Hadrian -- some myths busted

I am delighted that the Hadrian exhibition at the British Museum looks set to be the huge success which it deserves. One of the downsides is that we classicists are going to have to get used to the rest of country enthusing about Hadrian in a way that will make us cringe.

Last night’s Newsnight Review was a good example of just this. Newsnight Review is usually an excellent programme, and last night they had three intelligent critics on board (David Aaronovitch of this parish, Marina Hyde and Simon Sebag Montefiore). The trouble was none of them semmed to know much more about Hadrian or the Roman empire than they had picked up in their preview visit to the show.

The result was that they gave all kinds of misleading impressions to the innocent viewer. For a start you could easily have come away with the idea that we were uniquely well-informed about Hadrian thanks to his autobiography. As the presenter said, “No extant copy of his autobiography survives. But later copies were made so we know a lot about his life”.

Well sorry guys, all we know is what may, or more likely may not, come from his autobiography in the scrappy, short and flagrantly unreliable biography in the series known as the Scriptores Historiae Augustae. So when Marina Hyde said “he was obsessed with cohesion the whole way through”, the truth is that we don’t have the foggiest clue what he was obsessed with.

For the rest it was mostly a case of assuming that what Hadrian did or built was somehow unusual in the Roman world. The exhibition curator did usefully put paid to the myth that Hadrian was unusual in having a male lover (though the emperor was nevertheless billed on the programme as a “gay man” -- as if that particular category and its cultural significance makes any sense when you are talking about the ancient world) .

But David Aaronovitch could still claim (thinking of the Pantheon, I guess) that Hadrian’s achievement was to “build upwards”, he had forgotten the long history of Roman dynasts doing just that – going back at least to Pompey the Great and his Temple of Victory perched on top of his colossal theatre.

And Marina Hyde enthused about his propaganda coin types (“Tranquillity” for example, plastered all over the coins) as if these weren’t as common as muck from the start of the empire.

Oh well, we’ll have to get used to this kind of stuff – and learn not to stifle the enthusiasm but channel it towards a more sustained (and informed!) interest in the ancient world. And, of course, it would be a good idea, as one of the panellists said, if Gordon Brown came to see the exhibition – and if most of the Labour party saw in the interest that the British Museum has generated in the Roman empire a reason to support, rather than bash, the study of Classics in general. After all, this exhibition doesn't spring from nowhere. It's the product of centuries of hard academic work that the government would cease funding, given half a chance.

If you want a bit more of what I think about Hadrian, click here.

Comments

[Jackie]

Talking about accuracy of information, would someone please tell me if I am labouring under a misapprehension. The commentary at the Hadrian exhibition (thoroughly enjoyable by the way) says quite categorically, that the Romans invented concrete. I understood that it was used by the Carthaginians, and the Phoenicians before them, and the Romans proceeded to develop it by making it waterproof, therefore useful for building bridges. A particularly Roman talent. Am I wrong?

[philip.koh@mkp.com.my]

any one read the excellent "faction" by Marguerite Yourcenar : a must for those who wants to enter imaginatively into Yourcenar's version of what it is to be Hadrian

[Paul Bulmer]

I think that drumming up discussion and interest about anything Historical is great, but accuracy is important in these discussions. Getting laymen on the TV to talk generally about Hadrian is not good as they give incorrect information and present it as fact. I think that TV broadcasters have a responsibility to be accurate with the information they are communicating to millions of people, especially on a forum like Newsnight, and as such these guests where not sufficiently knowledgeable about the subject to be presenting their views as fact.

[Paul Bulmer]

I think that drumming up discussion and interest about anything Historical is great, but accuracy is important in these discussions. Getting laymen on the TV to talk generally about Hadrian is not good as they give incorrect information and present it as fact. I think that TV broadcasters have a responsibility to be accurate with the information they are communicating to millions of people, especially on a forum like Newsnight, and as such these guests where not sufficiently knowledgeable about the subject to be presenting their views as fact.

[Paul Potts]

Apart from the Hadrian and Antonine walls, was there not another one built across East Anglia? Something, perhaps, to do with Beardicca.

Paulo

[Paul Potts]

There's no need to spell, Michael Bulley. How do you spell the Adriatic sea?

Paulo

[David ganz]

I am sorry that no one has raised the issue of the melodramatic lighting of sculpture in the exhibition (and in the photographs in the catalogue.) The British Museum once again is relying on people who know nothing about Hadrian or classical art, and are consequently experts on how to mount exhibitions. The same values are triumphant in the British Library: staff are paid a disgraceful salary, and consultants and management rule.
Despite the Guardian, Hadrian was neither an innovative nor an impressive emperor, just the only one whom the Brit in the street has heard of.

