[118-129 A.D.]

remonstrances, he broke down the bridge over the Danube, which his predecessor had built, sensible that the same passage which was open to him, was equally convenient to the incursions of his barbarous neighbours.

While he was employed in compelling these nations to submission, a conspiracy was discovered, carried on among four persons of consular dignity at home. These had agreed to kill him, either while he was offering sacrifice, or while he was hunting. Their designs, however, were timely discovered, and the conspirators put to death by order of the senate. Hadrian took great pains to clear himself from the imputation of having had any hand in their execution; he had sworn upon his advancement, to put no senator to death, and he now declared that the delinquents died without his permission. But in order entirely to suppress the murmurs of the people upon this head, he distributed large sums of money among them, and called off their attention from this act of severity to magnificent shows, and the various diversions of the amphitheatre.

HADRIAN'S TOURS

Having stayed a short time at Rome, so as to see that all things were regulated and established for the safety of the public, he prepared to visit and take a view of his whole empire. It was one of his maxims, that an emperor ought to imitate the sun, which diffuses warmth and vigour over all parts of the earth. He therefore took with him a splendid court and a considerable force, and entered the province of Gaul, where he numbered all the inhabitants. From Gaul he went into Germany, from thence to Holland, and then passed over into Britain. There, reforming many abuses, and reconciling the natives to the Romans, for the better security of the southern parts of the kingdom he built a wall of wood and earth, extending from the river Eden in Cumberland to the Tyne in Northumberland, to prevent the incursions of the Picts, and the other barbarous nations to the north. From Britain, returning through Gaul, he directed his journey to Spain, where he was received with great joy, as being a native of that country. There, wintering in the city of Tarraco, he called a meeting of the deputies from all the provinces, and ordained many things for the benefit of the nation. Happening, while he was in Spain, to walk in his garden, one of the servants of the house ran furiously at him, with a drawn sword, to kill him; but the emperor warding off the blow, and closing with him, quickly disarmed him; then delivering him to his guards, he ordered that he might have a physician to bleed him, considering the poor creature (which in fact he was) as a madman. From Spain he returned to Rome.b

In April of 129 Hadrian undertook another long journey to the eastern provinces of the empire, from which he did not return to take up his residence on the Tiber until the year 134. In 129 he again made a long stay in Athens, where he celebrated the consummation of a great work which had been awaiting completion from times out of mind, and was now intended to minister to the worship of Zeus, the glory of Athens, and the vanity of the great Philhellenic emperor.

Of the many magnificent buildings which he erected for the adornment of his favourite city, hardly anything is left except the ruins of the most splendid of them all. Southeast of the acropolis there still stand some huge columns of the Olympieum, begun long since by the Pisistratida and now finished by Hadrian. It was a gigantic temple of Olympian Zeus, occupying an area of fifty-nine thousand square feet. It was consecrated in the

[129-130 A.D.]

autumn of 129, and one and the same priest presided there over the worship of the Olympian Zeus and of the Philhellene emperor.

Hadrian also laid out a fashionable residential quarter for Roman villas on the southeast of the city, towards the Ilissus, which was adorned with a stately gateway on the original boundary of ancient Athens, not far from the peribolus of the Olympieum. His new Panhellenium, a temple to the Panhellenic Zeus, was intended to serve as a centre for the new national festival of the Panhellenia, instituted by him, and celebrated for the first time in the autumn of the year 129; a festival in which the Greeks of the mothercountry and the colonies were equally entitled to take part. Thus he hoped to substitute for the Delphic amphictyony, which had passed into the limbo of shades, a fresh incentive to Greek patriotism and religious sentiment, and to restore to Athens something of the lustre of her old commanding position.

The emperor left Athens in March or April, 130, and proceeded to Alexandria, a city which combined all the elements which charmed him as a sovereign and an accomplished man of the world-the restless activity of a vast commercial centre, the motley mixture of the most varied and sharply defined national types in the empire, and lastly, the abundance of scientific material and the high standard of learning, both in studies purely Greek and in the applied and exact sciences. The only drawback was the Alexandrine propensity to ill-natured witticisms, which were apt to verge upon shameless insolence and to which even the person of the emperor was by no means

sacred.

