Hadrian 76— c. Roman emperor Hadrian ruled Rome from to c. Hadrian was born January 24, 76 c. Hadrian rose quickly through the military ranks and held major offi ces. At age 24 he married a grandniece of Trajan, Sabina. Theirs was a childless and perhaps loveless match. Hadrian was legate and acting governor of Syria when Trajan died in His adoption by Trajan was announced, and the army accepted him as the new emperor under the name Publius Aelius Traianus Hadrianus. Unlike previous emperors, Hadrian sought to secure his borders, not expand them, and to stabilize the empire.
He is mainly remembered for his building projects, his administrative improvements, his concern for his armies, and his travels. Trusted representatives in Rome, and possibly a secret police force, allowed him to be absent from the capital for years. Much information about Hadrian comes from a suspect source, the Historia Augusta, which is full of intentionally misleading information about the Roman emperors.
However, he was undeniably a unique, eclectic, and often brilliant man. It is known that he spent half his reign traveling, mostly in the East, from inscriptions, commemorative coins, and contemporary accounts. Hadrian traveled through Gaul and Germany in and commanded an oaken palisade to be built to secure the German frontier. In Britain the next year Hadrian observed the northern frontier separating Roman legions from the troublesome Pictish tribes.
Hadrian ordered the wall and fortifi cations to be built. He then left to suppress revolts in Mauretania and Parthia and never returned to Britain or the western part of his empire. The wall was built with signal towers of about 20 sq. The original construction included a turf wall in parts, and the width of the stone wall varied from 7. The stone wall measured up to 16 feet high—not including the breastworks. Wherever physically possible, a ditch ran along the north side of the wall, 9 feet deep and 30 feet wide.
On the south side a vallum rampart made up of a ditch, with mounds of the H excavated material on either side, blocked access from the south and may have marked the military zone. Other building projects completed by the emperor Hadrian included the Pantheon in Rome, started by Agrippa, and the temple to Olympian Zeus in Athens, begun six centuries earlier.
