I. Titus Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Antoninus Pius was descended, on his
father's side, from a family which came from the country of Transalpine Gaul, more
specifically, from the town of Nimes. His grandfather was Titus Aurelius Fulvus, who after
various offices of honour attained to a second consulship and the prefecture of the city;
his father was Aurelius Fulvus, also consul, and a stern and upright man. His mother was
Arria Fadilla; her mother was Boionia Procilla and her father Arrius Antoninus, twice
consul and a righteous man, who pitied Nerva that he assumed the imperial power. Julia
Fadilla was his mother's daughter, his stepfather being Julius Lupus, a man of consular
rank. His father- in-law was Annius Verus and his wife Annia Faustina, who bore him two
sons and two daughters, of whom the elder was married to Lamia Silanus and the younger to
Marcus Antoninus. Antoninus himself was born at an estate at Lanuvium on the thirteenth
day before the Kalends of October in the twelfth consulship of Domitian and first of
Cornelius Dolabella. He was reared at Lorium on the Aurelian Way, where he afterwards
built the palace whose ruins stand there today. He passed his childhood first with his
paternal grandfather, then later with his maternal; and he showed such a dutiful affection
toward all his family, that he was enriched by legacies from even his cousins, his
stepfather, and many still more distant kin.
II. In personal appearance he was strikingly handsome, in natural talent
brilliant, in temperament kindly; he was aristocratic in countenance and calm in nature, a
singularly gifted speaker and an elegant scholar, conspicuously thrifty, a conscientious
landholder, gentle, generous, and mindful of other's rights. He possessed all these
qualities, moreover, in the proper mean and without ostentation, and, in fine, was
praiseworthy in every way and, in the minds of all good men, well deserving of comparison
with Numa Pompilius. He was given the name of Pius by the senate, either because, when his
father-in-law was old and weak, he lent him a supporting hand in his attendance at the
senate (which act, indeed, is not sufficient as a token of great dutifulness, since a man
were rather undutiful who did not perform this service than dutiful if he did), or because
he spared those men whom Hadrian in his ill-health had condemned to death, or because
after Hadrian's death he had unbounded and extraordinary honours decreed for him in spite
of opposition from all, or because, when Hadrian wished to make away with himself, by
great care and watchfulness he prevented him from so doing, or because he was in fact very
kindly by nature and did no harsh deed in his own time. He also loaned money at
four-per-cent, the lowest rate ever exacted, in order that he might use his fortune to aid
many. As quaestor he was generous, as praetor illustrious, and in the consulship he had as
colleague Catilius Severus. His life as a private citizen he passed mostly on his estates
but he was well-known everywhere. He was chosen by Hadrian from among the four men of
consular rank under whose jurisdiction Italy was placed, to administer that particular
part of Italy in which the greater part of his own holdings lay; from this it was evident
that Hadrian had regard for both the fame and the tranquility of such a man.
III. An omen of his future rule occurred while he was administering Italy;
for when he mounted the tribunal, among other greetings some one cried, "God save
thee, Augustus!" His proconsulship in Asia he conducted in such a fashion that he
alone excelled his grandfather; and in this proconsulship, too, he received another omen
foretelling his rule; for at Tralles a priestess, being about to greet him after the
custom of the place (for it was their custom to greet the proconsuls by their title),
instead of saying "Hail, proconsul," said "Hail, imperator"; at
Cyzicus, moreover, a crown was transferred from an image of a god to a statue of him.
After his consulship, again, a marble bull was found hanging in his garden with its horns
attached to the boughs of a tree, and lightning from a clear sky struck his home without
inflicting damage, and in Etruria certain large jars that had been buried were found above
the ground again, and swarms of bees settled on his statues throughout all Etruria, and
frequently he was warned in dreams to include an image of Hadrian among his household
gods. While setting out to assume his proconsular office he lost his elder daughter. About
the license and loose living of his wife a number of things were said, which he heard with
great sorrow and suppressed. On returning from his proconsulship he lived for the most
part at Rome, being a member of the councils of Hadrian, and in all matters concerning
which Hadrian sought his advice, ever urging the more merciful course.
