Hadrian's world

As I hiked along Hadrian's Wall last summer, I repeatedly tried imagining the scene a couple of millennia earlier -- Roman legions marching about, keeping wary eyes on the barbaric Picts and Scots to the north. But the wall was but one marker of the outer limits of the Roman Empire, an empire that -- under Hadrian -- had finally ceased expanding. One of Hadrian's first acts as emperor, in fact, was to pull back the legions from certain territories that his immediate predecessor, Trajan, had just conquered, leaving a strong Empire within the most defensible perimeter possible.

All of this I'd learned at one time in college, but it was impressed upon me far more vividly a couple of weeks ago -- while staying at a house in the land the Romans called "Gaul," where I had a view out the front window of a Roman amphitheater across the road -- when I discovered in a bookcase a copy of Marguerite Yourcenar's French language novel, Memoirs of Hadrian. Her novel, translated by Grace Frick into sonorous and stately English, tells the story of Hadrian's life, as narrated by him in a long letter to a still teenaged Marcus Aurelius, himself destined to become both emperor and a noted philosopher.

Hadrian was one of the most interesting of Roman emperors: a hardened soldier who amply represented the Roman virtues of duty and stoicism -- but also a devotee of Greek philosophy and art. A man who possessed great curiosity about both the physical world and the shadowy world beyond death; a man never fearful of diversity, who rejoiced in the differences he observed among the multitudes of nationalities that had been brought under Roman rule. Although comfortable enough when residing within his capital city of Rome, Hadrian had seen enough of the world to be well aware of the provinciality, narrowness and intellectual limitations of that city's citizens -- not just the common people, the mob, but Rome's Senators and patricians, as well.

No Roman emperor before him had ever spent so little time in the capital city of Rome; none had ever spent so much time, displaying so much curiosity, traveling throughout the many provinces of the empire.

Hadrian respected Trajan, admiring the talents of a highly skilled military mind, but he saw the lack of any profound thought behind so many of Trajan's policies, including his obsessive desire to conquer new provinces. Without questioning the need for a strong military, Hadrian's own experiences and temperament led him to rely far more heavily on negotiation and seeking common ground with Rome's enemies -- a reliance that turned many former enemies into allies.

Within the empire, Hadrian recognized the impossibility of ever building a strong society where great extremes of wealth existed, where the poor and the slaves had no hope to lead satisfying lives apart from open revolt. Although no one in Roman times ever acquired much insight into the workings of economic forces, Hadrian did make some effort to narrow the chasm between rich and poor.

Above all, Hadrian sought to unite the strengths of Rome -- law, politics, sense of duty, self-discipline, organizational skills -- with those of Greece -- love of beauty, intellectual curiosity, creativity, art and architecture, philosophical thought. Although his final decade as emperor was haunted by the devastating death of Antinoüs, the quiet Greek youth with whom he shared his happiest years, his sense of duty never permitted his personal grief to interfere with his plans and efforts to ensure Rome's prosperity and continuing security.

Although Hadrian died in A.D. 138, after 21 years of rule -- and although Yourcenar's fictionalization of his life was written back in 1951 -- Memoirs of Hadrian speaks uncannily to our own world, to our lives as 21st century Americans.

Hadrian's policies gave the Roman empire peace and stability for at least another century. His historical life is worth studying as an example of wise governance under conditions not wholly dissimilar to our own. And Yourcenar's book is worth reading as a moving and lyrical evocation of his life and times.