Trajan and Hadrian

Transcript (PDF)

Alexandria and Rome
Presentation 10 of 14

Trajan and Hadrian
The Pax Romanum as Its Greatest Extent
Presented by Roger Weir
Thursday, September 2, 1982

Transcript:
Some of, some of you have been reading along and you know it's very difficult because of the enormous populations of people, the complications. In our Greek series it was very easy to keep the major focuses in order. But with Rome it's almost impossible. So, I placed on the board the names of the emperors and keep some idea of the momentous decisions and personages that were happening at this time.
I think what we need is a little bit of background. And I think I gave some of this in that Saturday special lecture on Ptolemaic Alexandria, but I haven't given it in this series. So, I'll repeat some of the items. We're concerned now with trying to understand the atmosphere of the Roman world within which Christianity as a religion spraying into prominence. And eventually at the end of this list, another 30 emperors, and only another a hundred years, Christianity triumphs. It simply wins out and supersedes all of the incredible factions of the time.
And for persons who are unknowing of this history of the details of the developments it seems like either an impossibility or a simple sudden divine intervention. But in fact, Christianity won out because it was the best. And it was able to survive the incredible vicissitudes mainly because it was able to offer an integration capacity for human beings in a time when it was almost impossible to keep a personality and focus. And the more success that a person had in the world in terms of position or power or money or possibilities, the more susceptible they were to becoming frayed around the edges and finally collapsing within. And we have many names on this list of Emperors who simply collapsed from within. They were psychologically unable to sustain the enormous pressures and burdens upon them of their own success, of their own capacities revealed to them.
So, the beginning of this fantastic story of the success of Christianity, we have to go back to Alexandria for just a few minutes. And to take ourselves back to the beginnings of this course after Alexandria was founded, yes by Alexander the great, but really put on the map by his great general successor Ptolemy. Who then styled himself Ptolemy I Soter, the great word for a savior. Sotor. His son, who was a Greek. Who was born on the Island of Cos, c-o-s, in the Aegean Sea became the second Ptolemy and took for his name Philadelphus, brotherly love.
And Philadelphus later when he married, his great lady Arsinoe, they styled themselves and were known thereafter throughout the whole Hellenistic period as Theoi Adelphoi, the brother Gods. Meaning in our understanding very much the religious sense of brotherhood, divine fellowship between man and God possible because there were intermediaries who summed up the best of humanity and expressed it to the openness of divinity. So that the brother Gods, the Ptolemy and his wife, were at the apex of human aspiration. And because of their dedicated-ness, which they passed on for many generations, the idea that there were those special persons who could be met in the flesh, but who in their ritual formation, where like our bridge head to the Godhead.
It was under this Philadelphus who was interested in making sure that they brotherhood of the Gods, the brotherly Gods that he and his wife represented, included all of the major religious revelations of the world. So much so that he personally saw to the appointment of emissaries who traveled all over the known world and brought back the best of the religious writings from all over the world and brought them to Alexandria. Further, he saw to it, that translators from those native language, language groups, were also brought with those works. And they were put up in Alexandria in the great library. And this was the beginning of the collegium there in Alexandria. And all of these works were translated into one language Greek. So that by the time of about 250 B.C., the grand library in Alexandria was a repository of all of the greatest thought of the world of that time. The only civilization that was left out as far as we know, was China. India was included.
And for our purposes tonight, the Jewish writings of the Old Testament were first translated into Greek in 270 B.C. in Alexandria. And Philadelphus when he sent to Jerusalem to the temple, to the high priest of the temple. At that time, a man named Eleazar. There've been many Eleazars. This particular Eleazar saw to it that 72 translators accompanied scriptures to Alexandria representing six from each tribe. And they were proverbially put to work in separate writing quarters, but they dined together. And when their translations were finished, they were compared, and they were found to agree substantially so that they knew that the translation and it's referred to as the [inaudible] version. And we have this copy here in the P.R.S. library, which you can inspect. And the text of course is in Greek but there was a translation in English on the side.
270 B.C. marks the entrance of the Old Testament writings into Greek and thus into Greco-Roman civilization. This influence lay fallow or bubbling under the surface for about 200 years. There were times when it came up to the surface. There were books of the Apocrypha, like The Wisdom of Solomon written in Alexandria. There was the great book Ecclesiasticus or known as Ben Sira and the rabbinic tradition. These were productions in Alexandria. They were written originally in a Greek text. And from the time of Philo on, that is contemporaneous with Augustus, all of these works were well-known to any educated person in the Greek and thus the Roman world.
So that after the decline of the Augusta Principate, which we've been following, and its crash with the insanities of the reign of Nero. In 69 A.D. when there were four different emperors and met, several of them had to commit suicide while their friends were waiting around the beds because they empire was just unraveling a mile a minute.
The man who brought the empire to a firm stability was the man named Vespasian. And Vespasian is interesting. And this is how it ties up with the Roman province of Judea. Vespasian all his life had been susceptible to the oddest happenings. He was dining one time and an ox came through the wall and started to gore people and suddenly when it came to him, lay down and lay his head at his feet. Vespasian many times was caught in storms where lightning would kill someone next to him and he'd be absolutely untouched.
Vespasian also was one of these individuals who consulted astrologers and oracular writings. And he became convinced that he was a chosen person. That he was a very special person. For what purpose he did not know. Vespasian was a very beefy, tough, cheerful gritty man. Suetonius who wrote a life of him said he looked like he was always reaching for a stool. He had that kind of expression on his face. Very tough, man. Looks, looked a little bit like Ptolemy Soter. A large nose and a deep-set eyes. Very, very beefy and chunky. But an excellent man, a good judge of character.
He happened to be assigned to the province of Judea under Nero at the time when 69 A.D. produced this tremendous revolution in Rome. And of course, the detailing of the revolution in Rome went out to the various provinces and were interpreted as a sign that the Roman empire had been a temporary achievement of a great man named Julius Caesar and his heir Augustus. And that it was all over. So, there were many revolts among the provinces to break away.
Vespasian was in Judea when the Jews took to revolting. And of course, the Roman response was once Rome was secure to go out to the various provinces and punish those rebels who tried to break away. And the province of Judea was singled out as the exempt burly case where a Roman might was going to just steamroller the revolt. And of course, we know from history that the following year in 78 A.D. that the Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem and completely disassembled the Jewish army. Those few remnants who fled into the wilderness and down to the area of the Dead Sea took refuge at the huge cliff fortress of Masada were finally besieged and they killed themselves in a mass suicide.
We have for this recording, both the Roman side and the Jewish side. The great Jewish historian Josephus, who was alive at that time records for us in his writings. And the core of his writings about this war, the Jewish war, had been singled out for a penguin classic. He writes the following concerning the coming of Vespasian and Titus. There's a whole section in the Jewish Wars about Vespasian and his eldest son Titus. He had two sons, Titus and Domitian. And Domitian was always slighted down. Thus, he had an oppressed perverted personality, and when he became emperor all of these traits came out like, like lightning.

