Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/337

Rh HADRIAN us. jurisprudence. It was at Hadrian's command that the jurist Salvius Julianus drew up the edictum "perpetuum, which fonned a fixed code of laws. Some of the laws promulgated by Hadrian are of a tiuly humane character, and aimed at improving the public morality of the time. He divided Italy into four regions, placing each under a consular, who had the administration of justice. The fact of his taking the titles of the highest magistracies in several towns in Italy and the provinces may indeed have been little more than a form, but it shows, at any rate, that he took a considerable interest in the internal affairs of those towns. The proceedings of those persons who were con- nected with the administration of provinces were watched with the strictest care, and any violation of justice was severely punished. While he thus on the one hand benefited the provinces by punish- ing and preventing oppression and injustice, he won the hearts of the provincials by his liberality during his travels. There is scarcely one of the places he visited which did not receive some mark of his favour or liberality ; in many places he built aquaeducts, in others harbours or other public buildings, either for use or ornament ; and the people received large donations of grain or money, or were honoured with distinctions and privileges. But what has rendered his name more illustrious than any thing else are the numerous and mag- nificent architectural works which he planned and commenced during his travels, especially at Athens, in the southwest of which he built an entirely new city, Adrianopolis. We cannot here enter into an account of the numerous buildings he erected, or of the towns which he built or restored : suffice it to direct attention to his villa at Tibur, which has been a real mine of treasures of art, and his mauso- leum at Rome, which forms the groundwork of the present castle St. Angelo. His taste in architecture, however, appears to have been very capricious, and very different from the grandeur and simplicity of earlier times ; in addition to this, he was tenacious of the plans he had once formed, and unable to bear any opposition or contradiction. The great architect, Apollodorus, had to pay with his life for the presumption with which he ventured to censure one of Hadrian's works ; for the emperor's ambition was to be thought a great architect, painter, and musician. Hadrian was not only a patron and practical lover of the arts, but poetry and learning also were nurtured and patronised by him. He was fond of the society of poets, scholars, rhetoricians, and phi- losophers, but, as in architecture, his taste was of an inferior kind. Thus he preferred Antimachus to Homer, and imitated the former in a poem en- titled Caicicria?ii. The philosophers and sophists who enjoyed his friendship had, on the other hand, to suffer much from his petty jealousy and vanity, which led him to overrate his own powers and de- preciate those of others. He founded at Rome a scientific institution under the name of 'Atheiiaeum, which continued to flourish for a long time after him. We possess few specimens of Hadrian's literary productions, although he was the author of many works both in prose and in verse. In his earlier years he had devoted himself with much zeal to the study of eloquence, but, in accordance with the prevailing taste of the age, he preferred the earlier Roman orators and poets to Cicero and his contemporaries. Some of Hadrian's own de- HADRIANUS. 323 clamations were extant down to a very late period. He further wrote the history of his own life, from which some statements are quoted by his biographer Spartianus, and which was edited by his freedman Phlegon. The Latin Anthology (i^jo. 206— 21 1, ed. Meyer) contains six epigrams by Hadrian, and six others in Greek are preserved in the Greek Anthology, but none of them display any real poetical genius ; they are cold and far-fetched. Our sources of information respecting the life and reign of Hadrian are very poor and scanty, for the two main authorities, Hadrian's own work, and another by Marius Maximus, are lost, and, on the whole, we are confined to Spartianus's Life of Hadrian and the abridgement of the 69th book of Dion Cassius, by Xiphiiinus. (Comp. Eutrop. viii. 3 ; Aurel. Vict, de Caesar. 14 ; Zonar. xi. 23, &c.; Tillemont, Hist, des lilmp. vol. ii. p. 219, &c. ; J. M. Flemmer, de Ilineribits et rebus gestis Hadri- ani secundum numorum et scriptorum TeHtimonia^ Havniae, 1836 ; C. Ch. Woog, de Eruditione Ha- driani., Lipsiae, 17G9 ; Meyer, Fragm. Orat. Rom. p. 607, &c. 2nd edit. ; Niebuhr, Led. en Rom. Hist. vol. ii. p. 265, &c. ed. Schmitz.) [L. S.] COIN OF HADRIANUS. HADRIA'NUS, C. FA'BIUS, was legatus, praetor, or propraetor in the Roman province of Africa, about B. c. 87 — 84. His government was so oppressive to the Roman colonists and merchants at Utica, that they burnt him to death in his own praetorium. Notwithstanding the outrage to a Roman magistrate, no proceedings were taken at Rome against the perpetrators of it. For besides his oppressions, Hadrianus was suspected of secretly instigating the slaves at Utica to revolt, and of aspiring, with their aid, to make himself indepen- dent of the republic, at that time fluctuating be- tween the parties of Cinna and Sulla. (Cic. in Verr. i. 27, v. 36 ; Pseud. Ascon. in Verr. p. 179, Orelli ; Diod. fr. vat. p. 1 38, ed. Dind. ; Liv. Epit. 86 ; Val. Max. ix. 10. § 2.) Orosius (v. 20) gives Hadrianus the nomen Fulvius. [W. B. D,] HADRIANUS, literary. [Adrianus.] HADRIA'NUS or ADRIANUS. We learn from the Codex Theodosianus that a person of this name held the office of Magister Officiorum in the reign of Ilonorius, A. d. 397 and 399 (Cod. Theod. 6. tit. 26. § 1 1 ; tit. 27. § 1 1). He appears to have been praefectus praetorio Italiae, a. d. 400 — 405 (Cod. Theod. 7. tit. 18. § 11 to 14 ; 8. tit. 2. § 5. tit. 5, § 65 ; 16. tit. 2. § 35. tit. Q.%4o). After an interval in which the praefecture passed into other hands we find it again held by an Hadrianus, apparently the same person as the former praefect of the name, A. D. 413—416 (Cod. Theod. 7. tit. 4. § 33. tit. 13. § 21 ; 15. tit. 14. § 13). The first of the five Epistolae of Claudian is inscribed Deprecatio ad Hadrianum Prefaectum Praetorio : but it is not known on what authority this title rests. The poet deprecates the anger of some grandee whom he had in some moment of irritation in his youth offended by some invective. Another Y 2