Hadrian and the City of Rome

By Mary Taliaferro Boatwright

How Hadrian left an enduring mark on the architecture and urban topography of ancient Rome

The Pantheon, the Temple of Venus and Roma, Hadrian’s Mausoleum transformed into Castel Sant’Angelo, and his villa at Tivoli epitomize for many the power and resources of Rome at its zenith. Because other urban changes during Hadrian’s principate (A.D. 117–138) left less visible traces, however, few people realize how powerfully he transformed the capital city not only by erecting these and other monumental edifices but also by renovating buildings, even entire districts, and by reorganizing the building industry and neighborhood life. Mary Taliaferro Boatwright compiles and assesses the varied evidence for Hadrian’s buildings and his administrative changes and evaluates his effect on the capital city in a topographical and historical context. A comprehensive catalogue follows the illustrated text.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Release date: Jan 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9780691224022

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HADRIAN AND THE CITY OF ROME

MARY TALIAFERRO BOATWRIGHT

HADRIAN AND THE

CITY OF ROME

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

MCM • LXXXVII

COPYRIGHT © 1987 BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

PUBLISHED BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 41 WILLIAM STREET

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ISBN 0-691-03588-1

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PUBLICATION OF THIS BOOK HAS BEEN AIDED BY THE PUBLICATIONS PROGRAM OF THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES AN INDEPENDENT FEDERAL AGENCY

eISBN: 978-0-691-22402-2

To Paul

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS XV

INTRODUCTION 5

1. THE PRINCEPS AND THE CITY 19

2. THE CAMPUS MARTIUS 33

3. THE IMPERIAL FORA 74

4. THE FORUM ROMANUM, ROME’S TRADITIONAL CENTER 99

5. IMPERIAL RESIDENCES 134

6. HADRIAN’ S MAUSOLEUM AND THE PONS AELIUS 161

7. MISSING AND MISIDENTIFIED BUILDINGS 182

8. CONCLUSIONS 236

APPENDIX: THE OBELISCUS ANTINOI 239

CATALOGUE 261

BIBLIOGRAPHY 273

GENERAL INDEX 293

INDEX OF SOURCE MATERIALS 305

ILLUSTRATIONS

Map Imperial Rome (after Castagnoli, TRA)

1. Central Campus Martins

2. Ara Pacis, Augustan period (as reconstructed by Moretti; Inst. Neg. 1941.1019)

3. Pantheon (from de Fine Licht, 91)

4. South Building (from de Fine Licht, 159)

5. Lavacrum Agrippae (from Hülsen, Die Thermen des Agrippa, pl. 11; Fototeca Unione 10345/Anno 1963)

6. Giano accanto alla Minerva (Gatti, Topografia dell’Iseo, p. 148, fig. 17)

7. Area of Saepta Julia and Isaeum Campense, as on Forma Urbis (Forma Urbis 1, p. 98; Fototeca Unione 473 I /Anno 1958)

8. Temple of the Deified Matidia (Gnecchi, 11, p. 5, no. 25, pl. 39.5; Fototeca Unione 6409/Anno 1961)

9. Tempio di Siepe (A. Giovannoli, Vedute degli antichi vestigi di Roma, fol. 39)

10. Hadrianic insulae under Galleria Colonna (from Gatti, Caratteristiche, p. 59, fig. 13)

11. Area of Horologium Solarium Augusti, with findspot of cippi (after Buchner [1980], fig. 1)

12. Capital from the Temple of the Deified Trajan and Plotina

13. Cornice from the Temple of the Deified Trajan and Plotina (Inst. Neg. 60.680)

14. Basilica Ulpia and area of the Forum of Trajan on the Forma Urbis (from Forma Urbis, pl. 28)

15. Plan of the imperial fora, by Gismondi, 1933 (Inst. Neg. 1937.87)

16. Trajanic coin erroneously considered to illustrate the Temple of the Deified Trajan and Plotina (BMC, Emp. 111, p. 183, no. 864, pl. 32.9; Fototeca Unione 6136 F)

