PLOTINA
“If,” says Gibbon, “a man were called to fix the period in the history
of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most
happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which
elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus”; and
he observes of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius that “their united
reigns are possibly the only period of history in which the happiness
of a great people was the sole object of government.”
This monumental eulogy of the period which we now approach--a eulogy
which the more penetrating study of Renan and the more recent research
of M. Boissier and Dr. Dill have not materially lessened--will suffice
to warn the inexpert reader against the ancient and popular legend that
Rome continued to sink under the burden of its vices until it tottered
into the tomb of outworn nations. Under the Empresses whom we have now
to consider there was a great improvement of character and recovery of
vigour in the Roman Empire, but before we pass to that brighter phase
I would enter a brief protest against the general exaggeration of the
darkness of the period we have traversed. Even under its worst rulers
Rome was far from being wholly corrupt. The vices of a Messalina, the
crimes of an Agrippina, and the follies of a Poppæa, stand out so
prominently in that period only because they were perpetrated on the
height of the throne. Even they were hardly worse than the crimes and
follies of the wives or mistresses of kings in many a less censured
period of history; and, if you care to count them, the lilies were as
numerous as the poppies in this first series of Empresses, but the
lilies drooped earlier, and have been less noticed. Whenever, in the
course of our story, the light has passed from the throne to the less
elevated crowd, we have found fine character mingled with the corrupt
even in the darkest years of the early Empire. The heads that fell
before the Imperial monsters were as many as the heads that bowed.
The truth is that, if we are not misled by the hasty generalizations
and plebeian diatribes which Juvenal, in his “Satires,” founds upon
the dubious bits of gossip that he picked up on the fringe of Roman
society, and against which historians now warn us, there was much
the same diversity of conduct in the early Empire as in most of the
corresponding periods of luxury. The wealthier women of Rome assuredly
fell far short of the cloistered virtue of the maid and the matron of
Greece; but Greece had only succeeded in maintaining that standard of
domestic virtue in its wives and daughters by cultivating a high caste
of courtesans for their roaming husbands. It may be admitted, too, that
the Roman woman was morally inferior to the wife of the Egyptian noble,
and to the wife of the noble or the wealthy merchant of Babylonia. But
the patrician women, even of Cæsarean Rome, will compare with the women
of most of the later civilizations at the same stage of development;
at the stage, that is to say, when the nation relaxes from the strain
of empire-making, and its veins are flushed with the wealth of its
conquests. I would instance the women of the early Teutonic nations as
soon as they settle on southern Europe; the women of Italy in the early
Middle Ages; the women of England under the Stuarts and, after a later
expansion, under the Georges; the women of France under Louis XIII and
Louis XIV; the women of Russia in the nineteenth century. At Rome, in
spite of the positive insistence on vice of Caligula, Messalina, and
Nero, in spite of their determined effort to weed out the good, we
have found virtue and courage springing up afresh in each generation.
We now come to a period when, three centuries before the fall of Rome,
the Empire is purged of its exceptional corruption, and character
assumes the normal diversity that it has in any old and wealthy
civilization. The city of Rome was assuredly vicious and in decay. But
the city was not the Empire, as those rhetoricians forget who talk
of its entire demoralization. Rome had been drenched with degrading
agencies for half a century; but there was a quite normal amount of
stout will and high character in the provinces, and this is now infused
more freely into the metropolis. It is only by a similar influx of
sounder blood from the provinces that any great city survives the
feverish waste of its tissue. The remedy was retarded in Rome because
the provincials, even of Italy, but especially of Gaul and Spain, were
of alien race. Rome jealously remembered that it was the conqueror; the
rest were the conquered. Under Vespasian, however, the provincials were
admitted more freely, and with the accession of a Spaniard, Trajan, the
process increased.
In the remote and primitive settlement which Agrippina had established
on the banks of the Rhine, where the towers of Cologne Cathedral now
keep watch over a splendid city, there dwelt, in the year 97, the
commander of the forces in Lower Germany, Marcus Ulpius Trajanus,
with his wife and a few female relatives. Trajan was of a moderate
Spanish family, and had, like his father, cut his own path in the
military service of the Empire. He was unambitious, but popular. A
large, handsome man, in his forty-fifth year, of singularly graceful
bearing and serene features, he charmed everybody by his simplicity and
affability of manner, and liked a good carouse and a rough soldierly
jest. His wife Plotina was a plain, honest matron of unknown origin. It
has been conjectured that she was related to Pompeius Planta, at one
time Governor of Egypt, but the only ground for the conjecture seems
to be that Planta was a friend of Trajan’s. As she had neither beauty
of person nor romantic defect of character, the chroniclers have left
her largely to our imagination; but she was a type of woman whom it is
not difficult to picture--a woman of plain features, level judgment,
and of what is euphemistically called grave but agreeable conversation.
