Ancient Rome: An Introductory History (53 page)

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Hadrian's unpopularity arose also from some executions conducted early in his reign. Shortly after he had become emperor, and before he returned to Rome, four ex-consuls were executed by the Senate on the charge of conspiring to kill him. Hadrian pleaded innocent to their murders, but the cloud of suspicion remained. Years later, when he was so seriously ill that he named a successor, he also forced a ninety-year-old man, Servianus, to die because he thought Servianus was aiming for the throne. While dying, Servianus cursed Hadrian, calling upon him the punishment of wanting to die but being unable to.

After Lucius Aelius, his first choice for a successor, died in 138, Hadrian quickly adopted and named as successor T. Aurelius Antoninus. Hadrian then suffered a hemorrhage and was in such great pain and misery that he ordered one of his slaves to kill him; rather than kill the emperor, the slave killed himself, and doctors refused Hadrian's orders to deliver poison to him. After long suffering, Hadrian died in 138, and Antoninus succeeded him. Against the wishes of many, Hadrian was deified.

Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138-161), "the Dutiful"

Antoninus is said to have received his nickname Pius for supporting his aged father as he walked up the steps to the Capitolor else because he protected those whom Hadrian had ordered to be killed, or because he refused Hadrian's request for poison when he wanted to commit suicide, or because he insisted upon Hadrian's deification when many opposed it, or because he was naturally very gentle and never committed any violent deeds. Antoninus proved his
pietas in
many ways during his reign.

Despite being the richest man in Rome (even before he became emperor), Antoninus had simple tastes: He ate what food came from his estates, he went fishing and hunting with friends, and as a farmer "he harvested the grapes with his friends, like any private citizen" (
Scriptores Augustae Historiae
XI.3). Friends visiting him might see him dressed in casual clothes, doing his household chores.

He was generous with his great wealth. He bequeathed his riches to his daughter, but granted the interest on his fortune to the

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Mummy portrait of a woman, second
century A.D. (Courtesy of the
Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University
of Michigan, Ann Arbor)

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Household objects from the town of Karanis,
Egypt, fifth century A.D. (Courtesy of the Kelsey Museum
of Archaeology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)

empire. He made loans to people at the very low rate of 4 percent interest. When wine, oil, and wheat became scarce, Antoninus bought supplies of them with his own money and gave them to the people. "In fact, he ruled over the people under his power with such carefulness that he cared for all things and people as if they were his own," says one source (
Scriptores Augustae Historiae, Antoninus Pius
VII). When earthquakes destroyed towns in Rhodes and Asia, he used his own money to restore them all. He enlarged upon the system of
alimenta
for poor children, and he arranged for help for poor girls in particular, whom he called Faustinians, in honor of his wife Faustina, who had died in the third year of his reign. He enforced fairness in dealings with the provincials: When his tax collectors gathered more than had been called for, they had to explain to him the reason for the excess. Yet his own servants did not like him, for he did not allow them to use their positions to enrich themselves. Like Hadrian, he did not persecute the Christians, and he even showed them some respect.

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Front of the Temple of Antoninus Pius and Faustina (his wife).
The Latin inscription reads, "For the god M. Antoninus and the
goddess Faustina, in accordance with the decree of the
Senate." (Author photograph)

Affairs with Parthia were quiet during Antoninus' reign, and he was respected by foreign kings. He used the military sparingly; he was said to have quoted a saying from Scipio, that he would rather save one citizen than kill a thousand enemies. Although no wars were fought during his reign, the armies did see action in Germany, Africa, Dacia, and England. Once a rebellion in England was put down, the Romans moved the frontier farther north into Scotland, where they built another wall, called the Antonine Wall. It was subsequently abandoned, and the frontier reverted to Hadrian's Wall.

Antoninus' last act of munificence to the empire was to name as his successor Annius Verus (known as Marcus Aurelius), who became Rome's bulwark against a rising tide of troubles. When Antoninus died in 161, all praised his dutifulness, clemency, intelligence, and purity; before he died, the Senate voted to rename

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September and October Antoninus and Faustina, an honor he characteristically refused. He was deified.

Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161-180), ''The Philosopher"

According to one source, Marcus Aurelius "surpassed all emperors in the pureness of his life" (
Scriptores Augustae Historiae, Marcus Antoninus
I). He was a follower of the Stoic philosophy, which had long been the philosophy most in tune with Roman mores. He had become a devotee of Stoicism after his twelfth birthday, when he started sleeping on the floor and wearing the clothing characteristic of Greek philosophers. His mother managed to persuade him to sleep instead on a couch spread with skins. After becoming emperor, he asked the Senate to allow his brother Verus to be co-emperor. While Aurelius adhered to the Stoic philosophy, Verus seems to have been more Epicurean in outlook; he was happy to take it easy while Aurelius made sacrifices and suffered for the good of all.