17. Area behind the Temple of the Deified Trajan and Plotina

18. Hadrianic capital from the Forum Augustum (Inst. Neg. 68.2066)

19. Forum Romanum (after I. Insolera and F. Perego, Archeologia e città [Rome-Bari 1983], end map)

20. Sestertius representing Hadrian in the Forum Romanum (BMC, Emp. in, p. 433, no. 1309, pl. 81.10; Fototeca Unione 10521 F )

21. Hadrian in the Forum Romanum, from fourth-century Oratorio relief on Arch of Constantine (Fototeca Unione 4238 F/ Anno 1956)

22. North slope of the Palatine (after C. Krause, Domus Tiberiana, Nuove Ricerche—Studi di Restauro, Veröffentlichungen des Institutes für Denkmalpflege der ETH Zürich, Band 5 [Zürich: Verlag der Fachvereine 1985] p. 161)

23. Vestibule of Domitian (after Delbrück, Südostbau, pl. 2)

24. Hadrianic coin showing Temple of Venus and Roma (cf. Strack, Hadrian, pl. 11.696; Fototeca Unione 4256 F )

25. Antonine coin showing Temple of Venus and Roma (cf. BMC, Emp. iv, p. 206, no. 1285, pl. 30.2; Fototeca Unione 4705 F )

26. Temple of Venus and Roma (after S. Panella, Romana Gens, 1984, p. 13)

27. Villa Adriana (from Rakob, PropKg 2.190)

28. Serapeum-Canopus area (after Aurigemma, Villa Adriana)

29. Canopus and Serapeum (Inst. Neg. 67.646)

30. North and northwest facades of Domus Augustiana (Domitianic coin, BMC, Emp. 11, p. 406, no. ★, pl. 81.3; Fototeca Unione 4266 F )

31. Plan of northwest Domus Augustiana (after Lanciani, FUR, fol. 29)

32. Palazzo of the Horti Sallustiani (Lehmann-Hartleben and Lindros, pl. 11; Fototeca Unione 10521 F/ Anno 1965)

33. Palazzo of the Horti Sallustiani, reconstruction (Lehmann-Hartleben and Lindros, pl. VIII; Fototeca Unione 11246/Anno 1936)

34. Mausoleum of Augustus (Fototeca Unione 14030 F )

35. Vatican region, Hadrianic period

36. Reconstruction of the Mausoleum of Hadrian (Museo della Civiltà Romana; Inst. Neg. 71.2779)

37. Consecration coins (Inst. Neg. 4731)

38. Pons Aelius, left bank in 1892 (Fototeca Unione 3201 F/ Anno 1892)

39. Pons Aelius, medallion (Fototeca Unione 6441 F )

40. Anaglypha: adlocutio (Inst. Neg. 68.2784)

41. Anaglypha: debt burning (Inst. Neg. 68.2786)

42. Anaglypha: statuary group on adlocutio relief (Inst. Neg. 63.102)

43. Chatsworth relief (Inst. Neg. 28.144)

44. Arch of Constantine, north side (Inst. Neg. 61.2297)

45. Tondi: departure for hunt (Inst. Neg. 32.56)

46. Tondi: bear hunt (Inst. Neg. 32.57)

47. Tondi: sacrifice to Silvanus (Inst. Neg. 32.67)

48. Tondi: boar hunt (Inst. Neg. 32.53)

49. Tondi: sacrifice to Diana (Inst. Neg. 32.85)

50. Tondi: lion hunt (Inst. Neg. 32.55)

51. Tondi: sacrifice to Hercules (Inst. Neg. 32.66)

52. Tondi: homecoming and sacrifice to Apollo (Inst. Neg. 32.54)

53. a and b. Hadrianic bronze medallions with VIRTUTI AUGUSTI (Gnecchi, III, pl. 146.3-4)