She was by no means brilliant, but her close friendship for Hadrian
suggests that she was not too dull and prosy, and had pretensions to
culture. Her ways were simple, and her character can be relieved of
the one imputation made against it. She compares well with Livia, but
as a higher _bourgeoise_ compares with a _grande dame_. In a word, she
had none of the autumnal colour, the beauty of decay, of the Cæsarean
women, but she had the less æsthetic and more useful quality that they
lacked, conscientiousness. To the courtly Pliny (“Panegyr.,” 83) she is
the embodiment of all the virtues.
With her at Cologne was Trajan’s sister Marciana, a widow of much
the same complexion as Plotina, and Marciana’s daughter Matidia, who
in turn had two daughters, Sabina and Matidia. We can imagine the
agitation of this tranquil establishment among the forests of Germany
when a courier came from Rome with the news that Trajan was chosen
as colleague of the Emperor. They had left Rome six years before, in
the middle of Domitian’s reign. However, they seem to have received
very sedately the prospect of a removal from the camp on the Rhine
to the Imperial palace. Although Nerva died in the following January
(98), Trajan remained for the year in Germany, completing his task of
strengthening the frontier against the northern barbarians. Then the
family set out on the long journey to the capital.
The fame of Trajan’s simplicity and geniality of manner had preceded
him, but Rome looked with surprise on an Emperor who could wait a year
before occupying the palace, enter the city on foot, without guards,
and talk so affably with any of his subjects. Nor was Plotina long
before she showed that they had received a new type of Empress. As she
ascended the steps of the palace, she turned round and said to those
below: “As I enter here to-day, I trust I shall leave it when the time
comes.” The refreshing amiability, simplicity, and moderation of the
Imperial couple captivated the Romans, and Trajan responded to their
good will with the most judicious and untiring exertions in the public
service. He trod out at once the hideous brood of informers, checked
corrupt officials, and appointed the best men to public offices.
Indifferent to the splendour and luxury of even the modest palace of
Vespasian, he spent most of his reign in frontier-wars or in long
journeys for the purpose of bracing the relaxed frame of the Empire;
and he enriched and adorned Rome as no Emperor had done since Octavian.
That he was vigorously supported by Plotina is quite certain, and there
is evidence that she was much more than a sympathetic witness of his
labours. It is related by the Emperor Julian that Trajan often sought
the advice of Plotina, and that it was always sound. At the beginning
of his reign she had occasion to use her influence. Trajan’s dislike
of informers was carried so far that, when a case of real extortion
occurred in the provinces, the injured were prevented from bringing
it to his notice. They appealed to Plotina, and she put the case
judiciously to her husband and secured relief. In many other ways she
gave useful assistance, so that the Senate offered the title of Augusta
to her and Marciana. They declined, as Trajan had refused the special
title offered to him, but he relented, and they followed his example.
The reign of Trajan and Plotina was thus one long episode of strenuous
and enlightened public service, but before we enter into the
particulars of their achievements it is proper to endeavour to obtain
a nearer view of their personalities. In this the chroniclers give us
little assistance, and the result cannot be very interesting. It is
ever the painful reflection of the biographer that the description of
a sober life--a life which neither sinks to the lower levels of vice
nor soars to some unaccustomed height of virtue--has little interest
for the majority of his readers; and this was the life of the Imperial
court during the twenty years of Trajan’s reign. The Emperor himself
was no paragon. Preferring the easy ways of a camp, he drank somewhat
deeply of nights, his jests were apt to be coarse, and he was popularly
accused of the vice which so generally infected the men of the Empire.
Yet he had this distinction in a long line of Emperors, in the prime of
life, that no woman ever shared, or sullied, his affection for Plotina.
Gibbon has remarked, in extenuation of the conduct of his successor,
that “of the first fifteen Emperors, Claudius was the only one whose
taste in love was entirely correct.” That would be a high compliment to
Messalina, but in point of fact, as we saw, Claudius was not entitled
to that distinction. The charge against Trajan is vague, and we must
rather award the distinction to him. Merivale somewhat harshly speaks
of him as only maintaining his self-respect because of the bluntness
of his moral sense. If we put his strong sense of public duty and his
fidelity in the scale against his one certain indulgence, in drink, we
shall hardly agree to that verdict.
