A Dying Emperor's Unsolved Mystery

[JGolomb]

A Dying Emperor's Unsolved Mystery

 

A very interesting, and poorly written, article on Hadrian's last words and their lasting mystery - a story I've never actually never come across. Since watching a rather dry History Channel special on Rome and a segment on Hadrian, I've always felt a certain affinity towards the Emperor. A running joke between my wife and I during a trip to Rome last summer was over the so many things we came across that involved him.

 

Here's a post I made in a board shortly after I joined the community - Greatest Roman Figure. Upon re-reading this post, I see that I walked the fence a bit and didn't declare a GREATEST, but made some points for Hadrian to be up there with Augustus and Caesar.

 

I'm reading Anthony Everitt's "Hadrian - Triumph of Rome" and hope to have a review for UNRV in a couple of weeks. I can only assume this story of his final words will be addressed.

 

But in the meantime, I thought I'd share this article and let the UNRV community help analyze. I don't read Latin, so if anyone can provide a straight translation, that would make a good start.

 

A Death-Bed Agony

 

Hadrian, one of the greatest Roman emperors, wanted a quick knife-stab to quit the world. No slave had the courage to deliver it, as he writhed in agony. He did not notice the blind girl and the old man who claimed he cured them, or how the slaves took his scribbling as if it were a sacred text. Yet that is what it almost came to be.

The Poets Dumbfounded

 

These are his words:

 

Animula, vagula,blandula,

 

Hospes comeque corporis

 

Quae nunc abibis in loca

 

Pallidula, rigida, nudula,

 

Nec ut soles dabis jocos.

 

Nobody knows what they mean, yet everybody has an intuition. Poets as diverse as Byron and Pope have attempted it. Here are their attempts. First Pope in 1712

 

Ah fleeting Spirit! wand'ring fire

 

That long hast warmed my tender breast

 

Must thou no more this flame inspire.

 

No more a pleasing cheerful guest

 

Whither ah whither art thou flying

 

To what dark, undiscovered shore

 

Thou seem'st all trembling, shiv'ring, dying

 

And Wit and Humour are no more.

 

And now Byron, written in 1806, when he was nineteen.

 

Ah! gentle, fleeting, wav'ring sprite,

 

Friend and associate of this clay!

 

To what unknown region borne,

 

Wilt thou now wing thy distant flight?

 

No more with wonted humour gay,

 

But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn.

 

Both are wildly inaccurate and wander off the point. Both add lines of their own.

 

Pope was annoyed with Addison for having printed it in under his name. He felt the sentiment was too pagan and later wrote his own Dying Christian to his Soul. Byron probably thought it not pagan enough.

 

Much later, Christina Rossetti seemed to get closer.

 

Soul rudderless, unbraced

 

The body's friend and guest

 

Whither away to-day?

 

Unsuppled, pale,dis-cased

 

Dumb to thy wonted jest.

The Spell of Death.

 

At first it seems close, but two major mysteries are posed at once in the original. Animula means "little soul." Why does a serious Stoic and Epicurean Emperor treat himself so lightly ?

 

Was Hadrian a closet Christian, who understood the soul to be immortal? Hardly, as he asked for death. Hadrian seems to have believed that pleasure was the aim of life and indifference to pain the way to gain that aim. This was the end of pleasure then and its jokes.

 

The other mystery is the reference to jokes at the end. What are the jokes? And why is this philosopher so unsure. Some consider the poem to be a spell with a hidden meaning which Hadrian invoked for his soul. Is the levity a disguise?

 

Emperors were usually declared to be Gods after their departure. Did Hadrian want to dispel the election from his own soul?

 

The soul is little because it is an no more than an atom. The regions are not new as the atoms make up the world. Yet the joke did not end there, as Commodus, much later decided to declare Hadrian a god, as he felt he was one himself.

 

Read more: http://roman-history.suite101.com/article....y#ixzz0W1YBTGJ0

[Ursus]

I'm reading Anthony Everitt's "Hadrian - Triumph of Rome" and hope to have a review for UNRV in a couple of weeks.

 

I look forward to reading it. I had issued with the author's bio on Augustus.

[sylla]

Animula, vagula,blandula,

Hospes comeque corporis

Quae nunc abibis in loca

Pallidula, rigida, nudula,

Nec ut soles dabis jocos.

O blithe little soul, thou, flitting away,

Guest and comrade of this my clay,

Whither now goest thou, to what place

Bare and ghastly and without grace?

Nor, as thy wont was, joke and play.

(Translated by A. O'Brien-Moore).

 

The main problem is of course the original source: the Historia Augusta ("Aelius Spartianus") is entirely unreliable, even for Hadrian.

Edited November 6, 2009 by sylla

[Kosmo]

I don't see much of a mystery here. For example the diminutive form animula could have been chosen over animus to rhyme with vagula and blandula.

Speaking of mysteries I've found interesting the speculation of Birley in his biography of Hadrian that Antinous killed himself as a human sacrifice for Hadrian's health and the later public worship of Antinous was Hadrian's gratitude for the sacrifice.

[Primus Pilus]

Animula, vagula,blandula,

Hospes comeque corporis

Quae nunc abibis in loca

Pallidula, rigida, nudula,

Nec ut soles dabis jocos.