Josephus writes,
Such a record, was highly auspicious. And a man of this patient's age and experience could obviously be trusted. His sons, moreover, were hostages for his good faith and being in the prime of life could provide the hands if their father provided the brains. Perhaps also God was already planning the future of the world. For whatever reason, Nero sent this man to assume command of the armies in Syria, Judea. Paying him in view of the urgent situation, every smooth compliment that necessity can suggest.
And so, on.

Vespasian was there when the fighting took place and reached its apotome when the city of Jerusalem was surrounded by Roman legions. And Vespasian’s son, Titus was the field commander in charge. He later became the emperor after his father. There was a long in-fighting and Titus thinking that they were going to surrender the city to him, went into Jerusalem to hear the terms of the surrender. Well Josephus gives us what he heard,
The partisans and their chiefs beaten in the war all ways and shut in by a wall that left them no possibility of escape, invited Titus to a parlay such was his natural kindness that he was eager to save the town. And urged by friends who concluded that the terrorist had at least, and at last come to their senses, he took his stand to the west of the outer temple. For here above the gymnasium there were gates, and a bridge linked the temple with the upper city. Now, this now separated the party chiefs from Caesar.
Titus was a Caesar. The 11th Caesar.
On either side stood a dense crowd. Jews round Simon and John on tiptoe with hope of pardon. Romans eager to see how Titus would received their appeal. Titus called on his men to control their fury and their weapons. And placing his interpreter by his side exercise, the Victor's privilege and spoke first.
And of course he made this grand beautiful speech to them. How wonderful it was that they would surrender and how wise it was of them to turn the city over. And they informed him that they were not going to surrender the city, but that they had wanted have a chance to take the women and children out of the city and let them go into the wilderness. And that if Titus wanted the buildings, they would give him the buildings, but they would not surrender the army. They would not surrender the Jewish people.
Well Titus considered this on afront. A challenge. And so, the temple was the city was sacked, and the temple was destroyed. This is the temple that was founded by Solomon some thousand years before. Josephus writes about the temple and Jerusalem, he's he writes just briefly,
Jerusalem was defended by three walls except where it was shut in by impassable ravines. So that a single Rampart was enough. It was built on two hills facing each other and separated by a central ravine at which the terraces of houses ended. Of these hills the one occupied by the upper city was much the higher and straighter along its length. Being so strong it was called the stronghold by King David, father of Solomon, who first built the temple. Though known to us as the upper market. The second,
he means the second hill,
was called the Citadel and covered with the lower city and was dome shaped. Opposite this was a third hill smaller by nature, lower than the Citadel. And originally cut off from it by another wide ravine. Later however, when the Hasmoneans were reigning, they filled the ravine in wishing the joined the city to the temple. They also removed the top of the Citadel to reduce its height so that the temple could be seen beyond it. The Valley of the cheesemakers, which as we said, separated the hills of the upper and lower cities goes down to Salona. Such was the name we gave to that sweet and never-failing spring. On the outside the city's two hills were surrounded by deep ravines and the steep cliffs on either side made access everywhere impossible.
Well, just to give us some images and some pictures.
The man in charge Vespasian who had all of his life been susceptible to being singled out, to having the most incredible events happen to him directly. found himself at the sack of the temple of Jerusalem at a time when the Roman Empire had literally fallen apart. When he got the news that the troops had nominated him and elevated him to emperor of the world, he saw this happening in terms of his own personal charmed life and in terms of the Masonic expectations of the Judea of its day.
And remember the Judi of its day, this is 78 A.D. The Book of Matthew, The Gospel According to Matthew had already been compiled about a generation before. The expectation of the return of Jesus had already permeated the communities far beyond Judea. Vespasian interpreted all of these events to the effect that it was he who was going to be held as the emperor of the world. And it was up to him to pull tight to the, the new order.
Now he was a Flavian. His family was Flavius, Titus Flavius is the family name. And he institutes a Flavian dynasty that lasts 27 years. And this 27 years balances out the 27 years from the end of Tiberius to the end of Nero. So that many persons later on began to pay attention to the fact that the reigns and expectations starting with Vespasian began to amount to some kind of esoteric numerological historical destiny. And there began to be all kinds of speculation towards the end of the Flavian dynasty, that is when Trajan and Hadrian become emperors, that somehow there was a basic truth involved in Vespasian’s expectations, but that he was not the exemplar of it. Well, this is leading ahead just a little bit, but you can get the jest.
Vespasian came to power late in 69 A.D. and lasted for 10 years. His son Titus, who actually physically was there at the dismantling of the temple in Jerusalem. And whose arch and Rome, the arch of Titus, still bears on its friezes, the sack of the temple with the booty coming back. And one sees this enormous menorah being carried, which was the sacred center of ritual and sacrifice in the temple. So that that image of the image of perfection from the temple of Solomon sacrifice brought to Rome and put on an arch of triumph in the center of the city was put there originally from the egotistical triumphant expectations of Titus. But was seen in later generations as a symbolic act of great significance, especially by the Christian communities in Rome who all this time are beginning to spring up and beginning to make themselves known and understood. By the end of this line here it's quite common for Christians to be mentioned in Roman histories.
It's during this period from about 70 A.D. to about 100 A.D. Those 30 years that the Christian population begins to develop in Rome. And especially, I think we have to understand here I think two aspects that I've singled out. Perhaps this will, will help a little bit. Out of the welter of possibilities of, of explication I've singled two things out from The Cambridge Ancient History. By the time of the collapse of the Roman emperor, even though it was just a one-year temporary collapse at that time, the religious and psychological problem was that there were so many Gods in Rome, and one did not know which one or which combinations of them to turn to. And with the collapse, it seemed as if there was no efficacious combination of Gods available. That somehow all of the Gods were bankrupt and that there needed to be a new Gods brought it. And in fact, this was a period when Oriental religions seemed to spring up in Rome overnight.
But this is an interesting statement here from The Cambridge Ancient History,