When Hadrian's favourite, Antinous, was drowned in the Nile at Besa (probably on October 30, 130), having sought death of his own free will, according to the story then generally received, in order to save the emperor, whose life (so it was said) could only be preserved by the voluntary sacrifice of another Hadrian endeavoured to find comfort by instituting a new form of worship, that of his lost minion. The art and feeling of the antique world proved willing instruments of the emperor's will, and Antinous was immortalised in numerous statues, more particularly in Greece. On the other hand, two of Hadrian's administrative measures provoked another fearful outbreak of Jewish fury in Palestine.

[131-138 A.D.]

The founding of the new colony of Elia Capitolina on the ruins of Jerusalem and an imperial edict, really directed against the objectionable custom of mutilation, and only construed by a mistake as referring to the Jewish rite of circumcision, brought about a terrible Jewish revolt (at the end of 131), which was vigorously seconded by the Jews of the Dispersion. The rising, disregarded at first by the Romans, and directed with the utmost energy by a priest, Eleazer of Modin, and a warlike freebooter, Simon Bar Cocheba (i.e., son of a star) by name, resulted in a troublesome war, waged with horrible cruelty on both sides, in which victory only fell to the Roman arms after the experienced legate Sextus Julius Severus, came from Britain to take over the command. It was not decided by a pitched battle; as before, one stronghold after another had to be reduced, the last being Baeth-ter, not far from Jerusalem (135 A.D.). Thenceforth and for long after the silence of the grave settled upon Judea, or Syria Palestina, as it was now called. No Jews might tread the holy places of Jerusalem on pain of death, and the little country was garrisoned by two legions.

HADRIAN AS BUILDER AND ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMER

Hadrian came back to take up his residence at Rome in 134, and there zealously took up the architectural labours of which imposing remains are left to the present day. He had already adorned the heart of the old city with the temple of Venus and Rome, which was dedicated on the twentyfirst of April, 128, and some vast undertakings were brought to a conclusion in 135, 136, and the following years. We have a memorial of him to this day in the huge mausoleum, which was diverted from its purpose as a quiet sepulchre to become the citadel of the City of the Seven Hills during the stormy times of the Middle Ages and later centuries. On the right bank of the Tiber Hadrian built a new mausoleum, where not only he and the members of his family but many of his successors were buried. In order to connect this edifice (now known as the Castle of St. Angelo) with the left bank of the river, he built the splendid Ælian bridge (now Ponte St. Angelo) of blocks of travertin stone. Lastly, the ruins of his Tiburtine villa, covering a circuit of about eight miles, can still be traced.

Hadrian's successors had every reason to regard with the utmost reverence the many administrative reforms made by him in the course of his long and prosperous reign. Though he did not pursue his predecessor's policy of conquest, he used every means to maintain the strength and efficiency of the army; above all, he did not govern it by decrees issued from the palace, but constantly appeared in the camps in person, and examined all things with the eye of an expert. Military appointments were made solely on consideration of personal capacity and genuine merit, and various arrangements were made to augment the fighting power of the army, all of which stood the test of practice. Hadrian's army system, and more particularly the drill introduced by him, proved so excellent that Hadrian's regulations formed the basis of military organisation as late as the time of Constantine. The change which took place in strategy, for instance, after the introduction of his reforms is of the highest importance. Trajan had resorted to the ancient Roman practice with telling effect.

But the scientific study of military tactics which had come into existence [1 Simon's real name was Bar Kosiba from the town Kosiba. "Son of lies" was the interpretation given to his name after his failure.]

[131-138 A.D.]

in connection with Greek studies after the middle of the first century B.C. and much costly experience won in conflict with barbarian frontier tribes in Europe and with the horsemen of Asia had led to changes in the old battle array. The cavalry were taught to practise all the strategic movements of the Parthian, Armenian, Sarmatian, and Celtic hordes. In order to spare the valuable infantry of the legions as much as possible, auxiliary troops were more and more largely used in the first line, and an order of battle was introduced which combined the advantages of retaining the system of reserve divisions, promising speedier victory over hordes of gallant barbarians, and making the struggle less deadly to the Romans. The practice of early antique times-that of drawing up the men in serried ranks, or "phalanxes," was again systematically resorted to. The van of the legion was no longer divided by vacant intervals. The "phalanx" of the legion was eight men deep. By a skilful combination of the various weapons in use, the soldiers of the first four files were armed with the pilum, the four behind them with spears. A ninth file consisted of auxiliaries aimed with arrows. The place of the cavalry and artillery was on the wings and rear of the phalanx. Further still to the rear was a reserve of picked troops, ready to help at every point where help was needed.