O blithe little soul, thou, flitting away,

Guest and comrade of this my clay,

Whither now goest thou, to what place

Bare and ghastly and without grace?

Nor, as thy wont was, joke and play.

(Translated by A. O'Brien-Moore).

 

The main problem is of course the original source: the Historia Augusta ("Aelius Spartianus") is entirely unreliable, even for Hadrian.

 

Agreed, likely even more so than Cassius Dio, much of the Historia Augusta seems to have been presented with a distinct flair for the dramatic.

 

I say likely because despite the inherent issues with the Historia Augusta, the book on Hadrian appears to be somewhat more reliable than the later works. As I recall, it is more in line with other historical evidence than the books related to other later emperors. Of course, I readily admit that "somewhat more reliable" is completely subjective and open to interpretation.

[Maty]

There's no reason to doubt that this poem is by Hadrian, apart from the fact that it comes from an unreliable source. Of course, Hadrian sees himself as this soul, and is wondering where he will go once dead. The idea that the soul is diminished on its departure from the body is standard belief among the ancients, at least from Homer onwards. And given his understanding of philosophy - Hadrian was a highly intelligent individual - Hadrian's poem shows his awareness that it was the 'clay' of his physical self that was emperor. Once dead, he was just another soul.

 

As to the death (or murder!) of Antinous, speculation has been lurid and unchecked for almost 2000 years. However, as Hadrian's taste in lovers seems to have been for pubescent boys, Antinous was well aware he was becoming unattractively mature. And while Romans tolerated boy lovers they frowned on an emperor who had a homosexual partnership with an adult.

 

Times change

[sylla]

There's no reason to doubt that this poem is by Hadrian, apart from the fact that it comes from an unreliable source...

(Involuntary?) irony?

[Maty]

There's no reason to doubt that this poem is by Hadrian, apart from the fact that it comes from an unreliable source...

(Involuntary?) irony?

 

Heh! I could have put that better, I agree. What I meant is that there is nothing intrinsically improbable about Hadrian composing this verse. From what we know about the man it is just the sort of thing he would have done. So had the source been more reliable, there would not even be an issue. It is not as if we had a dodgy source reporting Sulla as having a taste for needlework and flower arranging, for example.

[sylla]

Heh! I could have put that better, I agree. What I meant is that there is nothing intrinsically improbable about Hadrian composing this verse. From what we know about the man it is just the sort of thing he would have done. So had the source been more reliable, there would not even be an issue. It is not as if we had a dodgy source reporting Sulla as having a taste for needlework and flower arranging, for example.

Usus autem sum, ne in aliquo fallam carissimam mihi familiaritatem tuam, praecipue libris ex bibliotheca Ulpia, aetate mea thermis Diocletianis, et item ex domo Tiberiana, usus etiam [ex] regestis scribarum porticus porphyreticae, actis etiam senatus ac populi. 2 et quoniam me ad colligenda talis viri gesta ephemeris Turduli Gallicani plurimum invit, viri honestissimi ac sincerissimi, beneficium amici senis tacere non debui. 3 Cn. Pompeium, tribus fulgentem triumphis belli piratici, belli Sertoriani, belli Mithridatici multarumque rerum gestarum maiestate sublimem, quis tandem nosset, nisi eum Marcus Tullius et Titus Livius in litteras rettulissent? 4 Publ<i>um Scipionem Afric<an>um, immo Scipiones omnes, seu Lucios seu Nasicas, nonne tenebrae possiderent ac tegerent, nisi commendatores eorum historici nobiles atque ignobiles extitissent? 5 longum est omnia persequi, quae ad exemplum huiusce modi etiam nobis tacentibus usurpanda sunt. 6 illud tantum contestatum volo me et rem scripsisse, quam, si quis voluerit, honestius eloquio celsiore demonstret, et mihi quidem id animi fuit, 6 <ut> non Sallustios, Livios, Tacito<s>, Trogos atque omnes disertissimos imitarer viros in vita principum et temporibus disserendis, sed Marium Maximum, Suetonium Tranquillum, Fabium Marcellinum, Gargilium Martialem, Iulium Capitolinum, Aelium Lampridium ceterosque, qui haec et talia non tam diserte quam vere memoriae tradiderunt. 8 sum enim unus ex curiosis, quod infi[ni]t<i>as ire non possum, ince<n>dentibus vobis, qui, cum multa sciatis, scire multo plura cupitis. 9 et ne diutius ea, quae ad meum consilium pertinent, loquar, magnum et praeclarum principem et qualem historia nostra non novit, arripiam. Edited January 1, 2010 by sylla

[JGolomb]

Under such conditions, the real unsolved mystery would be why did Mr. Everitt try to analyze Hadrian's psyche in any depth with such an unreliable tool...

Great question, Sylla. I'm about half way through Everitt's biography and there's a tremendous amount of speculation, just shy of assumption, on Everitt's part. It hasn't hurt that this thread's been educating me on Historia Augusta. The bio, up until Hadrian becomes Emperor, is focused on the context of the world in which Hadrian lived. For me, this adds a great deal of color to that timeframe, but it's definitely lacking in its ability to add flesh to the character that is Hadrian.