Hadrian
| Hadrian | |
|---|---|
| Roman Emperor | |
 Hadrian battleship, v. 127-128 AD. BC, Muse du Louvre | |
| Reign | |
| 10 August 117 - 10 July 138 (~ 21 years) | |
| Period | Antonines |
| Predecessor (s) | Trajan |
| Successor (s) | Antoninus Pius |
| Biography | |
| Birth | 24 January 76 - Rome or Italica ( Hispania ) |
| Original Name | Publius Aelius Hadrianus |
| Deaths | 10 July 138 (62) Baia ( Campania ) |
| Burial | Mausoleum of Hadrian |
| Father | Aelius Hadrianus Afer |
| Mother | Paulina Domitian |
| Spouse (s) | Vibia Sabina |
| Adoption (s) | (1) Lucius Aelius Verus (2) Antoninus Pius |
| List of Roman Emperors | |
Hadrian in Greek or ), born 24 January 76 at Italica and died on 10 July 138 to Baia , is a Roman emperor of the dynasty of the Antonines. He succeeded in 117 to Trajan and reigned until his death. Emperor humanist, scholar, poet, philosopher peaceful reputation, he broke with the expansionist policies of his predecessor, attempting to pacify and organize the Empire while strengthening border.
The main sources on his life and reign are the Lives of the Caesars of Senator Marius Maximus and the History of Rome Dion Cassius. Both write in the early third century. The first work was written following the Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Suetonius is now defunct and is thoroughly up again, in very condensed form, by the Life of Hadrian, which opens the Historia Augusta. The book 69 of the second work, dealing with the reign of Hadrian, survived only in fragments, and an abstract Byzantine.
Summary |
Childhood and Education
Hadrian was born in Rome or Italica . He is the son of Paulina Domitian Aelius Hadrianus Afer and, became senator after being praetor .
His mother is a native of Gades (now Cadiz ) , the oldest city in Spain, we can surmise that his family, originally from Carthage , received citizenship through people Domitia . The father's family is originally from Adria in Veneto , one of his ancestors is one of the soldiers wounded or sick as P. Cornelius Scipio leaves Betic (southern Spain) in 206 BC. AD , at the end of the Second Punic War , and who founded the colony of Italica . The lii are a leading Roman families of Spain and counted in their ranks a senator . Hadrian's father is also, by his mother, cousin of the future emperor Trajan .
His childhood is poorly understood. His father died at the age of 40 years , while Hadrian was 10 years old . The child is entrusted to two tutors: the cousin of his father, Trajan , and a Roman knight, P. Acilius Attianus , future praetorian prefect in the reign of Trajan . It was perhaps the teacher grammarian Q. Terentius Scaurus . In any case, he studied the Greek letters with great passion, earning the nickname Grculus "little Greek" .
90, Hadrian makes a brief visit to Italica , probably to inspect the family estates after assuming the toga virilis . The Historia Augusta says that he "joined the service soon" , but given his advanced age, 14 years, this is probably more of a brigade (collegium) of young men of good family (juvenes) . At the same time, he developed a passion for hunting to the point that Trajan should do recall . It is appointed that year consul usual, which places it second only to the emperor, the Historia Augusta Hadrian said he then considers "like a son" . Back in Rome, the young man continued his studies of rhetoric .
Debut
Hadrian took its first bench in 94 : he joined the decemvirs charge of small claims (decemvirs stlitibus judicandis) , who form a college of vigintivirat. The load is not very demanding, but is an introduction to public life, and the first step in the senatorial career. The same year, Hadrian assumes two other honorary offices: it is prefect of Latin Festival and crack turmae equitum Romanorum, that is to say, responsible for leading one of six squadrons (turmae) at the annual cavalcade of knights Roman (transvectio equitum) .
