082 - Hadrian's Walls

Hello, and welcome to the History of Rome, Episode 82 Hadrian's Walls When Hadrian ascended to the throne in 117 AD, the Roman Empire was actually in a more precarious position than is often remembered. Though Trajan had taken the empire to its greatest territorial extent and been a shining example of enlightened despotism, rips in the imperial fabric had begun to show up across the Mediterranean. We have already seen that the conquest of Mesopotamia was a name only, as the entire region was either preparing for, or already engaged in, uprisings against the Roman occupation. A revolt in Dacia necessitated the transfer of the capable governor of Syria to the troubled new province, a transfer, recall, that opened the spot for Hadrian up. And shortly thereafter, tribal elements in northern Britain began to violently strike at their imperial masters.

But more destructive than any of these frontier revolts, was an uprising that I have only mentioned in passing thus far, that deserves far more attention. For the shocking violence that defined it, yes, but also, for the reactionary attitude it couldn't have helped but imprint on the new emperor. A reactionary attitude that would come back to haunt Hadrian later in his reign. I am talking, of course, about the Second Jewish War.

I mentioned the revolt in passing, while talking about Trajan's troubled supply lines during the last phase of his Middle Eastern campaign, but really, issues with Trajan's supply lines is the real passing issue, the revolt itself is the thing, and as it engulfed the southwest Mediterranean, the loss of life was shocking, even by ancient standards. After the Flavians methodically conquered Judea during the First Jewish War, many of the Jews who were not killed or sold into slavery, fled their decimated homeland for greener pastures elsewhere in the empire. But their refusal to forsake their traditions and assimilate into the local Greco-Roman societies they arrived in, led to fear, anger, and resentment on both sides. Locals couldn't understand why the Jews were being so stubborn, and tried to force them to change their ways, while the newly arrived Jews felt nothing but hostility and oppression from their new neighbors.

In 115, a man named Lucus, a Jewish leader from Cyrene, the province neighboring Egypt to the west, finally decided he had had enough, announced that as the new king of the Jews, he was declaring war on his Hellenized neighbors. Though there is a great deal of anti-Semitic hyperbole in the ancient histories, it seems clear that Lucus led the Jews of Cyrene on a campaign of cultural cleansing. Greek and Roman temples were destroyed, civic buildings were sacked, and all non-Jewish inhabitants, military and civilian alike, were killed on sight. The revolt soon spread to the neighboring province of Egypt, north to the island of Cyprus, and eventually into the newly conquered Mesopotamia, where local Jews attacked Trajan's rearguard garrisons.

At the height of the anarchy, Lucus was able to seize control of Alexandria, and the city was partially burned to the ground. North, on the closed island of Cyprus, reports have it that upwards of 200,000 Greco-Roman residents were slaughtered by the Jews. At first, Trajan was sure his local governors would be able to deal with the problem without the need for further imperial support, but after the prefect of Egypt withdrew from Alexandria, Trajan became convinced that this was a much bigger deal than he wanted it to be. He dispatched a trusty lieutenant named Marcus Turbo, with enough troops to retake Alexandria, in order to fold legion onto the usually unoccupied island of Cyprus to put down the marauding Jews. While Cyprus was easily repacified, the fighting in Egypt was much tougher, and Turbo was only able to declare victory in late 117, after Trajan was dead.

Lucus, and what was left of his army, fled to the Judean city of Lydda, where they were besieged by the commander of Trajan's eastern invasion force, Lucius Quietus. Eventually, this last stronghold fell as a result of famine and disease, and Lucus, the other Jewish commanders, and an untold number of civilians were executed by the Romans. For his success, Quietus was summarily dismissed as too great a threat to Hadrian's new, and thus far still shaky, hold on power.

That this second Jewish war was still ongoing as the transfer of power from Trajan to Hadrian took place, played mightily into the new emperor's decision to abandon the east and consolidate Roman control over what was already theirs. Of course, in Hadrian's mind, this included Judea, Jewish uprising or no Jewish uprising, and after the revolt was over, a legion was moved back into the province to ensure its true pacification. Hadrian may have already been formulating his long-term and ill-fated plan for what to do about the troublesome Jewish province, but for now, it was enough that the violence was stopped. As for Cyrene, where the revolt began, the ancient sources report that the province was so depopulated that Hadrian was forced to actively engage in a recolonization project later in his reign. The island of Cyprus simply banned outright any further Jewish settlement.

