Diadumenus Antoninus

The life of the boy Antoninus Diadumenus, whom the army, together with his father Opilius Macrinus, called emperor when Bassianus had been killed by the Macrinian faction, has nothing memorable, except that he was called Antoninus, and that there were given him stupendous omens of an empire not to be of long duration, as it turned out. For when it first became known through the legions that Bassianus had been killed, great mourning beset the hearts of all, because they had not an Antoninus in the state, thinking that with him the Roman empire would perish. When this was announced to Macrinus, now emperor, fearing lest the army should incline toward some one of the Antonines—who were many among the generals, from the relatives of Antoninus Pius—he at once ordered an assembly to be prepared and called his son, this boy, Antoninus. The address: "You see, comrades, both me, now of advanced age, and the boy Diadumenus, whom for a long time, if the gods favor, you shall have as prince. I perceive, moreover, that a great longing for the Antonine name remains among you; wherefore, since by the condition of human frailty it seems that not much of life remains to me, I name this boy Antoninus, with you as authors, who shall for a long time represent Antoninus to you." It was acclaimed: "Macrinus emperor, may the gods preserve you. Antoninus Diadumenus, may the gods preserve you. We have all long asked for an Antoninus. Jupiter Best and Greatest, grant life to Macrinus and Antoninus. You know, Jupiter, Macrinus cannot be conquered; you know, Jupiter, Antoninus cannot be conquered. We have an Antoninus, we have everything. The gods have given us an Antoninus. Antoninus is worthy of his father, worthy of empire."

Macrinus the emperor said: "Have, then, comrades, for the empire three aurei each, for the name of Antoninus five aurei each, and the customary promotions, but doubled. The gods will bring it about that these things happen more often. We shall give, moreover, through every five-year period, this which today we have determined." After this the little boy Diadumenus Antoninus, the emperor, himself said: "Thanks to you, comrades, that you have presented me both with empire and with a name, since you have judged both me and my father worthy to be called Roman emperors and to be entrusted with the state. And my father indeed will take care that nothing be lacking to the empire; but I shall labor that I be not lacking to the name of the Antonines. For I know that I have taken up the name of Pius, of Marcus, of Verus, whom it is most difficult to satisfy. Meanwhile, however, on account of the empire, on account of the name, I promise all that my father promises and as much again, the honors—as the venerable Macrinus my father, being present, has promised—being doubled." Herodian, a Greek writer, passing over these things, says only that the boy Diadumenus was named Caesar by the soldiers and killed together with his father. This assembly held, coin was at once struck at Antioch in the name of Antoninus Diadumenus; that in Macrinus' name was deferred until the order of the senate. Letters too were sent to the senate, in which the name of Antoninus was made known. Wherefore the senate too is said to have received that empire gladly—although others think it was done out of hatred of Antoninus Caracalla. Macrinus the emperor had indeed prepared to give to the people cloaks of a reddish color in honor of his son Antoninus, which were to be called Antonine, as the caracallae were called after Bassianus, asserting that his son had better be called the Cloak-man or Cloak-wearer than Bassianus had been called Caracalla. He promised also a largess by an Antonine edict, as the edict itself can show. The words of the edict: "I could wish, Quirites, that we were now present; your Antoninus would give you a largess of his name, and would moreover enroll Antonine boys and Antonine girls, who should propagate the glory of so welcome a name"; and the rest.

These things thus done, he ordered Antonine standards and banners to be made in the camp, and he made images of Bassianus of gold and silver, and a supplication of seven days was celebrated for the name of Antoninus. The boy was the most beautiful of all, of a rather tall stature, with golden hair, black eyes, a drawn-out nose, his chin shaped to every comeliness, his mouth made ready for kisses, naturally strong, somewhat delicate from exercise. When he first received the scarlet and purple garments and the other camp insignia of empire, he flashed forth as if starry and heavenly, so that he was loved by all for the grace of his charm. These things must be said about the boy. Now let us come to the omens of empire, which, both in others and in this man especially, are stupendous.