IV. The manner of his adoption, they say, was somewhat thus: After the
death of Aelius Verus, whom Hadrian had adopted and named Caesar, a day was set for the
meeting of the senate, and to this Arrius Antoninus came, supporting the steps of his
father-in-law. For this act, it is said, Hadrian adopted him. But this could not have been
the only reason for the adoption, nor ought it to have been, especially since Antoninus
had always done well in his administration of public office, and in his proconsulship had
shown himself a man of worth and dignity. At any rate, when Hadrian announced a desire to
adopt him, he was given time for deciding whether he wished to be adopted. This condition
was attached to his adoption, that as Hadrian took Antoninus as his son, so he in turn
should take Marcus Antoninus, his wife's nephew, and Lucius Verus, thenceforth called
Verus Antoninus, the son of that Aelius Verus whom Hadrian had previously adopted. He was
adopted on the fifth day before the Kalends of March, while returning thanks in the senate
for Hadrian's opinion concerning him, and he was made colleague to his father in both the
proconsular and the tribunician power. It is related as his first remark, that when he was
reproved by his wife because he was not sufficiently generous to his household in some
trifling matter, he said: "Foolish woman, now that we have gained an empire, we have
lost even what we had before." To the people he gave largess on his own account and
also paid the moneys that his father had promised. He contributed a large amount of money,
too, to Hadrian's public works, and of the crown-gold which had been presented to him on
the occasion of his adoption, he returned all of Italy's share, and half of their share to
the provinces.
V. His father, as long as he lived, he obeyed most scrupulously, and when
Hadrian passed away at Baiae he bore his remains to Rome with all piety and reverence, and
buried him in the gardens of Domitia; moreover, though all opposed the measure, he had him
placed among the deified. On his wife Faustina he permitted the senate to bestow the name
of Augusta, and for himself accepted the surname Pius. The statues decreed for his father,
mother, grandparents and brothers, then dead, he accepted readily; nor did he refuse the
circus-games ordered for his birthday, though he did refuse other honours. In honour of
Hadrian he set up a superb shield and established a college of priests. After his
accession to the throne he removed none of the men whom Hadrian had appointed to office,
and, indeed, was so steadfast and loyal that he retained good men in the government of
provinces for terms of seven and even nine years. He waged a number of wars, but all of
them through his legates. For Lollius Urbicus, his legate, overcame the Britons and built
a second wall, one of turf, after driving back the barbarians. Through other legates or
governors, he forced the Moors to sue for peace, and crushed the Germans and the Dacians
and many other tribes, and also the Jews, who were in revolt. In Achaea also and in Egypt
he put down rebellions and many a time sharply checked the Alani in their raiding.
VI. His procurators were ordered to levy only a reasonable tribute, and
those who exceeded a proper limit were commanded to render an account of their acts, nor
was he ever pleased with any revenues that were onerous to the provinces. Moreover, he was
always willing to hear complaints against his procurators. He besought the senate to
pardon those men whom Hadrian had condemned, saying that Hadrian himself had been about to
do so. The imperial pomp he reduced to the utmost simplicity and thereby gained the
greater esteem, though the palace-attendants opposed this course, for they found that
since he made no use of go-betweens, they could in no wise terrorize men or take money for
decisions about which there was no concealment. In his dealings with the senate, he
rendered it, as emperor, the same respect that he had wished another emperor to render him
when he was a private man. When the senate offered him the title of Father of his Country,
he at first refused it, but later accepted it with an elaborate expression of thanks. On
the death of his wife Faustina, in the third year of his reign, the senate deified her,
and voted her games and a temple and priestesses and statues of silver and of gold. These
the Emperor accepted, and furthermore granted permission that her statue be erected in all
the circuses; and when the senate voted her a golden statue, he undertook to erect it
himself. At the instance of the senate, Marcus Antoninus, now quaestor, was made consul;
also Annius Verus, he who was afterwards entitled Antoninus, was appointed quaestor before
the legal age. Never did he resolve on measures about the provinces or render a decision
on any question without previously consulting his friends, and in accordance with their
opinions he drew up his final statement. And indeed he often received his friends without
the robes of state and even in the performances of domestic duties.