Even at the present day, the majority of mankind is perpetually haunted by dread of malignant spiritual powers. In India, China Africa, a may put a spell with withering and devastating effects on a man's person or his child, or a beast. A demon may possess wife or daughter. Or one of the innumerable Gods may take offense at some neglect and punish it with misfortune or disease. The religion of the Old Testament without any assistance of scientific knowledge or rationalistic philosophy but by the sheer potency of religious and ethical insight had broken the power of magic and witchcraft. And where possible eliminated those that would profess it. It had affirmed a unity of God, which made pointless the fear of any God but one. And by making his character predominantly righteousness, it had removed that kind of fear of the divine, which necessarily results from belief in deities who were essentially non-moral.
So that we have coming from Judea the notion that there is no longer a need for a recourse to spells or magic or the old Gods or nature spirits or any of the combinations of these. That there was in fact, an ethical insight spearheading a righteousness, which transcended the whole realm of manipulation by those that were professed the so-called pagan religions.
The second point. The second point is that we have a, an incredible genius mentality alive at this time in Asia minor, largely. The province of the Roman province called Cappadocia, who is alive and writing and one of the disciples, John. Now John according to, this is the description and The Cambridge Ancient History, just to about 20 lines here.
John, a Christocentric mystic of high intellectual power had need of a thought-out religion. He knew that others had the same need, and there is more concentrated thought in the few verses of his prologue than in many whole treatises. But to John theology is the gateway to a temple. Inside the temple is religion. A religion, which in the rest of his gospel he strives to unfold, and which is not the purpose of this chapter to obscure under the pretext of expounding. The point of the gospel will be missed by a reader who approaches it primarily as a historical authority. It should be read as a book of devotion, as one would say the [inaudible],
the imitation of Christ.
And the writer's attitude of mystic adoration may at times be better apprehended by a change of pronouns in the great discourses ascribed to Christ. Thou art the vine, we are the branches. Thou art the resurrection and the life.
Well, the point of this is that with John in particular and the other great Christian writers following very closely on this, the idea that the old temple now destroyed was a physical structure. Was to be seen as an act permitting the transcendence of the temple from a physical structure to a spiritual edifice. So that the population of persons participating in the religion, wherever they were, manifested the temple then and there. And that instead of it having one geographical place sanctified by a thousand years of devotion. Now that that had been erased by the Roman empire. The Roman empire now was a fertile field to remanifest that new temple, wherever it might be within this whole structure. And this thought, this tremendous dynamic insight, even though it couldn't have been articulated probably by very many people at the time, nevertheless was like a tone of harmony that the inner ear was beginning to hear at that time. And began to allow for integrative patterns, especially in the inner persons to take place.
And of course, as those ordinary common everyday persons began to find themselves integrating their lives and sharpening their ethical insight and able to find a community of like-minded spirits. They began to contrast their condition with those in power who kept fraying at the edges and falling off the abyss. And it became apparent to them that there have been some major shift in transition in human capacity. And that there was no longer a need to acquire the imperium, the power, the authority of the world, because it wouldn't do you any good if you had it all anyway. One could see that very plainly because ever after emperor seem to exemplify the worst of human nature.
Well Vespasian and his prize son Titus a good-looking boy. An excellent speaker. He once prided himself on the fact that he could have been a professional forger. He could imitate anyone's handwriting after seeing a specimen. Well, Titus and his father Vespasian did fairly well. They ran the empire. They brought back in a little bit of prosperity. But then they passed on and the younger son Domitian came on. And Domitian had been ignored all his life. He'd, he'd been shoved to the side. He'd been left to sort of grumble in the corner. So, when Domitian came into power in 81 A.D., he was 30 years old, he tried very hard for a couple of years to be the emperor like his father and better brother had been. And then it just seemed that there were too many people trying to compete with him.
For instance, the council Agricola in Britain was winning all kinds of battles and was the subject of conversation in Rome. And he was pointed to as a prize individual. You remember Agricola was the father-in-law of Tacitus, the great historian that we took last week. An honorable man. Well, Domitian couldn't stand this. So, he recalled him from Rome to Rome from Britain and retired him. And then this whole notion that other people were trying to compete with him unfairly began to rankle him. And he began to employ more and more a kind of a secret police spy situation. And then he brought back in those Lex Maiestas, those treason laws that Tiberius had used so well. And then none of this seemed to really work because there seemed to be plot after plot.
And so finally in 93 A.D. after 12 years of trying, Domitian put all the covers off and decided that he would just put to death anyone who ran across this path. And the more that he killed, the more plots that were hatched and the more he had to kill. And finally, in the reign of terror, those three years from 96, 93 to 96 A.D., with murder becoming a daily happening on a grand scale, it was Domitian’s wife who finally paid a slave to go in and put him to death in his own bed. And thus ended this reign of terror.
They were hard pressed in Rome to find an emperor to replace Domitian. So, they brought in an elderly man whose great virtue was, is that he had no enemies, and he seemed to have no ambition. And Nerva for 16 months simply sat in the chair. But it became apparent after about eight or nine months that they needed to have someone who knew how to do things because Nerva would just sit in the chair. So, they searched around, and they came up with one of those rare individuals who combines of political sagacity, military prowess, and excellence as an ethical individual. One of those really rare individuals. His name in history is Trajan.
Trajan ironically enough was born in Spain. He was born in that little colony Italica that was founded some 200 years before by the great Scipio Africanus. For those of you who remember that lecture. The great mystic general Scipio Africanus. So, the Trajan was raised in the Spanish sun. He was raised to be what we would call a regular individual keeping to simple tastes. Having a sense of honesty. And his training as a General was one of the best.
In fact, there had been a revolt of the Roman legions and upper Germany during the Domitian’s reign, a Roman general named Safra Ninas thought that he would take things over. And since he had command of the regions that Julius Caesar had, had had command of. He thought he might as well try for the throne, but a Domitian had appointed Trajan as the General on the field. And Trajan a much better General had defeated and quelled the revolt of Safra Ninas.