54. Relief of the apotheosis of Sabina, formerly found on the Arco di Portogallo (Inst. Neg. 1929.283)

55. Adventus Augusti relief (Inst. Neg. 61.1230)

56. Imperial adlocutio relief, formerly found on the Arco di Portogallo (Inst. Neg. 54.41)

57. Vota Vicennalia relief (Inst. Neg. 74.763)

58. Obelisk of Antinoos (Inst. Neg. 71.52)

59. Obelisk of Antinoos, west side (Inst. Neg. 71.68)

60. Antinoos as Silvanus, from near Lanuvium (Inst. Neg. 67.73)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

IT IS WITH a deep love for the city of Rome and fascination with Roman imperial history that I have written this book. It is, however, a work of synthesis and interpretation, for although I have lived and studied in Rome over a period of years, I have not yet had the chance to excavate there. My information is based on the published work of others, as well as on the generous communications of scholars currently investigating the ancient city of Rome.

The book would not have been possible without the support of the American Philosophical Society, in the form of a travel grant in 1984, and that of Duke University, in the form of research grants from the University Research Council in 1984 and 1985, and a funded leave of absence in spring 1982, when I began the project. Only the generosity of these two institutions enabled me to visit Rome in 1982 and 1984 for research in situ to supplement work in the United States, and I am most grateful to both.

In Rome and the United States I have benefited immensely from the assistance of many colleagues. Rome’s excavators and topographers have been unfailingly helpful, discussing their current and previous work and allowing me access to monuments and collections otherwise unavailable. I have cited specific debts to these individuals throughout the footnotes, but would like to acknowledge them here as well. The list includes: C. Buzzetti, F. Castagnoli, F. Coarelli, C. Coletti, L. Cozza, G. Crifó, E. Gatti, I. Jacopi, C. Krause, E. La Rocca, G. Martines, S. Panciera, S. Panella, R. L. Rakob, E. Rodriguez-Almeida, M. Steinby, M. Torelli, P. Zanker, and F. Zevi. Others in Rome whose time and suggestions aided me include R. T. Scott, L. La Follette, J. T. Peña, and J. Poe. Here at Duke and in America I am grateful to G. W. Houston, G. M. Koeppel, J. Packer, K. J. Rigsby, O. S. Wintermute, and J. G. Younger, all of whom critiqued portions of my manuscript; to B. Frischer and W. L. MacDonald for discussion and correspondence; to C. I. Rine, who helped with the seemingly endless job of checking footnotes; to W. E. Lee, who helped with some of the maps; and to D. A. Conner, who drafted Illustrations 1, 11, 22, 31, and 35. My father, V. T. Boatwright, provided expert editorial advice. Any errors in the book, of course, are my own and not attributable to the individuals mentioned above.

E. Buchner and K. de Fine Licht generously gave me permission to use some of their illustrations. I also thank the responsive audiences of the American Philological Association meetings of 1983 and 1984, the Classical Association of the Atlantic States fall meeting of 1984, Duke’s Erasmus Club meeting of October 1983, and the Archaeological Institute of America, North Carolina Society meeting of September 1985, at which I presented portions of my work. Special gratitude is due as well to the library and staff of the American Academy in Rome, to the editors of the American Journal of Archaeology for suggestions regarding "The ‘Ara Ditis-Ustrinum of Hadrian’ in the Western Campus Martius and Other Problematic Roman Ustrina," now a part of Chapter 7, and to Joanna Hitchcock, my editor at Princeton University Press.

Finally, I am most grateful to my colleague Lawrence Richardson, Jr., who urged me to this topic and has helped me unstintingly at every stage of the book; and to my husband, Paul J. Feldblum, who has encouraged and advised me throughout the project. This is a better book because of them and indeed, without them, might never have been written.

March 1986

ABBREVIATIONS

Abbreviations used for periodicals, standard references, and the more unusual ancient references throughout the notes and bibliography are explained here. More common ancient authors and works are abbreviated according to the conventions of the Archaeological Journal of America and the Oxford Classical Dictionary. All translations are by the author.

