Italian Prisons. Griffiths Arthur
lover of art, a munificent patron who constantly acquired paintings and sculptures at home and abroad. “Under his reign,” as Gibbon tells us, “the empire flourished in peace and prosperity. He encouraged the arts, reformed the laws, asserted military discipline and visited all his provinces in person.” There were features in his private life, however, repugnant to commonly accepted social ethics, and his deification of his favourite Antinous must ever dishonour his name.
Yet Antinous sacrificed his life voluntarily to save his master. The augurs had told Hadrian that his destiny was inscribed on the entrails of a youth who was very dear to him, upon which Antinous offered to solve the mystery and drowned himself in the Nile. Hadrian built a city on the spot, named it after his favourite and ordered that he should receive divine honours throughout the empire. Towards the end of his life Hadrian suffered tortures from a mortal malady, and in the paroxysms of pain was addicted to outbursts of savage cruelty. Weary of life, he begged a gladiator to end it, but in vain. At last he succumbed to dropsy at the age of seventy-two, according to one account, in the arms of his successor, Antoninus Pius. Some say that his body was burned and afterward buried at Pozzuoli; others that his ashes were conveyed to Rome for interment in the family vault.
The striking picture which W. W. Story has drawn of the funeral ceremony, in his “Castle of St. Angelo,” deserves quotation. “The magnificent Ælian Bridge (Hadrian’s work), resting on massive arches and adorned with statues, formed the splendid stone avenue by which the mausoleum was approached. … Facing the bridge was one of the great golden gates, which swinging open let through the train into a long dark sloping corridor arched above, cased in marble at the sides and paved in black and white mosaic. Over this gentle rise the train passed in, its torches flaring, its black robed praeficae chanting the dirge of the dead and its wailing trumpets echoing and pealing down the hollow vaulted tunnel. Next came the mimes declaiming solemn passages from the tragic poets and followed by waxen figures borne aloft representing ancestors of the dead emperor and clad in the robes they had worn in life. Behind them streamed great standards blazoned with the records of the emperor’s deeds and triumphs. Last came the funeral couch of ivory draped with Attalic vestments embroidered with gold, over which a black veil was cast. It was borne on the shoulders of his nearest relatives and friends, and followed by the crowd of slaves made free by his will, and wearing the pilleus[1] in token of the fact. Over the bridge they slowly passed, in at the golden gate and up the hollow sounding corridor till, after making the complete interior circuit of the walls, they entered the vast cavernous chamber where they laid at last the ashes of him who, living, had ruled the world.”
The third occupant of the imperial tomb was Antoninus Pius, who had been named by Hadrian as his successor after the disappointing death of Ælius Verus. He had been deeply desirous to find some man of exalted merit to ascend the Roman throne, and his choice fell upon a senator of irreproachable character and blameless life, Titus Antoninus Pius, the elder of the two Antonines, under whom the empire enjoyed good government for forty-two years. As a condition of this appointment Antoninus Pius was ordered to associate with himself a youth of seventeen in whom Hadrian had discovered marked promise of noble virtues and profound ability. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the youth in question, more than fulfilled the high expectations he had thus raised. As he grew in years, he steadily improved his natural qualifications and cultivated his mental gifts by unremitting study and the earnest adoption of the highest philosophical principles. “The united reigns of the two Antonines,”
The Castle of St. Angelo in 1490 The Meeting of St. Ursula and the Pope From the painting by Carpaccio, In the Academy of Fine Arts, Venice
St. Ursula and her bridegroom are kneeling to receive the benediction of the Pope, who stands in the foreground, his train of cardinals and bishops stretching behind him. This ancient castle is intimately connected with the criminal history of Rome from the earliest days, by turns a tomb, a chapel, a prison and a fortress.
says Gibbon, “are probably the only periods of history in which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of government.” Antoninus Pius “has been justly denominated a second Numa. The same love of religion, justice and peace was the distinguishing characteristic of both princes. But the situation of the latter opened a much larger field for the exercise of these virtues. Numa could only prevent a few neighbouring villages from plundering each other’s harvests; Antoninus diffused order and tranquillity over the greater part of the earth. … In private life he was an amiable as well as a good man. The native simplicity of his virtue was a stranger to vanity and affectation. He enjoyed with moderation the conveniences of his fortune and the innocent pleasures of society; he was fond of the theatre and not insensible to the charms of the fair sex, and the benevolence of his soul displayed itself in a cheerful serenity of temper.”
The manner of his death was of a piece with his life. He had fallen ill at his villa and “after ordering the golden statue of fortune to be transferred to his successor, he gave the countersign ‘Equanimity’ to the tribune of his guard, turned over as to sleep and passed calmly out of life at the ripe age of seventy-four—a cheerful, dignified man, the calm and noble philosopher, the generous and clement ruler, who said to himself ‘Malle se unum civem servare quam mille hostes occidere.’ ‘I had rather save one citizen than kill a thousand enemies.’ ”
At the death of Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius took Lucius Verus into partnership with him as emperor. This Lucius Verus was the son of the Ælius Verus already mentioned, who died prematurely. Lucius married Lucilla, the eldest daughter of Antoninus Pius. He was a vicious, unworthy creature, sunk in dissipation and self-indulgence, but he possessed one cardinal virtue, that of dutiful reverence for his wiser colleague, to whom he willingly abandoned the onerous cares of ruling. He was wholly unlike his colleague, being entirely given over to luxury and ease, averse to strenuous labour, a fop and voluptuary; he dressed extravagantly, sprinkled his hair with gold dust and took his midday siesta on a couch stuffed with rose leaves, with lilies strewn over him. He prefigured that notorious sybarite Heliogabalus, who liberally rewarded the inventor of a new sauce, and if it failed to please him, ordered its author to eat nothing else until he had discovered another more agreeable to the imperial palate. The highest aim of Lucius Verus seemed to be the concoction of a pasty which should become a favourite dish at the imperial table. Nevertheless, when occasion arose he acquitted himself well as a soldier, showing courage and skill as a leader in the field. Marcus Aurelius, to wean him from his consuming passion for debauchery, employed him at the head of the Pannonian legions at a distance from Rome, but after the few first successes, his vicious cravings regained their ascendency, and this although Marcus Aurelius surrounded him with wise senators and competent comrades. Lucius Verus preferred to leave the conduct of operations to his generals. While they won victories in the East, he went slowly through Greece and Lesser Asia dancing and feasting and revelling at Corinth, Athens, and the various pleasure-loving cities he found by the way. He spent his summers at Daphne and his winters at Laodicea. The dissolute life he lived in Syria was checked but not cured by his marriage with Lucilla, who came to Ephesus to meet him: he still loved his old debauched life; passed whole nights at the gaming table or in rambling through the streets disguised, frequenting the lowest haunts or the worst quarters. He was passionately devoted to the sports of the circus and was a noted chariot driver. An ardent worshipper of horses, he was fond of feeding a favourite horse with raisins and nuts. He took the horse everywhere with him, gorgeously bedecked with purple trappings, until its death, when he buried it with great solemnity in the Vatican and raised a golden statue to its memory. When he returned from the East he was accompanied by a train of actors, musicians and buffoons, and shared a great triumph and all its attendant honours, to which he had no claim, with his brother emperor. He brought also from the East the pestilence