So, they brought Trajan in as a co-partner with Nerva after about eight or nine months. And this was about 97. I think it was in August of 97 A.D. But very, very quickly somebody like Trajan began to attract to himself quality individuals. There was a great Spanish general and Senator named Sura, L. Licinius Sura. One of those, a square face, broad shouldered dependable individuals. Sura very much a political power in Rome at the time was the best friend of Trajan. One of his right-hand men. The great historian Tacitus was appointed by Trajan as a council and later on became pro council of all of Asia. The other great Roman of the time was a man named Senecio, Quintus Sosius Senecio. Senecio just to give you an insight of his quality, many of Plutarch's essays are dedicated to his great patron Sosius Senecio.
So that Trajan had around him a coterie of excellent quality individuals. Very, very firm in their understanding that there are must never, again, at least in their lifetimes, as far as they could see be another reign of terror. They had lived through as children the reigns of Nero. And they had seen it brought back somewhat by Vespasian just to be squandered again in an even worse sense. And began to get this eerie sense that we can't afford to have it happen again. That this next time there's no telling what will happen.
So that under Trajan the Roman empire the principate was put back together. And it's the first time since the life of Augustus who had put the principate together in the first place, that there was a re-envisioning of Rome as an old Republican rooted morality-based growth that had come into a world vision expression. And that as long as they kept the tie line together all the way back to the old Republican roots, that they were able to keep them the vision structured and nourish the world. And they believed this and all of them work their lives, all of their lives, to manifest this.
Trajan did not come to Rome for about two years. He suspected that people were so acclimated to this degeneracy of having the splashy name, the fantastic individual come in and take over. And the little splinter groups, all vying for power, that he stayed outside of Rome for a couple of years. And finally, when he came into Rome he was presented to the Senate by one of the most eloquent individuals of the day. A Roman writer known as the Younger Pliny [Pliny the Younger]. Pliny’s father had written a great Natural History.
Pliny the Younger delivered in 108 A.D. to the assembled Senate of Rome work, which we still have called Panegyricus. A Panegyricus to Trajan summarizing why it was that this man seemed to sum up again the old Augustan principate. And that now the world vision of Rome as the symbolizer and the summation of all antique civilizations integrated and braided together was true and exact and earned.
Trajan for his part sought to Institute certain kinds of social processes that had not been manifest in Rome before. I'll just give you a couple of examples. There is a coin that breeds his Latin name M. Ulpius Traianus. And on the bottom, it says [inaudible]. Well, the [inaudible] was a dole. It was a series of grants made primarily to children, orphaned children in particular, to allow them to live normal lives with money that was derived from the interest on properties that were held by wealthy Romans. And to set an example Trajan and his wife Plotina, who was quite an excellent woman, really a very fine lady. Trajan and Plotina took many of their properties and put them into a trust and that the proceeds, the interest these trust real estate holdings buildings, and so forth would go into this fund. And of course, many wealthy Romans of their time, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, many of these persons did likewise. So that there came to be this enormous fund, not only to take care of orphan children, but to set the example that the ethical stance of those who were in control of the empire must include even those basic elementary, almost forgotten people who make up the other end of this parentheses of human life. And in this way, they were reminding themselves that the conscientiousness of having an empire extends all the way to the least of the citizens therein. This is characteristic of Trajan's personality.
Also characteristic of the fact that I think the whole thing must've been suggested by his wife. Plotina outlived Trajan by some five years, was also interested very much so because she could not have children of her own and having an adoption in the family. And in fact, when they were very young and first married, they had adopted a young boy who had been born in Rome and they sent them, sent him back to Spain and had him educated. And in fact, that young man when he was a teenager was the one who had brought the, the great news to Trajan that he was appointed as the, the emperor. He had won a race. There were many young men who tried to reach Trajan first, but his adopted son whose name was Hadrian, who became the next emperor of the world, got there. Even though it was chariot had been sabotaged. Hadrian being a very strong, excellent individual ran all the way. Hadrian once prided himself that he could run 30 miles in full armor in one day. He was really somebody.
So, Trajan had this sense that we must take care of everyone. And Plotina had a introduce the sense that the humanity, the Humanitas, must be asserted along with the [inaudible]. One may have a religious vision of the world through piety but one must also have the humanity to sustain and be a chalice to that vision. Otherwise, all that one has as a beautiful cloud that will vanish at the first breeze of change in the world. There has to be some shape to hold it. And it's the sense of humanity date that holds the shape of vision together in life. So that we have this it's individuals who can hold their [inaudible] in shape with their humanitarians have, in the Roman phrase is Felicity. They have Felicity. And that a man's life has dynamic, which is furthered best by this flow of Felicity. The ability to do things continuously with grace and exactness. That’s Felicity. And it comes from having the vision held in the chalice shape of one sense of humanity.
Trajan love to think of himself as the Prince, the Princeps, who is first among many, just as Augustus had. He voluntarily gave up many of the offices that had been appropriated by these degenerate Emperors. Then he left Rome to fight in a series of Wars in the Roman province of Daisha. Here's the Adriatic. Here's Italy and Venice. And what is Yugoslavia and Romania today [inaudible]. Daisha has a huge series of mountain ranges; the Carpathian Mountains would come like this [inaudible] in the middle here. Romania out to the Black Sea on the other side and many rigidness running through here. This area of the world, as a matter of fact, we know now from archeology is one of the most ancient areas for gold mining. We have archeological evidence now that there were smelting operations in this part of Europe some 9,000 years B.C.
One of the prize elements of Daisha was its wealth. And just to give you an idea in 107 B.C., the booty that Trajan brought back to Rome was 5 million pounds of gold and 10 million pounds of silver. So that he could give to every Roman citizen in the empire 500 [inaudible] a sort of a, what they call a [inaudible]. A handout as a share and their part of the conquest and the winning of the [inaudible] Wars. It took some five years for Trajan to subdue the Daishans. They had a King named Decebalus. And Decebalus had been in power for some 25 or 30 years. In fact, Domitian had suffered an embarrassment. Decebalus had destroyed a Roman Legion, total killed all 3000 men and had taken the Roman Eagles, the standards, and then had exacted attribute from Rome so that he would not further, he has conquests. Well, that was before Trajan's time. And when Trajan entered into the Daishan wars, when he finally beat Decebalus and destroyed his capital city, he erected in Southern Romania on one of those plains where just before the Danube runs out into the Black Sea, an enormous [inaudible] or, or a tomb mound. And all the names of the Roman soldiers who had died in that massacre some 30 years before, 25 years before, were listed in honor. And at the other end of this tremendous hill was a monument to Trajan saying that he had brought the Pax Romana to the entire world, including the Daishans.