HADRIAN AND THE CITY OF ROME

Key to Map of Imperial Rome

1. Circus Neronis et Gaii

2. Porta Aurelia

3. Gaianum(?)

4. Pons Neronianus

5. Tarentum

6. Pons Aelius

7. Mausoleum of Hadrian

8. Tomb(s) along Euripus

9. Porta Settimiana

10. Navalia

11. Pons Agrippae

12. Stadium of Domitian

13. Odeum of Domitian

14. Theater and Porticus of Pompey

15. Baths of Nero

16. Mausoleum of Augustus

17. Horologium Solarium Augusti and Ara Pacis

18. Ustrina of Marcus Aurelius and Antoninus Pius

19. Column of Marcus Aurelius

20. Temple of the Deified Matidia

21. Temple of the Deified Hadrian (Hadrianeum)

22. Pantheon

23. Baths of Agrippa

24. Saepta Julia

25. Isaeum and Serapeum (Isaeum Campense)

26. Temple of Minerva Chalcidica

27. Arcus Novus

28. Divorum

29. Porticus Minucia

30. Area Sacra Argentina

31. Theater and Crypta Balbi

32. Circus Flaminius

33. Theater of Marcellus

34. Tiber Island

35. Pons Aemilius

36. Porticus Aemilia

37. Monte Testaccio

38. Aqua Appia

39. Aqua Marcia

40. Circus Maximus

41. Bona Dea Subsaxana

42. Capitolium

43. Via Lata/Flaminia

44. Aqua Virgo

45. Arx

46. Forum of Trajan

47. Forum of Caesar

48. Forum Romanum

49. Forum of Augustus

50. Forum Transitorium

51. Forum Pacis

52. Porta Pinciana

53. Alta Semita

54. Temple of Venus and Roma

55. Arch of Constantine

56. Flavian Amphitheater

57. Temple of the Deified Claudius

58. Baths of Titus

59. Baths of Trajan

60. Horti Sallustiani (with Palazzo)

61. Porta Nomentana

62. Auditorium Maecenatis

63. Aqua Julia

64. Aqua Marcia Tepula Julia

65. Anio Vetus

66. 67. Aqua Marcia

68. Aqua Claudia

69. Sessorium

70. Circus Varianus

INTRODUCTION

As PRINCEPS from A . D . 117 to 138, Hadrian left an indelible mark on the city of Rome and the Roman empire, and even today many of the best-known buildings of ancient Rome are Hadrianic. The enigmatic Pantheon, the looming mass of the Temple of Venus and Roma, Hadrian’s enormous Mausoleum transformed into Castel Sant’ Angelo, and his extensive villa close to Rome at Tivoli, which is said to have been named in its varied parts for places throughout Rome’s dominion, epitomize for many the power and resources of Rome at its zenith. Because other urban changes in the capital city during Hadrian’s principate have left less visible traces, however, few people realize how powerfully Hadrian transformed the face and life of the capital city not only by these and other monumental edifices, but by renovating buildings and even entire districts, and by reorganizing the building industry and neighborhood life. The full significance of Hadrian’s constructions and sociopolitical urban changes remains elusive, and no comprehensive catalogue of them yet exists. ¹ This study has a twofold purpose: to bring together and to discuss in urban and historical context Hadrian’s constructions and administrative changes in Rome.

Lewis Mumford has observed that a city is at one and the same time a collection of architectural forms in space and the container and transmitter of culture, that is, of history.² Similarly, this book aims at both a detailed topographical examination of Hadrianic Rome—in order to establish the physical constructions and changes that occurred during Hadrian’s rule—and a deeper understanding of Hadrian’s principate. Ancient and modern historians mark this as a time of great transition, almost a watershed in Roman history, yet it is an era for which the evidence is particularly poor.³ Although new evidence and painstaking review of known material is proving some claims for the period to have been exaggerated,⁴ no one denies that Hadrian was responsible for important and wide-ranging achievements during a principate that lasted twenty-one years, the longest since Tiberius. His accomplishments are all the more remarkable in light of the resentment and suspicion infecting his earliest and latest years as princeps, to which we shall return in the course of the book.

