HADRIAN: THE RESTLESS EMPEROR

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HADRIAN THE RESTLESS EMPEROR

• By Brenda Stevens
• Fall 2006

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Birth and Family

• Born January 24, 76, probably in Rome
• Father Aelius Hadrianus Afer, a Roman senator
  and cousin of Emperor Trajan
• Mother Domitia Paulina Gades

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Early life

• Schooled in the subjects particular to young
  aristocrats of his day
• Nicknamed the Greekling because of his love for
  Greek literature
• Father died in 85, and he became the ward of
  Emperor Trajan and Acilius Attianus

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Appearance Personality Traits

• First emperor to wear a beard
• Tall, elegant and strong
• Clever, melancholic, intellectually competitive,
  politically astute
• Never content, never relaxed
• A witty man, a storyteller
• A drinker

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Marriage

• Married Sabina, Trajans great niece, who was 14
  at the time of the marriage he was 24.
• No children
• Marriages were not expected to bring happiness.
• Hadrian closer to his mother-in-law, Matidia

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Army career

• Hadrian had a keen interest in and knowledge of
  the Roman army.
• He enlisted in the reign of Domitian and served
  variously as a tribune, legate, governor of Upper
  Pannonia and Syria.
• Joined Trajans expedition against Parthia

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Adoption by Trajan

• It was usual for a childless emperor to adopt
  his successor
• Trajan put off adopting Hadrian, some say because
  he didnt approve of him, some say because they
  pursued the same young men.
• When Trajan was dying, maybe even after his
  death, Hadrian was named his successor.
• Plotina actually signed the adoption papers.

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Accession

• The Affair of the Four Counsels caused problems
  for Hadrian throughout his reign.
• Hadrian was reported to have been courageous,
  politically astute and ruthless at the beginning
  of his reign.

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Consolidation of the empire

• Hadrian abandoned some provinces that had been
  won by Trajan.
• He placated the provinces by meeting their
  reasonable demands rather than by aggression.

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Accomplishments

• Travelling court (5,000 people)
• Panhellion assembly of delegates from the Greek
  city-states
• Temple of Olympian Zeus
• Restored Athens
• Understood the idea of emperor

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Acts of cruelty

• Had people killed when they were thought to be
  threatening
• Way he handled the Jewish uprising
• Built a pagan city on the site of a Jewish holy
  site
• Closed Jerusalem to the Jews except for once a
  year
• Built a temple to Jupiter on the foundations of
  the Jewish temple
• Banned circumcision/raised taxes

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Pax Romana

• 27 BCE 180 CE long period of relative peace
  (some war but the interior provinces were largely
  untouched)
• No major civil war/no serious invasions
• Roman commerce thrived
• Five good emperors during this time Nerva,
  Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus
  Aurelius

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Travels in the empire

• Hadrian spent more than half his reign traveling.
• From 121 125 to Spain, Gaul, frontier of
  Britain
• From 128 132 North Africa Egypt
• From 134 136 eastern empire

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Literary artistic interests

• Broad knowledge of Mediterranean history
• Poet/writer wrote an autobiography that has
  been lost
• Liked to debate/was a good public speaker
• Played the flute and sang

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Literary artistic interests (2)

• Was a collector of manuscripts, statues from
  Greece, gathered an extensive library at his
  villa at Tivoli
• Studied with Greek philosopher Epictetus
• Loved archaic Greek

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The Pantheon in Roma

• The Pantheon represented Romes broad and
  tolerant religious observance.
• Hadrian rebuilt Agrippas Pantheon
• The dome remained the largest in the world until
  the 20th century.
• The building survives and is open to the public.
  Masses are still held there.

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The villa at Tivoli

• Represents his cultured and extravagant personal
  life
• 30 kilometers ENE of Rome on a plain at the foot
  of the Sabine Hills
• 700 acres 100 buildings
• Ruins can be seen today, 1800 years later

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Hadrians Wall

• Represents Romes military domination
• Was meant to separate the Barbarians from the
  Romans
• 80 miles long, originally made of wood, later of
  stone
• Still exists

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Hadrian Antinous

• Antinous was a youth from Bithynia, the one great
  attachment of Hadrians life
• He drowned in October of 130 in the Nile one
  historian says he was offered as a sacrifice
• Hadrian became depressed, irrational and disloyal
  after the death

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Hadrian and Antinous (2)

• Hadrian made the boy the last pagan god of Rome
  consequences scandalized his Roman
  contemporaries and crippled his reputation
• Built a city on the site of the drowning
  Antinoopolis
• Placed sacred images all over the empire
• The cult flourished in the eastern part of the
  empire

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Religious beliefs

• Pagan beliefs
• Put great stock in fortunetellers
• Initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries in Greece
  mystic?
• One biographer says his real religion was
  Hellenism

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Death and succession

• Died on 7-10-138 when he was 62, probably of
  heart disease
• Not a popular man when he died at an imperial
  villa at Baiae on the Bay of Naples
• Ashes are buried at the Castel SAngelo in Rome,
  the mausoleum he built for himself
• Romans also built a temple in the Campus Martius
  part of it survives

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Death succession (2)

• No children born of his marriage
• First chose Lucius Ceionius Commodus who died
  before Hadrian
• Antoninus Pius (on condition that he would then
  choose Hadrians nephew, Marcus Aurelius)