The following year, Hadrian spent his military service as a tribune of the laticlave Adiutrix legion II , stationed in Aquincus ( Budapest ), whose role is to protect the empire against the Sarmatians . In 96 , after his year of service, he was again appointed as military tribune, this time in the Legion V Macedonica low Moesia . A few weeks later, the emperor Domitian was assassinated; Nerva succeeded him immediately. A year later, the latter adopts Trajan. Through his relationship, Hadrian is chosen to be the new Caesar , then governor of Upper Germany , the congratulations of the army of Lower Moesia . Arrived in Germany, Hadrian gets a third tribune, exceptional likely reflecting its unique position: it is the closest male relative of the heir to the throne . He finds himself under the authority of his sister's husband, Julius Servianus , with whom he has poor relations .
January 27, 98, Nerva died. Trajan is emperor declared the next day. Hadrian is chosen to bring the news to his uncle, who stays then Cologne , and remains at his side . He then accompanies the imperial court in Rome. The Historia Augusta notes that then comes into conflict with teachers pages Imperial , knowing that Trajan is a great lover of young boys , one can only infer the Hadrian himself approached too closely . Worried, Hadrian uses the "Virgilian lots," of opening the Aeneid randomly . It falls on the verses 808-811 of the sixth book, referring to the king Numa Pompilius :
"Who is this, in the distance, which is distinguished by its olive branches,
and carrying sacred objects? I recognize the white hair and beard
the Roman King that will make our city the first city founded on laws,
He sent a humble treatments and a poor earth in a vast empire . "
According to the Historia Augusta, Hadrian had already consulted on the tribune in Moesia an astrologer (Mathematicus), which confirmed the prediction of his great-uncle that he would become emperor . At the same time that the Virgilian lots, it queries the oracle of the temple of Zeus at Antioch, who predicts a future of even Imperial .
Senate Career
Hadrian finally regain the favor of Trajan. At the instigation of the empress Plotina , he married the niece of the latter, Vibia Sabina . It is then aged about 14 years; itself has 24. The same year he became quaestor . At that time, it may already be a member of two priestly colleges, the septemviri epulonum and sodalis Augustales , whose members are chosen directly by the emperor, on a proposal from other members. As quaestor, Hadrian should read the speeches of Trajan in his absence. The Historia Augusta reports here that his "focus a little provincial" excites the laughter at the meeting , which seems a bit curious expected Hadrian spent relatively little time in Spain. Anyway, the young man is stepping up efforts in the study of Latin but also Greek, and he attends such conferences Iseo the sophist, who delights in Pliny's knowledge of the Ionian-Attic .
In 101, Trajan from the field against the Dacians and Hadrian took with him as a member of his staff (edible Augusti) . The following year, Hadrian returned to Rome where he became a tribune of the people , indicating that it has not been elevated to the rank of patrician. His tribune, held the largest share in absentia because of conflict with the Dacians, not himself by any particular event. In 104, he was appointed praetor , more than a year before the minimum age set at 30 years. Again, the courthouse does not give rise to any brilliant action. The same year, restarts Trajan to war against the Dacians and Hadrian entrusted the command of the legion I Minervia , stationed near Agrippinensis Colonia ( Cologne ).
The second season ends with the creation and success of Dacia as a Roman province. The Historia Augusta notes that Hadrian was reported by "many brilliant deeds" and is actually decorated (Dona militaria) by Trajan for feats of arms during the two expeditions , without we know what it is exactly. Following the conflict, the province of Pannonia was divided into two, Upper Pannonia and Lower Pannonia. June 11, 106, Hadrian was appointed governor of the latter, the smallest , and is also the position of legate Adiutrix II, in which he had performed his military service. In this position he is responsible to contain the ambitions of the Sarmatians , nemeses of Rome. It strives to maintain military discipline and, according to the Historia Augusta, "represses the claims and the audacity of procurators , two policies he pursued as emperor .
