Hadrian Born: Emperor Who Built Rome's Borders

Hadrian spent a quarter of his reign traveling, which was not what Roman emperors typically did. Born on January 24, 76 AD, in Italica, a Roman colony in modern-day Spain, he became emperor in 117 AD following the death of Trajan, whose succession arrangements were ambiguous enough that some historians suspect Hadrian's adoption was fabricated by the empress Plotina. Once in power, he immediately reversed Trajan's expansionist policies, withdrawing from Mesopotamia and consolidating the empire's existing borders. He then spent roughly twelve of his twenty-one years as emperor traveling. He crossed nearly every province: Britain, Germany, North Africa, Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, and the eastern frontiers. He inspected the army, received delegations, founded cities, and commissioned buildings. He built his wall across northern Britain not primarily to stop invasions but to control the flow of people, goods, and information across the frontier. The wall stretched 73 miles from coast to coast and included forts, watchtowers, and customs posts. He also rebuilt the Pantheon in Rome as it stands today, an architectural achievement so perfect that Renaissance architects studied it as the model for domed buildings. His personal life was marked by his relationship with a Greek youth named Antinous, who drowned in the Nile in 130 AD under circumstances that were never fully explained. Hadrian's grief was extraordinary and public. He founded a city, Antinoöpolis, at the site of the drowning, declared Antinous a god, and commissioned hundreds of statues, more than survive for most emperors. He died on July 10, 138 AD, at Baiae, after years of declining health. His legacy was an empire that survived another three centuries on the defensive borders he established.