The virtue of Plotina, on the other hand, has been more seriously
assailed by both ancient and recent writers. In the service of the
Emperor was a very handsome and accomplished youth named Hadrian, an
orphan, with great taste and skill in art and letters. He had been
employed by Trajan at Cologne, both in military service and in filling
up the long nights with an occasional carouse, and, after their return
to Rome, he was a great favourite of the ladies at the palace. They
formed a little circle in which letters were discussed and literary men
were patronized. There was something of a literary revival; it was the
age of Juvenal, Martial, Quinctilian, Pliny, Suetonius, Celsus, and Dio
Chrysostom. Hadrian was a brilliant student, and he appreciated this
open and easy way to distinction. Trajan is represented as using the
young man for companion, but not regarding him as fitted for promotion,
so that it fell to Plotina to urge, and ultimately to make, the fortune
of the future Emperor. The magnificent mausoleum which Hadrian raised
in memory of her long testified to his ardent and grateful attachment.
There is a good deal of exaggeration in this conception. We shall
see that Trajan promoted Hadrian in such a way as to mark him in the
eyes of all as his successor; and his chief advisers in this were
the statesmen Sura and Attianus. In any case, there is no proof that
Plotina, who must have been twenty years older than Hadrian, felt
more than a very natural fondness for the gifted and charming youth.
Pliny mentions that her friendship for him gave rise to gossip, but
insists that she was “a most virtuous woman.” The “Augustan History”
leaves her unassailed. Suetonius has no scandal to record. Dio alone
describes their attachment as “erotic love”; but on an earlier page
Dio has expressly said that her career was stainless. When he has
described her standing at the top of the palace steps, to say that she
trusted to leave that palace just as she entered it, he adds: “And she
so bore herself throughout the whole reign as to incur no blame.”[11]
The remarkable eulogy of Pliny, the silence of the other authorities,
and the conduct of Trajan, must enable us to choose between these
contradictory statements of Dio, and indeed compel us to reject this
unsubstantial charge against the virtue of Plotina.
The other ladies of the Imperial household were equally without
reproach, and life at the palace was harmonious and uneventful. Emperor
and Empress moved about Rome without guards, and entertained, or were
entertained by, their friends in a simple and unceremonious way. But
Trajan had little love for the atmosphere of a palace, and an outbreak
in Dacia, two years after his arrival in Rome, gave him an excuse to
return to the camp. He took Hadrian with him, and remained in Dacia a
year. In the year 103 he rejoined Plotina at Rome, but the war broke
out afresh shortly afterwards, and it now took him three years to
subdue the province and link it to the Empire by a great bridge over
the Danube. He returned in 107, and spent seven years in Rome before
he set out on his final journey in the year 114.
[Illustration: PLOTINA
STATUE IN THE LOUVRE]
The prolonged absence of the Emperor threw a good deal of
responsibility on Plotina, and it would be of great interest, if it
were possible, to trace her share in the vast work which was done for
the city and the Empire at that time. This, unfortunately, we cannot
do. There were able counsellors left at Rome in Trajan’s absence, and
no doubt most of the work was directly controlled by Trajan during his
stay in Rome from 107 to 114. We know only that he conferred freely
with Plotina, and that he left great power to her when he went abroad.
We can, therefore, only regard her, in a general way, as contributing
to the prosperity and progress that characterize the reign of her
husband. She kept Rome tranquil and content, and no doubt followed with
close interest the great improvements which Trajan commanded. The neck
of hill which linked the Capitoline to the Quirinal, in the heart of
Rome, was cut away, and a fine Forum, or broad street with sheltered
colonnade on either side, was constructed on the cleared ground between
the hills. As previous Emperors had already made slight extensions
of the old Forum, the citizens of Rome now had, in the centre of the
city, a magnificent _corso_ running out toward the great Circus, in the
porticoes of which the packed dwellers of the Subura on one side, and
Velabrum on the other, could lounge and take the air with comfort. Nor
was this a mere meretricious concession to their entertainment. Trajan
was equally attentive to their education. A beautiful basilica, two
public libraries--one for Greek and one for Roman letters--and other
splendid buildings were raised along the sides of the new Forum, and
statues of marble and bronze were brought from all parts, even from the
palace, to adorn it.
