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Age of Gold
The
third decade of the 2nd century – the 120s AD – was
arguably the high summer of the ancient world, the pinnacle
of that age
Edward Gibbon
described as the ‘happiest in mankind’s history’,
when ‘the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized
portion of mankind’ was 'gently but firmly guided' by
a succession of virtuous and able emperors. The Romans were not
unaware of their exceptional good fortune. Coins struck in the
year 123 – the 150th anniversary of founding of the
Empire
– were inscribed ‘saeculum aureum’ ('Age of
Gold').
Pragmatic and
worldly ruler that he was, Hadrian acknowledged his debt to
the deities, whatever and wherever they might be. In more
than twelve years spent visiting his dominions he pointedly visited
the shrines and temples of all the gods, ordering their renovation,
instituting games in their honour, equipping new priesthoods
for the correct observance of ritual, and so on. For his diverse
benefactions he was welcomed in the east as ‘a god come
down to earth’ (R. Lambert, p43).
In Rome in
121, Hadrian established a cult for the city herself and several
years later, a temple, the
largest in the city, was dedicated by the Emperor to ‘Romae
aeternae.’ Hadrian
adopted Venus as patroness of the imperial family. Back in his
beloved Greece again, in 123, he was initiated into
the mysteries of Cabiri at Samothrace in the Aegean. The
following year, in Athens, Hadrian was inaugurated into the rites
of Demeter at Eleusis, and then of Dionysus. Passing
through Greece, Hadrian ordered the restoration of the temple of
Zeus Olympios which had lain in ruin for three centuries
and the restoration of Phidias’s Zeus at Olympia and the sanctuary
of Poseidon.
Towards
the close of the decade, Hadrian’s entourage progressed
through the provinces of southern Asia Minor: Caria, Cilicia,
Cappadocia. Here, the enriched Greek cities honoured the emperor
as ‘saviour and god’ (and associated him personally
with Zeus). In 129 he reached Syria and the city of Antioch,
where he held court for a year. In this epitome of a Hellenized
city the Emperor was disturbed to recognise that, beneath the veneer,
its racially mixed populace seethed with fanatical religions
hostile to Rome. He downgraded the status of the city and
left for Egypt.
Hadrian & the
Christians – Pagan Tolerance and Restraint
"I
received a letter from your illustrious predecessor
Serenus Gratianus, and I do not wish to leave his
inquiry unanswered, so that innocent men are not
troubled and false accusers seize occasion for robbery.
If the
provincials are clearly willing to appear in person
to substantiate suits against Christians, if, that
is, they come themselves before your judgment seat
to prefer their accusations, I do not forbid them
to prosecute.
But
I do not permit them to make mere entreaties,
and protestations. Justice demands that if any one wishes
to bring an accusation, you should make due legal
enquiry into the charge.
If such
an accusation is brought and it be proved that the
accused men have done anything illegal, you will
punish them as their misdeeds deserve.
But,
in Heaven's name, take the very greatest care that
if a man prosecute any one of these men by way of
false accusation you visit the accuser, as his wickedness
deserves, with severer penalties."
–
Hadrian, Rescript To Minicius Fundanus, Governor
of Asia (124 AD).
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Death of Antinous
What
perhaps should have been a relaxed sojourn on the Nile turned
into a personal tragedy for Hadrian and an event of unimaginable
consequence for the world. His male lover, a beautiful
Greek youth called Antinous, his companion of several years, drowned in
odd circumstances in the Nile. Inconsolable, he had a vast,
new ‘sanctuary city,’ Antinoopolis,
built where the incident had occurred. Modelled on Athens,
the ruins of Antinoopolis were still visible in
the 19th century. The city had a Christian bishop in the second
century and two rival ones in the third!
Convinced
that Antinous had ‘died but was reborn a god’ Hadrian
instituted a new religion for his worship, complete with
temples and annual games. The core belief was that this virtuous
young man, by self-sacrifice, had conquered death and now offered similar
salvation and protection to others. An epitaph for Antinous
recounts that he had ‘appeared after death in dreams to
provide cures for the sick.’ He was an authentic Greek ‘Hero,’ a
human who had attained immortality and could intercede with the
gods. With official sponsorship and encouragement,
his shrines, images and priesthoods appeared throughout
the empire – except in Antioch. His was the only non-imperial
head to appear on coins, and his statue is the most common from
antiquity, save for Augustus and Hadrian himself. In the 4th
century, re-worked statues of Antinous showed him holding the grapes
of Dionysus in one-hand – and a cross in the other!