On the day on which he was born, his father—then by chance procurator of the greater treasury—inspected the purple dyes, and ordered those which he approved as bright to be brought into that chamber in which two hours later Diadumenus was born. Then boys are wont to be marked by a natural caul, which the midwives snatch away and sell to credulous advocates—since pleaders are said to be helped by this. But this boy had not a caul but a thin diadem, and so strong, by chance, that it could not be broken, with fibers running through in the likeness of an archer's bowstring; finally, they report that the boy was called Diademed, but when he grew up, he was called Diadumenus after the name of his maternal grandfather—although the name of Diadumenus did not differ much from that sign of being Diademed. On his father's estate, they report, twelve purple sheep were born, of which one only was variegated. On the same day on which he was born, it is established that an eagle gently brought him a little royal wood-pigeon and placed it in the cradle of the sleeping child and withdrew without harm.

Pantagathus-birds placed a nest in his father's house. In those days in which he was born, the astrologers, having received his nativity, cried out that he was both the son of an emperor and an emperor himself—as if his mother had committed adultery, which rumor maintained. To this same child an eagle, as he was walking in the field, brought a caul; and when a shout was raised by the infant's attendants, it placed it in a royal monument, which was beside the country house in which his father was then living, above the statue of a king, so that it fitted it to his head. Which many thought ominous and fitted to death, but the outcome showed it glorious. He was born, moreover, on the birthday of Antoninus, and at that hour and with the signs almost agreeing under which Antoninus Pius too was born. Wherefore the astrologers said that he would be both the son of an emperor and an emperor, but not for long. On the day on which he was born—because it was Antoninus' birthday—a certain woman, a kinswoman, is said to have cried out, "Let him be called Antoninus"; but Macrinus is said to have feared, and, because no one of his family was reckoned by this name, to have abstained from the imperial name, and at the same time because the rumor about the force of his nativity had already spread. These and other omens, many have recorded in writing; but this one especially: that, when Diadumenus was in his cradle, a lion too, its chains broken, as some say, had fled wild and had come to his cradle, and licked the boy and left him unharmed, while the nurse threw herself upon the lion and, afflicted by its bite, perished—since she alone, by chance, had been found in the little court in which the infant lay.

These are the things which seem worthy of record in Antoninus Diadumenus, whose life I would have joined to the deeds of his father, had not the name of the Antonines compelled me to set forth a special exposition of the boy's life. And the name of the Antonines was indeed so beloved in those times that whoever did not shine with that name seemed not to deserve the empire; whence too some think that even Severus and Pertinax and Julianus are to be honored with the praenomina of the Antonines; whence afterward they think that the two Gordians, father and son, were surnamed Antonine. But it is one thing when a praenomen is assumed, another when the name itself is imposed. For Pius had the true name of Antoninus, the surname of Pius; Marcus had the true name of Verissimus, but this being removed and abolished, he received not the praenomen but the name of Antoninus. Verus, however, had the name of Commodus, which being abolished, he received not the praenomen but the name of Antoninus. Commodus, moreover, Marcus called Antoninus and so published him in the public records on the day of his own birthday. Now it is established well enough that Bassianus Caracalla, either on account of a dream which Severus had seen—when he had perceived that Antoninus was foretold as his successor—was at last in his thirteenth year called Antoninus, when he is said to have added to him also the imperial power. But Geta—whom many deny was called Antoninus—it is established well enough was named by the same reasoning by which Bassianus was, that he should succeed his father Severus, which by no means happened. After this Diadumenus himself, that he might be commended to the army, the senate, and the Roman people, since there was great longing for Bassianus Caracalla, it is established well enough was called Antoninus.