He then went to the East and entered into a fantastic string of successes. Almost everywhere that Trajan went it seemed that he was like the charm to victor. He added Armenia as a province to the Roman empire. The Parthians, which had produced centuries of competition with Roman fighters. If you remember, Pompey was fighting the Parthians a hundred years before Trajan. He annexed Parthia as a Roman province. So that all of the Mesopotamian region with all of its command of the trade routes and everything in Armenia was command of the trade and Daisha and Britain and Northern Germany.
So that the Roman empire under Trajan had its fullest extent. And if you look at a map of the Roman empire in 117 A.D. I don't think that any power today could control the diversity of those countries. It runs from India to Ireland. And it runs from the bottom of Denmark all the way down to Ethiopia and around through Morocco and the whole African coast. So, at the Roman empire, 117 A.D., was an extraordinary expanse. And of course, the personality of Trajan had brought together enough men and women of quality to reconstitute this. And it was his concern that the problem of secession that had be doubled for a hundred years, the Roman world would be settled. And he chose his adopted son Hadrian to become the next emperor. And after the coffee break, when we'll see what he did.
The problem, the problem of the ancient world up to the time of Augustus was how to attain to a vision, a universal vision. And the problem after Augustus was how to keep it and pass it on. And it became excruciatingly difficult for those individuals like Plutarch or Tacitus, Pliny, the younger Pliny, who had seen how depraved humankind can be when a great vision goes south. It's one thing to be ignorant and not to know, and to be bland or mean. Or perhaps even vicious from not knowing. But to fall from grace to become depraved, to become insidious. This is different. And this is intolerable.
This became the [inaudible] for all intelligent individuals after that time. And it became the guiding light for those, beginning with Trajan, those great four great emperors as they are known, trying each in their own right to preserve and maintain pass on the reconstituted Felicity, which they had brought back in the manifestation. And those emperors, Trajan and Hadrian Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, increasingly with great excellence of event and character, genius, intelligence made what has often been alluded to as a golden age.
And when we get to Marcus Aurelius, we'll say that we have really the grand philosophic Emperor whose meditations can be read. In fact, Mr. Hall quoted four times in the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius last Sunday. Just last Sunday. And then we'll have to see how beginning with Commodus the whole vision began to crack again, fray again. A period of a hundred years they had 30 Emperors until finally [inaudible] just resigned. Threw it up in the air and said whoever can take it, can have it. And we end the course with the man who had the great vision of the empire being fully transformed into a Christianity. And that was with Constantine. And we have this third individual who brings this full circle then.
The time trying to hold the vision together to engender a character commensurate with that delicacy and consistency also has its dangerous elements in so far as the disbelieving nature of general human life. Wishing not to pay too much attention to the urgency or the need for this. Much in our own time, we talk of the grand challenge of our times glibly and then all of this look at the sports page, are they fashion page and forget it. And yet it comes back and its there next week. And it's there the year after. Until finally, we remember that it's been there with us consistently through our lives. And we can see that we are caught in the net of circumstance, which we must understand. Otherwise, we are just so many netted flounders.
One of the individuals that I wish to just briefly display before you is Juvenile. Juvenile wrote a series of satires, 16 satires. And I'd like to give you the first 10 lines from the third satire. Juvenile is a contemporary of Tacitus. That is, he lived from roughly 50 A.D. to about 120, somewhere around there.
Here's juveniles third satire.
Despite the wrench of partying, I applaud my old friends decision to make his home in lonely Cumae. The poor civil, well get at least one fellow citizen now. Oh, it's a charming coastal retreat. Just across the point from our smartest watering spot. Myself, I would value even a barren offshore island more than Rome's urban heart. Squalor and isolation are minor evils compared to this endless nightmare of fires and collapsing houses. The cruel cities, myriad, perils, and poets reciting their work in [inaudible] while his goods were being loaded on one small wagon. My old friend lingered a while by the ancient dripping arches of the Capuan Gate, where once King [inaudible] had nightly meetings with his mistress. But today the grove and shrine and sacred spring are all rented to squatters. Their sole possession money boxes. Each tree must show a profit. Why even the muses have been evicted and the woods swarm with beggars.
Juvenile from about 80 AD from the [inaudible].
So, we have, Trajan bringing all this back together and him passing the baton on to his adopted distant kinsman Hadrian. Now with Hadrian, beginning with Hadrian and on down to the times of Constantine, we have a series of histories that were written by six different historians. It's a collection. They are not particularly trustworthy as exact scientific histories, but they are legitimate from the 3rd-4th century A.D. And it's, they're collected in three volumes, and they're called the Scriptores Historiae Augustae. And the first biography in there is of Hadrian.
And I'd like to give you just a passage or two. Just to get you the flavor of this Roman history of the time speaking of Hadrian, “After this Hadrian traveled by way of Asia and the islands to Greece. And following the example of Hercules and Philip had himself initiated into the, into the Eleusinian Mysteries.” These were the lower mysteries. The beginning mysteries.
He bestowed many favors on the Athenians and sat as president of the public games in the city. And during this day in Greece care was taken they say that when Hadrian was present, none should come to a sacrifice armed. Whereas as a rule, everyone carried knives. These were tough times. Afterwards he sailed to Sicily and there he climbed Mount [inaudible] to see the sunrise, which is many hued, they say, like the rainbow.
[inaudible] is something. It's pretty high.
“Then he returned to Rome and from there, he crossed over to Africa where he showed many acts of kindnesses to the provinces. Hardly any emperor ever traveled with such speed over so much territory.” And that in a nutshell presents to you, the character of the reign of Hadrian. Trajan had made the empire the greatest extent of any human empire on the planet up to the time.