In 108, a logical consequence of his position as governor, Hadrian was appointed consul suffect at the age of 32 years, 10 years before reaching the most plebeian to that Office . He is also responsible for composing the Trajan imperial discourse. This mark of honor and friendship makes a real dolphin . We know little about his occupation until 112 years during which he traveled to Greece and especially Athens : he accepted Athenian citizenship and is enrolled in the deme of Besa . He was also elected archon eponymous, his statue is erected near the theater of Dionysos , bearing an inscription in Greek honorary and a reminder of his career in Latin .
In 113, Hadrian was named legate in the war against the Parthians, through the influence of the Empress Plotina . In 116, Trajan made legate in Syria , two years later he was again consul, this time as usual . Hadrian seems then the best position to be adopted by the emperor. His enemies are then circulated rumors that he would use his position to court to appeal to young favorites of the emperor .
Emperor
Consolidation of the throne
In 117, Trajan, ill, decides to adopt Hadrian. The latter, while in Syria, received news on August 9th, the 12th, he learned the death of the Emperor . Hadrian was immediately acclaimed by the troops as imperator. However, its position is tricky: it is rumored that Trajan did not want to appoint a successor, and that adoption is the work of Plotina . His first decision is to withdraw the armies of the new provinces, Mesopotamia, Assyria and Greater Armenia. It also removes the government of Judea to Lusius Quietus , Trajan, who had testified on his behalf his last years. He went to Dacia as Roxolani come to invade and early 118, he beat and made their king an ally.
Meanwhile, it erases the tax liability of the Romans and goes so far as to burn the tax registers. But it's actually attract the sympathy of the population in order to consolidate his power. Hadrian generals feared competition that led to victory during Trajan's reign. They are encompassed in the conspiracy "of the four consular" and summarily executed .
The decision of the policy of conquest
When Hadrian became emperor, the Roman Empire is at its greatest territorial. It stretches from Scotland to the Sahara , the Carpathians in the Cyrenaica , the Black Sea in Sudan. Hadrian, careless of military glory, ending the expansionist policy of his predecessor. It waives the Armenia , to Mesopotamia and the Assyrians and made peace with the Parthians. The new eastern border of the Empire becomes the Euphrates , the consolidated files .
Hadrian's attempts to pacify and organize the Empire while strengthening border - it is the first emperor to hold securely the files , and apply a strictly defensive policy. During the summer of 122, he visited Britain. The Roman legions had suffered heavy defeats in a revolt at the beginning of the reign of Hadrian. The emperor adopted a radical solution. He built a defensive wall, the Hadrian's Wall in northern Britain to separate the Romans from the barbarians. It is 120 km long and connects the mouth of the Tyne to Solway . She is flanked by 300 towers and protected by seventeen entrenched camps. In Germany , the Agri Decumates guaranteed also by files that runs from Mainz to Regensburg. The ruins of this gigantic structure called the Devil's Wall, Teufelmauer. Along the Danube rise fortresses and trenches . To defend the empire, the regional recruitment becomes the rule for the legions. The auxiliary troops are often recruited from among the barbarians .
A traveler Emperor and builder
Hadrian wish to reorganize the Empire. For that, he traveled for over 10 years the provinces of the Empire. It behaves as a despot and enlightened leadership of an authoritarian manner. It removes control of the Senate of Italy. It accelerates the integration process of the provinces in the empire. It includes the status of municipality in Roman cities. The inhabitants of cities and access to Roman citizenship. The provincial elites access the Senate and the equestrian order . During a trip to Gaul, he visited Lyon , circa 121-122. He built a new aqueduct and restore the theater and amphitheater. He then went to Nimes , which benefits from the construction of a basilica in honor of the Empress Plotina who helped him ascend the throne.
In Egypt, it attaches to the Romans settled in the country the right to marry natives and brought settlers from Ptolemais , another Greek city of Egypt. He built a new road through the wilderness of the East, to Antinooupolis Berenika . He began Provincializing of Italy by dividing into four administrative districts assigned to consular posts. He reorganized the mining to increase revenue.
