Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome (41 page)

Before setting off for the Parthian border Hadrian took care to honor Trajan’s memory by ordering the construction of a “very elegant” temple dedicated to his predecessor. The honor of Rome, and the practicalities of negotiation with a resentful interlocutor, meant that Trajan’s disastrous attempt to conquer the Parthian empire had to be presented as a victory.

Few details have survived about the quarrel, and it is even uncertain which of two rival rulers was occupying the throne at the time. It was probably Chosroes, whom Hadrian had acknowledged as rightful king in 117 when pulling the legions back from Parthia. As already noted, the new Roman emperor had deposed the puppet monarch whom Trajan had installed, Chosroes’ renegade son Parthemaspates, awarding the young man the consolation prize of Osrhoene, the little kingdom in northwestern Mesopotamia.

Five years later, Chosroes may have objected to this continuing thorn in his side. He may also have pressed for the return of his daughter and his throne, both of them captured and held hostage during Trajan’s campaign. One wonders, too, whether the king pressed for some kind of
reparations for all the damage the legions had done during their blitzkrieg offensive. Rome was used to subsidizing neighboring states or tribes to keep them quiet.

The usual form for encounters between Roman and Parthian heads of state was for them to gather on either bank of the Euphrates, which marked the border between the two realms, and meet face-to-face on an island in the river; and that was presumably what happened on this occasion. As for the outcome, the
Historia Augusta
is brief and vague. “War with the Parthians had not at that time passed beyond the preparatory stage, and Hadrian checked it by a personal conference.” From this we can safely deduce that the emperor gave ground. Because he was uninterested in recouping Trajan’s brief gains, war would bring no practical advantage and would contradict his policy of self-containment. It would also consume vast quantities of treasure.

Coins tell the story of how the emperor presented the entente with Chosroes. For some time they made reference to an
expeditio Augusti
, or “the emperor on campaign,” which covered the defense review of Britannia, putting down the Moorish rebellion, and addressing the Parthian threat. Then the image of Janus began to appear on the coinage.

Janus was the god of entrances and exits, of comings and goings, beginnings and endings. He was presented as two-faced “since he is the doorkeeper of heaven and hell,” and presided over gates and doorways. A small temple in the Roman Forum was dedicated to him, the doors of which were opened in times of war and closed when the empire was at peace. The Romans understood peace to be the fruit of victory on the battlefield, so if, as seems very likely, the new coins mean that the emperor shut Janus’ doors, he was claiming military success for what was at best an achievement of negotiation.

It can be no accident that the ruler he revered so much, Augustus, took the same line on Parthia as he did—namely, that talking is better than fighting. He, too, presented the deals he struck in 20
B.C
. and
A.D
. 2 with Parthian monarchs as the result of compelling, rather than compromising with, a recalcitrant enemy. And it was the first
princeps
who made clever use of the doors of Janus; they had been shut only twice before in Rome’s whole, warlike history, but Augustus closed them three times.

The past came vividly to life for the emperor when he visited the spot where a famous incident had taken place in the fifth century
B.C
. It was a rough pathway leading up to a mountain ridge that overlooked the Black Sea and the port of Trapezus in northern Cappadocia (today’s Treb izond). It was here that one day in 401
B.C
. a harassed band of Greek mercenaries found themselves after struggling through a high pass along a very narrow, steep, and winding route.

Greek infantry (“hoplites”) were widely believed to be the best soldiers of their day, and about ten thousand of them had been hired by a pretender to the throne of the Persian empire. They joined his army and marched against the sitting king of kings. Near Babylon they helped the pretender win a decisive victory, but he fell in the fighting. The rebellion died with him, and the Greeks, now unemployed and unwelcome, had to fight their way through hundreds of miles of hostile territory to escape from the Persians. Their generals and senior officers were killed or captured, and the Athenian Xenophon, then an inexperienced but able young soldier, was elected as commander. He was a natural leader and, against the odds, brought his men to the safety of the Black Sea coast, with its Greek cities and ships to sail them home.

As the bedraggled regiment toiled its way up the slope, Xenophon and the rearguard heard a great shout from the brow of the hill and feared that it was some more enemies attacking from the front. Xenophon, who wrote a memoir of the long march home (modestly speaking of himself in the third person), described what happened next:

It was as famous a moment of return as Odysseus’ homecoming in Ithaca from the Trojan war. Hadrian, who was inspecting the eastern frontier provinces after agreeing his entente with Chosroes, made sure he found the time to pay homage to one of his heroes. He regarded Xenophon highly not just for his courage and decency, but because he was an enthusiastic huntsman and, as we have seen, the author of a classic text on the subject.

