The Antonines

The Roman Empire in Transition

Michael Grant

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317972105
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

The Antonines - Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus and Commodus - played a crucial part in the development of the Roman empire, controlling its huge machine for half a century of its most testing period. Edward Gibbon observed that the epoch of the Antonines, the 2nd century A.D., was the happiest period the world had ever known.
In this lucid, authoritative survey, Michael Grant re-examines Gibbon's statement, and gives his own magisterial account of how the lives of the emperors and the art, literature, architecture and overall social condition under the Antonines represented an `age of transition'. The Antonines is essential reading for anyone who is interested in ancient history, as well as for all students and teachers of the subject.

Part I

THE EMPERORS

1

ANTONINUS PIUS

Hadrian (117–38), whose relations with his wife Vibia Sabina (d. 128) were not very cordial, had no son to become his heir, just as Nerva and Trajan before him had also lacked sons. In 136 he adopted as his son and presumptive successor an elegant, luxuriously living and not apparently very impressive senator in his mid-thirties, Lucius Ceionius Commodus, thenceforward known as Lucius Aelius Caesar; and he was appointed governor of the key frontier province of Upper and Lower Pannonia. In the same year, Hadrian brought about the execution of his elderly brother-in-law, Lucius Julius Ursus Servianus, and the latter’s grandson who, Hadrian suspected, was being prepared as a rival candidate to Aelius. In January 138, however, Aelius died. Hadrian was so upset and dejected that he did not bother to have him deified.

About a month later he adopted Antoninus Pius (Titus Aurelius Fulvus Boionius [?] Antoninus). He convened at his house the most prominent and most respected of the senators and, lying upon his couch, he spoke to them as follows:

I, my friends, have not been permitted by nature to have a son, but you have made it possible by legal enactment. Now there is this difference between the two methods – that a begotten son turns out to be whatever sort of person Heaven pleases, whereas one that is adopted a man takes to himself as the result of deliberate selection.

Thus by the process of nature a maimed and witless child is often given to a parent, but by process of selection one of sound body and sound mind is certain to be chosen. For this reason I formerly selected Lucius [Aelius Caesar] before all others – a person such as I could never have expected a child of mine to become.

But since Heaven has bereft us of him, I have found as emperor for you in his place; the man whom I now give you, one who is noble, mild, tractable and prudent, neither young enough to do anything reckless nor so old as to neglect anything, one who has been brought up according to the laws and one who has exercised authority in accordance with our traditions, so that he is not ignorant of any matters pertaining to the imperial office, but can handle them all effectively.

I refer to Aurelius Antoninus here. Although I know him to be the least inclined of men to become involved in affairs and to be far from desiring any such power, still I think that he will not deliberately disregard either me or you, but will accept the office even against his will.¹

Antoninus, after prolonged consideration, accepted the proposal. He had been born in 86 at Lanuvium (Lanuvio) in Latium, had served as consul (120) and proconsul of Asia, and was a member of the emperor’s council. His family, described as eminent but not particularly old,² came from Nemausus (Nîmes) in Gallia Narbonensis (southern Gaul), but moved to Rome where his grandfather and father – both bearing the names Titus Aurelius Fulvus – each became consul. Antoninus’s mother was Arria Fadilla, whose father Arrius Antoninus, who was also from southern Gaul, had likewise twice obtained consulships. It was from him that Antoninus Pius took the name Antoninus, following a habit common among upper-class Romans of favouring names from the female line.

He was linked to most of the new governing class of Rome – the nobility who had risen to this rank under the Flavians, Vespasian and his two sons. He had lived on the revenue from his country estates, which included fine inherited villas at Centumcellae (Civitavecchia), built by Trajan, and Lorium (near La Bottaccia, two miles from Rome, on the Via Aurelia); and he augmented his income by lending money at 4 per cent interest.

When Hadrian adopted Antoninus, the latter took the name Imperator Titus Aelius Caesar Antoninus. His assumption of the name ‘Aelius’, which immediately appeared on coinage issued with his head,³ was no doubt a tribute to Hadrian’s earlier appointee, who had borne this name. It will be noted that Antoninus, although he was invested with the titles ‘Imperator’ and ‘Caesar’, was not called ‘Augustus’, so that this was not truly a dual monarchy in which he was a full colleague. Nevertheless, during the few months of Hadrian’s life that remained he was virtually regent. Some modern writers are surprised by this development, others are not, pointing out that he had already been Hadrian’s closest adviser.

