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| Hadrian was born in 76 in the Roman colonia at Italica in southern
Spain of an old Roman family He became the ward of his cousin, the
Emperor Trajan, and eventually succeeded him.
In hi s youth he served as a staff officer in legions stationed on the Danube and Rhine. Later he commanded a legio in the second Dacian war in 105 and governed Phannonia and the Syria. At this time he must have seen for himself how barbarian pressure was increasing around the fringes of the Empire. When he became Emperor, he was the first to build frontier barriers in the provinces. He also tightened up military discipline in the frontier areas. He undertook extensive tours of the Empire, including one to Britain in 122. Hadrian's biographer records that when he came to Britain "he put many things right and was the first to build a wall 80 miles long to separate Romans and barbarians", Matters which he attended to in Britain included the draining of the Fenland of East Anglia and Lincolnshire, and the promotion of Romanisation in some of the towns in the Midlands. He was probably responsible for the development of Aldborough as the Brigantian centre and he no doubt encouraged urbanization at York. But Hadrian was far from being only a military man. His interests extended to music, the arts, and poetry, and his poem on approaching death is regarded a classic. "Little tender wand'ring soul,
Information supplied by : Durham Council |
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