Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome (36 page)

The emperor restored two more of Agrippa’s buildings, the basilica or stoa of Neptune, god of the sea, and his public baths. In addition to these exercises in radical refurbishment, there was one major item of new construction: next to the Pantheon he commissioned a large temple dedicated to that most recent of goddesses, the Augusta Matidia; it was to be flanked by deep, two-story porticoes on either side that came to be known as the basilicas of Matidia and her mother, Marciana. No
divae
had ever been so honored. In this magnificent new quarter, which stood within easy walking distance from Augustus’ mausoleum and the Ara Pacis, and rivaled their visual impact, past and present were interlocked in marble.

His greatest project by far not only expressed Hadrian’s delight in the art of architecture but also his determination to attach to the traditional governance of the empire something approaching the court of an absolute Hellenistic monarch. This was his celebrated villa on the plain beneath Tibur. As we have seen, the town and its environs were where a Spanish “colony” of expatriates from Baetica established itself and where the Aelian family may have had a country home. Perhaps this was the first-century
B.C
. house around which the emperor designed his new development; in that case, he was returning to the fields where he had played as a little boy.

For centuries wealthy Romans had built themselves rural retreats, whether on their estates or at seaside resorts like Baiae. Here they could relax from the noise and crowds of Rome. But Hadrian wanted much more than a place where he could get away from it all; he intended a center of government. His architects and he designed a campus of more than three hundred acres rather than a single edifice. Just as the palace of the Ptolemies in Alexandria was a city district, they had in mind a township, both pastoral and splendid, where public buildings, grand entry halls and audience chambers, temples, and baths would intermingle with gardens and terraces and canals.

Hadrian was careful not to be disrespectful of the institutions in the capital city, just visible on the horizon. Senators were bound to live
within twenty miles of Rome so that they could easily attend meetings and take part in official duties, and Hadrian’s “villa” was well within the limit.

As early as 117 work began, and it was to continue on and off for most of the rest of the reign. A development on this scale called for a team of architects, a clerk and office of works, and a wide range of experts (some doubtless seconded from the army), including mosaic artists, engineers, purchasing agents, garden designers, and sculptors, and hundreds if not thousands of manual workers.

Despite his engrossing construction projects, the emperor tired of Rome. Perhaps he was missing Athens, for he soon left the city for a tour of Campania, the nearest thing to Greece that Italy could provide. This was a long, fertile region in southern Italy, lying between the Tyrrhenian Sea and Italy’s backbone, the Apennine mountain range. Strabo described it as “the most blest of plains, and round about it lie fruitful hills.” The inhabitants had a reputation for luxury living.

Campania was settled from the eighth century
B.C
. by Greek colonists. The three great temples in the Doric manner at Paestum in the south still remind the visitor of the splendors of Greek culture. In the north Puteoli (today’s Pozzuoli) began life as the city of Dicaearchia (from the Greek for “good rule”) and was now a thriving harbor for the import of Alexandrian grain and a leading financial center.

Hadrian’s departure may have reminded some of the celebrated occasion when his predecessor Tiberius left the city for Campania under the influence of astrologers—and never returned. When Tacitus described the incident in the
Annals
, he may have meant readers between the lines to think of their present emperor, also a devotee of the clairvoyant arts. Perhaps Hadrian was to abandon Rome for good. If that was what his contemporaries suspected, we must suppose that the opinionated emperor had already indicated his dislike of the capital.

On this occasion, Hadrian only had an excursion in mind, although he had no intention of spending the rest of his reign among the overblown splendors of the Palatine. His aim in Campania was to “aid all the towns of the region with benefactions and gifts, attaching all the
leading men to him.” Inscriptions have been discovered at various towns that record the completion of capital projects he commissioned and financed. Campania was a prosperous region, and the emperor was engaging in public relations rather than responding to some crisis or special need.

His itinerary is not recorded, but we must assume that, as the empire’s commander in chief, he visited the naval base at Misenum and reviewed the fleet. Not far away was Neapolis itself (“new town”), or Naples. Thoroughly Hellenic in appearance and spirit, it was a center of learning and many upper-class young men went there to finish their education by cultivating rhetoric and the arts. Despite centuries of Roman rule, the inhabitants still spoke Greek. Strabo observed how their easy lifestyle attracted people from Rome who wanted

Every five years Neapolis staged games in the traditional Greek manner where athletics alternated with musical and poetry competitions. According to the
Historia Augusta
, Hadrian was honored with the title of
demarch
(that is, “ruler of the people”), Neapolis’ chief public official; although the date is not given it was probably now, in 119.

Nearby was the small town of Cumae. Here once lived its celebrated clairvoyant, the Sibyl. She let the god Apollo have sex with her if he granted her immortality; but like too many other attractive classical mortals, she forgot to ask for eternal youth as well. She shriveled up and dwindled over the centuries. According to Petronius, novelist and favorite of Nero, she lived in a cave where she sat in a jug moaning, “I want to die.” The cave has been found, and some kind of oracular service seems to have been provided in historical times; if the Sibyl, or more precisely a living priestess, was open to inquiries we can be sure that Hadrian called by.