The starting point and focus of this book is the topography of Hadrianic Rome: the buildings and changes in the city’s life that can be assigned to Hadrian’s reign. This relatively unexplored body of evidence in turn illuminates Hadrian’s principate. Thus, for example, the discussion of Hadrianic changes in the Campus Martius will turn to the wider questions of Hadrian’s conception of the principate and his emulation of Augustus; similarly, the evaluations of the Temple of the Deified Trajan and Plotina and the Temple of Venus and Roma involve consideration of traditional and innovative aspects of Roman religion during Hadrian’s rule, and the investigation of the Athenaeum sheds light on the development of the Roman empire as a Greco-Roman world. Detailed research on the topography of Rome is set against the more general history of Hadrian’s principate, although the present undertaking is by no means a full-scale history of the era. The book is intended not only for scholars specializing in Roman topography, but for anyone interested in the politics, culture, and religion of Rome in the first half of the second century A.D.

Although Hadrian built extensively throughout the Roman world (cf, e.g., HA, Hadr. 19.2; Epit. de Caes. 14.4-5), this book focuses on his work in Rome. The detailed knowledge of Hadrian’s effect on the capital of Roman power and culture⁵ is a prerequisite to understanding the multifaceted phenomenon of Hadrianic urbanism in the Roman empire, a subject to which I hope to return at a later date. During the principate the ancient city of Rome was restricted in physical extent, some 1373 hectares in the inhabited area later surrounded by the walls of Aurelian (about 3391 acres, or 5.30 square miles); within this area, much of which was taken up by public buildings and parks, the people were densely packed, with a population estimated as high as one million by the beginning of the second century A.D.⁶ Traditionally, Rome was the main seat of the emperor, who was at once the political, military, and religious head of the state; Hadrian’s prolonged absences from the city will be discussed in Chapter 5. The city was also the seat of the Roman senate, the chief magistrates and officials, and the central archives of the state, as well as the principal site of foreign diplomats and ambassadors. The buildings serving the political needs of Rome—the curiae and temples in which meetings of the senate were convoked, the fora and basilicae in which oratory resonated, the residences of the princeps and notables in which men made valuable social contacts and fostered cultural and artistic accomplishment and learning—reflected glory and prestige on the Roman ruling elite, and also shaped their image of themselves and their princeps, their society, culture, and religion (cf. Vitruv. De Arch. I. praef. 2, 3).

The great majority of the Roman people had neither wealth nor political power, but as the inhabitants of the capital city they felt entitled to distributions and entertainment provided by the princeps. Although the masses’ aesthetic sensibilities are rarely mentioned in the sources,⁷ the populace of Rome must have benefited from the opportunities for employment offered through building programs and also from improvements in the city’s hygiene, communications, and habitable space. Even less well documented are the effect on the tenor of life made by shrines, temples, public buildings such as baths and theaters, and the atmosphere of a constant succession of processions and affairs of state, all of which must have shaped perceptions of religion, social order, and power in Rome.

Knowledge of the physical city during Hadrian’s principate elucidates certain broader questions of the political, religious, economic, social, and intellectual history of the time. The discovery of Hadrianic Rome is no easy task, for the same general difficulties of too little and too ambiguous evidence hamper this as other investigations into Hadrian’s period. Only the combined testimony of archaeology, epigraphy, art and architectural history, numismatics, and the literary record makes possible a definitive catalogue of Hadrianic buildings and improvements. Parts of the literary record, moreover, help in evaluating the effect such constructions and changes had, and this in turn must be viewed in the context of the topography and history of Rome leading up to it, especially the Rome of the early principate and of the time of Trajan. This approach owes much to the excellent work in recent years of F. Castagnoli, F. Coarelli, P. Gros, L. Richardson, Jr., P. Zanker, and other modern topographers and classicists who turn directly to the physical remains of the ancient capital city to discover the values and perceptions of the Romans; indeed, many of their works have been indispensable to the present study and will be frequently cited.⁸