There survives a letter of Opilius Macrinus, the father of Diadumenus, in which he boasts not so much that he had come to the empire, being second in the empire, as that he had been made the father of the Antonine name, than which there had been nothing more illustrious in those times, not even of the gods. Before I weave in this letter, I should like to insert verses spoken against Commodus, who had called himself Hercules, that all may understand that the name of the Antonines was so illustrious that to it not even the name of the gods seemed fitly to be joined. Verses spoken against Commodus Antoninus: "Commodus desires to have the name of Hercules; he thinks the name of the Antonines not good, devoid of human right and of empire; hoping, nay, even to be more illustrious as a god than if he were prince of a distinguished name. That man will be neither a god nor yet any man." These verses, composed by some Greek or other, were translated into Latin by a bad poet, which I thought ought to be inserted for this reason: that all might know that the Antonines were worth more than the gods, by the love of the three princes, by which wisdom, goodness, piety have been consecrated—in Antoninus piety, in Verus goodness, in Marcus wisdom. I return now to the letter of Macrinus Opilius: "Opilius Macrinus to his wife Nonia Celsa. What good we have attained, my wife, is beyond estimation; and perhaps you may think I speak of the empire. That is no great thing, which fortune has granted even to the unworthy. I have been made the father of an Antoninus; you have been made the mother of an Antoninus. O happy we, O fortunate house, illustrious praise now at last of a fortunate empire! May the gods bring it about, and good Juno, whom you worship, both that he may shape himself to the merit of an Antoninus, and that I, who am the father of an Antoninus, may seem worthy to all."

From this letter it is judged how much glory he seemed to himself to have attained because he was called the father of an Antoninus. This man, however, in the fourteenth month of his reign, on account of the uncivil and harsh principate of his father, was killed together with his father, not for his own sake—although I find that this boy too raged beyond his age against very many, as the letters ordered by this same boy to his father show. For when certain men had incurred the suspicion of defection, and Macrinus had punished them most cruelly, his son being by chance absent, and this boy had heard that the authors of the defection had indeed been killed, but that the accomplices—whose leader was the governor of Armenia and likewise the legate of Asia and Arabia—had, on account of old familiarity, been dismissed, he is said to have addressed his father with this letter, an equal one being sent also to his mother, of which I have thought a copy ought to be inserted for the sake of history: "To his father Augustus, his son Augustus. You do not seem, my father, in your love for us, to have kept your own ways sufficiently, who have spared the accomplices of an attempted tyranny, hoping that they would either be more friendly to you if you spared them, or were to be dismissed on account of old familiarity—which neither ought to have been done nor will profit. For, first of all, men already exulcerated by suspicions cannot love you; next, those enemies are more cruel who, forgetting old familiarity, have joined themselves to your bitterest foes; add that they still have armies. 'If no glory of so great affairs moves you, look back upon Ascanius rising and the hopes of your heir Iulus, to whom the kingdom of Italy and the Roman land are owed.' These men must be struck down, if you wish to be secure; for, by the vice of the human race, others will not be lacking, while these are preserved." This letter some attribute to himself, some to his teacher Caelianus, formerly an African rhetorician; from which it appears how harsh the youth would have been had he lived.

There survives another letter destined to his mother by the same, such as this: "Our lord and Augustus loves neither you nor himself, who preserves his enemies. Act, therefore, that Arabianus and Tuscus and Gellius be bound to the stake, lest, if the occasion arise, they should not let it pass." And, as far as Lollius Urbicus says in the history of his own time, these letters, betrayed through a secretary, are said to have done that boy much harm among the soldiers; for, when they had killed his father, certain men wished to spare this one, but there came forward a chamberlain who read these letters to the assembly of the soldiers. Both being killed, then, and their heads carried about on a pike, the army inclined, out of fondness for the name, toward Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. He was reported to be the son of Bassianus Caracalla; but he was a priest of the temple of Heliogabalus, the most impure man of all, and one who by a certain fate deformed the Roman empire—concerning whom indeed, because there are many things, I shall discourse in its proper place.