And Hadrian traveled all over the land to take a look at it. He was the number one tourist in a way. He wanted to see what everything looked like. And so, he traveled from one end to another. Visiting almost every spot. And in his wonderful entourages, there would be the interesting people at the time and so forth.

And here's a description later on of his physical stature. “He was of tall stature and elegant in appearance. His hair was curled on a comb. And he wore a full beard to cover up natural blemishes on his face.” He was the first, I think, Roman emperor to wear a full beard. And of course, later on full beards came in. “He was very strongly built. He rode and walked a great deal and always kept himself in training by the use of arms and the javelin. He also hunted.” He was once called back and reprimanded for spending too much of his time as a school boy. Instead of studying his lessons, he was out hunting all the time consistently.

He also haunted and he often used to kill a lion with his own hand. But once in a hunt he broke his collar bone and a rib. These hunts of his he always shared with his friends at his banquets. He always furnished according to the occasion tragedies, comedies, farces, players on the sambuca, readers, poets. His villa at Tiber,
And Tiber, of course, the place the little city to the West of Rome near Tivoli where Horace had a villa. And I think Maecenas had a Villa there. Hadrian in his villa had a large pool, not for swimming or for fish, but for privacy because they had little Island in the middle of this pool where he could go, and no one could talk to him. And he could sit there, and he could think things through. Always reminded me when I learned of that Gandhi used to have a day of silence. He would never say anything. When you get busy continuously, you appreciate these little signs of practical wisdom. You have to have some place where it's cut off and you have a stance from where in some neutral reconsideration, all of it can be seen.