Such an approach to Hadrianic Rome, however, is relatively new, at least in its concentrated application. Because of the problems associated with the evidence for Hadrian’s constructions and principate, and because of the magnificence and brilliance of Hadrianic architecture, previous scholarship on Hadrianic Rome has focused on specific buildings or questions, or on aesthetics and engineering. Thus, for example, there are many provocative studies on the Pantheon and on Hadrian’s Mausoleum,⁹ yet we lack an overall assessment of the relationship of these two buildings to one another and to the city as a whole. In fact, consideration of the effect any building had on the fabric of the city is generally lacking in evaluations of Hadrianic architectural style and construction. To my knowledge, only D. Kienast has preceded me in investigating both the actual changes effected by Hadrian in the city and their intent and consequences. Yet his discussion in Chiron 1980 includes only the extant Pantheon, Temple of Venus and Roma, and Mausoleum, with the reorganization of the building industry.¹⁰

Any investigation into the topography of Rome relies heavily on archaeological evidence, which can at best furnish unequivocal information on the date and appearance of a structure. Interpretation of one primary source for our knowledge of ancient Rome, the fragmentary marble plan of Severan Rome (Forma Urbis), has been aided by a magisterial publication of it by a team of scholars in 1960 and by subsequent refinement in our ability to place the still unlocated fragments.¹¹ The three fascicles that have appeared so far of the Carta archeologica di Roma prove the immense value of this project, which locates archaeological discoveries on the map of the modern city and gives an outline of the ancient one.¹² Dedicatory inscriptions, inscriptions on utilitarian objects such as water pipes, and notations for three years in the Fasti Ostienses provide firsthand evidence for such Hadrianic constructions as the Auguratorium, which Hadrian restored in 136. Here, in addition to the standard comprehensive compilations such as that in the CIL, I have been able to make use of E. M. Smallwood’s more convenient collection of Hadrianic documents.¹³

Some monuments, when uncovered, have dated themselves by their construction technique. The vast diffusion of brickstamping in the Hadrianic period has made relatively easy the chronology of the brick-faced buildings of the time. H. Bloch’s fundamental studies on brick stamps furnish a chronological catalogue of brick stamps and prove that during the Hadrianic period such stamps give not only a terminus post quem for a building, but a date thereafter of not more than three to five years. His main conclusions have been reaffirmed by M. Steinby’s recent reinvestigations of the stamped bricks of Rome and its surroundings.¹⁴ G. Lugli and M. E. Blake, the latter with the collaboration of D. T. Bishop in her volume covering the Hadrianic period, have established the chronology of other materials for Roman construction.¹⁵

Other useful determinants for Hadrianic building are supplied by architectural history. Here F. L. Rakob’s work on Roman domes is fundamental, and the increasingly sophisticated investigations of W. L. MacDonald, C. F. Giuliani, and others act as a corrective to unfounded speculation excited by the virtuosity of Hadrianic engineering.¹⁶ Yet only occasionally does enough of a Hadrianic building remain for us to be able to apply such criteria. Rome’s continuous habitation and the constant reuse of ancient structures have caused many to disappear, although sometimes they lie hidden behind stucco, and in places vestiges can still be discerned in the city plan. But large-scale excavation is virtually impossible, and archaeological discoveries have tended to be sporadic.

Important finds of the Renaissance and Baroque periods were often recorded by antiquarians and artists. Sometimes important evidence is jotted on a drawing, like the remarks of Antonio da Sangallo the Younger about the location of the Obelisk of Antinoos. At other times fact and fantasy mingle, as when Ligorio typically and syncretically reconstructed ancient buildings and ornaments. Despite such problems, which modern art historians and topographers are now revealing and unraveling,¹⁷ the drawings and plans of Marten van Heemskerck, G. A. Dosio, and others are sometimes our primary or solitary record of a building, as in the case of the Tempio di Siepe, usually considered Hadrianic on the strength of the three sketches depicting it.

