composed hymns in her praise. In the article of pleasure, there were no lengths which he did not go. History reproaches him with adulterous indulgences, where he payed no attention even to the honour of his friends. The looseness of his Adrian'sexmorals did not stop there; though he did not value debauchehimself in taking Trajan for a model, yet he imi-intated him but too much in the most unnatural de- Spart. 2. baucheries. Antinous has immortalized Adrian's and Aurel. disgrace on this head. That young man attended the emperor in his voyages, and perished through his barbarous superstition, to whom he had been the object of criminal pleasure. Adrian, given up to every kind of divination, magic not excepted, imagined, that there was wanting a voluntary victim, who would freely give up his life to add to that of his prince, or for some other impious motive of superstition; Antinous offered himself, and was accepted of; so Adrian sacrificed his own idol; and, that he might be all inconsistency and contradiction, he wept like a woman (as the historian expresses it) for him he had sacrificed. Such was the death of Antinous, although Adrian, to conceal his abominable barbarity, has spread a report of a very different kind, and has even put it into his memoirs, to make the public believe that he was drowned in the Nile. travagant tinous. and 14. Dio. Vict. It had been much for this prince's interest and glory to stifle so disgraceful a reflection, but passion never reasons but when it is to gratify itself. Adrian was studious to immortalize, by all sorts of monuments, a name which loaded him with reproach. Antinous died at Besa, a city of Thebaide, upon the Nile, anciently consecrated to a god of that name. Casaubon. Adrian, by his buildings, made a new city of it, and called it Antinople. He built a temple there in honour of Antinous, with priests and prophets, for he would have this god of his creation deliver oracles, and some were really uttered, which Adrian himself ad Spart. 14. Adrian s for dogs, hunting. himself composed. He filled the whole world with statues of Antinous, for the veneration of the people. At last, the astronomers having pretended to discover a new star in the heavens, Adrian feigned to believe it was Antinous's soul received among the gods, and the star was called after his name. Pagans themselves laugh at these wretched fooleries; Christians drew a serious and important consequence from it, and justly maintained, that from this new god, whose history was universally. known, the rest might be judged of. Whatever Adrian loved, he loved passionately. madpassion He erected monuments for his dogs and horses, and horses, and we have still the epitaph which he composed for his horse Boristhenes, which he had often used in hunting. He was fond of that exercise, and had he kept within any bounds, we might have applauded his taste, and, with Pliny, have made it a subject of panegyric; but he was so very keen a sportsman as to expose himself to many very ill accidents: in one chace he broke his collar-bone, and in another he hurt his leg so much, as he thought he must have been a cripple. Dion, however, observes, that these diversions did not take him off from the weighty affairs of state, nor hurt them in the least. The different sketches I have endeavoured to draw of Adrian's character, form a picture of strange variety, and even of contradictions. In this prince there centered very opposite qualities; he was gay and grave, haughty and affable, impetuous and circumspect, frugal even to avarice, and liberal, cruel, and merciful. It is very difficult to make one entire piece of so very discordant parts. I imagine, however, we shall not be mistaken, if we consider his vices as real, his virtues as fictitious. Political interest and vanity were the principles of all the good he did; and these motives, assisted by an uncommon genius improved with the most useful parts of knowledge, were sufficient to render him a prince Ideaof Adri an's character. prince whose government was for the good of the people in general, whilst his personal conduct made him a scourge to those who were near him. The remarkable events of his reign, so far as we know them, are but few. His voyages, and some warlike commotions of little consequence, if we except the revolt of the Jews, are all that remain to be related. SECT. II. Adrian's voyages. He does not visit his own country. Adrian's voyages. He does not tive country. ADRIAN, finding it difficult to fix his restless genius in one place, and desirous to see with his own eyes whatever he had read in books of the visit his namost famous places of the world, travelled from Spart. 17. taste and curiosity. It is remarkable, that when he Dio. p. 792. was in all the different provinces of the empire, he did not visit Italica, the city which gave him birth. Perhaps he was afraid of meeting with relations whose mean condition might disgrace his imperial dignity however, he was not ungrateful to his mother He comes into Gaul ny. A. R. 871. 11, 12, and 13. In Great Britain he builds a wall to stop mother-country, and honoured it with several va luable privileges. He began his travels the third or fourth year and Germa- of his reign, and came first into Gaul, where he displayed great liberality; from thence it was natural to go into Germany, where the Romans kept upon the Rhine the greatest army of the empire. There Adrian reformed or preserved the military discipline with that vigour and superiority of parts which I have had occasion to observe elsewhere. From the banks of the Rhine he transported himself into Great Britain, but with no view of making the incur conquests; he was more desirous to preserve than sions of the to acquire. He did not so much as propose to settle things on the footing in which Agricola had left them. That general had penetrated to the most northern parts of the island; but after his departure, it appears the barbarians recovered a great part of the country he had taken from them. Adrian only attended to the securing of the southern part, and guarding of the Roman province from the incursions of the barbarians; he built a wall or rampart with a ditch fourscore. miles in length, from the mouth of the Tyne near Newcastle to the Solway Firth. The wall which cut off part of the island divided Roman Britain from barbarous Britain. barbarians. Adrian made use of the like precaution in several countries, where, for want of natural barriers to separate Romans from barbarians, he drew lines faced with a rampart, where they stuck great boughs of trees, the branches whereof were wrapt together. Upon *The year of Rome 871 agrees with the third and fourth years of Adrian's reign. It was in this year 871 of Rome that this prince began his voyages, according to the opinion which appeared most probable to Tillemont. We follow the authority of so good a guide. I make use of this alternative, because authors differ, or speak some of a wall, others of a rampart, The work undoubt edly partook of both, and there was at least a part built of stone. See Cellar. Geogr. Ant. L. II. c. 4. Egypt about Upon his return to Gaul, Adrian heard of the Troubles in commotions which had happened in Egypt about Apis. See Roll. the god Apis. That pretended god, the disgrace Anc. Hist. of human understanding, was not always present to T. I. the prayers of his worshippers; he was to have very singular marks, and often, when Apis died, there was a considerable time before a successor could be found. At the time I speak of, there had been one found after many years, and the Egyptian cities disputed with great fury who should have the honour of having this ridiculous divinity: the commotions, however, were not carried to any great lengths, and we may conjecture they were quickly appeased, since they did not interrupt the course of Adrian's voyages, for he went and passed the win- Adrian at ter at Terragona in Spain. He held a general assembly of the deputies of all that province, and, by his discretion and abilities, he put an end to all those difficulties which are occasioned from the levy of troops; a heavy burden, which people never subject themselves to but with great reluctance. It is likewise remarked, that he rebuilt a temple at Terragona, which had been first built under Tiberius in honour of Augustus, and was fallen into decay. Terragona commotions It is probable that he passed from Spain into He appeases Mauritania, where, Spartian relates, he appeased in Maurisome warlike commotions; and that, in conse- tania. quence of this, the senate ordered supplications, that is, solemn thanksgivings, should be made to the gods in his name. That honour, and the title of emperor, are all the military distinctions with which this prince was adorned. the rest of It is not easy to follow Adrian in the rest of his A short de voyages, nor to fix the dates of the years; we shall scription of content ourselves with observing, that he undertook his voyages, them at two different times; that, upon his coming out of Mauritania, which we may suppose was in VOL. VII. N the |