page_title: Lucius Verus
section_title: Luxury and logistics at Antioch, 162?–65
hierarchical_section_title: Lucius Verus / Emperor / War with Parthia, 161–66 / Luxury and logistics at Antioch, 162?–65
caption_attribution_description: Interlingua: Statua de Lucilla, sposa del imperator Lucio Vero, representate como le dea Cerere Français&#160;: Statue de Lucilla, épouse de l’empereur romain Lucius Vérus, en Cérès English: Statue of Lucilla, consort of Roman emperor Lucius Verus, depicted as the goddess Ceres
context_page_description: Lucius Aurelius Verus was Roman emperor from 161 until his death in 169, alongside his adoptive brother Marcus Aurelius. He was a member of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty. Verus' succession together with Marcus Aurelius marked the first time that the Roman Empire was ruled by multiple emperors, an increasingly common occurrence in the later history of the Empire.
  The eldest son of Lucius Aelius Caesar, first adopted son and heir to Hadrian, Verus was born and educated in Rome where he held several political offices prior to taking the throne. After his biological father’s death in 138, he was adopted by Antoninus Pius, who was himself adopted by Hadrian. Hadrian died later that year, and Antoninus Pius succeeded to the throne. Antoninus Pius ruled until 161 and was succeeded by Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius. The majority of Verus’s reign was occupied by his direction of the war with Parthia which ended in Roman victory and some territorial gains. After initial involvement in the Marcomannic Wars, he fell ill and died in 169. He was deified by the Roman Senate as the Divine Verus.
context_section_description: Lucius spent most of the campaign in Antioch, though he wintered at Laodicea and summered at Daphne, a resort just outside Antioch. He took up a mistress named Panthea, from Smyrna. The biographer calls her a "low-born girl-friend", but she was described as a "woman of perfect beauty" by Lucius. One biographer has postulated that Panthea may have been more beautiful than any of Phidias and Praxiteles' statues. The mistress was musically inclined and spoke Ionic Greek, spiced with Attic wit.
  Panthea read Lucian's first draft, and criticized him for flattery. He had compared her to a goddess, which frightened her—she did not want to become the next Cassiopeia. She had power, too. She made Lucius shave his beard for her. The Syrians mocked him for this, as they did for much else.
  Critics declaimed Lucius' luxurious lifestyle. He had taken to gambling, they said; he would "dice the whole night through". He enjoyed the company of actors. He made a special request for dispatches from Rome, to keep him updated on how his chariot teams were doing. He brought a golden statue of the Greens' horse Volucer around with him, as a token of his team spirit. Fronto defended his pupil against some of these claims: the Roman people needed Lucius' bread and circuses to keep them in check.
  This, at least, is how the biographer has it. The whole section of the vita dealing with Lucius' debaucheries (HA Verus 4.4–6.6) is an insertion into a narrative otherwise entirely cribbed from an earlier source. Some few passages seem genuine; others take and elaborate something from the original. The rest is by the biographer himself, relying on nothing better than his own imagination.
  Lucius faced quite a task. Fronto described the scene in terms recalling Corbulo's arrival one hundred years before. The Syrian army had turned soft during the east's long peace. They spent more time at the city's open-air cafés than in their quarters. Under Lucius, training was stepped up. Pontius Laelianus ordered that their saddles be stripped of their padding. Gambling and drinking were sternly policed. Fronto wrote that Lucius was on foot at the head of his army as often as on horseback. He personally inspected soldiers in the field and at camp, including the sick bay.
  Lucius sent Fronto few messages at the beginning of the war. He sent Fronto a letter apologizing for his silence. He would not detail plans that could change within a day, he wrote. Moreover, there was little thus far to show for his work: "not even yet has anything been accomplished such as to make me wish to invite you to share in the joy". Lucius did not want Fronto to suffer the anxieties that had kept him up day and night. One reason for Lucius' reticence may have been the collapse of Parthian negotiations after the Roman conquest of Armenia. Lucius' presentation of terms was seen as cowardice. The Parthians were not in the mood for peace.
  Lucius needed to make extensive imports into Antioch, so he opened a sailing route up the Orontes. Because the river breaks across a cliff before reaching the city, Lucius ordered that a new canal be dug. After the project was completed, the Orontes' old riverbed dried up, exposing massive bones—the bones of a giant. Pausanias says they were from a beast "more than eleven cubits" tall; Philostratus says that it was "thirty cubits" tall. The oracle at Claros declared that they were the bones of the river's spirit. These bones would later be understood to be that of large animals.
  In the middle of the war, perhaps in autumn 163 or early 164, Lucius made a trip to Ephesus to be married to Marcus' daughter Lucilla. Lucilla's thirteenth birthday was in March 163; whatever the date of her marriage, she was not yet fifteen. Marcus had moved up the date: perhaps stories of Panthea had disturbed him. Lucilla was accompanied by her mother Faustina and M. Vettulenus Civica Barbarus, the half-brother of Lucius' father.
  Marcus may have planned to accompany them all the way to Smyrna (the biographer says he told the senate he would); this did not happen. Marcus only accompanie
caption: Lucilla depicted as Ceres
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