Hadrian, in full Publius Aelius Hadrianus AD 76-138
Roman emperor

Born probably in Rome, of Spanish origin, he was the ward and prot�g� of the Emperor Trajan. He became prefect of Syria (AD114), and after Trajan's death was proclaimed emperor by the army (117). He concluded a peace with the Parthians, having resolved to limit the boundaries of the empire in the East, and after appeasing the invaders of Moesia, he established his authority at Rome, and suppressed a conspiracy against his life (118). He spent little of his reign in Rome, and from c.120 he visited Gaul, Germany, Britain (where he built the wall named after him from the Solway Firth to the Tyne), Spain, Mauretania, Egypt, Asia Minor and Greece, returning to Rome at the end of 126. After crushing a major revolt in Judea (132-34), he returned to Italy, where he died. Although at times ruthless and tyrannical, he was an able administrator, and probably the most intellectual and cultivated of all the Roman emperors. He reorganized the army and the imperial bureaucracy. A patron of the arts and architecture, he founded the Athenaeum at Rome, and among his buildings were the Pantheon, his mausoleum (now part of the Castle of St Angelo) and the magnificent villa at Tibur. He also founded Adrianopolis.

Bibliography: Bernard W Henderson, The Life and Principate of the Emperor Hadrian, AD 76-138 (1923)