Other cities of the Empire shared in the generosity and public
spirit of the new reign. Harbours were constructed for the increase
of commerce, fresh roads were flung across the intervening country,
and many towns were enriched with stimulating public edifices. Nor
were the social needs of the Empire less regarded than the material.
Previous Emperors had given a scanty practical expression to the
doctrine of the brotherhood of men, which the Stoic philosophy was
disseminating. Trajan gave a great extension to this new philanthropy,
as we learn from the inscriptions that have been found in the soil
of Italy. It is estimated that 300,000 poor and orphaned children
were fed by charity or Imperial aid in Italy alone. The lot of the
slave was improved, and the school system of the Empire became better
than any that has since appeared in Europe until the second half of
the nineteenth century. Men were returning to the sobriety of their
fathers, and were tempering it with the new spirit of peace and mercy,
and a regard for culture. Morality improved, and character became a
qualification for office. The one open scandal of the long reign--an
intrigue of the Vestal Virgins with three young knights--was punished
with all the rigour of the old Roman law.
We must be content to know that Plotina had her part in this noble work
of restoring the jaded frame of the Empire, and refrain from attempting
to measure her particular influence. By the year 114 the administration
ran so smoothly, and the Western world was so settled, that Trajan
turned his attention to the East. The Parthians had been interfering
in the affairs of the Ethiopians, who were vassals of Rome, and Trajan
saw in this a pretext of establishing more strongly, if not enlarging,
the eastern frontier of the Empire. He had never been in the East,
and the deep attraction of its ancient cities and decadent mysticism
gave a cultural interest to his expedition. He took with him Plotina
and Matidia, his niece. Marciana seems to have died before this time,
and Hadrian had married Sabina, the daughter of Matidia. Hadrian, and
probably his wife, accompanied them.
The path to the East for the Roman lay through Athens, where Plotina
and her companions would survey the decaying splendour of the Greek
civilization in which they had long been interested. Envoys from the
Parthians met Trajan there, and tried to disarm him, but he dismissed
them, and pushed on to the field in which he trusted to win fresh
laurels. They reached Antioch at the end of the year, and had, during
their stay in that metropolis of Oriental vice and luxury, a novel
experience. A great earthquake shook the city, and even the house in
which the Emperor lodged. He was forced to make his escape by the
window. The accounts of their later movements are meagre, and we can
only imagine Plotina passing with wonder through the strange spectacles
of western Asia. During the spring and summer an indecisive campaign
was waged against the Parthians, and Trajan returned to Antioch for the
winter. In the spring of the year 116 the Emperor set out again for
Mesopotamia. He passed down the Euphrates, took the Parthian capital,
sailed on the Persian Gulf, and even directed a longing eye over the
ocean in the direction of India. The spirit of Alexander breathed
in him as he trod this theatre of the historic conquerors, but the
burden of age and an increasing infirmity put a reluctant limit to
his ambition. He had, in fact, passed the range of his powers, and
distended too far the frontier of the Empire. In the following year he
became weaker, and the Eastern tribes advanced with spirit. Leaving the
task to his generals, the Emperor turned towards Italy.
How far Plotina had accompanied her husband on these remote journeys we
are not informed. It would not be surprising, or out of harmony with a
general custom of the time, if she covered the whole, or the greater
part, of the territory with him. However that may be, we find her with
Trajan and Hadrian at Antioch once more in the course of the year 117.
Trajan was seriously ill, and had to abandon all hope of settling
the Eastern question. He maintained the troops at the frontier, left
Hadrian at Antioch as legate of the East, and slowly and sadly moved
towards Europe. His tall frame was bent with age, his hair was white,
his limbs made heavy with dropsy and numbed with incipient paralysis.
When they arrived at Selinus, a small town on a precipitous rock of
the Cilician coast, only a few hundred miles from Edessa, his illness
increased, and he died, in the month of August, 117, in the sixty-third
year of his age.