In
foul temper, Hadrian moved his court on to Judaea,
where he was in no mood for Jewish intransigence. The
Emperor decided upon a thorough-going Hellenization
of the province.
For
sixty years Jerusalem had lain waste. On its ruins,
as his gift
to the Jewish people, Hadrian ordered the construction of
a new city, complete with forums, theatres, baths, gymnasia and
all
the other amenities of a modern polis. This he named Aelia
Capitolina – to
honour his family (Aelius) and Zeus himself
(whose temple in Rome graced the Capitol hill). On the spot which
had once been an ancient quarry arose a vast
new temple to Aphrodite and
close by, where the Jewish temple lay in ruins, a temple to Jupiter-Zeus.
In its atrium, Hadrian had placed a giant statue of himself,
benefactor and ruler of the world.
Simon
ben Kosiba
To the Jews,
Aelia and its statue of Hadrian were the
‘abomination of desolation.’ For them, the
final provocation was Hadrian’s ban on circumcision (which
applied to Egyptians and Arabs as well as Jews). As the most
Hellenized of all Roman emperors, Hadrian regarded circumcision
as nothing less than mutilation.
The Emperor
returned to Rome. Hardly had he
done so than news reached him that the Jews, armed with weapons
secreted for years, had staged a revolt.
"At this time, the Jews
started a war because they were forbidden to mutilate their genitals."
– Historia Augusta, Hadrian, 14.2.
A
new ‘messiah’
had been identified – an adventurer claiming Davidic descent
called Simon ben Kosiba (punned into a portentous 'Bar
Kochba' or ‘son
of the star’ by
his followers). He was led on a horse – ‘as
prophesy foretold’ – through Jerusalem by
the aged Akiba.
Kosiba/Kochba’s
messiahship was endorsed by the High Priest Eleazar and
even the normally pro-Roman Sanhedrin. Aelia was torched
and a re-dedication made on the temple ruins. War with
Rome was now inevitable. Catching
the Roman forces off-guard and out-numbered, the rebels
seized control
of Jerusalem.
The Roman governor, Tineus Rufus, ordered his garrison to evacuate
the city as best they could and they retreated towards Caesarea.
His command, the X Legion Fretensis, had as its emblem a wild
boar – a provocative 'pig' to the Jews. Rome’s initial
response was to assign the XXII legion, based in Egypt, the task
of retaking
the city but such was the fury and force of the rebels that the
legion was destroyed before it got anywhere near.
When the full
extent of the uprising was gauged in Rome, the Emperor dispatched
Julius
Severus, victor of the recent war in northern Britain, at the head
of two legions, to suppress the rebellion. The war proved protracted
and merciless. The rebel forces, perhaps half a million strong,
adopted a guerilla-style warfare which denied the Romans a decisive
battle, favourable to their cavalry and the use of the phalanx.
Drawing troops
from everywhere from Egypt to Syria a full-scale invasion force
was assembled. Twelve legions were ultimately
to be deployed in the province, systematically annihilating hundreds
of towns and villages. Jerusalem was retaken only in the third
year
of the war. Akiba and nine other ‘doctors of the Law’ were
executed although some fanatics escaped to Persia. After three
years of attrition, Simon and the last of the rebels, plus many
refugees, were trapped in the fortress of Bethar, south west
of Jerusalem. Hadrian himself joined the besiegers for the final
capitulation. Famously, he refused to accept a Triumph for this
brutal war.
The
Romans had been badly mauled – ninety thousand troops
lost in conflict and related pestilence. Yet the cost to the
Jews was total: the end of their existence as a self-governing
nation within the Empire; half a million war-dead (from a nation
of perhaps three million); tens of thousands sold into slavery
and the arena. Even the name of Judaea was erased from the
map, replaced
by ‘Siria Palestinia.’
On pain of
death, Jews were forbidden to enter the new city of Alia – rebuilt
more modestly – save for one day a year, to mourn their
lost temple. On the holy mountain of the Samaritans Hadrian erected
a temple
to Zeus, embellished with the bronze doors taken from Jerusalem.
For a time, study of Jewish scripture was outlawed, as was
also the
keeping of the Sabbath. The ‘pious’ resistance of the
Jews had exacted a terrible human price.
