The Bluffer’s Guide to Early Roman Emperors

Trajan, like his adoptive father, died after a stroke. He was deified and, as already mentioned, was given some unprecedented honours. Everybody really did love Trajan.

Hadrian AD117-138

Hadrian was Trajan’s adoptive son, a hardworking man from the provinces, with heavy interests in Greek literature and philosophy. Hadrian was an unusual emperor: he wore a beard, the first emperor to do so (imagine if Obama turned up one day with a lip piercing or if Gordon Brown decided to sport a Mohawk, that’s how shocking Hadrian’s appearance would have been), and he liked to travel, visiting his provinces regularly, from cold, warlike Britain to the steamy luxury of Egypt. Although he had been a fine military man in his early years, his reign was blessedly free of conflict, he even managed to negotiate away from a war in Parthia, allowing him to fortify the provinces (Hadrian’s Wall, anyone?) and travel. He liked to know the concerns of his people and would seek to rectify any problems, rebuilding many a temple or aging aqueduct. Like Nero, Hadrian loved Greece but unlike Nero, Hadrian knew how to integrate his interests with his work, taking himself to Greece more often than bringing Greek things to him and offering honours to Greek cities, such as semi-autonomous rule and citizenship, rather than just stealing all their art. For times when he couldn’t travel, he built a magnificent villa at Tivoli incorporating his favourite aspects of the places he had visited: there was a long lake representing the Nile, Greek sculpture, even a cave representing the underworld! There he could entertain guests, read the latest philosophical works or shut himself off to work in private rooms separated from the rest of the villa by a moat.

Hadrian, like Trajan, fares remarkably well in the sources, even his famous affair with Antinous, a handsome young lad from Bithynia, isn’t attacked, which is unusual since the Romans generally frowned upon homosexuality, though some sources suggest their affair was platonic. How Antinous and Hadrian met isn’t entirely certain, but the boy stayed in the emperor’s entourage until his untimely death; drowning, we’re told, in the Nile, although the circumstances aren’t certain. Antinous’ death greatly marked Hadrian. He deified him, named a city after him, had countless idealised statues made of him, he even had a constellation named after him, and interrupted his touring schedule to mourn. Withdrawing to his villa, the emperor had a monumental tomb come temple built for his lost love. As he drew into his sixties, his health began to fail and died at another of his villas, in Baiae, having sorted out one of the messiest successions in the history of Rome. He was succeeded by his adoptive son Antinonius Pius (try saying that after a few drinks) and was deified, as usual. He was also honoured with an absolutely huge statue of him driving his chariot, Cassius Dio says  that it was so large a man could walk through the eye of one of the horses.

And… that’s the end of my course, unless we count settlement patterns and religion, but this article’s long enough as it is. If you want to learn more about the emperors I talked about, there’s plenty of material out there. Tacitus, Pliny and Suetonius are your obvious starting points, full of gossip, scandal and pessimism. If you like your scandal a little more dynamic, Robert Graves’ aforementioned Claudius novels are great fun, historically accurate for the most part, just a little wonky on the theoretical side. Also heartily recommended is Edward Champlin’s “Nero”, a non-fictional work that combines archaeology, written sources and religious prophecy into a fascinating study of the most notorious man in history. I don’t agree with all of his conclusions, but this is one of the most interesting books on my college reading list!

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