Editing Hadrian (section)

==Portraits==
[[File:Hadrian Aureus Delta Omikron.jpg|thumb|alt=Hadrian Aureus with the portrait type Delta-Omikron, Rome, 129-130AD|Hadrian Aureus with the portrait type Delta-Omikron, Rome, 129–130 AD]]
Hadrian's portraiture shows him as the first Roman emperor with a beard. Most emperors after him followed his lead. 10 different portrait types are known of Hadrian. A juvenile type with curly hair, broad side burns and a light moustache (but a free chin) was shown on coins later in his life on rare aurei, but likely reflects an early portrait before he became emperor.<ref>Strack, PL, Untersuchungen zur Römischen Reichsprägung des zweiten Jahrhunderts – Teil 2 Die Reichsprägung zur Zeit des Hadrian, Stuttgart 1933, also Abdy RA and Mittag PF, Roman Imperial Coinage (RIC), Volume II, Part 3: From AD 117 to AD 138 – Hadrian, London 2019</ref> His first portrait type as Caesar and Augustus used on coins in Mid 117AD shows again broad sideburns merging into a strong moustache and still a free chin. The beard thus resembles beard styles popular in the 19th century like emperor [[Franz Joseph I of Austria|Franz Josef of Austria]].<ref>Pangerl, Andreas, Hadrian’s First and Second Imperial Portrait Types of 117–118 AD; Jahrbuch für Numismatik und Geldgeschichte 71, 2021, pp 171–184</ref>

In Hadrian's time, there was already a well-established convention that one could not write a contemporary Roman imperial history for fear of contradicting what the emperors wanted to say, read or hear about themselves.<ref>Steven H. Rutledge, "Writing Imperial Politics: The Social and Political Background" IN [[William J. Dominik]], ed;, ''Writing Politics in Imperial Rome'' Brill, 2009, {{ISBN|978-90-04-15671-5}}, p. 60</ref><ref>Adam M. Kemezis, "Lucian, Fronto, and the absence of contemporary historiography under the Antonines". ''The American Journal of Philology'' Vol. 131, No. 2 (Summer 2010), pp. 285–325</ref> As an earlier Latin source, [[Marcus Cornelius Fronto|Fronto]]'s correspondence and works attest to Hadrian's character and the internal politics of his rule.<ref>Mary Taliaferro Boatwright, ''Hadrian and the Cities of the Roman Empire''. Princeton University Press, 2002, pp. 20–26</ref> Greek authors such as [[Philostratus]] and [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] wrote shortly after Hadrian's reign, but confined their scope to the general historical framework that shaped Hadrian's decisions, especially those relating the Greek-speaking world, Greek cities and notables.<ref>Birley, ''Restless Emperor'', 160</ref> Pausanias especially wrote a lot in praise of Hadrian's benefactions to Greece in general and Athens in particular.<ref>K.W. Arafat, ''Pausanias' Greece: Ancient Artists and Roman Rulers''. Cambridge University Press:2004, {{ISBN|0-521-55340-7}}, p. 171.</ref> Political histories of Hadrian's reign come mostly from later sources, some of them written centuries after the reign itself. The early 3rd-century ''Roman History'' by [[Cassius Dio]], written in Greek, gave a general account of Hadrian's reign, but the original is lost, and what survives, aside from some fragments, is a brief, Byzantine-era abridgment by the 11th-century monk Xiphilinius, who focused on Hadrian's religious interests, the Bar Kokhba war, and little else{{snd}}mostly on Hadrian's moral qualities and his fraught relationship with the Senate.<ref>Boatwright, 20</ref> There are various other sources referred to by later commentators, such as the [[encomium]] of [[Aspasius of Byblos]], that are now completely lost. The principal source for Hadrian's life and reign is, therefore, in Latin: one of several late 4th-century imperial biographies, collectively known as the ''[[Historia Augusta]]''. The collection as a whole is notorious for its unreliability ("a mish mash of actual fact, [[cloak and dagger]], [[sword and sandal]], with a sprinkling of ''[[Ubu Roi]]''"),<ref>Paul Veyne, ''L'Empire Gréco-Romain''. Paris: Seuil, 2005, {{ISBN|2-02-057798-4}}, p.{{nbsp}}312. In the French original: ''de l'[[Alexandre Dumas]], du [[Peplum film genre|péplum]] et un peu d'Ubu Roi''.</ref> but most modern historians consider its account of Hadrian to be relatively free of outright fictions, and probably based on sound historical sources,<ref>Danèel den Hengst, ''Emperors and Historiography: Collected Essays on the Literature of the Roman Empire''. Leiden: Brill, 2010, {{ISBN|978-90-04-17438-2}}, p.&nbsp;93.</ref> principally one of a lost series of imperial biographies by the prominent 3rd-century senator [[Marius Maximus]], who covered the reigns of [[Nerva]] through to [[Elagabalus]].<ref>Alan K. Bowman, Peter Garnsey, Dominic Rathbone, eds., ''The Cambridge Ancient History', XI: the High Empire, 70–192 A.D.''Cambridge University Press, 2000, {{ISBN|978-0521263351}}, p. 132.</ref>

The first modern historian to produce a chronological account of Hadrian's life, supplementing the written sources with other epigraphical, numismatic, and archaeological evidence, was the German 19th-century medievalist [[Ferdinand Gregorovius]].<ref name="Birley 2013 7">Anthony R Birley, ''Hadrian: The Restless Emperor''. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013, {{ISBN|0-415-16544-X}}, p.{{nbsp}}7.</ref> A 1907 biography by Weber,<ref name="Birley 2013 7"/> a German nationalist and later [[Nazi Party]] supporter, incorporates the same archaeological evidence to produce an account of Hadrian, and especially his [[Bar Kokhba revolt|Bar Kokhba war]], that has been described as ideologically loaded.<ref>Thomas E. Jenkins, ''Antiquity Now: The Classical World in the Contemporary American Imagination''. Cambridge University Press: 2015, {{ISBN|978-0-521-19626-0}}, p. 121.</ref><ref>A'haron Oppenheimer, ''Between Rome and Babylon: Studies in Jewish Leadership and Society''.Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005, {{ISBN|3-16-148514-9}}, p. 199.</ref><ref>Birley, ''Hadrian: the Restless Emperor'', 7: Birley describes the results of [[Ernst Kornemann]]'s attempt to sift the ''Historia Augusta'' biography's facts from its fictions (through textual analysis alone) as doubtful. B.W. Henderson's 1923 English language biography of Hadrian focuses on ancient written sources, and largely ignores or overlooks the published archaeological, epigraphic and non-literary evidence used by Weber.</ref> Epigraphical studies in the [[post-war]] period help support alternate views of Hadrian. [[Anthony Birley]]'s 1997 biography of Hadrian sums up and reflects these developments in Hadrian historiography. The French novelist [[Marguerite Yourcenar]] wrote a historical novel entitled "[[Memoirs of Hadrian]]" first published in French in 1951.

{{Nerva-Antonine family tree}}