Scientific archaeology came relatively late to the discovery of ancient Rome, and the concomitant advent of photography has been of inestimable value. As we will see in the case of Hadrian’s Ustrinum, a conjectural monument at or on which members of his imperial family are supposed to have been cremated, archaeological reports predating the common use of photography, even those of the Bulletino Comunale and Notizie degli Scavi, must be scrutinized with particular care. Nevertheless, the care and insight of the early topographers of Rome are always admirable: G. Boni, R. Lanciani, C. Hülsen, and others often comprehended from scrappy and lacunose evidence relationships that have subsequently been confirmed.¹⁸

The difficulties in evaluating the evidence of artists, antiquarians, and unsystematic excavators are slight in comparison to those involved in the interpretation of the monuments that appear on the reverses of coins. When topographers and archaeologists try to reconstruct a building from its depiction on a coin, as B. L. Trell has acutely noted, not only do all the variations in a type have to be accounted for, but also the conventions (or lack thereof) of the individual die-cutters.¹⁹ Although Hadrianic coinage poses particular problems due to the lack of unequivocal internal means of dating individual issues, P. V. Hill has clarified its chronology through stylistic analyses, and M. Pensa’s recent investigation of Hadrianic coins with building types is exemplary in its thoroughness.²⁰ Nevertheless, problems remain, especially concerning issues that lack an identifying legend but are our only evidence of a building, such as the Trajanic type traditionally associated with the Temple of the Deified Trajan and Plotina. Furthermore, there is still dispute as to the overall significance of such coin types.²¹ On the other hand, numismatic evidence for buildings, however controversial, can clarify the appearance of an edifice, and it is disappointing that the Hadrianic coins depicting monuments are so few in comparison to the number of new buildings known for his rule, quite apart from the still greater number he restored.²²

Historical reliefs and sculpture are another frustrating type of evidence for the Hadrianic city. On the basis of inscriptions or historical identifications, only a few historical reliefs are clearly identifiable as Hadrianic: G. Koeppel’s recent survey, for example, lists only three major pieces.²³ Stylistic considerations are not very useful: the controversy surrounding the Anaglypha Traiani/Hadriani, expounded in Chapter 7, is a good example of the current uncertainties involved in distinguishing Hadrianic style from Trajanic. Although D. E. Strong’s article on late Hadrianic architectural ornament in Rome satisfactorily defined its elements and syntax some thirty years ago,²⁴ early Hadrianic ornament is not so easily classified. C. F. Leon’s and H.-D. Heilmeyer’s compilations and analyses of architectural ornament have shown that the new principate did not break sharply with the techniques and tastes of Trajan’s; this very ambiguity, however, seems to have led Heilmeyer to identify the Pantheon as a Trajanic building, quite implausibly.²⁵

The collection of the various types of archaeological evidence mentioned above has been greatly facilitated by E. Nash’s Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome, which also includes references to the ancient literary sources for the buildings its photographs illustrate so well. Another essential aid for the Roman topographer is Lugli’s Fontes ad topographiam veteris urbis Romae pertinentes, although unfortunately this compendium is not yet complete.²⁶ For the purposes of the present study, however, we turn to literary references for help in interpretation.²⁷ Here we may distinguish two categories: specific mention of Hadrianic buildings, and indirect testimony about life in Hadrianic Rome. Neither category, lamentably, is very large, nor does either contain very explicit information.

There is no satisfying history of Hadrian’s rule from antiquity. The historical narrative of Dio Cassius survives for Hadrian’s reign in the excerpts of Xiphilinus, a jurist, monk, and ultimately patriarch of Trapezus (Trebizond) in the eleventh century. Little topographical information is found in the remnants of Dio’s work. Xiphilinus’ rather erratic selection of Dio’s material was determined by his own interests, which do not seem to have embraced detailed information about the city of Rome so far removed in time and space from his own life.²⁸ Furthermore, such information as is included incidentally has to be evaluated carefully, because some of it is obviously wrong.