The Romans were interested in Stoicism chiefly for its ethics. The goal of Stoicism is to live in harmony with creation; since creation is the manifestation of god, the Stoic seeks to live in harmony with god, who is just and justly rules creation. Since god is just and perfect, what happens in life is somehow rightgod, being perfect, cannot err. People must use reason, the ability to come to an understanding of things, so they can live in harmony with creation, or with the will of god. Wise people do not let themselves be perturbed by life's events, whether good or bad; their duty is to accept and understand what happens and to transcend circumstances: "You will find (if you pay close attention) that what happens is right. I do not mean just that things happen in a regular manner, but that they happen in accordance with justice, as they come from something that distributes things according to what is right," Marcus Aurelius wrote in his journal of inspirational and philosophical thoughts, recorded during his campaigns along the Danube (
Meditations
IV.10). Another key element in Stoic thought is that of the connection among all human beings, and of each person's duty to help others; since everyone is a part of creation, their existence is ordained by god, and Stoics must help them even

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when they do wrong. "Therefore it is necessary to say at each point, 'This is here from God; this is because of the common lot and the conjoining of destiny and such happenstance and fate. Yet this is from a relative, someone of the same blood, a companion, even though he does not know what is part of his nature. But I know; consequently let me treat him according to the natural law of brotherhoodI'll be kind and fair to him.' At the same time, when things are undecided, I always aim for justice" (
Meditations
III.11).

The Roman Empire was particularly fortunate that Aurelius, the Stoic philosopher-ruler, became emperor, for troubles brewing in the empire demanded selfless devotion and service from the emperor. The least of the troubles was the Tiber flooding, which caused many deaths and led to a famine in Rome. Other troubles included a plague, war in Armenia, and wars with the Germans, who were invading the empire from across the Danube.

First, the Parthian Empire took over Armenia in 161. Verus left for Syria in March 162, but did not arrive until 163, and once he arrived, he lived in luxury while his legates, Statius Priscus and Avidius Cassius, carried on the war. Priscus recovered Armenia, and Cassius invaded Mesopotamia. They advanced into Parthia, destroyed its main city, Ctesiphon, and shattered the Parthian Empire all the way to Iran. The Romans did not want another province, however, and quickly withdrew, after establishing security for their eastern provinces.

The Parthians had their revenge on the Romans, however, for the Roman soldiers brought back a plague. After sweeping through the eastern provinces, it took Rome in 167. The first victims were the soldiers who had picked it up in Parthia; the disease is estimated to have killed one-quarter of the population in Rome.

During the war with Parthia, the Germanic tribe called the Marcomanni had overrun Dacia and had been putting pressure on the troops on the frontiers of Pannonia, where Roman forces had been drawn off for the Parthian War. Crossing the Danube in 166, they swarmed down into northern Italy and even besieged the town of Aquileia; some advanced into Greece as far as Eleusis, which lies a few miles west of Athens.

Aurelius and his brother Verus started out for Pannonia in 168, to drive the Marcomanni out of Roman territory. The Marcomanni

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departed from Italy at the emperors' advance, but the pressure on the frontiers did not abate, and the armies had been depleted by the plague. Aurelius soon found himself having to face the problems alone, for Verus died two days after they had started the journey. Aurelius returned to Rome briefly to bury his brother, and despite the death also of his six-year-old son, he quickly returned to the front.

Aurelius took extraordinary measures to protect the peoples in the empire. He hired gladiators and auxiliary units of Germans to fight for the empire. To meet their pay, he did not raise taxes, for he did not want to burden the provincials; instead, he sold off the valuables of the palaceclothes, gold goblets, gold statues, paintings, even his wife's silk- and gold-embroidered clothing. The auction of imperial treasures lasted two months and raised more than enough money for the war effort. Aurelius later gave those who had bought the treasures the option to return the goods in exchange for their money, if they wanted their money back.

Aurelius returned to the Danube in 169 and restored order. He returned to the provincial peoples the plunder the Germans had taken from them. Now he realized that the only way to solve the German problem was to complete what others since Augustus had avoided undertakingthe conquest and annexation of Germany.

Aurelius was experiencing great success in this endeavor when more bad news arrived in 175: The governor of Syria, Avidius Cassius, who had led the Romans against Parthia and Armenia, had revolted and wanted to be emperor himself; rumors even said that Aurelius' wife, Faustina, was having an affair with Cassius and had prompted him to rebel. Aurelius had to turn away from the problems in Germany to defeat Cassius; on the journey to the East, he learned that Cassius had been murdered. Then Aurelius is said to have been very sad, for he had hoped to complete his reign without spilling a senator's blood. He traveled in the East to renew the eastern provinces' devotion to Rome and then returned to Rome.

In 178 Aurelius returned to the front to finish the war with the Marcomanni. He was winning the war when he fell ill; naming as successor his nineteen-year-old son Commodus (his one act by which the empire suffered), he died in 180. He left behind him his

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