Empire

AD 138

The month of Junius had been uncommonly hot. The month of Julius promised to be even hotter. Wearing his toga and wiping sweat from his brow, Marcus Pinarius made his way to the imperial palace in answer to the emperor’s summons.

He was sweating because the day was hot, he told himself; a man in his fifties should be carried in a sedan on such a day rather than travel on foot. But in fact, Marcus was also quite nervous. He had not seen the emperor for months, and these days, a summons to the palace was a cause not for celebration but for grave misgivings. Hadrian was now sixty-two. His health was rapidly declining, and his illness had brought out a dangerous, even murderous side of his personality. The vow he had made more than twenty years ago to kill no senators had fallen by the wayside. An atmosphere of gloom and fear had settled over everyone who had dealings with the emperor.

Marcus was conducted not to a reception hall but to the emperor’s private quarters. The courtier left him in a room with a balcony perched above a garden. The bright sunlight from the balcony at first blinded Marcus to the contents of the room; only gradually did he perceive the sumptuous furnishings, the elegant statues, the paintings on the walls – and the fact that he was not alone. A figure in silhouette was seated on a couch with his back to the sunlight. For a moment, Marcus mistook the man for Hadrian – his hair and beard were much the same – but the man’s posture was that of a younger man. Marcus gasped, thinking for just an instant that he was seeing Ceionius, who had died on the Kalends of Januarius. It was rumoured that the man’s lemur still lingered in the palace, held back by the anguish of Hadrian’s mourning.

But this man was older than Ceionius had been, and younger than Hadrian – perhaps in his forties – and he appeared to be in the best of health, despite the strained look on his face. “You must be Marcus Pinarius,” he said quietly. “I’m Titus Aurelius Antoninus. I don’t think we’ve met, but I believe you’re acquainted with my nephew, young Marcus Verus. Or rather, my son, as I suppose I should call him now.”

So this was the man whom Hadrian, bitterly disappointed at the death of Ceionius and pressed by the imminence of his own death, had named to be his successor. Determined to control the succession even after his own death, Hadrian had required Antoninus to adopt as heirs the son of the late Ceionius and also young Marcus Verus. Verus had taken his new father’s name and so was now Marcus Aurelius, third in the line of succession.

The forced adoptions had not been Hadrian’s only gambit in his bid to control the future. He seemed determined to move or remove numerous people around him, like tokens on a game board. In his depressed, bedridden state, obsessed with protecting the succession, he had resorted to executing or forcing suicide on a number of men he considered too ambitious. The latest and most scandalous of these deaths had been the forced suicide of his ninety-year-old brother-in-law, Servianus, whom Hadrian suspected of seeking to advance his grandson. The death of the empress Sabina had also sparked a scandal: some of her relatives dared to whisper that Hadrian had poisoned her.

“I was told that Caesar asked for me,” said Marcus.

Antoninus nodded. “It was the first thing he requested when he woke this morning.”

“I pray that I may find Caesar in better health than when I last saw him,” said Marcus.

“I presume that’s your tactful way of inquiring about his condition. You’ll see for yourself soon enough. Try not to be shocked at his appearance. His entire body is swollen with fluid. His face is so bloated you may hardly recognize him. They say something similar happed to Trajan, near the end.”

“May I inquire about Caesar’s state of mind?”

Antoninus gave him a piercing look. “You’ve known him a very long time, so I won’t lie to you. In recent days, he’s tried several times to take his own life. First he ordered a slave to stab him. When the slave refused, he tried to stab himself, but he was too weak. Then he sought poison from a doctor. ‘Caesar asks me to be his murderer,’ said the poor man, and Hadrian quoted Sophocles to him: ‘I ask you to be my healer, the only physician who can cure my suffering’ – the words of Hercules from The Women of Trachis, dying in agony and begging his son to set him afire. The doctor refused to give him poison, whereupon Caesar ordered that the man should be executed, along with everyone else who had thwarted his suicide attempts.”

Marcus wiped fresh beads of sweat from his brow. “And was the doctor executed?”

“Of course not. I simply removed the offending persons from Caesar’s presence and replaced them with others. They all have strict orders to keep close watch on Caesar and prevent any further suicide attempts. Meanwhile, since his physicians have failed to cure him, Caesar has called upon a series of wonder-workers and magicians. Mostly charlatans, I have no doubt, but just lately Caesar seems a little better. He insists that he’s well enough to travel. He intends to depart for Baiae tomorrow. He says the sea air will improve his health. Before he goes, he wants to see you.”

Antoninus escorted him to the door of the bedchamber. He opened it but stayed where he was, indicating that Marcus should enter alone.

Curtains had been pulled to block the sunlight. By the glow of several lamps, Marcus saw the grotesquely swollen figure of the emperor on the bed. A statue of Antinous, not quite life-size, stood on a pedestal at the foot of the bed, looking down on the emperor.

As Antoninus had warned him, the edema made Hadrian almost unrecognizable – his cheeks and chin and even his forehead were massively swollen, while his eyes and mouth looked small and pinched. But when he spoke, his voice was the same, except that a hint of his old Spanish accent kept breaking through.

“Pygmalion! Is that you?”

“It is. Caesar wished to see me?”

“Yes. Come closer. You’re looking well, Pinarius. No, don’t bother to return the compliment. I shudder to think what I must look like. You’ll notice that Antoninus has thoughtfully removed all the mirrors from this room.” Hadrian managed a weak laugh.

Marcus was surprised to find him in such good spirits. Was this the bitter man who had been ordering executions right and left?