It is pretty clear, however, that the promotion caused a certain amount of jealousy among others, who felt that the move was unexpected and that they themselves were equally qualified. This included the prefect of the city, Lucius Catilius Severus Julianus Claudius Reginus, backed, no doubt, by a group which had supported Servianus’s grandson (?) now dead. There were also, probably, some doubts about whether the armies would support Hadrian’s new appointee, since the coins that were now issued in Antoninus’s name gave hopeful prominence to CONCORDIA EXERCITVVM and to figures of ‘Securitas’, testifying to a certain fear.⁴

Then, on 10 July of the same year, Hadrian died, and Antoninus, without opposition, succeeded him on the imperial throne, becoming ‘Augustus’ and being hailed as such on the coinage. His reign began, however, with a considerable amount of embarrassment: when Antoninus requested the deification of his predecessor and the ratification of his official actions, the senate proved recalcitrant on both issues, remembering that it had cordially disliked Hadrian for diminishing its authority and executing a number of its members. Antoninus, who stressed his role as follower of Hadrian, complained that if the senate annulled Hadrian’s acts it would also be undermining his own position, since one of those acts had been his own adoption. Thus, although there were still men who objected to his elevation, he finally secured the deification of Hadrian, as was obliquely referred to by coins of early 139 which displayed Aeternitas standing beside an altar.⁵ No army hostility manifested itself, so that another coin was able to portray the Loyalty of the Troops (FIDES MILITVM), which was depicted by a female figure holding a standard.⁶ And the senate too, despite rumours of plots, eventually complied; indeed it was perhaps partly because of the attitude of the army that it did so.

But it was also because Antoninus gave the senate a quid pro quo. This was the abolition of circuit judges (juridici) in the Italian peninsula. There were four of these and, although they were senators (usually former praetors), the senate did not like them because their existence diminished its control of Italy.

When the senate dropped its objection to Hadrian’s deification, Hadrian’s body was duly buried in the mausoleum that he had erected for the purpose (now the Castel Sant’Angelo), which was dedicated to him, as an inscription shows.⁷ Work was also started on a temple in his honour at Rome, the Hadrianeum – which was dedicated at a later date – and temples commemorating his divinity were erected at Cyzicus (Balkiz) and elsewhere. Nevertheless, Antoninus continued to feel that he had to be somewhat careful about all of this, and there is reason to suppose that Hadrian became only a type of second-class imperial god, whose deification did not obtain a great deal of public celebration, being limited, on the whole, to an inner circle.

Antoninus Pius, on becoming emperor, assumed the tribunician power. Augustus had introduced the power in order to show how democratic he was, posing as a tribune who stood up for the people’s rights. He had also used the power as a technical means for proposing motions in the senate. There is no evidence that Antoninus did this. Indeed, there was nothing distinctive about his assumption of the tribunicia potestas, since every earlier emperor had assumed the same power. Nor was there anything unusual about his acceptance of the title ‘Father of his Country’ in 139, after initially refusing it.

What was exceptional, however, was the bestowal upon Antoninus of the appellation ‘Pius’, by which he is so generally known. The precise reasons behind the allocation of this name to him have been much discussed, by ancient and modern authorities alike. The Historia Augusta offers five of these reasons:

He was given the name of ‘Pius’ by the senate either (1) because, when his father-in-law was old and weak, he lent him a supporting hand in his attendance at the senate (which act, indeed, is not sufficient as a token of great dutifulness, since a man were rather undutiful who did not perform this service than dutiful if he did), or (2) because he spared those men whom Hadrian in his ill-health had condemned to death, or (3) because after Hadrian’s death he had unbounded and extraordinary honours decreed for him in spite of opposition from all, or (4) because, when Hadrian wished to make away with himself, by great care and watchfulness he prevented him from so doing, or (5) because he was in fact very kindly by nature and did no harsh deed in his own time.⁸

Reason (5) is repeated by other ancient authors, but is not particularly plausible; nor are (1), (2) or (4), although, in respect to the last, his dutifulness to the memory of Hadrian has been held to have played a part. But (3), which is also recorded by Dio Cassius, may well have been relevant. And so, in all likelihood, was Antoninus’s general meticulousness in matters of religion,⁹ of which more will be said later, and his graciousness of character and correct performance of all of his duties, in every branch of life, relating both to gods and to humankind.

