Publius Aelius Trajan Hadrianus (Hadrian) was born in AD 76 in Italica, a settlement close to modern-day Seville in Andalucia, Spain. Originally from the town of Hadria (eastern Italy), his family had emigrated to Spain some 250 years earlier, and over time had become important members of Italica’s aristocracy. With the help of Emperor Trajan, to whom he was related by marriage, the young Hadrian took up a senatorial career in Rome and, as Quaestor, supported Trajan in the Dacian War (AD 101-106). He was later entrusted with the government of Syria, and made responsible for dealing with the revolt of the Jews of Mesopotamia and Cyrenaica. According to some sources, Trajan adopted Hadrian as his successor on his deathbed, but other sources suggest it was Trajan’s wife Plotina who arranged the succession, keeping the Emperor’s death a secret for a few days to ensure the act of adoption could be completed. Trajan died in Cilicia on the way back to Rome in AD 117, and Hadrian was proclaimed Emperor by the army, and later officially recognised by the Senate.
The Emperor Hadrian
Hadrian was considered by almost all sources to be a good emperor. In the period in which he held the government of Rome (AD 117-138), the city grew in economic wealth and cultural splendour, and new cities were founded in other parts of the empire. A valiant soldier, Hadrian had a keen interest in Egyptian mysticism and magic, as well as literature, music, painting, sculpture, architecture, and philosophy. He wrote prose and poetry in both Latin and Greek, and his love of Hellenistic culture in particular was so well known that in Rome he was called ‘Graeculus’ – ‘the little Greek’ – a derogatory term referring to an effeminate man. In short, Hadrian was an emperor who was born Roman but lived as a Greek.
Unusually for the time, Hadrian had a passion for travel, and he explored every inch of the vast empire, including Germania (the Rhine and Danube area), Aquitania (Gaul), Hispania (Spain), Mauretania, Asia (Anatolia), Achaea (Greece), and eastern provinces such as Egypt (in AD 129-134).
