changed in character from what it had been in Trajan’s time, each new emperor was hailed with the prayer, felicior Augusto, melior Traiano, „may he be luckier than Augustus and better than Trajan.“ [[32]] That reputation has essentially survived into the present day.

Bibliography

Bennett, J., Trajan Optimus Princeps. A Life and Times (London and New York, 1997)

Birley, A., Lives of the Later Caesars: The First Part of the Augustan History with Newly Compiled Lives of Nerva and Trajan (London, 1976)

Bourne, F.C., „The Roman Alimentary Program and Italian Agriculture,“ TAPA 91 (1960) 47-75

Bowersock, G.W., Roman Arabia (Cambridge, MA, 1983)

Canto, A.M., „Los Traii béticos: revisiones y novedades sobre la familia y el origen de Trajano,“ in XIX Centenario del emperador Trajano, Actas del Curso de Verano 1998, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, dir. J.M. Blázquez Martinez, in press.

Cizek, E., L’Epoque de Trajan. Circonstances Politiques et Problèmes Idéologiques (Paris, 1983)

Duncan-Jones, R., „The Purpose and Organisation of the Alimenta,“ PBSR 32 (1964) 123-46

Durry, M., Pline le Jeune. Panégyrique de Trajan (Paris, 1938)

________. „Sur Trajan père,“ in Les Empereurs Romains d’Espagne (Paris 1965) 48-57

Fears, J.R., Princeps A Diis Electus: The Divine Election of the Emperor as a Political Concept at Rome (Rome, 1977)

Fell, M., Optimus princeps?: Anspruch und Wirklichkeit der imperialen Programmatik Kaiser Traians (Munich, 1992)

Garzetti, A., From Tiberius to the Antonines (translated by J.R. Foster, London, 1974)

Gibbon, E., The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1, (London, 1776)

Hammond, M., The Antonine Monarchy (Rome, 1959)

________. „Res olim dissociabiles: Principatus ac Libertas – Liberty Under the Early Roman Empire,“ HSCP 67 (1963) 93-113

Hands, A.R., Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome (Ithaca, NY, 1968)

Hassel, F.J., Der Trajansbogen in Benevent: ein Bauwerk des römischen Senates (Mainz, 1966)

Lepper, F.A., Trajan’s Parthian War (Oxford, 1948)

Lepper, F., and S. Frere, Trajan’s Column. A New Edition of the Cichorius Plates (Gloucester, 1988)

Longden, R.P., „Nerva and Trajan“ and „The Wars of Trajan,“ in Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge, 1936) 188-252

Masi, F., Traiano (Il principe che portò l’Impero Romano alla massima espansione) (Rome, 1993)

Millar, F., A Study of Cassius Dio (Oxford, 1964)

________. The Emperor in the Roman World (Ithaca, NY, 1977)

Nash, E., Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome, two volumes (London, 1961-62)

Packer, J.E., The Forum of Trajan in Rome: A Study of the Monuments (Berkeley, CA, 1997)

Paribeni, R., Optimus Princeps: Saggio sulla storia e sui tempi dell’imperatore Traiano, two vols., (Messina 1926-27)

Raepsaet-Charlier, M.-T., Prosopographie des Femmes de l’Ordre Sénatorial(Ier-IIe siècles) (Louvain, 1987)

Richmond, I.A., „Trajan’s Army on Trajan’s Column,“ PBSR 13 (1935) 1-40

________. „Adamklissi,“ PBSR 35 (1967) 29-39

________. „The Arch of Beneventum,“ in P. Salway, ed., Roman Archaeology and Art (London, 1969) 229-38

Rossi, L., Trajan’s Column and the Dacian Wars (London, 1971)

Sherwin-White, A.N., The Letters of Pliny. A Historical and Social Commentary (Oxford, 1966)

Smallwood, E.M., Documents Illustrating the Principates of Nerva Trajan and Hadrian (Cambridge, 1966)