With the endgame of the Jewish revolt serving as a backdrop, and remember that Hadrian was living in Antioch at the time, just up the road, Hadrian made his fateful decision to pull out of the east and allow the Parthian king Trajan had deposed to return to the throne. There is a lot of talk about how much the withdrawal struck at the heart of the Roman notion that their empire would expand forever, but I think much closer to their hearts was the worship of an obscure god named Terminus, who was the patron of boundaries and who, it was said, Jupiter himself could not move. Deep in the center of the Roman identity was not simply the notion that they would expand forever, but that what was taken once could never be lost. Once Terminus had set a new boundary, Jupiter himself could not move it. And yet here was Hadrian, a mere mortal, retreating from Terminus' new line, moving him backwards. I think this is really what offended the Senate, who were mightily offended by Hadrian's decision.

But Hadrian, as I said, would stand firm, and the eastern pullout was just the opening shot in his war on future military adventurism. In October of 117, Hadrian decided that things in the east were settled enough that he could begin the journey back to Rome. He marched up along the Danube and inspected the imperial defenses, appointing a new governor of Lower Moesia named Ovidius Negrinus, and took another shot at Terminus by ordering the legions to withdraw from the territory they had seized on the far side of the Danube. Like with Mesopotamia, Hadrian determined the land was too difficult to hold for too little benefit, and as with Mesopotamia, the decision was met with ridicule in the Senate. Hadrian was digging himself into quite a political hole, and he would need to do some serious damage control when he returned to Rome.

But before he made it back to Italy, that political hole would become something of a bottomless pit, either through Hadrian's own misguided paranoia, or because of the misguided paranoia of a few overzealous allies. Or maybe it wasn't misguided at all. Maybe it was all totally justified. Whatever it was, and whoever was behind it, the political murders of four ex-consuls in early 118 would be a black mark that Hadrian would spend the rest of his life trying to spin, justify, deny, ignore, and just plain forget.

The affair was eventually laid at the feet of Hadrian's old guardian and the current Praetorian prefect, Attianus, who, as I mentioned last week, was, from the word go, urging Hadrian to engage in some kind of purge. Attianus supposedly uncovered information that the four high-ranking senators were engaged in a plot to murder or overthrow Hadrian, and either at Hadrian's direct order, or on his own initiative, had the men seized and executed without trial. The first two victims were Cornelius Palma, former governor of Syria, and Publius Celsus, who had already been kicked out of Trajan's inner circle for suspicion of treason. Both of these men Attianus had already advised Hadrian to kill, though the first time around, as I said last week, Hadrian advised less drastic measures. The second two victims, though, seemed to come out of nowhere, and their deaths shocked the Roman elite, who became convinced that regardless of Hadrian's stated desire to leave the Senate in peace, that they were dealing with a megalomaniacal, psychopathic egotist. In other words, nothing less than the second coming of Domitian.

The continuity is confused about who did what to who when, but at the end of the day, Lucius Quietus, on his way home to Mauretania, and Ovidius Negrinus, the recently appointed but quickly dismissed governor of Lower Moesia, were both dead. Even more offensive than the murders themselves was the fact that Hadrian, or at the very least Attianus, had compelled the Senate to act as an accomplice. Just as had been Domitian's practice, the Senate was forced to sign the death warrants themselves, officially confirming that the threat against the new emperor was real and the executions justified. No one in the Senate believed a word of the trumped-up charges, and the murderous coercion enraged them to a man.

When Hadrian finally arrived in Rome in July of 118, he was greeted by a more or less joyful citizen body, but was scorned by a super-duper pissed-off Senate. Hadrian's wisdom, though, was not limited to law and justice and the arts and all the other things he is remembered for. It also included that keen sense of self-awareness that is an oft-overlooked quality of really effective leaders. In essence, Hadrian knew that he had stepped in at big time, and that he needed to do everything in his power to repair the damage the murders had caused.

