Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome (26 page)

These months in Athens were a high point in Hadrian’s life. He was a member of the Roman establishment and in no way did he resile from that; but, at least temporarily, he had become a leader of the culture he so greatly admired. He could imagine himself to be a true Hellene, an heir of Pericles and the great men of old.

After years of peace the thoughts of the
optimus princeps
were turning again to war. The enemy he had in mind was the Parthian empire. Onetime nomads from northeastern Iran, the Parthians defeated and expropriated
the Seleucid empire, founded by Seleucus, one of Alexander the Great’s Macedonian officers. At its height their realm stretched from today’s Pakistan to the river Euphrates. Little is known in detail about them, for they left behind no written records, but they governed loosely, allowing a good degree of local autonomy to their vassal provinces. A coin issued by Chosroes, the present king, in about 110, hailed the ancestral founder of his dynasty as “Friend of the Greeks”; so it is evident that he had no wish to halt, reverse, or subvert the Hellenization of the Middle East.

The nobles were striking to look at. They always seemed to be on horseback, whether fighting or dining, traveling or relaxing. They wore long beards, used cosmetics, and elaborately styled their hair. Plutarch recalls how Roman soldiers were once thoroughly put out by the misleadingly effeminate appearance of an opposing Parthian commander with his “painted face and parted hair.” He was as fierce a fighter as they had ever met.

Although militarily they could be most effective, the Parthians were greatly weakened by their eccentric constitutional arrangements. The king of kings was an absolute ruler and had to be a member of the Arsacid clan; however, he was elected by two councils. One represented the nobility—in effect, the Arsacids and their cadet branches, in other words all his relatives—and the second was drawn from the Magi, or “wise men,” a priestly tribe responsible for religious and funerary arrangements. At any time, these committees could elect a new king. The succession was never undisputed and primogeniture often yielded to fratrigeniture, and a dispossessed elder son would contest his uncle’s throne.

It was hard to see, even at the time, why Trajan was meditating an expedition against the Parthians. He had demonstrated his soldierly prowess against the Dacians, but in that case had been responding to a real military threat. In general, he presented himself as a man of peace.

Arrian, a friend of Hadrian as we have seen and a competent public official and historian, was absolutely certain that Trajan, while mindful of the dignity of the empire, did all he could to avoid war with Parthia.
Dio Cassius (albeit in a late summary) takes the opposite view: he is explicit that the emperor went to war on a pretext and that his true motive “was a desire to win glory.”

In the light of the fragmentary state of the surviving evidence, it is impossible to decide definitively between the two opinions, but there are enough clues to suggest that Dio was right.

In 112 the emperor celebrated fifteen years of power. On January 1 he entered on his sixth consulship and formally dedicated his magnificent new forum and basilica. Coins were issued featuring the emperor’s kindly wife, Plotina, and his much-loved sister, Marciana. For the first time each woman is named as Augusta, or “revered one.” Sadly, Marciana died in August; her brother arranged for her deification and promoted Matidia to Augusta. Sabina was now the grandaughter of a Diva and the daughter of an Augusta.

Festive coin types in the same mintage celebrate Trajan’s father, onetime holder of triumphal honors,
ornamenta triumphalia
, over the Parthians when he governed Syria, and deified by his son. Another shows Trajan himself with the curious legend “May fortune return him safely,”
fort[una] red[ux]
. This signified that the emperor was planning a
profectio
, an imperial expedition, of some kind; combined with a tribute to the last Roman to have beaten the Parthians, it could be interpeted by the Roman equivalent of Kremlinologists as a hint that battle was to recommence. Other coins of the period have a markedly martial flavor—with images of Mars, the god of war, of the emperor on horseback trampling on his fallen enemies, and of legionary eagles and standards.

The
Historia Augusta
remarks, but infuriatingly fails to date the event precisely, that Hadrian was appointed
legatus
to the emperor “at the time of the Parthian expedition.” Dio reports that he “had been assigned to Syria for the Parthian war.” This may mean that he traveled on from Athens sometime during 113 to Syria, the province that shares a frontier with the Parthian empire, and began to assemble an invasion army. In that case it would seem likely that he received the emperor’s confidential instructions before setting off for Greece in early 112, and made preliminary preparations during his stay there.

So such particular evidence as there is suggests a long-planned intention
only awaiting an opportunity. More generally, though, there was a traditional pattern in the relations between the two powers. The Parthians were usually too preoccupied with their internecine court politics to plot aggressive war; and their statesmen must have recognized that their system of governance would not readily permit them to manage a larger territory. However, from the perspective of a Roman general ambitious for glory (for example, Crassus, Julius Caesar, and Mark Antony), they were a tempting if often indigestible prey. It is reasonable to regard Trajan as the inheritor of this tradition.

The longed-for casus belli eventually presented itself in Armenia, a bone of contention for more than a century. Both parties saw the kingdom as falling within their legitimate sphere of interest. Long ago Augustus had negotiated a face-saving arrangement, confirmed by Nero: the Parthians nominated a Parthian prince to the throne of Armenia, but the Romans confirmed the choice and conducted a coronation in Rome. By and large this double-lock system had assured an uneasy but durable stalemate.

For some years, though, Parthia had been divided by two rival kings. During the second half of 113, the leading contender for the throne, Chosroes, self-confidently deposed the Armenian ruler, a nephew of his, and replaced him with the king’s older brother, a certain Parthamasiris. Nothing particularly unusual here—except that Chosroes foolishly failed to consult Trajan. This certainly meant a loss of face for Rome, but no fundamental imperial interest was at risk. A rational response would have been to follow in Augustus’ footsteps and send out a high official (say, Hadrian) to negotiate an acceptable settlement.

