To paraphrase this whole post: ZOMG WALL

[elenchus]

Thursday was the 1894^th anniversary of Hadrian officially becoming emperor of Rome (give or take some minor changes to the calendar since 117 CE), and this apparently prompted my subconscious to give me a dream where I blogged a list of ten things I like about Hadrian. My subconscious knows me well. Especially since I remember that #8 was ZOMG WALL!!!!!!!!!!!

 

So in honor of my subconscious and his anniversary, here are five things I think are neat about Hadrian. For the most part, history’s been quite critical of Hadrian until recently, but I’m strangely fond of the fellow.

 

1) He was super sappy. Everywhere I went in Rome I found statues of or monuments to Antinous. Hadrian’s villa had at least forty statues of his dead boyfriend. At least. Slightly creepy, yet oddly endearing.

 

2) He loved Greek philosophy and culture. So much so that in his youth, he was often referred to teasingly as “Graeculus” (the Greekling). As a fellow philhellene and lover of philosophy, I appreciate that in an emperor.

 

3) For the most part, he abstained from war and defended the empire with this crazy new tactic called “diplomacy.” Unlike the previous emperor, Trajan, Hadrian did not expand the boundaries of the empire. His reign marked a new kind of foreign policy for Rome, one that seemed to value sustainability and peace over unstable expansion and war. Not to be too critical of Trajan – he was “Optimus” (the best) after all – but I admire Hadrian’s strategizing and long-term planning. Especially since it ran counter to Roman cultural impulse and must therefore have been quite the uphill battle.

 

4) He brought back the philosopher beard. Apparently this drove the Roman senators crazy, because asdfghjkl only barbarians wear beards!!11!1!!!, but as per usual, Hadrian didn’t give a damn. Before Hadrian: no beards. After Hadrian: beards for everyone! And most importantly, beards for his grandson-by-adoption Marcus Aurelius. He just wouldn’t have been the same without the philosopher beard.

 

5) He had a passion for architecture and oversaw, among other projects, the (re)construction of the Pantheon. He also got his legions to build some pretty sweet walls! He personally designed the temple of Venus and Rome (AMOR ROMA hahaha it’s a palindrome get it?), which Apollodorus of Damascus though sucked. Apollodorus died soon after telling Hadrian exactly what he thought about the temple design, prompting rumors that Hadrian had had the old architect executed in a fit of artistic pique. Don’t know if that’s true (personally, I doubt it), or if the temple really did suck back in the day, but I can tell you that the ruins of said temple are beautiful.

 

 

I always feel a bit guilty for liking Hadrian so much, since he did kill lots and lots of Jews and drive them out of Israel, contributing significantly to the Jewish diaspora and some of the modern day problems in the Middle East. Not cool! In his defense, this wasn’t totally out of the blue: the Jews had risen up in rebellion and tried to throw the Romans out of Judaea, and if you let one province get away with rebellion, well, it doesn’t bode well for peace in your other provinces. But in the rebels' defense, Hadrian had basically outlawed Judaism by replacing the temples in Jerusalem and banning circumcision. Badly done, sir. And frankly, politically mishandled in pretty much every way. Hadrian is very much not alone in not knowing how to handle Judaea however; the uprising he put down was the third Jewish war, and there were several other close calls that never quite made it to war. Some scholars apparently mark the beginning of the diaspora at the second Jewish war, under Vespasian and Titus, and see Hadrian’s war as just the final nail on the coffin. I honestly don’t think Hadrian was trying to make problems in Judea, or that he realized how strong the backlash would be – Roman culture just plain didn’t get monotheism. Anyways, this was basically the only war of any significance in Hadrian’s long rule, which is a mark against him being a bloodthirsty warmonger at heart, and it was totally in line with Roman precedent, so I can…not exactly give him a pass, but understand it in the greater context of his reign.
 

I bought myself a biography of Hadrian that I hope to get to sometime in the near future - we'll see whether I feel better or worse about him once I actually learn more!