7/28/2019 Hadrian at the British Museum

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Emperor Hadrian

Strutting on the stageJul 17th 2008

From The Economistprint editionHadrian: Empire and Conflict will be at the British

Museum from July 24th until October 26th

That sinister crease

A MASSIVE stone head of the Emperor Hadrian is the

first exhibit a visitor sees in the British Museums explorationof the life, love and legacy of Romes most enigmatic

Emperor. He is bearded with carefully coiffed curly hair, andthat unmistakable deep diagonal crease in the earlobes which

helps identify authentic ancient portraits of Hadrian. The head

was discovered only last August in Sagalassos in south-west

Turkey, and it has never been seen in public before. The

decision to allow it to leave the storehouse in the local museumwas taken at cabinet level in Ankara after detailed negotiations

between Neil MacGregor, the British Museums director, and

Turkeys ambassador to London. It is a brilliant coup dethtre.

This exhibition is not linked to an anniversary. The

closest it gets to a relevant contemporary reference is to

emphasise that one of Hadrians first acts on becoming

Emperor in 117AD was to withdraw Romes army from

Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Mr MacGregor says the

exhibition is one of a series exploring great rulers who shaped

our world.Hadrian was a complex, contradictory figure, ruling for

21 years. He was a dictator, sometimes regarded as a prince ofpeace by Europeans. Israelis point to him as the perpetrator of

the first Holocaust. He was not necessarily a likeable man, but

his achievements were awesome, says Thorsten Opper, the

museums specialist in classical sculpture and the shows

curator.

The emperor was acutely conscious of his image. He had

more statues of himself scattered throughout his empire than

any fellow-emperor, save Augustus. A selection of the best ison show in the British Museum, lent by 31 institutions in 11

countries. Some of the fine bronze busts show him for what he

wasa grizzled old soldierbut in full-sized marble statues he

becomes a role-player. Dressed in a toga, he is a Greek oratoin full Roman army uniform, with his foot on the neck of

humbled barbarian, he is the protector of his people; standin

naked and slim-hipped, he is a god, like Mars.

Hadrian belonged to an upwardly mobile Spanis

landowning elite that had grown rich selling olive oil. In Rom

he was a provincial, and fun was made of his rustic accent. H

shrewdly understood the limits of power, was ruthless in th

exercise of it and cynical enough to disarm critics early in h

regime by giving citizens a tax holiday. But when the secon

Jewish revolt began in 132AD he suppressed it with a fury thMr Opper describes as a slow extermination campaign. Jude

was expunged from the maps, and renamed Syria-Palestin

Quite why he ordered his great wall to be built on England

border with Scotland is uncertain, but Mr Oppers gut feeling

that it was to divide and rule the revolting northern tribes.

He had a fine eye for monumental architecture. H

commissioned the Pantheon, and a model of it is displaye

directly under Sydney Smirkes glorious dome above thBritish Museums Reading Room (which is two feet or 0

metres smaller in diameter than the Roman masterpiece). H

own mausoleum was by the banks of the Tiber, the Castel San

Angelo.

His lover was Antinous, a handsome young Greek whappealed to the emperors Hellenophilia. Mr Oppers catalogu

tells us that what caused comment among his contemporarie

was not that Hadrian was gay, but that he insisted that Antinoube given the status of a god after his death in the Nile

130AD. One of many statues of Antinoushere as th

Egyptian god Osirisstands proudly outside the entrance t

the exhibition. Hadrian himself died at 62, perhaps of coronar

heart disease (a condition sometimes indicated by a crease i

the earlobe). He had not created the role of emperor, but no on

played it better.

El legado de Adriano

BRITISH MUSEUM 17-07-2008 El PaisVdeo de la British Museum sobre la exposicin