The Emperor Hadrian (reigned AD 117-138) and His Travels
Anthony Birley

• Thursday 8 June 2017, 6.30PM to 7.20pm
• Free admission
  Booking required
• K/133, King's Manor, Exhibition Square (map)
• No wheelchair access

Event details

Hadrian was an exceptional Roman emperor in that ‘he visited almost every province in the Empire, inspecting everything personally, on foot or on horseback, bare-headed in winter and summer.’ He was determined to end wars of expansion, keeping the peace by establishing artificial frontiers such as his Wall in Britain, where a rebellion had followed his accession in AD 117, and restoring army discipline. The much discussed ‘disappearance’ of the Ninth Legion at that time is a myth: it was probably transferred to the east and not destroyed until AD 161.

Join historian Anthony Birley as he discusses Hadrian’s travels and his passion for hellenic (Greek) culture. Learn how Hadrian sought to give the Greek-speaking parts of the Empire renewed self-confidence, with Athens the centre of a new ‘Panhellenic League’. His philhellenism was prominently displayed on his eastern tours by the presence at his side of a youth named Antinous, who was drowned in the Nile in AD 130 and then declared to be a god by the grief-stricken Hadrian.  Soon after that his ill-judged attempt to hellenise the Jews as well as the other peoples of the east led to a major rebellion lasting for nearly four years (AD 132-136). Hadrian died a broken man, his peace policy in ruins.

About the speaker

Anthony Birley is a Visiting Professor at Newcastle University. He was born in 1937 at a house next to Vindolanda, a Roman fort and settlement by Hadrian’s Wall. He studied at Oxford, before becoming a Lecturer at Leeds University, then Professor at Manchester and Düsseldorf Universities. He retired in 2002.

Anthony is the author of several books on Roman Britain and on the Roman emperors Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius and Severus. These include Life in Roman Britain, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus the African Emperor, Lives of the Later Caesars, Hadrian: The Restless Emperor, Garrison Life at Vindolanda: A Band of Brothers and The Roman Government of Britain.

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