page_title: Hadrian
section_title: Securing power
hierarchical_section_title: Hadrian / Emperor (117) / Securing power
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the Roman Empire in 125 during the reign of emperor Hadrian. Projection Lambert azimuthal-equal area. Central latitude: 45° N, central longitude: 20° E. X, Y origin offset - 0 Datum: ETRS89 Sources The physical map was made using the following public domain sources: Topography: NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM30) data Shoreline, lakes and rivers: derived from Natural Earth data Additional references for the map content: Tacitus, Germania (ca. 100) Ptolemy, Geographia (ca. 140) Atlante storico DeAgostini, Instituto Geografico DeAgostini, 1998. pg. 35-41. Historischer Weltatlas, Dr. Walter Leisering, Marix Verlag, 2011. pg. 26-27 Történelmi világatlasz, Cartographia Kiadó, 2005. pg. 20-21. The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Rome by Christopher Scarre, Penguin Historical Atlases, 1995. pg. 81. Software used GIS: Open JUMP GIS (open source): http://www.openjump.org/ GRASS GIS (open source): http://grass.osgeo.org/ Graphics editors: Inkscape (open source): http://inkscape.org/ GIMP (open source): http://www.gimp.org/
context_page_description: Hadrian was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born into a Roman Italo-Hispanic family that settled in Spain from the Italian city of Atri in Picenum. His father was of senatorial rank and was a first cousin of Emperor Trajan. He married Trajan's grand-niece Vibia Sabina early in his career, before Trajan became emperor and possibly at the behest of Trajan's wife Pompeia Plotina. Plotina and Trajan's close friend and adviser Lucius Licinius Sura were well disposed towards Hadrian. When Trajan died, his widow claimed that he had nominated Hadrian as emperor immediately before his death.
  Rome's military and Senate approved Hadrian's succession, but four leading senators were unlawfully put to death soon after. They had opposed Hadrian or seemed to threaten his succession, and the senate held him responsible for it and never forgave him. He earned further disapproval among the elite by abandoning Trajan's expansionist policies and territorial gains in Mesopotamia, Assyria, Armenia, and parts of Dacia. Hadrian preferred to invest in the development of stable, defensible borders and the unification of the empire's disparate peoples.
context_section_description: According to the Historia Augusta, Hadrian informed the Senate of his accession in a letter as a fait accompli, explaining that "the unseemly haste of the troops in acclaiming him emperor was due to the belief that the state could not be without an emperor". The new emperor rewarded the legions' loyalty with the customary bonus, and the Senate endorsed the acclamation. Various public ceremonies were organised on Hadrian's behalf, celebrating his "divine election" by all the gods, whose community now included Trajan, deified at Hadrian's request.
  Hadrian remained in the east for a while, suppressing the Jewish revolt that had broken out under Trajan. He relieved Judea's governor, the outstanding Moorish general Lusius Quietus, of his personal guard of Moorish auxiliaries; 
  then he moved on to quell disturbances along the Danube frontier. In Rome, Hadrian's former guardian and current Praetorian Prefect, Attianus, claimed to have uncovered a conspiracy involving Lusius Quietus and three others leading senators, Lucius Publilius Celsus, Aulus Cornelius Palma Frontonianus and Gaius Avidius Nigrinus. There was no public trial for the four – they were tried in absentia, hunted down and killed. Hadrian claimed that Attianus had acted on his own initiative, and rewarded him with senatorial status and consular rank; then pensioned him off, no later than 120. Hadrian assured the senate that henceforth their ancient right to prosecute and judge their own would be respected.
  The reasons for these four executions remain obscure. Official recognition of Hadrian as legitimate heir may have come too late to dissuade other potential claimants. Hadrian's greatest rivals were Trajan's closest friends, the most experienced and senior members of the imperial council; any of them might have been a legitimate competitor for the imperial office (capaces imperii); and any of them might have supported Trajan's expansionist policies, which Hadrian intended to change. One of their number was Aulus Cornelius Palma who as a former conqueror of Arabia Nabatea would have retained a stake in the East. The Historia Augusta describes Palma and a third executed senator, Lucius Publilius Celsus (consul for the second time in 113), as Hadrian's personal enemies, who had spoken in public against him. The fourth was Gaius Avidius Nigrinus, an ex-consul, intellectual, friend of Pliny the Younger and (briefly) Governor of Dacia at the start of Hadrian's reign. He was probably Hadrian's chief rival for the throne; a senator of highest rank, breeding, and connections; according to the Historia Augusta, Hadrian had considered making Nigrinus his heir apparent, before deciding to get rid of him.
  Soon after, in 125, Hadrian appointed Marcius Turbo as his Praetorian Prefect. Turbo was his close friend, a leading figure of the equestrian order, a senior court judge and a procurator. As Hadrian also forbade equestrians to try cases against senators, the Senate retained full legal authority over its members; it also remained the highest court of appeal, and formal appeals to the emperor regarding its decisions were forbidden. If this was an attempt to repair the damage done by Attianus, with or without Hadrian's full knowledge, it was not enough; Hadrian's reputation and relationship with his Senate were iredeemably soured, for the rest of his reign. Some sources describe Hadrian's occasional recourse to a network of informers, the frumentarii to discreetly investigate persons of high social standing, including senators and his close friends.
caption: The Roman Empire in 125, under the rule of Hadrian
exif: {}