The ambitious new emperor had an impressive list of things he wanted to accomplish during his years in power, and he knew nothing was going to get done if he was forever undercut by a sulking Senate. Or perhaps more likely, he was afraid that they would finally put together a real conspiracy and kill him outright. It had happened before. So Hadrian went out of his way to make amends. He pleaded innocence in the affair, and claimed his subordinates had acted without his knowledge. He removed Attianus' prefect, and swore up and down that he would prove good to his word that the Senate would remain sacrosanct. In the weeks that followed, he made sure to make himself seen publicly, and invited anyone who so desired to come visit him at the imperial palace. If they believed he would prove to be a reclusive, autocratic demission, then he would show them with his actions that he was an available, genial Augustus. In all his words and deeds, Hadrian sought to continue the principate, and studiously avoided anything that would remind anyone of demission's autocratic dominant.

In a final nod to the disaffected Senate, he declared that henceforth, any proceeds from legal penalties, fines and confiscations and such, would go directly to the state treasury, not the imperial accounts. Hadrian hoped everyone would understand that under his regime, the fundraising possibilities of prescriptions and treason trials, that old imperial boogeyman, would be null and void. Though, for a variety of reasons, he would never fully win over the Senate, in time they at least came to believe that another reign of terror was no longer right around the corner. He may have been a lot of things, some good and some bad, but he was not another demission.

With the Senate attended to as best as they could be, after all, time was the only salve that would truly heal their wounds, Hadrian moved on to securing the support of the people at large. He wanted to make a big splash, both to celebrate his ascension, but also to get the masses fully behind him, so he could leverage his popularity with them against the suspicious Senate. A big splash, then, may actually be a bit of an understatement, and I have to believe that most citizens thought it some kind of joke when they heard that the Emperor planned to cancel all outstanding debts on any State loan taken out in the past fifteen years.

But it was no joke, and to prove his point, he had the Praetorians march the loan records out into Trajan's Forum and burn them all in a great pyre. A coin commemorates the event that, yeah, made Hadrian an instant hit with the people. He then announced that he intended to revise and extend the Alimentary system begun by Nerva and perpetuated by Trajan, and further, the number of financial burdens that had previously been borne by the local municipalities would now be funded directly from the Imperial Treasury. Finally, Hadrian gave the people what they really wanted, games, games, and more games. Gladiatorial shows and chariot races were a given, but Hadrian's early games, especially the one celebrating his forty-third birthday in January 119, marked Hadrian as an unequalled patron of wild animal hunts in the arena. The Emperor, somewhat in the face of aristocratic good taste, was an avid hunter, and did his best to bring the thrill of felling a great beast to his subjects, who ate up all his bread and circuses with relish.

With any dissent in Italy more or less pacified, and his regime now fully legitimized, Hadrian turned his attention to the provinces. But unlike previous Emperors, who were content to rule the Empire by way of correspondence, Hadrian believed that the only way he could make a proper decision about anything was to be there for himself. Unlike Trajan, who was disposed to let his subordinates figure it out for themselves, Hadrian was a micromanager of the highest order, who had no intention of letting any decision of import pass his desk without comment. If you combine the need to micromanage with an active personality determined to assess all situations for himself, what you get is an Emperor who has no intention of lounging around Rome all day. What you get is an Emperor who will spend more time on the road and visit more provinces than any other Emperor before or since.

By my calculations, Hadrian spent roughly half of his twenty-one year reign on one of his extended tours of the Empire, and even when he was home in Italy, he resided at his villa in Tivoli, rather than in Rome itself. The total number of hours he spent inside the city cannot be accurately calculated, but having spent his formative years in Spain, his early career stationed in the provincial legions, and the majority of his reign on the road or at his Italian villa, I think it is safe to say that Rome saw less of Hadrian over the course of his life than any of his predecessors. As we move forward, this will become a growing trend, as more militant provincials will don the purple and never even deign to return to the alleged capital of the Empire. The trend will reach its full expression with the rise of Diocletian, who despised the city, and Constantine, who would abandon it forever.

Hadrian set out on his first grand tour in 121, intent on inspecting the Western Empire for himself. He had seen much of the East while attached to Trajan's staff, but had been away from the West for the better part of fifteen years, and wanted to make sure the frontiers were secure and the people prosperous. He headed north to inspect the Rhine legions, who had for so many years been the cream of the Roman armed forces, but since imperial focus had shifted East, had become somewhat of a lax force of time-servers. Hadrian arrived in the camps and set about restoring discipline and a sense of purpose. But he was not all Martinet, and coupled with severity, were reforms designed to increase the general happiness of his men, including a long overdue change to the laws restricting marriage while still in the service. He spent the rest of the year in the tents with his Rhine legions, joining them on their marches, often walking right alongside them, and never ever being carried in an opulent litter.

