The Emperor Hadrian

by Thorsten Opper

For almost twenty-one years, from AD 117 to 138, Publius Aelius Hadrianus ruled one of the mightiest empires the world has ever seen - a territory that comprised much of Europe, northern Africa and the Middle East. During this time he realigned borders, crushed rebellions, travelled extensively and created some of the most magnificent buildings in the ancient world.

The Emperor Hadrian presents a concise portrait of this remarkable individual - his family, his deeds, his loves and his legacy. It celebrates his immense achievements, and looks, too, at the complex character that lay behind the glorious public image.

Genres: History

96 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Thorsten Opper is a curator in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum. He has published work on ancient sculpture and eighteenth-century antiquarianism.

Reviews

[Jan-Maat]

Closing down sales of bookshops are always interesting occasions. You wander in, carefree and whistling, then come out perhaps with The Complete Guide to Alternative Home Building Materials Methods or with this richly illustrated guide to accompany a British Museum exhibition about the emperor Hadrian that you have never seen, or both after all, books need a home too, and they don't need feeding or regular exercise either. Or maybe that's just me.

Much of the book is simply a commentary on the 54 colour plates that illustrate the book. Some of those pictures illustrate Hadrianic sites - Hadrian's Wall, the Pantheon, Tivoli and so on. The remainder show coins and statues, some of which are, reasonably enough, of a quality fit for an Emperor like this moody bust of Hadrian's lover Antinous having a great mop of hair seems to have been the fashion of the day . I was amused by the Rudge Cup which Opper thinks may have been given to an ex-serviceman on his retirement from serving on Hadrian's Wall. You spend twenty years of your life stationed at the end of the Roman world, finally when you get to leave, just in case you ever might have a happy day in which you forget about the wall, your comrades give you the Rudge Cup to remember it by!

The book opens with an introduction that reveals more of the author and current the habits of thinking "his character seems full of contradictions. A hardened military man and gay, he combined a surprising cultural tolerance with ruthless suppression of dissent" (p9). Yet what really stands out about Hadrian is the relationship with Antinous, the number of statues and cult statues throughout the Roman world as well as the presence of a cenotaph for him at Hadrian's Tivoli villa suggest a range and degree of feeling beyond what any other Roman Emperor felt for, well, anyone really.

A nice accompaniment to The Lives of the Later Caesars.

I don't think it is mentioned here but I have somewhere come across the thought that the crease in the Emperor's ear visible on some statues (the ears don't always survive the ravages of history) is indicative of a heart defect, a oddly intimate detail if we can assume such portraits were accurate portraits and not simply conventional.

[Lena_makridina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful book.

Makes me regret not reading it before visiting Rome and Tivoli.
It doesn't give much information about Hadrian but provides a decent list of further reading.

[Andrew Ives · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a brief overview, but what is there is pretty good. The Photos are quite brilliant, while the text is perfectly well written, just short and quite sparse. Even at 100 pages, this hardly takes more than about half an hour to read (with so many full-page, full-colour photos). I suppose for most casual readers and GCSE history students, this is more than enough to know about Hadrian. For anyone bordering on academic, this will feel all too brief. 4.25/5

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very nice little book from the British Museum Press, outlining Hadrian's life, with excellent photographs.