Trajan made it clear, though, that negotiation was the last thing on his mind. Public opinion was enthusiastically behind him and, amici cheering crowds, he set out from Rome for the east, accompanied (according to a late source) by a “large force of soldiers and senators.” He probably chose for his departure the date of his adoption by Nerva, October 25. Chosroes panicked and sent an embassy, which met the emperor at Athens; it presented gifts and begged Trajan not to make war on him. Trying to make up for his earlier mistake, the king of kings asked that Armenia be given to Parthamasiris and requested that Rome send him
the royal diadem as a token of endorsement. He had deposed his nephew, he claimed, for being “satisfactory neither to the Romans nor to the Parthians.”

Trajan was unrelenting. He refused to accept the gifts and did not respond to Chosroes’ requests, either orally or in writing. He merely stated, forbiddingly: “Friendship is decided by actions and not by words. When I have reached Syria, I will do everything that is proper.”

So what were Trajan’s true motives? What did he have in mind if not in word? We can only speculate, but one thing is certain—he was obedient to the long-established rhetoric of imperial expansion. As he was an admirer of Alexander the Great, an invasion of Parthia would be a happy echo for him of the Macedonian king’s conquests. Now in his mid-fifties, this was Trajan’s last chance to live a dream of youthful adventure.

Hadrian waited in Antioch (today’s Antakya), then capital of Syria, for Trajan to take command of the legions he had assembled. Founded by Seleucus in the fourth century
B.C
., the city was squeezed in between the river Orontes (the modern Asi or Nehri) to the west and Mount Silpius to the east. It was laid out in imitation of the grid plan of Alexandria; two long colonnaded streets met in the center. With a population of about half a million, Antioch was the empire’s third largest city after Rome and Alexandria.

About four miles away was Daphne, a large
paradeisos
, or walled park around a gorge with groves of laurel and cypress. There were formal gardens and cascades. A spring called the Castalian fount was believed to have prophetic properties; it was perhaps on this occasion that the superstitious Hadrian consulted it and was informed that he was to become emperor.

However, Daphne had a reputation less for religious observance than as a haunt for sexual promiscuity, as more generally did Antioch itself. This was the city that inspired the stereotype of the slippery, treacherous, and untrustworthy Asiatic—perhaps the closest Romans came to anything approaching contemporary racism. But it was also nicknamed the “Athens of the East” and its great wealth attracted artists, philosophers, poets, and orators from across the Mediterranean, and financed a
luxurious and permissive lifestyle. Although he was busy, Antioch would have been an entertaining billet for a man like Hadrian, with an inquisitive mind and an openness to experience.

Toward the end of December he greeted the emperor when he disembarked at Antioch’s port, Seleucia Pieria (near today’s Samandağ). They made their way at once to the neighboring Mount Casius (Jebel Akra) for a religious ceremony at a temple of Zeus Casius. At nearly six thousand feet, this was the highest landmark in northern Syria, with views of Cyprus and the Taurus range in Cilicia.

The imperial pair presented an array of gifts for the god; more was promised if the Romans were victorious in the impending campaign. Hadrian composed a short poem in Greek (of course) elegiac couplets for the occasion.

Aeneas was the prince who escaped the blazing ruins of Troy and settled in Italy, and whose descendants founded Rome; so Trajan is represented as the millennial inheritor of this great tradition. The Achaemenids (literally the name of the dynasty Alexander overthrew) and the Getae were poetic terms for the Parthians and the Dacians. Hadrian was associating past victories with an assured future one. But would the god smile on the enterprise?

The emperor was in no hurry. He proceeded, by way of the pleasant gardens at Daphne, to Antioch, where he passed the winter of 113. His first destination was Armenia, the ostensible cause of the war, and he was obliged to wait until the winter snows had melted from the passes leading into that remote and high kingdom.

Trajan had promoted Hadrian to something like a modern chief of the general staff and so given him a key role in the management of the Parthian expedition. His ambivalent feelings had apparently firmed into wholehearted approval. Hadrian was for the moment the second man in the empire. However, despite the fact that he was well qualified for the purple, his position remained insecure. Despite his six decades, the emperor still showed no interest in securing the succession.

How are we to explain what looks like a dereliction of duty on the part of a levelheaded ruler? Perhaps Trajan obstinately refused to acknowledge the approach of old age, part of the same mind-set that encouraged him to emulate the ever-youthful Alexander. But just as powerful a factor may have been disagreements at court. Among the emperor’s
comites
opinions were sharply divided. The
Historia Augusta
has a passage on the subject, typically condensed to the point of obscurity:

These men were the leaders of a meritocracy, for they had all reached the top through talent and endurance. Senecio held high command in
Dacia and had twice been consul; a cultivated man, he was a friend of Pliny, who gossiped to him about the difficulty of getting audiences for literary readings, and of Plutarch. Hadrian became a friend of his, probably as early as 101, at the beginning of his career. Papus and Platorius Nepos had Spanish connections and were members of the Baetican “mafia,” with villas in and around Tibur. We have already met the now aging Attianus, when he and Trajan took responsibility for the child Hadrian when he was orphaned nearly three decades previously. He was now praetorian prefect and, as cocommander of the Guard, a guarantor of the stability of the regime. Titus Claudius Livianus had been one of his predecessors as prefect, and was perhaps of special interest to Hadrian as the owner of twin boys celebrated for their beauty.