Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome (61 page)

“young men of the city”
Smallwood 72b.

a late and not altogether dependable source
Malalas, p. 279.

“Julianus himself”
Digest, Constitution “Tanta …” 18.

recast their constitution
Jer Chron 280–81.

Chief literary source—Pausanias on Greece. Also Burkert on Eleusis.

The piglet squealed
For my account of the Mysteries I am mainly indebted to Burkert, especially pp. 285–90. There are many theories of what took place during the rites, but I try to take a conservative line. The first section concerns what were called the Lesser Mysteries, where initiates were purified; these usually took place in March, but could be held at other times. Special arrangements were surely put in place for an emperor. It appears that Hadrian was not initiated during his previous visit to Athens.

for more than one thousand years
Legend has it that the Mysteries started in 1500 B.C. Their popularity was long sustained. Peter Levi writes: “As late as 1801 Demeter was still worshipped at Eleusis; when her last cult image, a two-ton kistophorus from the inner porch, was stolen by Professor E. D. Clarke of Cambridge, the visitors were terrified. An ox ran up, butted the statue repeatedly and fled bellowing. The people prophesied the shipwreck of Clarke’s ship: it occurred off Beachy Head, but the statue is now in Cambridge.” Paus vol. 1, book 1, note 231.

“We have learned from them the beginnings of life”
Cic Leg 2 14 36.

weapons were banned
HA Hadr 13 2.

“uncovered her shame”
Clem 2 176–77.

a new bridge over the river Kephisos
Jer Chron 280–81.

“ruler of the wide, unharvested earth”
Smallwood 71a.

“Hadrian, god and Panhellene”
IG 2
²²⁹⁵⁸
.

When he was at Eleusis
It is a reasonable assumption that the
princeps
noticed the distorted market in fish during his visit to Eleusis, but it
is
only an assumption.

“I want the vendors to have been stopped”
Oliver, pp. 193–95.

a tour of the Peloponnese
See Birley, pp. 177–182.

“a peacock in gold”
Paus 2 17 6.

“founder, lawgiver, benefactor”
IG VII 70–72, 3491.

“not even the emperor”
Paus 1363.

buried at the roadside
Ibid., 8 11 7–8.

an annual celebration
Xen Anab 5 3 9–10.

“He wore local dress”
Dio 69 16 1.

“Do not detract from anyone’s dignity”
Pliny Ep 8 24.

“Those who introduce the emperor’s opinion”
Plut Mor 814—15.

“hundred columns, walls and colonnades”
Paus 1 18 9.

a complicated dispute
CIG 1713.

“very magnificent and splendid”
Plut Mor 748—49.

“be gracious, kindly receive”
IG 7 1828.

“the soul from the world”
Plut Mor 764—65.

Chief literary source—
Historia Augusta
. Also the guidebook, and MacDonald and Pinto, on Hadrian’s villa; and the speech at Lambaesis.

“many-colored, it is said, like a rainbow”
HA Hadr 13 3.

entire crest had been blown off
M. Coltelli, P. Del Carlo, and L. Vezzoli, “Discovery of a Plinian basaltic eruption of Roman age at Etna Volcano, Italy,”
Geology 26
(1998), 1095–98.

“the Aelian villa with the colorful walls”
CIL 14 3911.

rus in urbe
Mart 12 57 21.

“built his villa at Tibur”
HA Hadr 26 5.

his “house at Tibur”
Oliver, p. 74 bis.

Some scholars suggest … a cult theater
MacDonald, pp. 162ff.

“devoted to music and flute players”
Fronto de fer Als 4.

His most astonishing architectural innovation
It is possible that Hadrian was influenced by the palace of Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse, which was isolated by a canal, and the Herodion, Herod the Great’s circular palace-fortress.

He had been born in or about 113
Dio has Pedanius Fuscus about six
years younger. An ancient horoscope places his birth in 113, and because of its broad contemporaneity (it would have been published not long after his death when he was still “news”) is more likely to be accurate.

an odd little congratulatory poem
ILS 5173. It survives in an inscription. See the inspired interpretation by Edward Champlin in
Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik
60 (1985) 159ff.

“his kindly disposition”
Marc Aur 1 1.

“the simple life”
Ibid., 13.

“solemn child from the very beginning”
HA Marc 2 1.

“in Hadrian’s lap”
Ibid., 4 1.

“erotic and fond of gladiators”
CCAG 8, 2 p. 85, 18 to p. 86, 12.

“the emperor’s health”
Smallwood 24 16.

the personification of health … feeding a snake
BMC III 476 etc.