Hadrian's labours in the field of civil administration were even more considerable. As a financier he was the best economist since Tiberius, and once more showed what results a sound financial policy and wise economy could create from the vast resources of the empire, both in the sphere of production and in that of artistic and monumental creation. At the same time he displayed great skill in introducing reforms into every department of finance, removing numerous harsh regulations, and in organising the affairs of the free peasants and tenant farmers on the imperial and fiscal domains in Africa on more humane and economical principles. He increased the revenue of the public treasury by undertaking the direct management of many imperial estates, instead of farming out the returns.

Nor was he less active in the sphere of jurisprudence. By his command all the prætorian edicts, which till then had been arranged in chronological order only, were collected into a systematic compilation in 131-132 B.C. by the eminent jurist Salvius Julianus. In connection with this work Hadrian caused the senate to issue a decree [Edictum Perpetuum] ordaining that no magistrate in office should henceforth add fresh clauses to the edict, but that necessary additions should be deduced by analogy from the materials already existing or made by imperial "constitutions." Hadrian's decisions in

points concerning slavery are of interest, as showing his humane disposition. Prominent among these was the abolition of the cruel and cowardly system which enacted that where the master of a house was found murdered all the slaves of the household should be put to death. After Hadrian's time only those slaves were examined who might be supposed to have had a hand in the murder.

The monarchical tendency of the Roman diarchy and the levelling effect of the empire became more and more distinctly marked under Hadrian. He did more than any emperor before him to place the provincials on an equal footing with the Roman citizens of Italy. Moreover, by conferring the jus Latinum on many cities, he paved the way for the extension of the rights of Roman citizenship to the whole empire.

In Italy he appointed a number of juridici, with powers to deal with bequests in trust, with the appointment of guardians, and with disputes concerning the eligibility of candidates for the decurionate. The power to

deal with these questions was withdrawn, not from the municipal authorities, but (except in specially important cases) from the law-courts of the capital, before which suits of this sort had hitherto been carried. Rome and its environs comprising an area of 100 Roman miles, or 150 kilometres, within the competency of the chief of police of course remained under the jurisdiction of the tribunals of the capital. But, on the other hand, the growing power of the imperial officials in matters of criminal law becomes steadily more apparent, and the competency of the chief of police and the prefect of the guard is extended at the expense of the old courts of law. These two officers represent the emperor more and more in the administration of criminal law in Italy. Their departments were subsequently made separate, possibly after the reign of Marcus Aurelius, certainly after that of Severus. Rome and a space of 150 kilometres round it were under the jurisdiction of the chief of police, Italy beyond these limits under that of the prefects of the guard. The latter officers took on more and more of the character of representative organs of the personal intervention of the emperor and thus were bound to be eminent jurisconsults.

Another significant change introduced by Hadrian was to give stability and definite form to the old institution of the consilium, which consisted of friends and advisers convened by the emperors to assist in their decisions at law. From this time forward the members of the imperial consilium appear as councillors duly appointed, with official titles and salaries, who were probably appointed by the emperor after consultation with the senate.

The business of the new council was jurisprudence in the widest sense of the word, and it was therefore intended to consist in the main of professional jurists and the prefects of the guard, together with the chief officers of the court. Another reform introduced by Hadrian into the administration at the same time was the rule that all the three great offices at court should be occupied by members of the equestrian order. The procurator a rationibus, or controller of the public treasury, who was really financial minister, now took the first place among the procurators both in rank and salary, and by degrees the inferior posts in the financial department were converted into regular offices and filled by knights. The imperial council was divided into a Greek and a Latin department under separate chiefs. Finally, the department of petitions and grievances was put into the hands of officials of knightly birth.m

PERSONAL TRAITS AND LAST DAYS OF HADRIAN

Hadrian is said to have taken great delight in disputing among the learned men and the philosophers who attended him; nor were they less careful in granting him that superiority he seemed so eagerly to affect. Favorinus, a man of great reputation at court for philosophy, happening one day to dispute with him upon some philosophical subject, acknowledged himself to be overcome. His friends blamed him for thus giving up the argument, when he might easily have pursued it with success. "How," replied Favorinus, who was probably a better courtier than philosopher, "would you have me contend with a man who is master of thirty legions? Hadrian was so fond of literary fame, that we are told he wrote his own life, and afterwards gave it to his servants to publish under their names. But whatever might have been his weakness in aiming at universal reputation, he was in no part of his reign remiss in attending to the duties of his exalted