The administrative reorganization of the empire
Hadrian reformed the administration and the Roman law. During his travels, he makes up on justice, taxation reform, purify government and entrusted to the Knights' offices , formerly held by freedmen who are now confined to junior positions . It also reorganizes the privy council who attended the emperor, the consilium principis, especially in the component of Jurists . In 131, the Perpetual Edict of Julianus Salvius codifies and updates the Roman law for civil servants and judges. The settlers are protected imperial domains. Incentive measures are taken to promote the exploitation of wastelands. The emperor sought to create a class of small possessor, rights and duties well defined, that would be protected from abuse by procurators and managers .
The maintenance of order within the Empire
As guarantor of the order of the Empire, he does not hesitate to punish with the utmost severity the revolts of his subjects. The most famous is the revolt of Bar Kochba , who shakes Judaea between 132 and 135. It seems caused by the decision of Hadrian to rebuild on the site of the Temple in Jerusalem a temple dedicated to Jupiter while staying in the region between 128 and 132. He began to build the colony Aelia Capitolina on site of part of the city, causing the fury of the Jews. 12 legions involved in repression. Roman losses were so appalling that the emperor renounces the triumph after the victory . However, despite the losses, Hadrian eventually destroy the fortified city of Betar who is the refuge of Bar Kochba and the Jewish population was completely massacred. Thereafter, Jerusalem was razed and forbidden to Jews. The Jews are scattered throughout the Empire and Judea was renamed Syria-Palestine . It forbids, at the same time, the Hebrew religion. The edict of Hadrian will be repealed by his successor, Antoninus, during the first year of his reign .
The Emperor's love of literature and the arts
Intellectual training Roman Hadrian is a refined man caught by the Greek letters. It is even nicknamed graeculus (the small Greek). Lovers of the Hellenic world , it tries to restore the Greek religion by restricting the Oriental religions. Hadrian receives initiation into the mysteries of Eleusis. It offers Athens a renaissance thanks to a prestigious building as the completion of Olympeion, building a "city of Hadrian" an arc between the "city of Theseus" new buildings ( gates of the Roman Agora, Library) and numerous donations . It creates the Panhellnion , a league that combines the Greek cities of the past and which has its headquarters in Athens.
In Egypt, the Emperor is trying more to revive the legacy Hellenistic Egyptian tradition itself. He makes officially worship the statue of Memnon singing , which still stands on the left bank of the Nile but in fact a manifestation of Greek culture and Roman sovereignty. This statue wears poems celebrating the emperor and empress Sabina. Hadrian built a new town, Antinooupolis (Antinoe), founded by the Nile where Antinous drowned his beloved, and he gives up in imitation of that of Naucratis. He attended the Alexandria Library, restores and visit the museum collections .
His travels allow him to observe a wide variety of architectural forms, particularly in the East, he builds for his projects. He launched major operations, first in collaboration with the great architect Apollodorus of Damascus , before falling out with him and banish him (and have it done, according to Dio Cassius ). Among his achievements were in Rome itself, the Temple of Venus and Rome , began in 121, according to a Hellenistic model, the Pantheon in 125, he is completely rebuild large architectural innovation, the mausoleum , modeled on that of Augustus, now the Castel Sant'Angelo , the villa that bears his name on the plan is partly due to the emperor.
His private life
Hadrian shown a penchant for young boys. It also maintains a relationship pederast. His love for Antinous (or Antinous), a young man from Bithynia is famous. But in 130 , Antinous drowned in the Nile in mysterious circumstances . Hadrian represented many times in statues, some by us and allow us to give a face to the famous Bithynian. In 130 AD, he also founded, in his honor, the city of Antinoe in Egypt. This relationship has served as an argument to its enemies. The historian Sextus Aurelius Victor (d. after 390) wrote in his Book of Caesars, Chapter XIV, nearly 250 years later, when relations between men and beautiful young men have fallen from grace: "We (Hadrian) live at last look, with scrupulous care, all the refinements of luxury and voluptuousness. Therefore thousand sounds ran to his shame: he was accused of having tarnished the honor of young boys, to have burned a passion for Antinous against nature: it was there, they said, the only reason for which he gave the name of the boy to a city he had founded, was why he had built statues to this favorite. "
At the end of his life, his character hardened. Suffering from a sort of disease of the persecution, he feels surrounded by plotters and murdered innocent of Senators . Hadrian died in 138 at age 61, after several years of suffering caused by osteoarthritis. His ashes were placed in the Mausoleum of Hadrian. His successor Antoninus Pius was forced to negotiate for six months with the Senate for Hadrian receive the apotheosis , as the relationship between Hadrian and the Senate had become appalling.
