HADRIAN

born January 24, AD 76, Italica, Baetica? [now in Spain] died July 10, 138, Baiae , near Naples also spelled Adrian, Latin in full Caesar Traianus Hadrianus Augustus, original name (until AD 117) Publius Aelius Hadrianus Roman emperor (AD 117138), the emperor Trajan's nephew and successor, who was a cultivated admirer of Greek civilization and who unified and consolidated Rome's vast empire. Additional reading Ancient evidence for Hadrian and his reign may be found in his biography in the Historia Augusta; Dio Cassius, Roman History, bk. 69; life of Hadrian in Aurelius Victor, On the Caesars; and the life of Hadrian in the anonymous Epitome De Caesaribus. Herbert W. Benario, A Commentary on the Vita Hadriani in the Historia Augusta (1980), uses scholarship to elucidate Hadrian's biography. Bernard W. Henderson, The Life and Principate of the Emperor Hadrian, A.D. 76138 (1923, reissued 1968); and Stewart Perowne, Hadrian (1960, reprinted 1976), are not wholly reliable. The fictional evocation, Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian (1954, reissued 1974; originally published in French, 1951), is, however, remarkably successful.