The journey around Campania gave the emperor a foretaste of how he would like to manage affairs. He conceived a plan to visit every province in his wide dominions. Like the first
princeps
, he liked to see things for himself, to go to where the problem was, to assess the evidence in person, to make a decision on the spot and not at a distance of tens or hundreds of miles. This, he was sure, was how the empire should be run.

After more than two years in Italy, Hadrian had convincingly asserted his authority. The new regime was no longer new, men loyal to him had been placed at all the power points, and the Senate and people now accepted, if grudgingly, the way things were. He could leave the capital without worrying what was going on behind his back.

The emperor was ready to set off on his travels.

The emperor had not done quite enough to convince Rome that he loved it. People could still remember the young man who read out Trajan’s letters to the Senate in a Spanish accent. A half foreigner, he had spent most of his adult career soldiering abroad on the empire’s barbarian frontiers. If he was to take to the road for long years in the provinces, as he meant to do,
imperium
would accompany him—and the city would risk losing its proud sense of itself as capital of the world.

Hadrian took two steps that would prove beyond doubt his devotion, his
pietas
, that most traditional of virtues. First he designed a temple dedicated to the goddess Venus, mother of Aeneas, who renewed ruined Troy in the fields of Latium, and Roma, the city’s divine spirit. This huge structure was to rest on a high man-made platform on the Velia, a low hill between the Forum and the Colosseum. It was to be large enough to rival the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitol, at the Forum’s other end, and no doubt that visual echo was what the emperor intended.

Second, the emperor felt that Rome deserved a birthday party. On April 21, 753
B.C
., legend had it, Romulus founded his new city on the Palatine Hill, digging a trench along the route where its boundary, a strip of consecrated ground called the
pomerium
, would run. Hadrian announced an annual celebration on that day to mark the
Natalis Urbis Romae;
it was superimposed on an already existing festival, the Parilia, which honored a pastoral deity, Pales, and sought protection for shepherds and fecundity for their flocks. Interestingly, the birthday of the emperor’s favorite king, Numa Pompilius, also fell on April 21.

This was all clever marketing, but Hadrian was not simply intent on seeking to please. In another ceremony evoking Rome’s distant past, he
reasserted his policy of containment rather than expansion. It was permissible to redraw the
pomerium
and take in a larger area, provided that the territory of the empire had also expanded. In Trajan’s case it had obviously done so, but he had not gotten around to ordering an extension before his death. Rather than complete unfinished business from the previous reign, Hadrian confirmed the
pomerium
exactly as it was. He conducted a
lustratio
, a ritual of purification, along the route of the boundary, and in this way made his peaceful intentions absolutely clear.

In 121, not long after the reformed Parilia, the emperor left the city. According to Dio Cassius, he dispensed “with imperial trappings, for he never used these outside Rome.” It was as if he were shaking himself free from the stifling grandeur and constricting rituals of the capital and embracing the freedom of the road.

Hadrian had little idea of the date of his return. He probably sailed to Massilia (Marseille), southern Gaul’s main port, and made his way up the Rhône in the direction of Lugdunum (Lyon). Little information about his activities has come down to us. According to the
Historia Augusta
, he “went to the relief of all the communities with various acts of generosity.” Evidently, he was still pursuing the popularity of the open hand. Years later imperial coins hailed him as
restitutor
, or “restorer,” of the province; in one series, Gallia as a draped woman kneels before the
princeps
, who grasps her hand as if to raise her up.

Gaul was a sideshow, though, for Hadrian’s real destination was the German frontier, where he was to unveil the military policy through which he meant to implement his strategy of nonexpansion.

For inspiration, Hadrian looked back to the generals of the Republic, not the flashy ones like Scipio Africanus who won brilliant victories, but those who had had to labor against disadvantage. Two men of the second rather than the first rank attracted his particular approval.

Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus Numantinus was Africanus’ adopted grandson. During the sack of Carthage, Rome’s great rival, in 146
B.C
., he turned to a friend and, with tears in his eyes, remarked: “A glorious moment, but I have a terrible fear that some day
the same fate will be pronounced on my own country.” He went on to quote from Homer the famous lines:

This fusion of pessimism about the benefits of war and magnanimity will have appealed to Hadrian, but what really struck home was Aemilianus’ generalship during a rebellion by Spanish tribes.

Fighting had been going on for a long time around the tribal settlement of Numantia, and the Roman troops were demoralized and ill disciplined. Aemilianus realized he would never win the war unless he brought his men under control. He arrived at the army camp with a small escort and immediately ordered the removal of everything that was not necessary to the war effort. The numerous civilians in the baggage train—tradesmen and prostitutes in the main—were sent away.