“I called you here, Pinarius, because I wanted to thank you for all you’ve done for me over the years, and especially for your service to the worship of Antinous. The Divine Youth has no follower more devoted than you. The images you’ve created will outlast us all. The flesh is all we know in this life, but the flesh grows old and withers and rots, as I know only too well. Only perfection is immortal, and we were blessed by the god to witness perfection, and to touch it, you and I.”

Speaking wearied him. Hadrian paused to rest for a while, then went on. “Have a look at the object on the table over there, by the window. Open the curtains, if you need more light.”

On the table, Marcus saw a model of the new mausoleum. When he parted the curtains, he saw that the window framed a distant view of the building itself on the far side of the Tiber. Construction was well under way, but whatever decoration the emperor had in mind for the top of the huge circular building had remained a mystery – until now. The top of the model was fitted with a statue of Hadrian riding a chariot pulled by four horses. Marcus gaped. Judging by the scale of the model, the quadriga sculpture would be one of the largest statues ever made. Though not as tall, the sheer mass of the thing would rival the Colossus of Sol.

“What do you think, Pygmalion?”

“May I ask who made this model, Caesar?”

“I made it myself, with these swollen fingers of mine. Yes, it’s a crude thing, but I never called myself a sculptor. The details I’ll leave to a true artist – to you, Pinarius. So? What do you think?”

“Are the proportions of the statue to the mausoleum correctly rendered?”

“Closely enough.”

Marcus frowned. “The mausoleum rises to almost sixty feet. This statue is very nearly as tall as the structure upon which it stands. Is Caesar aware of just how large the full-scale piece would be?”

“I am.”

“But how is such a huge monument to be built? How is it to be transported and assembled atop the mausoleum? The enormous amount of bronze required-”

“I leave those petty details to you, Pygmalion!” Hadrian snapped. His face turned dark red and his eyes were reduced to two baleful points of light. For a moment Marcus imagined that the man’s head might actually burst, like a grape squeezed between two fingers.

Then Hadrian laughed. “Listen to me! Did you hear that accent? Thicker than Trajan’s! When I think of all those hours I spent with my elocution teachers, reading Cicero aloud until I was hoarse. Numa’s balls, I haven’t sounded so much like a Spaniard since I was a boy. That was so long ago…” He closed his eyes and drifted off.

Marcus stared at him for a long time. What would Apollonius of Tyana have made of Hadrian? Certainly he was infinitely better than Domitian, and more knowledgeable of philosophy than Trajan, but if philosophy reconciled a man to life and prepared him to face death, then in Hadrian all the lessons of philosophy came to naught. As death approached, he was more tied to the material world than ever, craving a monument larger than anyone else’s and determined to decide who would rule after him even to the second generation. Life obsessed him; death to him was unacceptable – his own death no less than the death of his beloved Antinous, whom Hadrian had sought to keep alive by populating the whole world with his image.

Perhaps no emperor could truly be a philosopher, since his duty was to care so deeply about the material world and the mortals in it, but Hadrian had come as close as anyone. Perhaps Hadrian, with all his flaws, was as good a ruler as the world could ever hope to see. Would Antoninus do a better job? Would young Marcus Aurelius, if he ever came to power?

Reflexively, Marcus reached to touch the fascinum, but it was not at his breast. The fascinum belonged to Lucius now. To the Divine Youth who looked over him, he whispered aloud, “I am a fortunate man, to have lived in such an age, and under such an emperor.”

“What’s that?” Hadrian muttered. He opened his eyes. “Are you still here, Pygmalion?”

“I am, Caesar.”

“I almost forgot to tell you. I’ve made you a senator.”

“I, Caesar?”

“Why not?”

“There are some in the Senate who’ll say that a mere sculptor has no place among them.”

“Who cares what those useless creatures think? I say you’re a senator, and so you are. You’ve served me as well as any general or magistrate – better than most. And never forget that your grandfather was elevated to the Senate by the Divine Claudius, and that his father was a senator, and that your great-great-grandfather was one of the three heirs of Julius Caesar. So from now on, you are Senator Pinarius – except when I make a slip and call you Senator Pygmalion.”

Marcus smiled. “Thank you, Caesar.”

“I’ve also named you to the priesthood of Antinous.”

“I, a priest?”

“Religious service is in your blood: you come from a long line of augurs. In essence you’re already a priest of Antinous, so you might as well enjoy the title, and the stipend, along with the duties.”

“What duties?”

“You will make more images of Antinous so as to propagate his worship.”

“I’ll do my best, Caesar.”

Hadrian closed his eyes. His breathing slowed. Marcus thought he slept, but then he began to speak, very softly. He was reciting a poem. Perhaps he had composed it himself; Marcus had never heard it before.

Sweet soul that inhabits this clay,

Soon you will flit away.

Where will you go? To what place dark and cold and stripped of grace, never again to laugh and play?

Hadrian sighed and fell asleep. Marcus quietly left the room.

The next day, the emperor and his retinue left for Baiae. Ten days later, word reached Roma that Hadrian was dead.

Antoninus, who had been running the state in Caesar’s absence, departed at once for Baiae to look after the remains and bring them back to Roma. It fell to young Marcus Aurelius to oversee preparations for the funeral rites, including the gladiator games in honour of the dead.

Upon his return to Roma, Antoninus was recognized as emperor by unanimous declaration of the Senate. “May he be even luckier than Augustus!” they shouted. “May he be even better than Trajan!”

Hadrian’s final months left a bitter taste in the mouths of many senators. There was a movement to annul many of his final acts – including the naming of several of his favourites to places in the Senate and other high positions. Antoninus said these annulments would dishonour the memory of his adoptive father and refused to allow them. He insisted that the Senate should deify Hadrian, despite widespread reluctance. Thus, Marcus Pinarius retained his status as a senator and a priest of Antinous, and the late emperor became the Divine Hadrian.