The Emperor Hadrian (76-138AD)

Unlike most emperors, who grew up in Rome, Hadrian was from Spain, which formed part of the Roman province of Hispania Baetica. He had a distinguished military career before being chosen by the Emperor Trajan to be his successor. After becoming emperor in AD 117, Hadrian decided not to continue conquering other countries as previous emperors had done, but to maintain the limits of the empire as it was, and to pursue a policy of peace. Hadrian was also unlike previous emperors in spending half of his reign away from Rome and Italy, travelling around the Empire. He visited many of the frontiers and ordered physical barriers of earth, timber or stone to be built. In AD 121, Hadrian visited Britain and made the decision to build a wall at the northernmost frontier of the Empire. Hadrian was the first emperor to visit Britain since the Emperor Claudius invaded in AD 43.

Hadrian was well known for his love of the arts and particularly of Greek culture. He wore a beard, in the Greek tradition, and made beards fashionable again in Rome – after Hadrian, most Roman emperors are shown on coins and statues wearing beards.

Hadrian lived out his final years in Italy where he chose his successor, Antoninus Pius. Hadrian died at Baiae in Italy in July 138 AD. Though not liked by everyone, Hadrian is widely acknowledged to have been a good emperor, and was deified (worshipped as a god) after his death, as were other emperors considered to have done a good job.

Wherever he travelled, Hadrian implemented a programme of building public works, such as libraries and bath-houses. This shows Hadrian’s interest in improving and developing all of the Empire, rather than warmongering and conquering. Hadrian was also an opponent of slavery and torture. In Rome, he rebuilt the famous temple, the Pantheon, and it is Hadrian’s domed version of the building that still exists today. Hadrian’s love of other cultures is best shown in the villa he built at Tivoli in Italy, which included theatres, temples and other buildings designed to mimic places Hadrian had been to in Greece and Egypt.

Hadrian was a very intelligent emperor and did not try to hold on to conquered lands at any cost; when planning the Wall in Britain, he realised that the native tribes of Scotland, known to the Romans as the Caledonians, would never live peacefully alongside the Romans. He also saw that the terrain of Scotland would be difficult to conquer and hold, for little benefit in terms of good arable land for the Romans to colonise. His successor emperor, Antoninus Pius, built a Wall further north, between the Clyde and Forth estuaries in Scotland. However, the Romans retreated to Hadrian’s Wall after only twenty years or so, because they couldn’t manage the difficult terrain and unfriendly tribes of northern Scotland - just as Hadrian had predicted.

The practice of adopting a successor was quite common among Roman Emperors who had no sons of their own. Though chosen as successor for his loyalties and abilities, Hadrian was actually the son of Trajan’s cousin. Hadrian became Trajan’s ward at the age of 10 following his parents’ deaths, and served as a member of staff on Trajan’s last military campaign against the Parthians. It was while returning to Rome from this campaign that Trajan fell ill and died. Trajan had never formally adopted Hadrian, and did not do so until on his death-bed. There has always been a suspicion that Trajan’s wife, Plotina, a supporter of Hadrian’s, actually signed the adoption document after Trajan’s death.

Though married, Hadrian took a male lover, a young man named Antinous, who he had met on his travels in Anatolia (modern Turkey). Antinous was Hadrian’s constant companion, and his tragic drowning in the Nile caused Hadrian to build monuments and temples to his memory all over the Empire. He even built a city, Antinoopolis, in his honour and had him deified.

Though largely a peaceful emperor, Hadrian did have one significant military conflict during his reign – the Second Roman-Jewish War (known as the Bar Kokhba Revolt), of AD 132-135. Upon Rome’s victory after the war, Hadrian effectively stamped out Judaism in the province and renamed it Syria Palaestina. Jerusalem was rebuilt as Aelia Capitolina and Jews were forbidden from entering the city. The Jewish faith was scattered from its homeland for the next two thousand years.