In the eighteenth century, the historian Edward Gibbon labelled the Roman Empire under the Antonines (the second century CE) the happiest age of humanity.
If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of the Roman empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom. The armies were restrained by the firm but gentle hand of four successive emperors, whose characters and authority commanded involuntary respect. The forms of the civil administration were carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with considering themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws.
Edward Gibbon, Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire
Writing today, Gibbon might have called it a proto-EU Schengen Area; a utopian union of non-existent borders, free movement and global cooperation.
Gibbon’s assessment is unsurprising – not least given the glaze of garum-scented nostalgia with which his sources were already coating their period.
Aelius Aristides of Smyrna offers a perfect example when he declaims: “Could not every man go where he wished without fear? Are not all harbours busy, are not mountains as safe as cities?”
Aristides praises his emperor, Marcus Aurelius, for opening all gates so that every man is free to see the world for himself. And how could anyone turn down such an opportunity given the empire’s safety? “After all,” he reminds his emperor: “You have merged all nations into one family”.
There’s no doubt that the peace and stability ushered in under the Roman Empire (the pax Romana, as the Romans called it) did indeed work wonders for safe and efficient travel.
Improved interconnectivity, with around 90,000 kilometres of major tavern-lined highways and an efficient network of protected shipping routes running the length and breadth, made the logistics of travel easier than ever before. But this supposed travellers’ paradise was rather more complex than at first meets the eye, especially as sold in Aelius Aristides’ vision of free love on the imperial freeways.
Contemporary novels like Apuleius’ The Golden Ass paint an altogether less rosy picture of Rome as an empire without limit.
Away from the securitas of the capital, provincial life was rife with unbridled violence and banditry. In the Golden Ass, we come across a family of bandits living out in a cave; a travelling businessman by the name of Socrates mugged out on the road and forced to take refuge in a witch’s inn; a wandering band of catamite priests; and a group of slaves turned nomadic when their estate is burnt down in a family feud.
Of course, the characters of Apuleius’ novel are fancifully fictitious. But the backdrop against which we meet them feels anything but.
So did such dangers on the road dissuade people from travelling? Among the empire’s ordinary citizenry, it’s very hard to tell. We get the occasional snapshot of a life spent on the move — such as the resume of one particularly nomadic fourth-century citizen called Conon. After studying law in Beirut, Conon moved for a job in Palestine before relocating to Antioch and then Nicomedia, before dying — presumably of exhaustion — in Egypt.
Admittedly we don’t come across many like Conon. And besides, he was travelling for work… When we narrow our search to those travelling for leisure or pleasure we find yet fewer. And this suggests something significant in the socio-economic fabric of the Empire’s population:
It wasn’t for the ordinary citizen — never mind the millions of invisible slaves — that Rome was an empire without limit. Then, as now, the global passport of the civis romanus belonged exclusively to those of money, power, connections, or military obligations.
Rome did produce her fair share of travellers though. And with its antiquarian curiosities and direct and (relatively) short-haul routes from the port of Puteoli to Alexandria, their destination of choice was Egypt.
During his time in Alexandria, Rome’s first emperor Augustus managed to simultaneously revere and revile while receiving a grand tour of the city’s tombs. When presented with the corpse of Alexander the Great, he laid above it a golden crown and flowers; when asked whether he would like to see the bodies of the Ptolemies, Augustus replied,
“I have come to see a king, not corpses.”
Still, Augustus certainly made a better impression than one of his later successors, the mad, bad, and dangerous-to-know emperor Caligula.
Caligula also paid a visit to Alexander’s tomb. But he did so in secret, pillaging the corpse and making off with the late, great Macedonian’s breastplate. It was this very breastplate, Suetonius tells us, that Caligula adorned during his bizarre military parade across a pontoon bridge at Baia.
Caligula’s father, Germanicus, had likewise indulged in military tourism. During his peregrinations in the East in 17/18 CE, the golden prince had made a detour to visit Epirus – a growing tourist magnet on account of its impressive memorial to the Battle of Actium, which had secured Augustus’ rule over the Empire.
Military tourism was often the order of the day for a Roman emperor or emperor-in-waiting. But not all sightseeing centred on battlefields and deceased generals. Hadrian — the most prolific of travellers — dedicated ten years (half of his reign) to touring the provinces, so much so that later writers could credit him with having circled the entire known world (orbem romanum circumit).
We don’t know much about Hadrian’s retinue. It certainly consisted of his wife Sabina, his lover Antinous, a poetess, a sophist, a later governor of Africa and two other men — both strangers to history. For a time, there was also a young man called Lucius Vitalis who, having decided he had learned everything he could from the capital, resolved to let travel broaden his mind by peregrinating the provinces.
But of the hordes of others that certainly accompanied the emperor, their identities are forever lost.
While we know little about Hadrian’s retinue we know considerably more about his travel itinerary. And the sheer logistical scale of Hadrian’s imperial travels speaks volumes about the Roman world and its empire without limit.
You can recreate Hadrian’s route by following the fantastic blog, Following Hadrian. But to give you just a taste of what he achieved within a decade, Hadrian began building a rather famous British wall in 122 CE, underwent initiation into the Greek Eleusinian Mysteries in 124 CE, and founded an Egyptian city in honour of his recently-deceased beloved, Antinous, in 130 CE.
Hadrian also indulged in some personal tourism –– we know that one of the things the emperor most wanted to see was the famed singing sandstone statue of Memnon near Thebes. The travel enthusiast and guidebook writer Pausanias describes how, as the sun rose each morning, the singing sandstone would produce the sound of a broken harp string: a supernatural phenomenon met with modern scepticism by the first-century geographer Strabo.
Such was Hadrian’s fascination with the singing sandstone that he returned not twice but thrice to marvel at its wonder and indulge his superstition.
Ancient sites offering unique experiences drew travellers from across the Roman Empire.
For instance, the Nile — forever alluring and mysterious in ancient thought — burbled with rapids and swift currents that the locals were famous for skilfully navigating on rafts. Aelius Aristides (the Greek orator we met earlier with a penchant for panegyric) recounts his participation in this extreme watersport.
Hundreds of other places are documented in the literature — in the geographical work of Strabo, the guidebook to Greece of Pausanias and the encyclopaedia Elder Pliny, just to name a few. We can only imagine the countless others, now lost to history, which would have been full of quaint, weird and wonderful places that would have enticed a passer-by like a sailor to a siren.
Not much information survives describing the Empire’s inland wonders. But what about coastal curiosities? Did the ancients ever hit the beach, enjoy drinks at the sea, and make the most of that Mediterranean coastline we hold in such high esteem? It might surprise you to know they did, and that’s exactly what we’ll be looking at in the next part of this series.
