The Hadrianic Chancellery

CHAPTER 5 Governing by Dispatching Letters: The Hadrianic Chancellery

Juan Manuel Cortés-Copete

In the year 142 AD, Aelius Aristides was a young sophist fulfilling his dream of making an appearance in Rome to declaim before senators and, even, the emperor himself. He wished this trip would be the start of a triumphal political activity under the auspices of one of his teachers, Herodes Atticus, friend of emperors and appointed consul at Rome within that year. Illness and mys- ticism thwarted his political vocation, but never hindering the opportunity to present in public his speech Regarding Rome.1 The encomium to the city that dominated the world was composed of two series of comparisons: the superiority of Roman domination against Greek hegemonies, brief in time and space; and the kindliness of the Empire in contrast with the kingdoms that had previously tried to subdue the world.2 After indicating the flaws of the Persian Empire, the limitations of the reign of Alexander, and the failures of Hellenistic kingdoms, the sophist praised the Roman Empire. The authentic control over the ecumene by Rome and the perfection of its political structure were its arguments. This section concluded as follows (26.33):

Therefore there is no need for him [the Emperor] to wear himself out by journeying over the whole empire, nor by visiting different people at different times to confirm individual matters, whenever he enters their land. But it is very easy for him to govern the whole inhabited world by dispatching letters without moving from the spot. And the letters

* This article is part of the Project “Adriano y la integración de la diversidad regional” (HAR2015- 65451-C2-1-P MINECO/FEDER), financed by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Government of Spain. 1 Juan Manuel Cortés-Copete, “A Roma de Elio Arístides, una historia griega para el Imperio”, in Costruzione e uso del passato storico nella cultura antica, ed. by Paolo. Desideri, Sergio Roda, Anna Maria Biraschi (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2007), 411–33. Francesca Fontanella, Elio Aristide, A Roma (a cura di) (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2007). 2 Aristid., 26.40–57, comparison with Greek hegemonies; 26.15–39, comparison with previous empires. Charles A. Behr, P. Aelius Aristides, The Complete Works, II (Leiden: E. J. Brill 1981), whose translations I used in the text.

are almost no sooner written than they arrive, as if borne by winged messengers.

The passage has traditionally been understood as a commendation of the government of Antoninus Pius and as a censure, veiled yet direct, of his predecessor, Hadrian, the traveller. With this interpretation of the text, as seen in B. Keil’s edition,3 Hadrian would be portrayed as a new Persian king, forced to travel and bringer of ruin to those territories over which the curse of his pres- ence fell. Thus, this is what the sophist had stated in reference to Cyrus some pages above (26.18):4

Oebaras, who is first said to have told Cyrus angry because of his exten- sive traveling that it was required and necessary for him to journey ev- erywhere in his empire whether he wanted to or not, if he were going to be king, and that he should consider the hide, how on whatever part he stepped, this flattened out and touched the ground, and when he left it, again it rose up, and one more flattened out when he walked upon it.

The imperial court, the Praetorian Guard, and the provincials arriving at the place of residence of the emperor would have threatened to exhaust the re- gion’s resources, to be consumed in a devouring royal feast. To my understand- ing, the interpretation of this passage would be as erroneous as sad would be this characterization of Emperor Hadrian.5 When Aristides arrived in Rome, it had only been four years since Hadrian’s demise, leaving Antoninus in the throne. If one discards the notion of the new emperor having put forth a programmatic declaration announcing his will not to travel the empire, thus breaking the habits of his predecessor, his exiguous years in government should be consider insufficient to extol Antoninus’s scant fondness for traveling. No one could guarantee neither that the new emperor lacked the desire to visit the provinces, in the ways of Hadrian, nor that he would not be forced to leave Rome to live, and even die, far from the capital in the frontier encampments, as would later happen to Marcus Aurelius and

3 Bruno Keil, Aelii Aristides Smyrnaei quae supersunt omnia, vol. II (Berolini: Weidmann, 1898), 101: fort. Hadriani imperium pervagantis memoriam cavillatur. 4 Pierre Briant, “Le nomadisme du Grand Roi”, Irania Antiqua 23 (1988): 253–73. 5 Hadrian was elevated in the literature as an ideal judge and emperor whose enlightened rulings brought justice to the Empire. Aelius Aristides was crucial in the generation of this portrait: Kaius Tuori, The Emperor of Law. The Emergence of Roman Imperial Adjudication (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 196–240.