Strobel, K., Untersuchungen zu den Dakerkriegen Trajans: Studien zur Geschichte des mittleren und unteren Donauraumes in der Hohen Kaiserzeit (Bonn, 1984)

Syme, R., Tacitus (Oxford, 1958)

Talbert, R.J.A., The Senate of Imperial Rome (Princeton, NJ, 1984)

Temporini, H., Die Frauen am Hofe Trajans: Ein Beitrag zur Stellung der Augustae im Prinzipat (Berlin, 1978)

Waters, K.H., „Traianus Domitiani Continuator,“ AJP 90 (1969) 385-404

________. „Trajan’s Character in the Literary Tradition,“ in J.A.S. Evans, ed., POLIS AND IMPERIUM. Studies in Honour of Edward Togo Salmon (Toronto, 1974) 233-52

________. „The Reign of Trajan, and its Place in Contemporary Scholarship (1960-72),“ in ANRW II 2 (Berlin/New York, 1975) 381-431

Footnotes

[[1]] The end of Gibbon’s first paragraph

[[2]] See Sherwin-White and Millar, Emperor

[[3]] See Millar, Cassius Dio

[[4]] Syme, Tacitus, 30-44; PIR Vlpivs 575

[[4a]] See Canto.

[[5]] Durry, „Sur Trajan père“

[[6]] Syme, CAH XI (Cambridge, 1936) 158-87; A. King, Roman Gaul and Germany (Berkeley, CA, 1990); C.-M. Ternes, Die Römer an Rhein und Mosel (Stuttgart, 1975)

[[7]] See H.W. Benario, Tacitus Germany (Warminster, 1999)

[[8]] See Syme, „Domitian: The Last Years,“ in idem, Roman Papers IV (Oxford, 1988) 252-77

[[9]] Tacitus, Agricola 1-3

[[10]] Waters, „Traianus Domitiani Continuator“

[[11]] See Lepper and Frere, Packer, and Richmond, „Trajan’s Army“

[[12]] See P. MacKendrick, Roman France (London, 1971) 86-89

[[13]] See Hammond, „Res olim“

[[14]] See Millar, Emperor

[[15]] See Bourne, Duncan-Jones, and Hands

[[16]] See Hassel

[[17]] R. Meiggs, Roman Ostia (Oxford, 1973²) and Packer

[[18]] Principia Historiae 20, ut qui sciret populum Romanum duabus praecipue rebus, annona et spectaculis, teneri; imperium non minus ludicris quam seriis probari atque maiore damno seria, graviore invidia ludicra neglegi.

[[19]] I. Lana, „Civilis, cililiter, civilitas in Tacito e in Suetonio. Contributo alla storia del lessico politico-romano nell’età imperiale,“ Atti Acc. Sc. Torino. Cl. Sc. Mor. Stor. Filol. 106 (1972) f.II, 465-87

[[20]] See Bowersock

[[21]] See G. Rickman, The Corn Supply of Ancient Rome (Oxford, 1980)

[[22]] See P.J. Aicher, Guide to the Aqueducts of Ancient Rome (Wauconda, IL, 1995) 44, 76-79

[[23]] See G. Radke, Viae publicae Romanae (Stuttgart, 1971) cols. 96-98

[[24]] Epist. 6.31

[[25]] Smallwood 389; C. O’Connor, Roman Bridges (Cambridge, 1993) 109-11

[[26]] Dio 68.5.5

[[27]] See Nash

[[28]] See Temporini, Raepsaet-Charlier 631, 681, 802, 824

[[29]] Epist. 10.97.2, nam et pessimi exempli nec nostri saeculi est

[[30]] Agr. 44.5

[[31]] See Fears

[[32]] Eutropius, Breviarium 8.5.3

Copyright (C) 2000, Herbert W. Benario. This file may be copied on the condition that the entire contents, including the header and this copyright notice, remain intact.

Comments to: Herbert W. Benario.