Talenatedly, Hadrian used the ornaments of power skillfully to subtly cow the Senate, but out in the provinces he eschewed the trappings of power in favor of simple clothes and unpretentious lodgings. When he left the Rhine in 122, he left his men more disciplined and more focused than they had been in years, which was a good thing, because Hadrian had no intention of ever actually using them in battle. He left them instead, happily toiling away on an extended upgrade to Domitian's Lyme East Germanicus, which Hadrian hoped would give them a sense of purpose, and more importantly, exhaust them physically, so that idle hands would not become the devil's playground.

The Emperor's next stop was Britannia, that foggy island on the edge of the world that as a minor province had hosted a surprising number of major imperial figures, including Julius Caesar, Claudius, Vespasian, Titus, and now Hadrian. Hadrian's purpose in Britain was the same as his stop along the Rhine—inspect the frontier defenses and ensure the discipline and reliability of the legions stationed there. The island had seen a local revolt accompanying Trajan's death in 117, and Hadrian was looking for a permanent solution to the periodic British uprising.

The Emperor's solution became the defining artifact of his reign. This was certainly not Hadrian's intention, given the myriad other splendid works of art and architecture he devoted his full time and attention to. But the seventy-mile long wall he ordered built from the Solway Firth to the North Sea, has stood the test of time, and its stone ruins seem to tell the whole story of Hadrian's reign in one dull grey package. His peace and defense policy, his provincial travels, his love of architecture, his savvy economic and political instincts—it's all there in the wall that cuts a line across northern Britain.

At its heart, though, the wall was not meant to be a simple defensive frontier, and we shouldn't accept the this-side civilization, that-side barbarism that summaries of historical summaries often reduce it to. I think part of the key to understanding the true purpose of the wall is the fact that it bisected Brigantes' territory. That strongest, and typically allied with Roman interests, northern British tribe had caused trouble before, had possibly been involved in the 117 difficulties, and no doubt was forever seen as a sleeping menace by the Roman authorities. By slicing their territory in two, and forcing all north-south traffic to pass through Roman checkpoints, the imperial authorities were able to effectively divide and monitor the Brigantes. The wall was also a tax collection point, a place where Roman civilization was able to take root in the form of the garrison towns that naturally grew around the legionary barracks, and of course, it was an awe-inspiring projection of Roman power.

It is interesting to remember that what we see today is just the leftover remains, and that when it was originally built, Hadrian's wall was whitewashed a spotless ivory color. In the dark climate of the north, the wall was a glowing white line that reminded everyone who the true masters of the world were. Though the wall is, of course, a historical treasure, I can't help but laugh when I think of what Hadrian's reaction would be upon learning that for all his philhellenism, patronage of the arts and sciences, and the myriad great temples he left in his wake, that a simple stone wall in far-off Britain would be his defining legacy.

Leaving the British legions toiling away on a wall, just as he had left the Rhine legions toiling away on their wall, Hadrian headed south through Gaul, and into his old home country of Spain, where he spent the winter of 122-123, likely hunting and enjoying the rustic pleasures of the Iberian Peninsula. When spring came, he headed across the Straits of Gibraltar into Mauritania, where a Moorish rebellion had broken out. The brief rebellion seems to have come to nothing, but it would be enough to prompt Hadrian on a subsequent trip to Africa, to order that a defensive line be built facing into the Atlas Mountains, where the nomadic raiders were based.

As with his wall in Britain, the North African wall was designed as much to manipulate and monitor traffic flow as anything else. The nomads needed to periodically cross the Roman frontier on their way to freshwater and pasture lands, and Hadrian wanted to make sure that they were inspected and counted as they came and went. Details of the rest of his stay in Africa are sketchy, but the imperial entourage seems to have headed east to the depopulated province of Cyrene, where they then either set sail for Syria directly, or where they simply passed through on their way to Alexandria, where they then set sail from. Either way, in June 123, Hadrian pops up in Antioch, where he intended to deal with a resurgent Parthian empire.