Hadrian was touched by the place. To mark his visit, he added to memorial cairns built by the Greek soldiers by arranging for altars to be erected, plus a statue of himself. A few years later, Arrian, the emperor’s friend and an even more fervent admirer of the Athenian, was appointed governor of Cappadocia and toured the area in that capacity. He was dismayed by what he found at the mountain ridge. He informed the emperor that the altars had indeed been built, but in rough stone with an inaccurately cut inscription, and he had decided to replace them. As for the statue of the emperor,

No doubt the replacements were a distinct improvement, but Arrian’s reference to an “everlasting monument” was challenging fate. Nothing now remains of altars or statue—but the cairns are still there. Immortality, only where it is due.

The emperor’s next stop was Bithynia-Pontus. The province was of strategic importance because it lay on the southern littoral of the Black Sea and was the main communication route between the Danube and Euphrates frontiers. According to ancient sources, the region was settled by Thracians from across the Propontis, but along the coastline a necklace of cities was founded by Greek colonists from the mainland and Asia Minor. Hellenic culture flourished there, as is borne out by the distinguished
men whom the province produced—the famous rhetorician Dio Chrysostom of Prusa; Arrian, author and soldier; and, born later in the second century, the historian Dio Cassius.

There was plenty for an inquisitive visitor to inspect. The politics of Bithynia-Pontus was disputatious and corrupt and, for all Pliny’s attempts at reform in the previous reign, it is unlikely that much had changed since. Also, his correspondence with Trajan discussed numerous building and engineering projects, exactly the kind of thing that fascinated the emperor. At the city of Amastris, for example, Pliny wrote of a “long street of great beauty” marred by an open sewer running down the middle of it; he won Trajan’s permission to cover it and remove a “disgusting eyesore which gives off a noxious stench.” Hadrian could not have resisted the temptation to inspect the street himself to make sure that the project had been completed satisfactorily and the problem solved.

An earthquake had struck the province, and Nicomedia, the provincial capital, and the town of Nicaea had sustained much damage. The emperor provided funds for the necessary restoration work and doubtless busied himself with the detail of public development projects.

He expected no especial surprises during his stay in the province and laid plans for his future destinations—Thrace and then northward to the frontier provinces on the Danube. Finally, to his huge pleasure and as a reward for his labors, he anticipated a lengthy stay in his spiritual homeland, Greece. However, before he went on his way a chance encounter took place.

He came across a country boy in his mid-teens, who was to transform his life.

He came from an upland town called Claudiopolis (today’s Bolu). Named after the emperor Claudius, its citadel rose from a high plain in a mountain range that closed off the province’s flat and fertile coastal fringe. The mountain slopes were covered with fir trees, oaks, and beeches, from which generations of fleets were constructed. There was little agricultural land but grass meadows fattened cattle and the area was well known for its milk and cheeses (and still is). In winters ice and snow could render the roads impassable.

Then as now, the lakes, forests, and mountains were rich in wild-life, including wild boar. This was excellent hunting country and it is very possible that Hadrian rode out here to take part in his favorite pastime.

Claudiopolis was a prosperous place and the local worthies were ambitious, sometimes overly so, for their city. Pliny reported indignantly to Trajan that they were “building, or rather excavating, an enormous public bath at the foot of a mountain.” Not only was the site dangerously inappropriate, but its funding was dubious. He could not make up his mind whether to complete the original plans and hope that good money was not being thrown after bad, or to begin again at a new location and sacrifice the original outlay. Trajan replied shortly that the governor must decide for himself.

The main road from Cappadocia passed through Claudiopolis, and we can hardly doubt that Hadrian, copy of Pliny in his hand, stopped off to see how the dilemma had been resolved. It may be then and there that he met, or at least noticed, the boy.

Antinous was about fifteen or maybe a little younger in 123; if the year of his birth is uncertain, his birthday probably fell on November 27. History has not recorded his first encounter with the emperor. Before 130, when the pair went sightseeing in Egypt and North Africa, they are invisible. However, this was the only time when we find them in one place and they could have set eyes on each other.

It is possible to make a judgment by assessing the many statues of Antinous that have survived. Most of the images are posthumous—idealized and melancholy. But some survive from the beginning of Antinous’ career that evoke a cheerful, chubby-faced teenager, almost a child (puberty seems to have arrived late in the ancient world, officially at fourteen for boys but in practice between fourteen and sixteen). In about 130 we see Antinous in a carved relief, as a whiskered young man with short hair, twenty or so years old.