DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15091#0062
PLATE XV.
A bust of Hadrian; he succeeded Trajan in the year 117 of
the Christian aera, and died at Baiee, in the year 138, aged 62£
years. Hadrian is considered to have been one of the best of
the Roman Emperors, and was distinguished by many great virtues,
as well as by the solidity of his talents; but in private life, his good
and bad qualities were so intermingled, as to sully the lustre of a
character which might otherwise have been irreproachable. Not
any other Emperor of Rome, perhaps, ever manifested so much
ardour in the pursuit of knowledge as Hadrian. He travelled into
Gaul, Germany, Britain, Spain, Sicily, Greece, the Greek Islands,
Asia, and Egypt, and in short into all the distant provinces of the
Roman empire. In the countries through which he passed, he
invariably took an interest in the curiosities of nature and art which
came under his observation ; he was a liberal benefactor to many of
the cities he visited, particularly to Athens(i) and Cyzicus,(2) in both
of which places he repaired many of the old temples, and erected
others on a scale of princely magnificence. Hadrian was an enlight-
ened patron of the fine arts, and enriched his own country with
many hundred statues, by transporting them from Greece to Rome :
and it is to the good taste of this Emperor (which caused so many
fine specimens of sculpture to be collected in the splendid villa
he built on the banks of the Tiber)(3) that we are indebted for a
great number of the beautiful statues and busts which adorn this
and other galleries of ancient marbles. Hadrian was buried in the
first instance at Pozzuolo, near Baias, in the villa that was then
1 Pausan. Att. lib. i. c. 18. Dion. Cass. lib. Ixix. c. 16. Spartian. in vita Hadriani,
c. 13.
* Joannis MalaUe Chronograph, lib. xi. p. 364.
3 Tiburtinam villain mire exaedificavit, ita ut in ea et provinciarum et locorum
celeberrima nomina inscriberet: velut Lyceum Academiam, Prytaneum, Canopum,
Poecilen, Tempe vocaret: et ut nihil prastermitteret, etiam Inferos finxit. Spartian.
in vita Hadriani, c. 26.
A bust of Hadrian; he succeeded Trajan in the year 117 of
the Christian aera, and died at Baiee, in the year 138, aged 62£
years. Hadrian is considered to have been one of the best of
the Roman Emperors, and was distinguished by many great virtues,
as well as by the solidity of his talents; but in private life, his good
and bad qualities were so intermingled, as to sully the lustre of a
character which might otherwise have been irreproachable. Not
any other Emperor of Rome, perhaps, ever manifested so much
ardour in the pursuit of knowledge as Hadrian. He travelled into
Gaul, Germany, Britain, Spain, Sicily, Greece, the Greek Islands,
Asia, and Egypt, and in short into all the distant provinces of the
Roman empire. In the countries through which he passed, he
invariably took an interest in the curiosities of nature and art which
came under his observation ; he was a liberal benefactor to many of
the cities he visited, particularly to Athens(i) and Cyzicus,(2) in both
of which places he repaired many of the old temples, and erected
others on a scale of princely magnificence. Hadrian was an enlight-
ened patron of the fine arts, and enriched his own country with
many hundred statues, by transporting them from Greece to Rome :
and it is to the good taste of this Emperor (which caused so many
fine specimens of sculpture to be collected in the splendid villa
he built on the banks of the Tiber)(3) that we are indebted for a
great number of the beautiful statues and busts which adorn this
and other galleries of ancient marbles. Hadrian was buried in the
first instance at Pozzuolo, near Baias, in the villa that was then
1 Pausan. Att. lib. i. c. 18. Dion. Cass. lib. Ixix. c. 16. Spartian. in vita Hadriani,
c. 13.
* Joannis MalaUe Chronograph, lib. xi. p. 364.
3 Tiburtinam villain mire exaedificavit, ita ut in ea et provinciarum et locorum
celeberrima nomina inscriberet: velut Lyceum Academiam, Prytaneum, Canopum,
Poecilen, Tempe vocaret: et ut nihil prastermitteret, etiam Inferos finxit. Spartian.
in vita Hadriani, c. 26.