ROMA AETERNA
6/17/2000
Dear Roger,
You once explained to me how much you enjoyed I, Claudius by Robert Graves. I never forgot that, and partly on that piece of intelligence I have bought you this book, Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian. All year long we read books so that we can teach them to our students. During the summer, however, we get the chance to read for ourselves. I think, in this book, you have a particular treat waiting for you.
Let me explain why. This book contains the dying meditations of Publius Aeliues Hadrienus and they spookily reproduce, from within, the particular sensibility -- spiritual, cognitive, literary -- of a particular moment in history as embodied by a single voice, as conjured by Yourcenar's Hadrian. Her Emperor sees the world remarkably free of cant yet with vision and an unflagging sense of mission: to inspire mankind with the sense of his own worth and justice which made civilization possible, and won the day at Marathon and Salamis. This is the greatness of ancient Greece and Rome, but it is a way of life threatened. Hadrian sees that no nation or empire lasts forever; he knows the wolves are always at the gates. Awaiting the ravages of time and a moment of weakness, the scavengers and opportunists bide their time patiently but expectantly. Civilization is fragile, Hadrian understands. All is laid low sooner or later. After death, there nothing but the abyss. Gustave Flaubert, in a letter to his lady friend Madame Roger des Genettes, wrote the following:
"The melancholy of the antique world seems to me more profound than that of the moderns, all of whom more or less imply that beyond the dark void lies immortality. But for the ancients that 'black hole' is infinity itself; their dreams loom and vanish against a background of immutable ebony. No crying out, no convulsions - nothing but the fixity of a pensive gaze. Just when the gods had ceased to be and the Christ had not yet come, there was a unique moment in history, between Cicero and Marcus Aurelius, when man stood alone. Nowhere else do I find that particular grandeur."This "fixity of a pensive gaze" Yourcenar has put into the voice of Emperor Hadrian, writing a letter to his successor and adopted son Marcus Aurelius in a time where Rome's cultural and political development were most mature but her flaws had yet come to the forefront. Yet the end can be discerned. The far-sighted see it. Hadrian sees it.
The dignity, honesty, and wisdom of this voice embodying that soon to be dying age, in the reviewing of one life's accomplishments and reflections, give this book its singular value, in my opinion. Hadrian descries the weaknesses of the Roman Empire and the coming onslaught of the Dark Ages. He prophesies the victory of darkness and chaos and barbarism over the order and learning of the Pax Romana. But Hadrian declares shortly before his death:
"Catastrophe and ruin will come; disorder will triumph, but order will come too, from time to time. Peace will again establish itself between two periods of war: the words humanity, liberty, and justice will here and there regain the meaning which we have tried to give them. Not all our books will perish, nor our statues, if broken, lie unrepaired; other domes and other pediments will arise from our domes and pediments; some few men will think and work and feel as we have done, and I venture to count upon such continuations, placed irregularly throughout the centuries, and upon this kind of intermittent immortality."
And so Roger, you and myself, I would like to believe, in our own ways, year after year, carry on the work of Hadrian. We transmit the legacy of Greece and Rome: that mankind should progress, not regress. The truism is true that a teacher can never see the end of his work, that through his students he becomes immortal. We introduce the theme as best we can and trust in the future; greater minds will come later, and our students will carry on after we are gone. As Will Durant proclaimed: "We announce the prologue, and retire; after us better players will come." So it goes for us both.
This book is the product of Yourcenar's entire lifetime, worked and re-worked over decades. In its somber dignified style, acute angle of vision, and sad wisdom I hope it provides for you as much enjoyment and enrichment this summer as it did for me when I first read it. The first and last couple pages, in particular, of The Memoirs of Hadrian are among the most haunting and beautiful I have ever read. Read them slowly and weigh and savor every word. Appreciate the craft of a master wordsmith. Enjoy!
It has been a pleasure working with you, Roger. I wish you and yours only the best in the future.
Very Truly Yours,
Richard
Emperor Hadrian
76-138 A.D."Peace will again establish itself between two periods of war: the words humanity, liberty, and justice will here and there regain the meaning which we have tried to give them."
"Not all our books will perish, nor our statues, if broken, lie unrepaired; other domes and other pediments will arise from our domes and pediments; some few men will think and work and feel as we have done, and I venture to count upon such continuations, placed irregularly throughout the centuries, and upon this kind of intermittent immortality."