[John Gregory Flinn]

I, too was impressed by the TV programme 'Hadrian' with Dan Snow(?).
The theme most significant in my view was his success as a civil engineer. Construction of the Pantheon in Rome with what is still the largest dome ever built with unreinforced concrete remains a challenge even in modern times.
The engineering of the granitic supporting columns were another revelation, including their source.

The Wall in Britain and his other architectural projects mark him out as better than just a military engineer and soldier.
What modern leader could claim any of such legacies?
And to refer to Hadrian as an "amateur architect" (ref. 'A very modern emperor') perhaps damns him with faint praise, or alternatively, epitomises the vacuous received wisdoms of today particularly in Britain regarding ingenuity.

[richard lilley]

It all sounds very illustrative of current problems with poor old aunty: egotistical travelogues and a surfeit of allegedly telegenic opinion, because all the old stuff with people who actually knew something about their subjects is deemed to boring for a population with the attention span of a traffic light. What would be interesting and, dare one say it original, would be a "How the Romans WERENT like us (and indeed how likely it is that anyone could behave like that politically again)" and some candour about the cruelty, greed and wonderful madness that seems at least as likely an explantion for what we know of this remarkable mans life as all the comforting modern romancing of him as part Stephen Fry, part Frank Gehry and part General Mannstein!

[Hein Maassen, Leidschendam, The Netherlands]

It is difficult to create a TV programme on a historical subject. You can bring in as guests nitwits who are: 'famous for being famous', Psris Hilton-style, or you can have intelligent allrounders who have no specialist knowledge of the subject and therefore go ranting about something else they are more acquainted with. The best but least often chosen option is to have the subject presented by a specialist. I remember a highly successful Dutch TV series about the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands written and presented by the late dr. Lou De Jong, who wrote the authoritative multi-volume: 'The Netherlands in the Second World War'. French television broadcast: 'Age of Cathedrals', made and presented by dr. Georges Duby. It is difficult, but it can be done. Mary, something for you in future?

[Tony Francis]

Dear Alan Myers: The Venerable Bede's book never mentions Hadrian. The first discussion of a wall is by Severus in 189 AD. It was made of sods and not stone, as some imagine, according Bede. This is in Chapter V, Book 1. In Chapter XII, there is another mention of a wall made of sods because no one was capable of building one of stone. This is undated. There followed another wall of stones from sea to sea, also undated. (Chapter XI is dated 407 AD; Chapter XIII is dated 446 AD.) The Britons are mentioned as whiners and the Romans seemed weary of defending them against the Scots and Irish.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/bede-book1.html
Bede's book raises more questions than it answers. It is an enigma.

[SWM]

Having just seen Dan Snow's 'Hadrian' I was most impressed with the visuals (not so much the commentary). Mr Snow must have spent a terrific amount of license payer's money travelling around the globe looking at ruins, and (IMO as a non-license payer) every penny of it was well spent.

This program seems to be part of a more widespread BBC classical 'interest'. The most outstanding example of which being 'Greek and Latin voices' (in the BBC radio 3 essay slot). As a classicist in my final year at school I find the opportunity to listen to such figures as Paul Cartledge, Oliver Taplin or indeed Prof. Beard a rare pleasure. I only hope the BBC continues in this vein.

As for Hadrian's sexuality, is it really necessary to make much of it? Hadrian seems to have been greatly influenced by Hellenistic culture (hence his special attention to Athens), is this not just an extension of his appreciation for this tradition? Is the issue a temporal one (was homosexuality in second century Rome a bit gauche)? Or one resulting from his prominence? I fear I have some reading to do...

Many thanks for your continued blogging,

SM

[Alan Myers]

It's always a pleasure to read you on any subject, but wasn't the turf part on the west end of Hadrian's Wall (mentioned in your Guardian piece) converted to sandstone during Hadrian's reign?

As the succeeding emperor, Antoninus Pius, almost at once erected the Antonine Wall a hundred miles further north, some words on its function would have been welcome - especially as it has now been accorded UNESCO world heritage status.

[Michael Bulley]

Hadrian, Hadrian, what did you do?
Even on Newsnight they haven't a clue.

Why did you visit the Britons at all?
Why did you want them to build you a wall?

What were your passions? We want you to tell.
Why weren't you Adrian? Couldn't you spell?

[anthony alcock]

"No extant copy of his autobiography survives. But later copies were made so we know a lot about his life”. Is there supposed to be a logical connection between these two sentences ?