Updated: 23 July 2003

Unveränd. Zweitpubl. v. Herbert W. Benario: Trajan (98-117 A.D.), in: De Imperatoribus Romanis. An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Rulers [23.07.2003], http://www.roman-emperors.org/trajan.htm

DE IMPERATORIBUS ROMANIS

An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Rulers

DIR Atlas

Nerva (96-98 A.D.)

David Wend

Abb.: http://www.roman-emperors.org/nerva.gif

Introduction

Although short, the reign of Marcus Cocceius Nerva (A.D. 96-98) is pivotal. The first of Edward Gibbon’s so-called „Five Good Emperors,“ Nerva is credited with beginning the practice of adopting his heir rather than selecting a blood relative. Claimed as an ancestor by all the emperors down to Severus Alexander, he has traditionally been regarded with much good will at the expense of his predecessor, Domitian.

Ancestry

Nerva could claim eminent ancestry on both sides of his family. On the paternal side, his great-grandfather, M. Cocceius Nerva, was consul in 36 B.C.; his grandfather, a distinguished jurist of the same name, accompanied Tiberius on his retirement to Capri in 26 A.D.[[1]] On his mother’s side an aunt, Rubellia Bassa, was the great-granddaughter of Tiberius. In addition, a great-uncle, L. Cocceius Nerva, played a part in the negotiations that secured a treaty between Octavian and Antony in 40 B.C

Early Career and Life under Domitian

Nerva was born on 8 November, 30 A.D.[[2]] Little is known of his upbringing beyond the fact that he belonged to a senatorial family and pursued neither a military nor a public speaking career. On the other hand, he did hold various priesthoods and was a praetor-designate.[[3]] More importantly, as praetor designate in 65, Nerva was instrumental in revealing the conspiracy of Piso against the emperor Nero.

As a result, he received triumphal ornaments and his statue was placed in the palace.[[4]] Following Nero’s fall in 68, Nerva must have realized that support of Vespasian and the Flavian cause was in his best interests.[[5]] In 71 his loyalty was rewarded with a joint consulship with the emperor, the only time that Vespasian ever held the office without his son Titus. It was under the reign of Vespasian’s other son, Domitian, that Nerva’s political fortunes were ultimately determined, however. He shared the ordinary consulship with Domitian in 90, an honor that was perhaps the result of his alerting the emperor about the revolt of Antonius Saturninus, the governor of Upper Germany, in 89.[[6]] Even so, like so many others of the senatorial class, Nerva came under scrutiny in the final years of Domitian’s reign, when the emperor was unwilling to tolerate any criticism.

Whether or not Nerva was forced to withdraw from public life during Domitian’s final years remains an open question.[[7]] What is not in dispute is that he was named emperor on the same day that Domitian was assassinated in September, 96. Indeed, in some respects the accession was improbable, since it placed the Empire under the control of a feeble sexagenarian and long-time Flavian supporter with close ties to the unpopular Domitian. On the other hand, Nerva had proven to be a capable senator, one with political connections and an ability to negotiate. Moreover, he had no children, thereby ensuring that the state would not become his hereditary possession.

Imperial Initiatives

Upon taking office, Nerva made immediate changes. He ordered the palace of Domitian to be renamed the House of the People, while he himself resided at the Horti Sallustiani, the favorite residence of Vespasian. More significantly, he took an oath before the senate that he would refrain from executing its members. He also released those who had been imprisoned by Domitian and recalled exiles not found guilty of serious crimes.[[8]] Nevertheless, Nerva still allowed the prosecution of informers by the senate, a measure that led to chaos, as everyone acted in his own interests while trying to settle scores with personal enemies.[[9]]

In the area of economic administration Nerva, like Domitian, was keen on maintaining a balanced budget. In early 97, after appointing a commission of five consular senators to give advice on reducing expenditures, he proceeded to abolish many sacrifices, races, and games. Similarly, he allowed no gold or silver statues to be made of himself. Even so, there was some room for municipal expenditure. For the urban poor of Italy he granted allotments of land worth 60 million sesterces, and he exempted parents and their children from a 5% inheritance tax. He also made loans to Italian landowners on the condition that they pay interest of 5% to their municipality to support the children of needy families. These alimentary schemes were later extended by Trajan, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius.[[10]]