Much of Dio’s work was composed in Rome at the end of the second century and beginning of the third, and he was personally familiar with many of the buildings he mentions. Yet his interest in them seems not to have gone far beyond that of a sightseer: for example, when he describes the Pantheon in the course of his history of the Augustan principate, he apparently never realizes that the building he knows was constructed under Hadrian and not Agrippa (Dio Cass. 53.27.2-4). In most cases, his topographical descriptions are those of a sharp-eyed but naive tourist.²⁹

Another problem with Dio’s information about Hadrian is that, as F. Millar has pointed out, it reflects a senatorial bias against the princeps. The notice that Hadrian personally designed the Temple of Venus and Roma, for instance, comes in an anecdote intended to show Hadrian as a despot whose jealousy of others’ accomplishments led him to kill Apollodorus, Trajan’s architect (Dio Cass. 69.4.1-5).³⁰ Other motives Dio ascribes to Hadrian in his buildings may be equally untrustworthy.

Our other considerable historical source for Hadrian’s reign is the biography of Hadrian that forms the first of the series known collectively as the Historia Augusta, The HA includes information about building activities as proper to a biography, as had Suetonius:³¹ a section in the middle of Hadrian’s biography that lists Hadrian’s buildings in and outside Rome serves to illustrate the princeps’ character,³² which is also the apparent purpose of a later discussion of Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli (HA, Hadr. 19, 26.5). Yet the HA is notoriously riddled with problems and inaccuracies.³³ At the height of the controversy over its authorship, A. von Domaszewski argued that the work had been composed in sixth-century Nimes by a man with no independent knowledge of Rome; thus, most of the topographical information was untrustworthy.³⁴ This thesis has been refuted in detail by D. M. Robathan,³⁵ and more recent work on the sources of the HA specifically substantiates the credibility of Hadrian’s biography.

R. Syme and T. D. Barnes have maintained that for the second century the author of the Historia Augusta relied chiefly on two sources—Marius Maximus and an unidentified author, whom Syme calls Ignotus—and that the biography of Hadrian is among the best and most veracious of the collection.³⁶ For our purposes we may note that although Marius Maximus was hostile to Hadrian, offering scandalous and gossipy anecdotes, he was a consular who had had a rapid and brilliant career at the end of the second century and beginning of the third. Among other posts, he held the urban prefecture,³⁷ which would have given him access to the city records and a good knowledge of the city. Moreover, the other source, Ignotus, actually provides more information for Hadrian’s biography. He seems to have written in Rome, witnessing firsthand the tumultuous events of 193, and to have been an equestrian rather than a senator. Calling Ignotus accurate and sober, with a liking for facts and dates, Syme credits him with the topographical details about the city.³⁸ There is no reason to doubt a priori topographical information found in Hadrian’s biography.

There is some other textual evidence for buildings dating to Hadrian’s reign, but it is of a predominantly documentary nature. The Regionary Catalogues of Rome, the Notitia urbis Romae regionum XIIII and the Curiosum urbis Romae regionum XIIII derived from an original catalogue of the city’s regions and framed in the late third and early fourth centuries, occasionally identify Hadrianic buildings, as do the chronicles and breviaria compiled in the fourth century and later.³⁹ The accuracy of the topographical information in such works is now increasingly substantiated.⁴⁰ Overall, however, the topographical information provided by such sources for Hadrian’s rule is meager and often simply unadorned fact. Seldom can we discern the intent of Hadrian’s changes and constructions, and in the few instances in which motivations are supplied, we must weigh the evidence carefully. For a better understanding of the causes and effects of Hadrian’s changes in Rome, we must turn to both the second category of literary evidence, contemporary literature, and the general history of Hadrian’s principate.

The extant works of Hadrian’s contemporaries and near contemporaries, although containing little specific information on the topography of the capital city, help to fill in the background necessary for real comprehension of Hadrianic Rome. Syme was the first to explore an author of this period as a means of illuminating the political and cultural atmosphere, which he did so well in his monumental Tacitus