Customer Reviews

Hadrian : The Restless Emperor (Roman Imperial Biographies)

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This is the best biography written about Hadrian in English. Mr. Birley does an excellent job tracing Hadrian as he visited the empire and also provides a fascinating look at the Flavians, the dynasty of Hadrian's youth. There is a lot of detail, particularly when Mr. Birely deals with Hadrian's travels that seems to have provoked comments that his book is dry. One can find this daunting, however, such details are necessary to fully explain what Hadrian was doing, what was happening and with whom he was interacting.

Mr. Birley has stuck to relating Hadrian's life and does not explore his buildings, the Pantheon, Temple of Venus and Roma and his Villa at Tibur in any detail. Such considerations are best left to other books. Mr. Birley uses his sources (Historia Augusta etc) very well and explains their departures and omissions to what we know from archaeology. In the end, Hadrian remains an enigmatic personality but we have a far better understanding of him in his desire to Hellenize the empire and seeing himself as a second Augustus. His reign marks a turning point in the expansionist attitude of the Romans; Hadrian withdrew from the new province of Arabia (created by Trajan) and sought to fix the boundries of the empire. This was a view not shared by his immediate successors but came to be a necessity as time passed. Mr. Birley covers these critical ideas thoroughly and provides insight into a an interesting personality.

I have just completed Anthony Birley's methodical biography of Hadrian. While weakened by a lack of psychological insight into the character and motivations of my favorite emperor, this tome did splendid work of mentioning the very numerous individuals whose careers in the military and civil service crossed Hadrian's own unique path. Birley's use of epigraphic sources greatly fleshes out the skimpy, and often tertiary, record of Hadrian's rule. In spite of these scholarly advances, Hadrian remains an enigma in this work, which devotes little attention to Hadrian's villas in Tivoli or Praeneste, and ultimately, to his grand legacy.

This is a pedantic biography, which never really comes to life. There is a lot of detail about imperial society and the people making it up. However, Hadrian, although the central personage, remains rather vague, maybe because there is little hard information about him. A disappoinment compared to Birley's boigraphy of Marcus Aurelius

This history is written using only the best source material and is an attempt to portray the events and actions of Hadrian's life with only limited attempts to analyze the thoughts that led to his actions. Mr. Birley does a very good job of presenting the information as such, but if you are hoping to be told the greater meaning or deeper consequences of Hadrian's actions, then this is not the book that you are looking for. In no way shape or form does the author attempt to take a 'big picture' look at Hadrian.

That being said, the author does a fantastic job of writing about Hadrian's life. By merely portraying the actions of this, Rome's "Wandering Emperor" we get a glimpse of a somewhat tragic historical figure and the actions of his rule. It is very intriguing, and there are many odd parallels to his rule and that of recent political figures.

This is a good book, despite the fact that it is at times laborious to get through. Hadrian is clearly depicted and the reader is left to formulate their own opinions - a refreshing change from many of the currently available histories.

Hadrian reigned in the second century ce. He inherited from Trajan a roman empire that had stretched from the persian gulf to the north atlantic. Hadrian contracted the empire's limits and reinforced them (most famously with his wall in England). These are but the barest outlines of Hadrian's life.

Birley's biography brings Hadrian to life by delving into Hadrian's childhood in colonial Spain; Birley draws familial lines back centuries to reconstruct the childhood milleu that may have lead to Hadrian's affinity with all things Greek.

Hadrian's many travels are narrated in great detail, and Birley always frames the emperor with contextual elements from throughout the empire (such as the completion of major building projects and destructive fires). In this way not only is Hadrian alive in these pages, but also his world lives and breathes with events.

Any student or interested armchair historian (such as myself) will profit greatly from Birley's biography. The only "cons" I might level at the book are 1) a paucity of maps -- for an emperor who travels a few more diagrams would have been helpful 2) the prose is a little dense at times -- however this is only as a word of caution to casual readers: Birley's biography is not bed-time reading, but rather an authoratative and scholarly study.

All in all, the biography of Hadrian significantly enriches the shelves of any scholar of roman history.

This is a book that is very informative and interesting. I am not sure however, that interest could be sustained without prior knowledge of Hadrian's life. The author is so consumed by getting the facts in accurate historical sequence that he neglects the narrative. There are long passages where the reader is bombarded with Roman names and titles of Hadrian's contemporaries to such a degree that it is impossible to comprehend on a first reading, never mind absorb. None of these titles are explained either: the reader is suppossed to know for example the difference between a pro-consul and a consul, a questor and a preator, etc; all of which may be clear to the specialist, but not so to the general reader, even if they had a general backgroung on Roman history and culture. It is still commendable as a well researched biography. One is also grateful for the explicit treatment of Hadrian's private life,which had either eluded or terrified the puritanical and parsimonius early biographers. With such a fascinating life one can not help to wonder why it has been so long (sixty years!!) that no new biographies had appeared. After all, some chapters of Hadrian's life are better tahn fiction. The emphasis on Britain is both unnecessary and

The book was so dry and boring, I never became interested in Hadrian through the whole book. The book was a detailed chronology of his life, but only the events. His life as a whole wasn't pulled together. I finished the book without a better understanding that I started with.

I ordered this book after reading "Beloved and God" which discusses Hadrian's relationship with Antinous...
that book was great, but this one was very dry.
If you simply want facts about Hadrian's reign, this book should work for you. But History need not be a dry subject, and this book renders a rather remarkable life just that.

I'd keep looking if I were you.