So, he had his entourage wherever he went and his Villa at Tiber. And it was marvelously constructed. And he actually gave two parts of it the names of provinces or places of the greatest renown. Calling them, for instance, Lyceum, Academia, Prytania, [inaudible] and so forth. And in order not to admit anything, he even made a [inaudible]. So that his own private house was the image of the empire. His own life was the travel throughout the empire. So that Hadrian in his own person became the universal citizen. He had been to all the places. He had seen all the things. He had done all the things.

And when we think that we remember Hadrian for building a wall of some 37 or eight miles across the North of Scotland to keep the [inaudible] out, we can see that this is the wrong image of Hadrian. He is not the wall builder to keep you out. He's the universal citizen to go everywhere and see everywhere and participate. And quite an excellent individual really.

Trajan died in 117 Hadrian took over and live to 138 A.D. So that for about 20 years Hadrian was able to keep this empire going. He was able to bring, I think, a sense of elan to Roman citizenship. Able to meld together all the various aspects of the empire. Bring a cosmopolitan sense that somehow all of this vision that had been unfolded was to be displayed as a unity as a whole. He kept also to the idea that there should be no further advancement of the empire. And in fact, there were some areas that were given their so-called freedom. Various areas that were turned over to friendly Kings so that there were not the, this constant bickering on the borders.

I think that I should introduce here because of the, the quality of both the Trajan and Hadrian in their relationships with women. Hadrian had been favored by Plotina since he was a youngster. And when she died in one 22 A.D., he built a magnificent temple to her in Nice in Southern France today, in Gaul at that time, honoring her. And this honoring of women in the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian and then later on through the [inaudible] age. Very, very interesting. Cambridge Ancient History sites this,
the women of the period show the variety, incidentally, both to human nature and to a developed civilization. As history, it will not do to join with [inaudible] in overstressing their immorality. Equally it will not do to regard them solely in the light in which they appear among these letters. One change strikes us at once, the grandams now mainly belong to the Imperial circle. In the later Republic, a married woman of rank often exercised a powerful effect upon public affairs in virtue of the influence of her family. But under the empire constitutional changes had robbed her of value as a political asset,
which is why in the reigns of especially Nero [inaudible] women were the ornamental touch and had to be driven to conniving to participant. All that had been transformed with Trajan and Hadrian.