Because he reigned only briefly, Nerva’s public works were few. By early 98 he dedicated the forum that Domitian had built to connect the Forum of Augustus with the Forum of Peace. It became known as the Forum of Nerva, or the Forum Transitorium. Nerva also built granaries, made repairs to the Colosseum when the Tiber flooded, and continued the program of road building and repairs inaugurated under the Flavians.[[11]] In addition, pantomime performances, supressed by Domitian, were restored.[[12]]

In the military realm, Nerva established veterans‘ colonies in Africa, a practice that was continued by the emperor Trajan. Normal military privileges were continued and some auxiliary units assumed the epithet Nervia or Nerviana. We are not well informed beyond these details, and any military action that may have occurred while Nerva was emperor is known sketchy at best.[[13]]

Nature of Nerva’s Government

Nerva’s major appointments favored men whom he knew and trusted, and who had long served and been rewarded by the Flavians. Typical was Sextus Julius Frontinus. A consul under Vespasian and governor of Britain twenty years earlier, Frontinus came out of retirement to become curator of the water supply, an office that had long been subject to abuse and mismanagement. He helped to put an end to the abuses and published a significant work on Rome’s water supply, De aquis urbis Romae. As a reward for his service, Frontinus was named consul for the second time in 98.[[14]] Similarly, the emperor’s own amici were often senators with Flavian ties, men who, by virtue of their links to the previous regime, were valuable to Nerva for what they knew. Thus do we find the likes of A. Didius Gallus Fabricius Veiiento, one of Domitian’s ill-reputed counselors, seated next to Nerva at an imperial dinner.[[15]] Nerva was less willing to consult the Senate as a whole. In many cases he preferred the opinions of his own consilium, and was less submissive than many senators would have liked. This attitude may have been responsible for hostile discontent among several senators.[[16]]

Mutiny of the Praetorians and the Adoption of Trajan

It was not long before the assassination of Domitian came to work against the new emperor. Dissatisfied that Domitian had not been deified after his death, the praetorian guards mutinied under Casperius Aelianus in October 97.[[17]] Taking the emperor as hostage, they demanded that Nerva hand over Domitian’s murderers. The emperor not only relented, but was forced to give a public speech of thanks to the mutineers for their actions.[[18]] His authority compomised, Nerva used the occasion of a victory in Pannonia over the Germans in late October, 97 to announce the adoption of Marcus Ulpius Traianus, governor of Upper Germany, as his successor.[[19]] The new Caesar was immediately acclaimed imperator and granted the tribunicia potestas. Nerva’s public announcement of the adoption settled succession as fact; he allowed no time to oppose his decision. From the German victory, Nerva assumed the epithet Germanicus and conferred the title on Trajan as well. He also made Trajan his consular colleague in 98.[[20]]

Death and Deification

On January 1, 98, the start of his fourth consulship, Nerva suffered a stroke during a private audience. Three weeks later he died at his villa in the Gardens of Sallust.[[21]] From his headquarters at Cologne, Trajan insisted that Nerva’s ashes be placed in the mausoleum of Augustus and asked the senate to vote on his deification. We are further told that he dedicated a temple to Nerva, yet no trace of it has ever been found.[[22]] Nor was a commemorative series of coins issued for the Deified Nerva in the wake of his death, but only ten years later.[[23]]

Conclusion

Nerva’s reign was more concerned with the continuation of an existing political system than with the birth of a new age. Indeed, his economic policies, his relationship with the senate, and the men whom he chose to govern and to offer him advice all show signs of Flavian influence. In many respects, Nerva was the right man at the right time. His immediate accession following Domitian’s murder prevented anarchy and civil war, while his age, poor health and moderate views were perfect attributes for a government that offered a bridge between Domitian’s stormy reign and the emperorships of the stable rulers to follow.

