The evidence from the coins is quite conclusive. The Emperor renewed his dual powers either on the same day, 1st January, or on a day immediately succeeding. As Eckhel pointed out in 1792 there is no coin which, if the date be correctly read, gives any countenance to any other theory, while all such are unnecessary and at variance with known facts.
Lampridius gives us a certain amount of evidence that the Emperor took an interest in the affairs of state all through his life, both by his account of Antonine’s sagacity as a judge, and his desire to appoint fourteen praefects of the city, under the headship of the Imperial Praefectus Urbis or Urbi. Naturally, the desire is attributed to base motives, namely, in order to benefit unworthy persons. The scheme, Lampridius tells us, was actually carried into operation during Alexander’s reign, and is then applauded as useful and necessary, an obvious bit of special pleading on one side or the other.
It is with a singularly unanimous voice that the authors announce the general execration against the memory of Antonine, and the joy shown by the populace in dragging his dead body about the city. All are certain that the Senate made a general order to deface the name of Antonine on all monuments and documents through the Empire, as soon as that dishonoured Emperor was safely out of the way.
The unanimity is wonderful; all the more wonderful because so utterly unusual. Unfortunately, it is in no way borne out by the inscriptions. We have mentioned the rescripts which for the most part bear Antonine’s name throughout the whole year 222. This circumstance is hardly in consonance with the senatorial action in ordering all mention of the dishonoured Emperor to be expunged (i.e. while they themselves continue to use his name publicly and officially). Again, there is an inscription C.I.L. VI. 3015, set up in July 222, which commemorates both Consuls as though alive; and another, though probably a forgery of Ligorius, No. 570, in which the two names appear on 13th April of the same year. Surely this would have been impossible if Antonine were dead and the Senate had ordered his name to be erased everywhere. This order, however, cannot be taken literally; an examination of the existing inscriptions gives quite other results.
The name of Antonine is erased, but only in 40 known cases, while in certain places the name Alexander is substituted for that of Antonine, which, if usual, is rather a cheap way of getting the honour and renown belonging to another. A few African inscriptions blot out the Emperor’s claim to be grandson of Severus, and a few in different parts of the Empire blot out the title Priest of Elagabal, witness the inscription at Walwick Chesters. In 52 cases the names, styles, and titles of Antonine are left intact, which makes it improbable that there was any great campaign against his memory, such as Lampridius would have us believe that every one in the Empire was only too anxious to institute.
Dion and Lampridius both tell us that Antonine was called Tiberinus and Tractitius after his death, in reference to the shameful treatment which his body was supposed to have met with after his murder, and the final act of throwing it into the river in order that it should never be buried. Sardanapalus is another epithet applied to him by Dion and his copier Zonaras, who also call him Pseudo-Antonine, in reference to his grandmother’s statement made “through hatred” in 221, that not he but Alexander was the only legitimate bastard; such and the like were the taunting adjectives by means of which the biographers sought to defame the boy’s memory.
Here, for all practical purposes, Lampridius’ account of the Emperor’s life ceases. There are still seventeen chapters of mere biographical scandal, some of it illuminating, some hypocritically obscene. Nevertheless, it has been possible to abstract from these sections a certain amount of information descriptive of the boy’s extravagances and their setting, his psychology and its result, his religious ambitions, and with them the reasons for his downfall.
These are all obvious traits in Antonine’s character, and can be discerned despite the mass of exaggerations and hostility with which the pages abound. To criticise these statements in any sort of detail is, however, obviously impossible on the information at present available, and furthermore, we are scarcely competent to judge the period from our modern standpoint of prejudice.
There is no period of history which fully corresponds to these last years of imperial greatness; few men who embody the spirit which breathed life into all that splendour, and even fewer in the modern world who understand the revived paganism of the Renaissance. Here too there was a difference. In old Rome it has been said that a sin was a prayer; under Leo X. it was, rather, a taxable luxury. Sinning is still a luxury, but no longer taxable; the Reformation has set us free from such extortion and restraint, and supplied us with hypocrisy and cant to take its place.
From Suetonius we gather that the Roman world sinned and sparkled; we still sin, but are perforce to yawn in the process. The world of Suetonius was the world où on s’en fichait. Our world is the world où on s’ennuie. Hence our inability to grasp the spirit of philosophical paganism, a spirit whose morality does not consist in improper thoughts about other people, but in a mind set free from terror of the Gods, not very much caring what other people do so long as they do not interfere with us.