With their ill-defined political structure, the Parthians were forever wracked by internal squabbles over who should be king. But during the brief periods where one claimant united the fractured eastern kingdoms, Rome had to be on guard against possible encroachment, and that was exactly what Hadrian was in Syria to do. And following the example of Augustus, rather than Trajan, Hadrian planned to solve all the disputes between the two great empires diplomatically. Though the ancient sources are once again maddeningly vague, Hadrian appears to have met in personal conference with the Parthian king along the Euphrates, and the two hammered out a deal that confirmed the river as the border between them. The details of what concessions were made along the way were not recorded, but whatever the cost, Hadrian no doubt saw it as a cheaper alternative to the blood and treasure war in the east would naturally drain.

The settlement once again sent the hawkish senate into a tizzy, who couldn't understand why the emperor was bothering to deal with a kingdom the legions had so recently steamrolled. But Hadrian had a vision of peace and stability, and he was not going to abandon it just to satisfy the egos of a bunch of rich old aristocrats back in Rome. Having come to terms with the Parthians, Hadrian headed back to the west through Asia Minor. Throughout 124 he played the part of tourist, judge, and director of public works, and every stop along the way, and indeed practically every city he would ever visit during his 21 years in office, was left with an improved aqueduct system, an expanded street, or a new theater, or some other civic improvement Hadrian had devised or approved of.

His last stop in Asia Minor before he landed in Athens in the autumn of 124 was the province of Bithynia Pontus, on the southern coast of the Black Sea. The stopover is important because it was while passing through the city of Claudiopolis that Hadrian possibly first met Antinous, the young Bithynian who would come to mean so much to the emperor. No record exists of when the two first met, but the journey through Antinous' home province is as likely a time as any. I thought I would get into the Hadrian-Antinous relationship this week, but I'm going to put it off until next week as I would very much like to get Hadrian back to Italy before we close out this week's episode. So I'm just going to leave it that this is the time Hadrian may have first laid eyes on the boy.

Hadrian then crossed the Aegean and settled into Athens for the winter. He was driven to make it back to the city before the famous rites of the Eleusinian Mysteries took place in the autumn, a mystical experience the emperor very much wanted to take part in. He arrived in time and became an initiate in the elaborate Greek mystery religion just as had Augustus before him. He spent the winter in Greece laying out plans to transform Athens from decaying backwater into refurbished cultural capital, a plan the Greeks looked upon as a mixed blessing. Never proud of their historical independence, they appreciated the emperor's interests, but were a bit annoyed at the extent to which Hadrian was planning to put his own stamp on the ancient city. Hadrian may have loved all things Greek, but the Greeks did not necessarily love all things Hadrian.

By 125, Hadrian had been out of Italy for four years, and though if he had had his druthers he probably would have just settled permanently in Athens, the city he truly loved. He knew that he had to return to Rome at some point, or the Senate would ratchet up their feelings of neglect into feelings of rebellion. But it would not be all bad. Before leaving, Hadrian had left detailed instructions for the construction of a new imperial villa complex in Tivoli, about 20 miles from Rome, that would be a little slice of Greece in the heart of Italy. His on-site managers had reported that the villa, while not totally finished, was at least habitable, and the emperor could look forward to residing in his new home upon his return.

In 125, Hadrian sailed from Greece, and after passing through Sicily to inspect the bread basket of the empire, the emperor finally made his triumphant return to the capital. Though he had no love for the city itself, his return meant that he could tour all of the new construction he had ordered before he left. Knowing that he was going to be gone for years, Hadrian wanted to make sure the citizens of Rome did not feel that the emperor had forgotten them, and the capital was already feeling the effects of Hadrian's new architectural vision, including the recently completed reconstruction of Agrippa's burned-out pantheon.

Next week, we'll set out once again with Hadrian as the restless emperor tours the Italian peninsula, returns to North Africa, and then heads back to the Eastern Empire where his heart truly resided. Along the way, he would pass through the destroyed ruins of Jerusalem, where he would make a fateful decision to rebrand the city, and the wider territory of Judea, as a truly Greco-Roman province. A decision that would have serious consequences as yet another brutal Jewish revolt would break out, disrupting the uninterrupted peace Hadrian had worked so hard to maintain.