A STUDY OF THE EMPEROR HADRIAN

Press, Volume C, Issue 29477, 1 April 1961, Page 3

A STUDY OF THE EMPEROR HADRIAN

Hadrian. By Stewart Browne. Hodder and Stoughton. 186 pp. Index. Mr Stewart Perowne is at present engaged in writing a series of studies of the ancient world in the first centuries of the Christian era. He has already published two volumes that deal with Jewish history during this period; and the present work, although its subject is a great Roman emperor, seems, during the course of tracing out a wider pattern, to round off what was begun in the earlier monographs—“ The Life and Times of Herod the Great” and “The Later Herods.” After all it was Hadrian, who, "by obliterating Jerusalem of the Jews, ensured that when monotheism prevailed it would prevail in its Christian form." Judaism he despised. and his feeling for the Christian faith was probably a nice blend of scorn and amusement. On the other hand, Mr Perowne quotes from the

pages of Eusebius a letter written in the year 125 in which the emperor forbids unwarranted persecution of Christians. If there was a definite case against any Christian, the law would take its course. “I have no objection to their invoking the aid of a Court of Justice. If therefore, anyone proves that the aforesaid Christians do anything contrary to the laws, you will determine their punishments in accordance with their offences. You will, on the other hand, by Hercules, take particular care that, if anyone demands a writ of accusation against any of these Christians, merely for the sake of libelling them, you proceed against that man with heavier penalties in accordance with his heinous guilt.” Upon Palestine itself the emperor left his mark. In the year 130, he visited the country in the course of a tour of inspection of his army. Jerusalem was in ruins; for when Titus finally captured the city in 70 A:D.. he laid

waste the beautiful buildings the psalmist had praised. The great temple itself was just a heap of rubble. Hadrian was greatly impressed by the site of the city and resolved to rebuild it. It should also be re-named, “and among the stiff-necked Semites it was Rome that must be proclaimed. The new city must be an imperial lighthouse and fortress. So it must have a Roman name, the names of Rome’s emperor and Rome’s capital. Aelia (Hadrian’s patronymic) Capitolina it should be called. Jerusalem was to be obliterated —not only physically, but even as a memory." The work went forward, in spite of the Jewish revolt of 132-135, and, as Mr Perowne remarks, “Hadrian’s Aelia is of great interest to us even today, for it was Hadrian who gave to the Holy City the layout which it has preserved in all essentials to our own time.”

As chapter X In this work explains, Hadrian was active in Britain as well as in the East. In the year of his ac-

cession, 117 A.D„ the northern Britons were in revolt against the Roman invader. They wiped out a whole legion, the IXth Spanish, in one engagement, and the emperor vjsited the country to put things to rights. Included in this programme was the building of the wall from Wallsend on the east coast to Bowness on the Solway, a distance of 73 miles. The author’s comment is characteristic; “Hadrian’s wall, even in decay, is the most romantic surviving memorial, not only to the Pax Romana but to the emperor Hadrian; and it is in England.”

For the rest, “Spanish-born and Greek-inspired, intellectual critic and connoisseur, man of letters and musician, Hadrian enjoyed from 131 to 138 the mature pleasures of peaceful life at Rome.” In this brilliant study Mr Perowne makes the attentive reader understand once more the strength of the links that still bind the culture of 'the world today to its foundations in the civilisation of the past.