VII. With such care did he govern all peoples under him that he looked
after all things and all men as if they were his own. As a result, the provinces all
prospered in his reign, informers were abolished, the confiscation of goods was less
frequent than ever before, and only one man was condemned as guilty of aspiring to the
throne. This was Atilius Titianus, and it was the senate itself that conducted his
prosecution, while the Emperor forbade any investigation about the fellow-conspirators of
Atilius and always aided his son to attain all his desires. Priscianus did indeed die for
aspiring to the throne, but by his own hand, and about his conspiracy also the Emperor
forbade any investigation. The board of Antoninus Pius was rich yet never open to
criticism, frugal yet not stingy; his table was furnished by his own slaves, his own
fowlers and fishers and hunters. A bath, which he had previously used himself, he opened
to the people without charge, nor did he himself depart in any way from the manner of life
to which he had been accustomed when a private man. He took away salaries from a number of
men who held obvious sinecures, saying there was nothing meaner, nay more unfeeling, than
the man who nibbled at the revenues of the state without giving any service in return; for
the same reason, also, he reduced the salary of Mesomedes, the lyric poet. The budgets of
all the provinces and the sources of revenue he knew exceedingly well. He settled his
private fortune on his daughter, but presented the income of it to the state. Indeed, the
superfluous trappings of royal state and even the crown-lands he sold, living on his own
private estates and varying his residence according to the season. Nor did he undertake
any expedition other than the visiting of his lands in Campania, averring that the
equipage of an emperor, even of one over-frugal, was a burdensome thing to the provinces.
And yet he was regarded with immense respect by all nations, for, making his residence in
the city, as he did, for the purpose of being in a central location, he was able to
receive messages from every quarter with equal speed.
VIII. He gave largess to the people, and, in addition, a donation to the
soldiers, and founded an order of destitute girls, called Faustinianae in honor of
Faustina. Of the public works that were constructed by him the following remain today: the
temple of Hadrian at Rome, so called in honour of his father, the Graecostadium, restored
by him after its burning, the Amphitheatre, repaired by him, the tomb of Hadrian, the
temple of Agrippa, and the Pons Sublicius, also the Pharus, the port at Caieta, and the
port at Tarracina, all of which he restored, the bath at Ostia, the aqueduct at Antium,
and the temples at Lanuvium. Besides all this, he helped many communities to erect new
buildings and to restore the old; and he even gave pecuniary aid to Roman magistrates and
senators to assist them in the performance of their duties. He declined legacies from
those who had children of their own and was the first to establish the rule that bequests
made under fear of penalty should not be valid. Never did he appoint a successor to a
worthy magistrate while yet alive, except in the case of Orfitus, the prefect of the city,
and then only at his own request. For under him Gavius Maximus, a very stern man, reached
his twentieth year of service as prefect of the guard; he was succeeded by Tattius
Maximus, and at his death Antoninus appointed two men in his place, Fabius Cornelius
Repentinus and Furius Victorinus, the former of whom, however, was ruined by the
scandalous tale that he had gained his office by the favour of the Emperor's mistress. So
rigidly did he adhere to his resolve that no senator should be executed in his reign, that
a confessed parricide was merely marooned on a desert island, and that only because it was
against the laws of nature to let such a one live. He relieved a scarcity of wine and oil
and wheat with loss to his own private treasury, by buying these and distributing them to
the people free.
IX. The following misfortunes and prodigies occurred in his reign: the
famine, which we have just mentioned, the collapse of the Circus, an earthquake whereby
towns of Rhodes and of Asia were destroyed -- all of which, however, the Emperor restored
in splendid fashion --, and a fire at Rome which consumed three hundred and forty
tenements and dwellings. The town of Narbonne, the city of Antioch, and the forum of
Carthage also burned. Besides, the Tiber flooded its banks, a comet was seen, a two-headed
child was born, and a woman gave birth to quintuplets. There was seen, moreover, in
Arabia, a crested serpent larger than the usual size, which ate itself from the tail to
the middle; and also in Arabia there was a pestilence, while in Moesia barley sprouted
from the tops of trees. And besides all this, in Arabia four lions grew tame and of their
own accord yielded themselves to capture. Pharasmenes, the king, visited him at Rome and
showed him more respect than he had shown Hadrian. He appointed Pacorus king of the Lazi,
induced the king of the Parthians to forego a campaign against the Armenians merely by
writing him a letter, and solely by his personal influence brought Abgarus the king back
from the regions of the East. He settled the pleas of several kings. The royal throne of
the Parthians, which Trajan had captured, he refused to return when their king asked for
it, and after hearing the dispute between Rhoemetalces and the imperial commissioner, sent
the former back his kingdom of the Bosphorus. He sent troops to the Black Sea to bring aid
to Olbiopolis against the Tauroscythians and forced the latter to give hostages to
Olbiopolis. No one has ever had such prestige among foreign nations as he, for he was ever
a lover of peace, even to such a degree that he was continually quoting the saying of
Scipio in which he declared that he would rather save a single citizen than slay a
thousand foes.