So, women cease to be either active players or mirror marionettes in a game where a marriage engagement subserved family policy, or party schemes. Other views of matrimony had their advocates following stoic ideals on the moral equality of women to men,
Women and men were considered absolutely equal.
And the wisdom of giving the same education to both, [inaudible] Rufus emphasized the importance of character rather than name or riches or beauty in a match. And asserted the identity of ethical standard for both sexes.

If you recall here, and this is, this is part of the thrust of the explication here. In the early Christian communities very often, the population was largely women who did the [inaudible], the initiating of this community and help to sustain the idea of continuity and community there. So that here are the stress that came into the experience of the world throughout the Roman empire at this time, the emphasis increasingly that women's character as a human being was the core of her value. And no longer just would she make a good match for a marriage. Does she fit into a family policy? And when that had crumbled, is she just nice to have around as an ornament? Or is she somebody that is so conniving, we better include her so, she doesn't get us on the outside. All of that began to change, that enormous dynamic, the place of women. Very, very important. And, of course, becomes a crucial in another hundred years from where we are talking. And we'll get there.

In general, the breakup of many established relations in life during the civil wars contributed to greater freedom for women of the higher circles. This freedom, some used well, some others ill. The honorable state service of the Vestal virgins under evolve for a long period of their lives still kept high an ideal of pure womanhood and a breach of these vows could still be punished with an archaic severity. Domitian put to death in the traditional matter of three Vestal virgins. I think it was in 88 A.D. They were buried a lot for immorality. And in 93, he put the chief Vestal Virgin to death. So that there was this, and Domitian was a Holy terror in his private life. But the point is it wasn't his morality as an individual that he was exemplifying, but his responsibility of holding up what had become a vast current of the time. That women were necessary to this ethical vision of the civilization. And if the Vestal virgins were not upholding the ideal, all of this was going to unravel and become too important to play around with. Even though one was tyrannical adulterer like Domitian in his private life. So, that the Vestal virgins. Remember that the temple of the Vestal virgins very, very close to the tomb of Augustus in the center of Rome. And these round structures just almost symbolically signify the, the sacred center of the whole process in the Roman empire.

Convention, guaranteed a careful surveillance of unmarried girls, but divorce and remarriage, which had increased towards the close of the Republic, continued under the empire to betray. So much slackness of regard for the matrimonial tie as to render parts of Augustus moral legislation nugatory.
Remember Augustus was so concerned that everyone be married that he even passed a law, which only reluctantly he had rescinded, that everyone must be married. There can be no single people of age. Recall that in that lecture.

This is all part of the, the push, the intuition, the design of the importance of a reconciliation, a bringing together this. We don't even have to go into the psychological aspect of it. It's just a primordial human realization that the two sexes must have a full concourse of a quality for the higher spiritual envisioning to become manifest. And so, the place of women very, very important. So that this decay of the matrimonial stance at one time under the empire had to be brought back again. And I think that this probably, this probably will do.

The other aspect is that by this time in the empire freed persons, ex-slaves, had reached this state of gaining economic parity with many of the old patrician families. There were freed men or ex-slaves who were able to participate on an economic level with the best merchants of the time. They would have villas on three continents. And they would have a fleet of ships. And all this betrayed the old idea that there was some kind of innate social hierarchy and slaves were slaves and the nobility of the nobility and so forth. All of this began to crumble. And by the time of Trajan and Hadrian, this idea that there were qualities of human beings on social levels that forbade them by some natural law or some universal striation from attaining to a position of equality was gone. It just simply wasn't there any longer.

Vespasian chose two freed women as mistresses. One had died, and then he chose the other. Not at the same time. He did not marry them, but he lived openly in what we would call common law with them. And this was as early as the 70’s A.D. So as a couple more generations came in this whole idea of women and of freed persons becoming acceptable, at least in terms of the intellectual or emotional understanding of human populations becoming human. Capable. And of course, all of this, he has a growth tendency, which fed into the tremendous release of Humanitas that Christianity brought into the empire at that time. It just was the integrating receptacle for all this.

Well, I want to come back next week and touch up a little more on this. I don’t want to [inaudible] you too much with all of the names and dates and so forth. But next time we are going to take a look at Origen and Clement of Alexandria. We have to go back to Alexandria momentarily. And back to Alexandria to see how Christianity in Alexandria began to process this tremendous transformation. And we have to look at Alexandria because it's much clearer. Alexandria, which had had this tremendous religious envisionment as early as the 3rd century B.C. now some 600 years later and after all these vicissitudes of history has another great Renaissance. Another great religious ecumenicalism. And out of this, of course, it was not just our Clement and Origen, out of this comes the whole Hermetic Hermes Trismegistus literature. Out of this comes Plotinus. Origin and Plotinus were classmates under [inaudible] down on the wharves of Alexandria.
So, we have this tremendous revelational period in Alexandria. And of course, it happens just at the time when Rome itself has prepared, almost like the challis, to receive this final spark that would make the communion of the process visible to all under Constantine.

Well, we'll take a look at that. Now I'll bring all these things to the best of my ability to your attention.

Thanks very much.

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