Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/384

364 them he saw that the period of conquest was past, that an extension of the frontiers would only weaken the defensive power of the empire, that the time for consolidation and for softening the distinction between Rome and the provinces was come. While Trajan had been guilty of the anachronism of rivalling Alexander the Great, Hadrian made it the work of his life to become acquainted with the provinces, to learn their needs and resources, to improve and benefit them ; he sought to be the effective ruler of the empire as a whole, and so was the first to realize the cosmopolitan task which his position im posed. For this end he sought to obtain a personal knowledge of the people lie had undertaken to govern. Leaving Rome in, he visited probably every province of the empire. After traversing Gaul he inspected the legions ou the Rhine, and then crossed to Britain, where he built the great rampart from the Tyne to the Solway which bears his name. He returned through Gaul into Spain, and then proceeded to Mauritania, where he suppressed an insurrection. We next find him in the East averting a war with Parthiaby a timely interview with the king. From the Parthian frontier he travelled through Asia Minor and the islands to Athens, where he sojourned a considerable time, and so returned by Sicily to Rome, having made the circuit of the empire. After some stay at Rome he resumed his travels. It is impossible to fix the details of this second progress with any exactness. It was chiefly in the East; and he dii not finally return to Rome till. Everywhere he left lasting traces of his restless anl beneficent energy; he built aqueducts and temples, and raised fortifications in suitable places ; he inspected the details of the administration, learned to know the officials, and made himself at home in the military encampments. He was accompanied by a body of architects and artizins organized like a legion, whom he employed to gratify his passion for building in a truly imperial manner. Athens was the favoured scene of his architectural labours ; he added a new quarter to the city, and finished the temple of the Olympian Zeus. While Hadrian spent his life in inspecting the provinces, and was not disinclined to purchase peace by a subsidy to the restless tribes on the frontiers, he did not neglect the army. All along the frontier his legions stood in constant preparation for battle. He maintained a rigorous discipline ; the rules he drew up for the army long served as a kind of military code. He trained them to the severest exercises, and anticipated all complaint by sharing in their fatigues, walking bare-headed on a march of 20 miles a day, and partaking of their coarse fare of cheese, lard, and sour wine. The only important war in which this army was tested was the great rebellion of the Jews, which broke out in, and lasted for several years. The founding of a Roman colony on the site of Jerusalem, and an order of Hadrian forbidding the rite of circumcision, were the causes of the war. The Jews fought with the most resolute despair, and they were crushed only by a powerful army commanded by the best general of t!ie empire. According to Dion, 580,000 Jews fell in battle. The whole country was reduced to a wilderness. But the loss of the Roman legions was so severe that in writing to the senate Hadrian omitted the customary formula : &quot;If you and your children are well, it is well ; I and the army are well.&quot; In the later years of his life Hadrian discon tinued his travels, and lived at Rome or near it. His health, which had been impaired by long exposure to the extremes of heat and cold, began to fail ; and, what was worse, the dark and suspicious moods which had broken out occasionally in his earlier years became more frequent and fatal. His aged brother-in-law Servianus fell a victim to his jealousy ; his wife Sabina died, not without a rumour of poisoning. Most of those who had been his familiar friends, and had been raised by him to the highest offices, were superseded, or banished, or put to death. But his passion for architecture did not abate. He built for his residence the great villa of Tibur, which was eight miles in circuit, and was a kind of epitome of the world, with miniatures of the most celebrated places in the provinces, and even of Hades. He built a splendid mausoleum, which has been the nucleus of the castle of St Angelo, and rebuilt several edifices at Home. In these years he had to choose a successor. His first choice was yElius Verus, who did nothing to justify such a distinction. The next was Antoninus Pius, so called from the filial assiduity with which he cherished the last days and the memory of his adopted father. Antoninus saved him from suicide, to which his physical sufferings impelled him, and from imbruing his hands in the blood of many noble Romans, who had provoked his moody and fickle temper. Hadrian died at Baise, The cruelty of his latter life had so eclipsed the lustre of his early rule that the senate at first refused him divine honours, and were prevailed upon to grant&quot; them only at the urgent solicitation of Antoninus. In the travels and administrative energy of Hadrian we see only one side of his character. He had a versatile and many-sided mind, in which the faculty for command, specu lative curiosity, and literary ambition were strangely blended. Not satisfied with the toils imposed on the laborious autocrat of the world, he sought to excel the Greek professors and artists each in his own special walk. In painting, sculpture, and music, in rhetoric and philo sophy, he considered himself the competent rival and critic of men who had made these pursuits the work of a lifetime. The architect Apollodorus atoned for his frankness with his life. The more politic Favoriuus, when reproached for yield ing too readily to the emperor in some grammatical discus sion, replied that it was unwise to dispute with the master of thirty legions. The product of Hadrian s pen which has been most celebrated is the dying address to his soul:—

Under Hadrian Salvius Julianus composed a &quot;perpetual edict,&quot; which is supposed to have been a fixed code of some kind, but the exact significance of the edict is disputed. Still there can be no doubt that Roman law owes much to Hadrian.

1em  HADRIAN,. It is under this heading that it seems most convenient to give a short account of the stone wall and other works erected by the Romans in the north of England between the Solway and the Tyne, and commonly known as the Roman Wall. As will be after wards seen, those who have written on the subject are by no means agreed that the name of Hadrian ought to be exclusively associated with this great fortification. P&amp;gt;ut before touching on the question, it is necessary to describe the works themselves. Viewed as a whole the Roman Wall, when entire, con sisted of three parts : (1) a stone wall, strengthened by a ditch or fosse, at a short distance from its northern base ; (2) three parallel earthen walls, with a ditch sloping down from the northern side of the second of these lines ; (3) stations, castles, and turrets, placed at various intervals for the accommodation of troops, and communicating with one another by a military way.