X. When the senate declared that the months of September and October
should be called respectively Antoninus and Faustinus, Antoninus refused. The wedding of
his daughter Faustina, whom he espoused to Marcus Antoninus, he made most noteworthy, even
to the extent of giving a donative to the soldiers. He made Verus Antoninus consul after
his quaestorship. On one occasion, he sent word to Apollonius, whom he had summoned from
Chalcis, to come to the House of Tiberius (where at the time he was staying) in order that
he might put Marcus Antoninus in his charge, but Apollonius replied "The master ought
not come to the pupil, but the pupil to the master." Whereupon the Emperor ridiculed
him, saying "It was easier, then, for Apollonius to come to Rome from Chalcis than
from his house to my palace." The greed of this man he had noticed even in the matter
of his salary. It is related of him, too, as an instance of his regard for his family,
that when Marcus was mourning the death of his tutor and was restrained by the palace
servants from this display of affection, the Emperor said: "Let him be only a man for
once; for neither philosophy nor empire takes away natural feeling." On his prefects
he bestowed both riches and consular honours. If he convicted any of extortion he
nevertheless delivered up the estates to their children, providing only that the children
should restore to the provinces what their fathers had taken. He was very prone to acts of
forgiveness. He held games at which he displayed elephants and the animals called
corocottae and tigers and rhinoceroses, even crocodiles and hippopotami, in short, all the
animals of the whole earth; and he presented at a single performance as many as a hundred
lions together with tigers.
XI. His friends he always treated, while on the throne, just as though he
were a private citizen, for they never combined with his freedmen to sell false hopes of
favours, and indeed he treated his freedmen with the greatest strictness. He was very fond
of the stage, found great delight in fishing and hunting and in walks and conversation
with his friends, and was wont to pass vintage-time in company with his friends in the
manner of an ordinary citizen. Rhetoricians and philosophers throughout all the provinces
he rewarded with honours and money. The orations which have come down in his name, some
say, are really the work of others; according to Marius Maximus, however, they were his
own. He always shared his banquets, both public and private, with his friends; and never
did he perform sacrifices by proxy except when he was ill. When he sought office for
himself or for his sons all was done as by a private individual. He himself was often
present at the banquets of his intimates, and among other things it is a particular
evidence of his graciousness that when, on a visit at the house of Homullus, he admired
certain porphyry columns and asked where they came from, Homullus replied "When you
come to another's house, be deaf and dumb," and he took it in good part. In fact, the
jibes of this same Homullus, which were many, he always took in good part.
XII. A number of legal principles were established by Antoninus with the
aid of certain men, experts in jurisprudence, namely, Vindius Verus, Salvius Valens,
Volusius Maecianus, Ulpius Marcellus, and Diavolenus. Rebellions, wherever they occurred,
he suppressed not by means of cruelty, but with moderation and dignity. He forbade the
burial of bodies within the limits of any city; he established a maximum cost for
gladiatorial games; and he very carefully maintained the imperial post. Of everything that
he did he rendered an account, both in the senate and by proclamation. He died in the
seventieth year of his age, but his loss was felt as though he had been but a youth. They
say his death was somewhat as follows: after he had eaten too freely some Alpine cheese at
dinner he vomited during the night, and was taken with a fever the next day. On the second
day, as he saw that his condition was becoming worse, in the presence of his prefects he
committed the state and his daughter to Marcus Antoninus, and gave orders that the golden
statue of Fortune, which was wont to stand in the bed-chamber of the emperor, be given to
him. Then he gave the watchword to the officer of the day as "Equanimity," and
so, turning as if to sleep, gave up the ghost at Lorium. While he was delirious with
fever, he spoke of nothing save the state and certain kings with whom he was angry. To his
daughter he left his private fortune, and in his will he remembered all his household with
suitable legacies.
XIII. He was a handsome man, and tall in stature; but being a tall man,
when he was bent by old age he had himself swathed with splints of linden-wood bound on
his chest in order that he might walk erect. Moreover, when he was old, he ate dry bread
before the courtiers came to greet him, in order that he might sustain his strength. His
voice was hoarse and resonant, yet agreeable. He was deified by the senate, while all men
vied with one another to give him honour, and all extolled his devoutness, his mercy, his
intelligence, and his righteousness. All honours were decreed for him which were ever
before bestowed on the very best of emperors. He well deserved the flamen and games and
temple and the Antonine priesthood. Almost alone of all emperors he lived entirely
unstained by the blood of either citizen or foe so far as was in his power, and he was
justly compared to Numa, whose good fortune and piety and tranquillity and religious rites
he ever maintained.
