Hadrian Aelius

76 – 138 · Generation VIII · Roman emperor (r. AD 117–138) · Nerva–Antonine

Hadrian (AD 76 – AD 138). Roman emperor (r. AD 117–138). Trajan’s ward and adopted heir, married to Trajan’s great-niece Sabina; he walled Britain, rebuilt the Pantheon, and travelled more of the empire than any emperor before him. Soon after his accession — which Trajan’s widow Plotina had probably smoothed — he had four of the Senate’s leading men executed without legal sanction, and the senators never forgave him. He let go the lands Trajan had won in Mesopotamia, Assyria, Armenia and part of Dacia, judging a secure frontier worth more than conquest, and he built prodigiously: the vast Temple of Venus and Roma in the capital, the villa at Tivoli. Greece claimed his devotion — he made Athens the cultural centre of the empire, and when his beloved Antinous drowned in the Nile he raised him to a god whose cult spread far and wide. Late in the reign he crushed the Bar Kokhba revolt in Judaea. Chronically ill in his last years, he adopted Antoninus Pius on condition that Antoninus adopt heirs in turn, and died at Baiae — deified over the Senate’s opposition.

One of 12 people of Nerva–Antonine (30–192) in this archive. The adoptive emperors: for four reigns the purple passed to a chosen heir rather than a born one.

Line of descent: Nerva Cocceius → Trajan Optimus → Hadrian Aelius.

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Parents

• Publius Aelius Hadrianus Afer (40 – 86)
• Domitia Paulina (45 – 85)
• Trajan Optimus (53 – 117)

Partners

• Married Vibia Sabina (86 – 136) in 100

Children

• Antoninus Pius (86 – 161)