Ruins of the Temple of Venus, Rome
In such cares he consumed the greatest part of his time; but, at last finding the duties of his station daily increasing, and his own strength proportionally upon the decline, he resolved upon adopting a successor, whose merits might deserve, and whose courage secure, his exaltation. After many deliberations, he made choice of Lucius Commodus, whose bodily infirmities rendered him unfit for a trust of such importance. Of this, after some time, Hadrian seemed sensible, declaring, that he repented of having chosen so feeble a successor, saying that he had leaned against a mouldering wall. However, Commodus soon after dying, the emperor immediately adopted Titus Antoninus, afterwards surnamed the Pius; but previously obliged him to adopt two others, namely, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, all of whom afterwards succeeded in the empire.
While he was thus careful in appointing a successor, his bodily infirmities daily increased; and at length his pains becoming insupportable, he vehemently desired that some of his attendants should despatch him. Antoninus, however, would by no means permit any of his domestics to be guilty of so great an impiety, but used all the arts in his power to reconcile the emperor to sustain life. At one time he produced a woman, who pretended that she was warned in a dream that he should recover his health; at another, a man was brought from Pannonia, who gave him the same assurances. Nevertheless, Hadrian’s pains increased day by day. He frequently cried out, “How miserable a thing it is to seek death, and not to find it!” He engaged one Mastor, partly by threats and partly by entreaties, to promise to despatch him; but Mastor, instead of obeying, consulted his own safety by flight; so that he who was master of the lives of millions, was not able to dispose of his own. In this deplorable exigence, he resolved on going to Baiæ, where the tortures of his diseases increasing, they affected his understanding, so that he gave orders that several persons should be put to death; which Antoninus, according to his usual wisdom, never meant to obey. Continuing, for some time, in these excruciating circumstances, the emperor was at last resolved to observe no regimen, often saying, that kings died merely by the multitude of their physicians. This conduct served to hasten that death he seemed so ardently to desire, and it was probably joy upon its approach which dictated the celebrated stanzas which are so well known, in repeating which he expired.
Animula, vagula, blandula,
Hospes, comesque corporis,
Quæ, nunc abibis in loca?
Pallidula, rigida, nudula,
Nec, ut soles, dabis jocos?
In this manner died Hadrian, in the sixty-second year of his age, after a prosperous reign of twenty-one years and eleven months. His private character seems to be a mixture of virtues and vices;[30] but, as a prince, perhaps none of his predecessors showed more wisdom, or such laudable assiduity. He was the first emperor who reduced the laws of the empire into one standing code. Government received the greatest stability from his counsels, and a tranquillity more lasting than could be expected from such fierce neighbours abroad, and such a degenerate race of citizens at home.[b]