This was the start of a period when emperors felt obliged to show how dutiful they were. However, it should not be forgotten that ‘Pius’ may well have been a proper name in Antoninus’s family, which he felt entitled to revive for himself. People could interpret the appellation in various ways, and there was no good justification for preventing them from doing so; multiple meanings were familiar enough to the Romans, as the poet Horace, for example, was well aware. In any case Antoninus, in addition to calling himself ‘Pius’, immediately showed that he was not averse to placing Pietas on his coins and medallions,¹⁰ on which, moreover, she was soon explicity named.¹¹ And his role as family man and dutiful paterfamilias – paterfamilias, one might add, to the whole nation – was stressed by the appearance of the goddess with small children, as well as by her close link with the deified empress Faustina the elder – on whose coinage, abundant in life and after death, a temple is labelled PIETAS AVG.¹²

Antoninus overcame his initial friction with the senate and in deference to it accepted (like other emperors before him) a second consulship, in 139, followed by a third and fourth in 140 and 145. And so, in 140–43, his coins were already paying tribute to the Genius of the Senate (GENIO SENATVS).¹³ Antoninus, as we have seen, had ostensibly restored its full powers, by abolishing the four circuit judges in Italy. The new aristocracy could forget that he was no better than they were; they were well off, and what they wanted most was to relax and enjoy their wealth and position. Antoninus was content to allow them to do so.

Nevertheless, he knew perfectly well that the senate was weak compared to himself: the myth that the Principate could be seen as a Restored Republic was threadbare. Besides, in practice, while paying outward respect to the senate, Antoninus reserved all of his consultations about important business for his much smaller imperial council (consilium principis). Local initiatives mostly came to nothing because, with the aid of an ever-growing bureaucracy, he was quite an inflexible centralizer, his humanity being of a distinctly paternalistic character. Deference to him became more marked and explicit, and he did not prevent the appellation of ‘god and master’ (deus et dominus); the deification after her death in 141 of his wife Faustina the elder (despite the questioning of her character by tradition) was celebrated both by temples and by coinage on a wholly unprecedented scale – in honour, no doubt, not only of herself but also of her husband’s imperial house. At Sardes (Sart), for example, a joint cult of Faustina and Artemis was established.

A series of coins labelled LIBERAL(itas)¹⁴ recalls that Antoninus Pius, no doubt eager to contradict accusations of stinginess, was generous in his distributions of cash. The Chronographer of AD 354 (composer of an illustrated calendar) recalls that he doled out 800 denarii (32 aurei) per head. Probably the first distribution was on quite a modest scale, reducing Hadrian’s usual dole of 150 denarii to the original figure of 75, but later this was raised to 100. The total of 800 finally reached was unprecedented and has been criticized as unduly indulgent, but it only serves to show what lengths the emperor was prepared to go in order to counter the charges of meanness that have been mentioned, and to keep his people happy and so prevent them from thinking of sedition.

For the same reason, he encouraged the making and restoration of roads as an aid to commerce, and was keen that the Romans should be properly fed, by means of good harvests in Italy and regular supplies of imported grain. Thus it was that coins of 140–4 are dedicated to Ops, the goddess of the abundance of such products (OPI AVG.).¹⁵ And when LAETITIA (Joy) was celebrated in 149–50 – later she was defined as LAETITIA PVBLICA¹⁶ – the inscription was accompanied by a figure of the grain-goddess Ceres (Demeter), attended, on occasion, by her daughter Proserpina (Persephone).¹⁷ Nor were the provinces forgotten; when the customary crown-gold (aurum coronarium) was offered to Antoninus from all quarters on the occasion of his adoption, he remitted not only the whole of Italy’s share but also half of what was provided by the provinces. They must also have benefited when, in 147–8, on the occasion when the tenth anniversary of his accession was celebrated, he remitted arrears of debt to the treasury.

It was mentioned earlier that he relied for advice on his imperial council. This included military experts, on whom he depended as a result of his lack of personal experience in this field. And, naturally, he was in close consultation with his praetorian prefects (not yet senators), of whom five are attested during his reign: the first, Marcus Gavius Maximus, held office for twenty years. Outside ...