Hadrian and literature
The poetry of Hadrian not reached us a few to , in Greek and Latin, including his own epitaph:
- Animula vagula blandula
- Hospes comesque corporis
- Quae nunc Abibi in rental
- Pallidula rigida nudula
- Nec ut soles Dabis iocos
Meaning:
- "Little soul, wandering, mild,
- Hostess and companion of my body,
- Who soon will depart to places
- Pale, stiff and bare,
- You no longer will give your usual repartee. "
Marguerite Yourcenar wrote a fictional autobiography of the Roman emperor called the Memoirs of Hadrian , in 1951 , a subtle psychological portrait where she gave much of herself.
Ideology and titulature
Like his predecessors, Hadrian rejects excessive honors. He carries the titles of Imperator CAESAR TRAIANVS HADRIANVS Avgvstvs on his accession. He agrees to wear the title of Pater Patriae that from 128. It is Pontifex Maximus in 117 , Imperator in 117 and 135. At his death he is IMPERATOR CAESAR TRAIANVS HADRIANVS Avgvstvs, PONTIFEX MAXIMVS, TRIBVNICIAE potestatis XXII IMPERATOR II CONSVL III Pater patriae. He was deified by the Senate , following the insistence of his successor Antoninus.
Like all Antonines , Hadrian takes Jupiter Capitoline as supreme god. But when it is in Greek, he relies instead Zeus Olympios panhellenios or accompanied by Tyche (fortune) protective . During his reign the deification of the emperor still living rose in the East. Sabina wife of Hadrian, who dies before he is also divine. The imperial ideology is more philosophical aspects. The Emperor's success on its merits (Virtus) and divine protection .
References
- Historia Augusta, Life of Hadrian See also
Bibliography
- (De) Gza Alfoldy Die Legionslegaten der Rmischen Rheinarmeen, Epigraphische Studien Bd 3, Graz, Cologne, 1967
- (In) Anthony R. Birley, Hadrian the Restless Emperor, Routledge, London and New York, 1997. ( ISBN 0-415-22812-3 )
- Raymond Chevallier, Remy Poignault, The Emperor Hadrian, I-Know-What?, 1998.
- (In) Royston Lambert, Beloved and God. The Story of Hadrian and Antinous, Meadowland Books, New York, 1988 ( ISBN 0-8216-2003-7 )
- (In) James H. Oliver, "Athenian Citizenship of Roman Emperors" in Hesperia, Vol. 20, No. 4 (octobre.-December 1951), p. 346-349.
- Paul Little, General History of the Roman Empire, T. 1: The Early Empire, Seuil, 1974.
- Yves Roman, Hadrian, Emperor virtuoso, Paris, Payot, 2008.
- (As) Ronald Syme , "Hadrian and Italica", The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 54 (1964), p. 142-149.
Novel about Hadrian
- Marguerite Yourcenar , Memoirs of Hadrian , Editions Plon, 1951.
Internal Links
External Links
- Biography , by Dion Cassius
- Hadrian's life , Historia Augusta , Wikisource
- Hadrian: A Bibliography , Bibliographies of Library Science in Antiquity (Lille 3)
- Rome and Hadrian: policy issues by Lionel Sanchez
- CIDMY (International Documentation Centre Marguerite Yourcenar, Brussels)
- AUGUSTUS CAESAR Praetoria Reconstruction of the court of Emperor Hadrian
Loading ...