[Thomas]

It is not just the Classicists who will be cringing; queer/gay scholars will be joining you! I have not been fortunate enough to see the exhibition yet, but I look forward to seeing for myself the way in which Hadrian's sexuality is dealt with. If ever there was a modern homosexual projected onto the past, poor old troubled gay Hadrian is he (or one of them at any rate). Looking at some of the comments that have been made so far about the representation of Hadrian's sexuality, I am sure there is going to be much to discuss.

But however I will find that representation, I salute the BM for tackling this issue head on. It was a brave decision to make (not that I am that surprised - the recent purchase and promoting of the so-called Warren Cup is another example of some progressive thinking). There was a time, and not so long ago, when the issues surrounding Hadrian's sexuality might have been ignored, or grossly downplayed/distorted. However the BM have represented this today, at least it will enable and empower debate - and that must be applauded.

[Tony Francis]

Paraphrasing Mary Beard in the Guardian:
Within hours of taking the Presidency in January, 2009, Barack Obama made one major strategic decision. He issued the order to withdraw the US troops from Iraq. His succession had been a messy one, in the usual American way. Despite a well-earned reputation for effective administration in most areas, the Americans never really sorted out the transfer of imperial power. Obama's leadership bid was reminiscent of what goes on in the Labour party. It involved a good deal of manipulation, double-dealing, back-stabbing (in the US Democrat Party this is metaphorical) and perfect timing. A couple of rivals had made their bid too soon, leaving Obama as the only plausible candidate to be adopted by his elderly predecessors John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter just a few years earlier.

Obama was instantly faced with a problem in the Gulf. Bush II had sponsored ambitious expeditions in the east - determined to get control of the rogue states threatening US interests there, and in his wider dreams to follow in the conquering footsteps of Alexander the Great. He had reached the enemy capital at modern Baghdad, where he made his own premature declaration of "Mission Accomplished" (in Latin, "Parthia capta"). He had then moved on to Basra, where he planted the British flag, and sensibly decided that he was too old to take the Alexander trail to India.
This whole enterprise was already going horribly wrong before Bush's exit. He had tried the trick of restoring some form of local control in Baghdad, in the shape of a puppet government (another series of coins vainly celebrated the restoration of constitutional government, much as we have celebrated the restoration of Iraqi "democracy"). But the rival factions and insurgencies undermined all attempts to bring peace and order. Obama saw the impossibility of the task and straightaway pulled the troops out, leaving the various local warlords to fight it out themselves.

He diverted the legions to more winnable campaigns in Afghanistan and Darfur. There was unrest, as usual, in the Balkans. And in the near east he had to deal with a Jewish revolt over issues in Persia.

[Jackie]

It will be interesting to see how Dan Snow gets on tonight in his programme about Hadrian.I would hope he has actually done his homework.

[PL]

XJY: "Genocide" might me a useful word if it weren't so often devalued into a synonym for conquest with its accompanying horrors. You seem to be implying that what Hitler did to the Jews who fell into his power was no worse than what Trajan did to the Dacians. You can't believe that, can you?

Otherwise Terry Jones's history of Rome from a barbarian viewpoint sounds an interesting, if screamingly biased, book.

[Xjy]

Terry Jones's book on the history of the Rome from a Barbarian viewpoint gives a nice perspective on what happened around the time of Trajan and Hadrian. The Empire had more or less reached its point of equilibrium where the effort to swallow more cost more than it brought in. The cost being mercenaries, garrisons, etc.

So the exploitation began to turn inwards, the military character of imperial rule became more and more decisive, and things went the way they did. The boundaries needed to be emphasized to mark the equilibrium. Hadrian's wall...

As for Trajan being a good emperor, he built his column as a monument to his butchery (of the Dacians IIRC) and it's long long relief just shows the butchery and plunder taking place. The triumph from a Roman point of view must have been the extension of the empire to a safer boundary and the inclusion of rich land, but genocide is hardly the mark of a good or great ruler.

Lots of fun to be had following the process of "decay" of the empire with the move to the East, and the role of the Germans, and the interaction of the murderous Christian sects based in North Africa, Rome/Ravenna and Byzantium.
And to wonder at the lack of interest in the early and cultured Christianity of the Goths (Wulfila, fl 350) and the Armenians (first Christian state)compared with the bloodthirsty power games and inhumanity of the Augustinian Catholics.

Fascinating stuff with Trajan and Hadrian as pivotal figures between the expanding empire and the imploding one whose cancerous bits metastasized into modern Europe from around as early as 500 (bless the German peoples and their socks :-)