[Sidenote: A.D. 138 (a.u. 891)] [Sidenote:--1--] It should be noted that
information about Antoninus Pius is not found in the copies of Dio,
probably because the books have met with some accident, so that the
history of his reign is almost wholly unknown, save that when Lucius
Commodus, whom Hadrian had adopted, died before Hadrian, Antoninus was
also adopted by him and became emperor, and that when the senate demurred
to giving heroic honors to Hadrian after his demise on account of certain
murders of eminent men, Antoninus addressed many words to them with tears
and laments, and finally said: "I will not govern you either, if he has
become base and inimical and a national foe in your eyes. For you will of
course be annulling all his acts, of which my adoption was one." On
hearing this the senate both through respect for the man and through a
certain fear of the soldiers bestowed the honors upon Hadrian.
[Sidenote:--2--] Only this in regard to Antoninus is preserved in Dio.
Yes, one thing more--that the senate gave him the titles both of Augustus
and of Pius for some such reason as the following. When in the beginning
of his imperial reign many men were accused and some of them had been
interceded for by name, he nevertheless punished no one, saying: "I must
not begin my career of supervision with such deeds."
[Sidenote: LXIX, 15, 3] [When Pharasmanes the Iberian came to Rome with
his wife, he increased his domain, allowed him to offer sacrifice on the
Capitoline, set up a statue of him on horseback in the temple of Bellona,
and viewed an exercise in arms of the chieftain, his son, and the other
prominent Iberians.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 139 (a.u. 892)] We do not find preserved, either, the
first part of the account of Marcus Verus, who ruled after Antoninus and
all that the latter himself did in the case of Lucius, son of Commodus,
whom Marcus made his son-in-law, and all that Lucius accomplished when
sent by his father to the war against Vologaesus. I shall speak briefly
about these matters, gathering my material from other books, and then I
shall go back to the continuation of Dio's narrative.