Bibliography

Birley, A. Lives of the Later Caesars: The First Part of the Augustan History with Newly Compiled Lives of Nerva and Trajan. London, 1976.

Cary, M. A History of Rome Down to the Reign of Constantine. 2nd ed. New York, 1965.

Earl, D. The Age of Augustus. New York, 1968.

Ehrhardt, C. T. H. R. „Nerva’s Background.“ Liverpool Classical Monthly 12 (1987): 18-20.

Garzetti, A. From Tiberius to the Antonines: A History of the Roman Empire, A.D. 14-192. London, 1974.

Grant, M. The Roman Emperors: A Biographical Guide to the Rulers of Rome, 31 B.C. – A.D. 476. New York, 1985.

Scarre, C. Chronicle of the Roman Emperors: The Reign by Reign Record of Imperial Rome. London, 1995.

Sutherland, C. H. V. „The State of the Imperial Treasury at the Death of Domitian.“ JRS 25 (1935): 150-162.

Syme, R. Tacitus. Oxford, 1958.

Notes

[[1]] Tac. Ann. 6.26.

[[2]] Aurelius Victor records the year as 35 (Caes. 12.11), Dio (68.4.4) as 30. The latter has been more widely accepted.

[[3]]Nerva’s priesthoods: ILS, 273; Nerva as praetor: Tacitus, Ann 15.72.2.

[[4]] Tac. Ann. 15.72. Nero also delighted in Nerva’s light verse, saluting him as the „Tibullus of the Age.“ See Mart. 8.70, Pliny Ep. 5.3.5.

[[5]] Even so, Tacitus makes no mention of Nerva at this time in his Histories.

[[6]] C. T. H. R. Ehrhardt, „Nerva’s Background,“ Liverpool Classical Monthly 12 (1987): 18-20.

[[7]] Philostr. VA 7.8; 7.33; Aur. Vict., Caes. 12; Mart. 8.70, 9.26.

[[8]] See, in addition, the cases of Valerius Licinianus, who was allowed only to change his place of exile, and Arria and Fannia, exiled for their opposition to Domitian, but recalled and their possessions restored. Dio 68.3.2, 68.16.

[[9]] Ibid., 68.1.3.

[[10]] Pliny Pan. 37.6.

[[11]] A. Garzetti, From Tiberius to the Antonines: A History of the Roman Empire, A.D. 14-192 (London, 1974), 302.

[[12]]Pliny, Pan. 46.2

[[13]] A. Garzetti, From Tiberius to the Antonines, 303-304.

[[14]] For an additional instance, see the case of Corellius Rufus at Pliny Ep. 1.12.

[[15]] Pliny Ep. 4.22.

[[16]] Dio 68.3.2.

[[17]] Ibid., 68.3.3.

[[18]] On Nerva’s speech in gratitude to the mutineers, see Epitome de Caesaribus, 12.8

[[19]] For evidence that it was Domitian who celebrated this Pannonian victory, see James B. Casey, „Minerva Victrix: Domitian’s Final War, A.D. 96,“ Celator (April, 1996): 32-33.

[[20]] Pliny Pan 8.4.5. Victor (Caes. 12) states that Nerva abdicated.

[[21]] Dio (68.4.2) offers a date of January 27, Victor (Caes. 12.2) as January 27 or 28.

[[22]] Pliny Pan. 11.1.

[[23]] A commemorative issue of coins to the „Deified Nerva,“ with the legend Divus Nerva along with Divus Traianus Pater, was not issued until ten years after his death. See H. Mattingly and E. Sydenham, The Roman Imperial Coinage Volume II (London, 1926), 297.

Copyright (C) 1997, David Wend. This file may be copied on the condition that the entire contents, including the header and this copyright notice, remain intact.

Comments to: David Wend

Updated: 10 October 1997

Unveränd. Zweitpubl. v. David Wend: Nerva (96-98 A.D.), in: De Imperatoribus Romanis. An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Rulers [08.09.1997], http://www.roman-emperors.org/domitian.htm