Hope
,
Spes
,
holding up a flower
Ibid., 486.

“subcutaneous disease” … “burning”
Ep de Caes 14 9.

“it rained on his arrival”
HA Hadr 22 14.

“Caesar’s untiring concern”
Smallwood 464, col. II 4–5.

fossatum Africae
See Birley, pp. 209–10.

“Jupiter Best” … “Winds that have the power”
CIL 8 2609—10.

“Military exercises”
Sherk 148 (and the further quotations).

Chief literary sources—Dio Cassius and
Historia Augusta
. Also
Epitome de Caesaribus
and Aurelius Victor on Antinous. Lambert on Antinous. Betz on magic.

tetradrachm worth six sesterces
BMC III p. 395.

first citizen
Thuc 1 139.

“introduced a bill to the effect”
Plut Per 17.

He decided to launch a new Panhellenion
On Hadrian’s Panhellenion, see A. J. Spawforth and Susan Walker, “The World of the Panhellenion: I. Athens and Eleusis,”
The Journal of Roman Studies
75 (1985).

to recruit the past
Arafat, p. 30.

its shrine not far from the Roman Agora
There has been debate about its location. I follow Camp, p. 203.

“This is Athens, the onetime city”
IG II
²
5185.

“with such severity that it was believed”
HA Hadr 13 10.

“after procuring peace from many kings”
Epit de Caes 14 10.

Pharasmenes was king of the Iberi
HA Hadr 13 9, 17 11–12 and 21 13.

Paul of Tarsus called it mutilation
Phil 3 2–3.

the new city’s celebratory coinage
Birley, p. 233.

A fourth-century church father, Epiphanius
Epiph 14.

No later than the end of August
Alexandrian coinage celebrating Hadrian’s
adventus
is dated in the fourteenth year of the reign, which ended on August 28, 130. See Birley, p. 237.

“Dead men don’t bite”
Plut Pomp 77 4.

“How pitiful a tomb”
App Civil War 2 86.

investing in restoration projects
Jer Chron 197.

“By Mouseion,” wrote Philostratus
Phil v. Soph 1 22 3.

“put forward many questions”
HA Hadr 20 2.

“Although he wrote verse and composed speeches”
HA Hadr 15 10–11.

“The emperor can give you money”
Dio 69 3 5.

“extremely obscure work”
HA Hadr 16 2.

“You are giving me bad advice”
Ibid., 15 13.

“Some writers go on to record the cures”
Strabo 17 1 17.

a village called Eleusis
Ibid., 17 16.

“First Hadrian with his brass-fitted spear”
MS Gr Class d 113 (P), Bodleian Library, Oxford.

the town of Oxyrhyncus
Birley, p. 246.

“with shaved head”
Lucian Philospeud 34f.

“performed the sacrifices”
Strabo 17 1 29.

instruction in the art of a spell
Betz, pp. 82ff.

Opposite Hermopolis the riverbank curved
See Lambert, p. 127, for this description.

“wept for the youth like a woman”
HA Hadr 14 5.

“the Greeks deified him”
Ibid.

“O my daughter”
Laszlo Kakosy, “The Nile, Euthenia, and the Nymphs,”
Journal of Egyptian Archaeology
68 (1982), 295.

“Antinous … had been a favorite”
Dio 69 11 2.

“when Hadrian wanted to prolong his life”
Aur Vic 14 9–10.

“Concerning this incident there are varying rumors”
HA Hadr 14 6.

“malicious rumors spread”
Aur Vic 14 8.

the superannuated gigolo
See page 243 above.

“if he could find another”
Eur Alc 13–18.

“I myself believe that Achilles”
Arrian Peri 23 4.

his little horror poem
Hor Epo 5.

A new coin type shows an equally youthful Hadrian
BMC III p.
318, no. 603. The reverse shows heads of Trajan and Plotina, and another interpretation concerns the legitimacy of his adoption.

“This town was a perpetual peristyle”
Lambert, p. 198.

a shrine to house his remains … at Tibur
The account I give of the Antinoeum at Tibur is drawn from Mari and Sgalambro passim. Brick date-stamps show that building started soon after 130. The site was excavated from 1998.

“Antinous rests in this tomb”
Ibid., p. 99.

“the honor paid to him falls little short”
Origen 336.

Antinous as Iakchos
Opper p. 190.

“I never saw him in the flesh”
Paus 897.

Hadrian “set up statues”
Dio 69 11 4.

his own active websites
Current at the time of writing: sites include
http://antinous.wai-lung.com/
,
http://www.antinopolis.org/
, and the homoerotic
http://www.sacredantinous.com/
.