The exact truth about Plotina’s conduct at the time of Trajan’s death
will never be known, but an impartial analysis of the statements
made by the chroniclers cannot discover any clear ground for
dissatisfaction. Dio, whose authority on this point is claimed to be
considerable, since his father was then governor of the province of
Cilicia, first insinuates a suggestion of poison, in the usual form of
an unsubstantial rumour, and then insists that Plotina forged a letter
in Trajan’s name, nominating Hadrian his successor in the Imperial
power. The writer of the sketch of Hadrian in the “Historia Augusta,”
Spartianus, carries the legend further. He describes how Plotina put
a confidant in the bed of the dead Emperor, drew the clothes about
him, and directed him to murmur, in a feeble voice, to the assembled
officials that he wished Hadrian to succeed him. This second version is
wholly negligible. It comes only from an anonymous writer of the fourth
century who excites our distrust at all times by his extravagant and
unsupported statements. The latest commentators on his work warn us
that his aim is prurient and his method devoid of scruple.
The authority of Dio, on the other hand, must not be exaggerated. His
father might purvey gossip to him, like any other Greek or Roman, and
his story of the forged letter--or forged signature to a letter--might
easily be a piece of local gossip. Plotina was evidently anxious to
secure the succession for Hadrian, and one may well admit that she
concealed her husband’s death until Hadrian arrived at Selinus. That
concealment would easily give rise to conjectures. Serviez naturally
forces on his readers the more romantic version, but more sober writers
acquit Plotina of anything more than a formal use of Trajan’s name
after his death.
The suggestion of poison is frivolous. Trajan had been ailing for
months, and his assiduous travelling in a climate so different from
that to which he had been accustomed all his life must have worn
him out. He arrived in Asia Minor in the sweltering and dangerous
month of August, and a touch of the enteric fever which so commonly
overcame the European in the insanitary East of the time put an end
to his life. Plotina had for some time urged him to nominate Hadrian
as his successor. We must not hastily infer from his reluctance that
he thought Hadrian unfit to succeed him. He had just left him in a
position of the gravest responsibility, and must have appreciated
what a great historian calls Hadrian’s “vast and active genius.” But
he may not have deemed it proper for him to dictate to the Senate how
they should exercise their power of choice. What actually occurred
is certainly obscure. A letter was dispatched to the Senate, after
Trajan’s death, in which Hadrian was nominated, and Dio says that
the signature was put to this letter by Plotina. One would imagine
that such a deception, as Dio represents it to be, would easily be
detected and resented by Hadrian’s powerful enemies in the Senate. It
is probable that, as Merivale supposes, the letter was really dictated
by Trajan, and the signing of it by Plotina was only formal. We may
admit Dio’s narrative of facts, yet believe that the Empress was merely
carrying out Trajan’s will.
On the other hand, there is no reason to quarrel with, or put a base
interpretation on, her zeal for the succession of Hadrian. We shall
see how well he maintained the sound work of Trajan. He was at once
summoned to Selinus, to consult with Plotina and with the elderly
Senator Attianus, who had been his guardian together with Trajan, and
had been as zealous as the Empress in urging his advancement. They
decided that Hadrian must return to his post at Antioch, and Plotina
set out for Rome with the ashes of her husband in a golden urn. The
last resting-place of Trajan was under the magnificent column which
still bears witness in Rome to his many victories, and for centuries
afterwards the most flattering compliment that the Senators could pay
to an Emperor was to cry that he was “more fortunate than Augustus, and
better than Trajan.”
Plotina lived at Rome for four years after the death of her husband.
The first year was, as we shall see, one of great anxiety and trial.
There was much discontent at Hadrian’s accession, and before long his
reign was stained by the execution of four of the most distinguished
nobles. Matidia died in the following year, and it was known to all
Rome that Sabina lived unhappily with Hadrian. It is said that Plotina
continued to have an active share in the administration of the Empire,
though she must now have been in, or near, her seventh decade of life.
Dio places her death in the year 121. Hadrian was in Gaul at the time,
and the luxuriance of his mourning gave encouragement to the libellers.
He went into deep mourning, breathed a passionate grief in a beautiful
poem, and ordered the building of a temple for the cult of the divinity
which he conferred on her. In Nîmes, where he was staying at the time
when her death was announced, he raised the superb mausoleum which kept
her name for ages in the mind of Europe.
It is both pleasant and legitimate to believe that there was neither
rhetorical display nor the memory of an irregular love in the princely
mourning of Hadrian over the death of his patroness. Apart from his own
indebtedness to her, the world owed her much. She had been at least
a most worthy and helpful companion of a great Emperor, a type of
womanhood to which the eyes of Roman matrons might happily be directed.
On the day when her inanimate frame was borne from the palace to the
funeral pile, men could repeat that she had in truth left that home of
temptation as she had entered it. The saner and sunnier life of the
vast Empire was, in part, her monument.[12]