Hadrian: a hero for our times?

What did Hadrian achieve?

Between AD 117 and 138, Hadrian ruled over one of the greatest empires the world has ever seen, its territory covering much of the present-day EU, North Africa and the Near East – stretching from the Tyne to the Sahara, Lisbon to the Euphrates. Machiavelli dubbed him one of the "Five Good Emperors". The Roman Empire under his leadership reached the apogee from which the 18th century historian Edward Gibbon began the story of its decline and fall. "Under Hadrian's reign," Gibbon declared, "the empire flourished in peace and prosperity. He encouraged the arts, reformed the laws, asserted military discipline, and visited all his provinces in person."

Why is he of such interest today?

Hadrian has long been admired for what Gibbon called his "vast and active genius". Fascinated by art and architecture, he built great monuments which still stand - his splendid villa at Tivoli, for example, and the Pantheon in Rome. He was an intrepid traveller who spent much of his reign visiting far-flung corners of the empire, and a lover of Greek culture who read widely, studied philosophy and wrote poetry. He also had an intriguing, tragic love life. According to the Historia Augusta, the unhappily married Hadrian had affairs with both women and men. When his favourite consort, the young Greek Antinous, drowned in the Nile in mysterious circumstances in AD 130, Hadrian "wept like a woman" – before declaring Antinous a god and littering the empire with temples and statues in his honour. Busts of the languid, curly-haired young man are among the most common from antiquity. Hadrian's appeal is that in many ways he seems so contemporary: unembarrassed by homosexuality, multicultural in his interests. He even pulled his troops out of Iraq.

Why did he find himself having to withdraw from Iraq?

Because his predecessor, Trajan, hoping to follow in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, had launched expeditions into what was then Mesopotamia. Trajan's aim was to control the rogue states threatening Roman interests there, but he got bogged down just south of modern Baghdad, and having installed a puppet king, found it impossible to quell the surrounding area. Hadrian saw at