Throughout
the year 135, the Mediterranean ports were flooded with Jewish
refugees and the slave markets overflowed with captives. With
the catastrophic defeat a new pun on Bar Kosiba's
name was coined by the rabbis: 'bar Kozeba',
meaning 'son of the lie'. Only the Christian
Jews, who harboured a resentment against the rest
of the tribe, drew comfort from the disaster. The Romans,
they reasoned, were the instrument of divine wrath, incurred
by the Jews for the rejection of their prophet.
"And thus, when
the city had been emptied of the Jewish nation and had suffered
the total destruction of its ancient inhabitants,
it was colonized by a different race ... And as the church there
was now composed
of Gentiles, the first one to assume the government of it after
the bishops of the circumcision was Marcus."
– Eusebius
Pamphilus,
Church History, 4.6.
Marcus? Marcus? Now there's a name to ponder ...
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Where
Did They Get Their Ideas From?
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Antinous
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Antinous:
Hadrian's male lover, a beautiful Greek youth from Bithynia (modern Turkey)
and companion of several years. He drowned in odd circumstances in
the
Nile and speculation suggested a ritual suicide to somehow prolong
the Emperor's own life.
A
distraught Hadrian convinced himself that the dead
Antinous had been 'reborn a god’ and
instituted a new religion for his worship, complete with temples,
priests and annual games.
Apparently,
the
self-sacrificing Antinous had
conquered death and now offered similar salvation and
protection
to others. What an interesting idea!
An
epitaph for Antinous in Rome recounts that he had ‘appeared
after death in dreams to provide cures for the sick.’
The
cult continued for three hundred years but slowly got
subsumed into a more truculent cult – Christianity.
In the 4th century, re-worked statues of Antinous
showed him holding the grapes of Dionysus in one-hand – and
a cross in the other!
"It
is remarkable that [the cult of Antinous] should
have survived as long as it did, well into the
4th century"
– S.
Perowne (Hadrian, p159)
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Sprouting
wings – the deified Antinous (Naples)
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Related articles |
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MAJOR
SECTIONS |
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Do you really
think it all began with a sanctimonious Jewish
wonder-worker, strolling about 1st century Palestine?
Prepare to be enlightened.
 Jesus – The
Imaginary Friend
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Still
holding to the idea that some sort of holy man
lies behind the legend? Better check out...
 Godman – Gestation
of a Superhero
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A
closer look at the glib assertion that the Jesus
story "got off the ground quickly and spread
rapidly."
What DID the
Early Christians Believe?
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Many
currents fed the Jesus myth, like streams and tributaries
joining to form a major river.
Sourcing
the legend – The
Syncretic Heritage of Christianity
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Much
of the mythology of Christianity is a rehash of
an older and even more transparent fabrication – Judaism.
Jew
Story – The Way
of the Rabbi
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Human
ingenuity and cunning is matched by mankind's equally
monumental credulity and wishful thinking.
Christianity's Fabrication
Factory
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Church
organisation, authority and membership preceded
rather than followed the justifying doctrine. As
the organisation and its needs changed so has the ‘Testament
of God’ adapted accordingly.
Dogma – The
Word in all its Savage Glory
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From
religious policeman to grandee of the church,
from beast fighter in Ephesus to beheading in
Rome, Paul's story has more holes than a swiss
cheese.
St
Paul the Apostle – Dead
in the water?
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Orchestrated
by ambitious Christian clerics, a cancer of superstition,
fear and brutality was imposed across Europe.
Heart
of Darkness – The
Criminal History of the Christian Church
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The
Christian Heaven may have been a vain folly but
the Christian Hell has been real enough.
Hell
on Earth – A Brutal
Superstition Spreads Across the World
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Raised
to the status of State religion the Christian Church
reigned over the destruction of civilization. As
the centuries passed religious barbarism grew ever
more vicious.
Winter
of the World – The
Terrible Cost of "Christendom"
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For two millennia
Christianity's anti-sexual, puritanical doctrines
have inflicted untold damage on the mental, emotional
and physical lives of countless millions of people.
Those SEXUALLY
hung-up Christians – Loved-up
for Jesus
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With
a Jewish father (stern patriarch) and a Christian
mother (obsession with guilt and heaven) it is
not surprising that Islam grew up a bit of a tartar.
Islam's
Desert Storm – 'Christendom'
Reaps a Whirlwind
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Heaven
help us. The richest, most powerful nation in history
has a psychotic infatuation with Jay-a-sus
the Lawd!
The Christianizing of
the Americas
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Copyright © 2004,2007 by Kenneth Humphreys.
Copying is freely permitted, provided credit is given to the author and no material
herein is sold for profit.
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