Hadrian’s long second century rule, from CE 117 to 138, signifies a Roman Golden Age, a period of prosperity and peace managed astutely by a statesman-like emperor who believed in peace through strength but also accomplished what one poet and scholar has called a “Greek renaissance.” It was Hadrian’s Hellenophilia, seen through his numerous journeys in the East and his public affair with the Bithynian boy Antinous, which circumvented Roman views of a decadent Greece and channeled a new burst of energy evident in stone: the many monuments, statues, aqueducts, roads, temples, and cities built to commemorate his divine greatness. According to Julia Balbilla, a contemporary member of his traveling court in November 130, power was exemplified in stone.
Multi-Faceted Emperor
He was a complex man, an “internationalist who pursued the advantages of peace within his borders…” according to Elizabeth Speller. When Trajan the warrior approached death in 117, Hadrian was in Syria, consolidating his power within the military. Hadrian stabilized Rome’s borders, traveling through its many sections and leaving monuments to commemorate his visit. England’s seventy-four mile-long wall, named in his honor, marked the imperial limits in the West.
Hadrian wrote poetry, commissioned temples and palaces, and synthesized Greek culture with Roman discipline. He was the first emperor to be bearded. Contemporaries note that he was moody, flying into unexpected rages, banishing courtiers whose thoughtless comments or writings went beyond the point of wit. And then there was Antinous, his favorite, his pet, his lover.
The Antinous Affair
Hadrian first saw the Bithynian youth while visiting Asia Minor. Antinous might have been remembered as any one of a dozen favorites had it not been for his “accidental” death in Egypt. According to Julia Balbilla, a noblewoman in attendance to the neglected empress Sabina, “…one minute he was dancing and singing with wine playing the part of his muse, the next, he was a god blazing in the firmament.”
Antinous was Hadrian’s young sexual partner. While sailing up the Nile, the young man fell overboard and drowned, giving rise to numerous theories about his death. Was he murdered either by Hadrian himself or those around the emperor seeking to protect him? Was the death of Antinous a sacrifice? Hadrian’s grief, however, was long and deep. He built a city on the Nile to honor the boy and commissioned statuary that was spread throughout the empire. He elevated Antinous to the status of god and linked him to a new star that appeared over Egypt. According to Elizabeth Speller, “Antinous was not just the last pagan god, he was the inspiration of the last glorious florescence of classical art.”
Final Years in Rome
Hadrian left Egypt, returning to Rome, after detouring through Asia Minor and Greece. The latter part of his reign was spent putting down the bar Kokhba revolt in Judea and obliterating the Jews in the process. The revolt was costly and Hadrian was forced to fight a guerrilla campaign.
Although much literature of the period is lost, including Hadrian’s autobiography, surviving accounts portray an ailing emperor whose symptoms suggest heart or liver disease. He resided at Tivoli, a vast rural estate archaeologists compare to a small city. Before he died, he ensured the peaceful succession bringing Antoninus Pius followed by Marcus Aurelius to the imperial throne. Rome would be at peace until the rise of Commodus.
Hadrian’s legacy was a continuation of the peace of Rome, visualized, in part, by the monuments raised by the emperor. The Pantheon in Rome is still in use as a Christian church. It is difficult to wander the ancient and disappearing neighborhoods of the second century in the eastern Mediterranean and not find a marker pointing to Hadrian.
References:
- Lionel Casson, Everyday Life in Ancient Rome (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998)
- Anna G. Edmonds, Turkey’s Religious Sites (Istanbul: Damko, 1998)
- Robert B. Jackson, At Empire’s Edge: Exploring Rome’s Egyptian Frontier (Yale University Press, 2002)
- Elizabeth Speller, Following Hadrian: A Second-Century Journey through the Roman Empire (Oxford University Press, 2003)
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