Emperor Hadrian Strutting on the stage

Jul 17th 2008 From The Economist print edition Hadrian: 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 exploration of the life, love and legacy of Romes most enigmatic Emperor. He is bearded with carefully coiffed curly hair, and that 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 museum was 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 de thtre. 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 of peace 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 is on 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 orator; in full Roman army uniform, with his foot on the neck of a humbled barbarian, he is the protector of his people; standing naked and slim-hipped, he is a god, like Mars. Hadrian belonged to an upwardly mobile Spanish landowning elite that had grown rich selling olive oil. In Rome he was a provincial, and fun was made of his rustic accent. He shrewdly understood the limits of power, was ruthless in the exercise of it and cynical enough to disarm critics early in his regime by giving citizens a tax holiday. But when the second Jewish revolt began in 132AD he suppressed it with a fury that Mr Opper describes as a slow extermination campaign. Judea was expunged from the maps, and renamed Syria-Palestina. Quite why he ordered his great wall to be built on Englands border with Scotland is uncertain, but Mr Oppers gut feeling is that it was to divide and rule the revolting northern tribes. He had a fine eye for monumental architecture. He commissioned the Pantheon, and a model of it is displayed directly under Sydney Smirkes glorious dome above the British Museums Reading Room (which is two feet or 0.6 metres smaller in diameter than the Roman masterpiece). His own mausoleum was by the banks of the Tiber, the Castel Sant Angelo. His lover was Antinous, a handsome young Greek who appealed to the emperors Hellenophilia. Mr Oppers catalogue tells us that what caused comment among his contemporaries was not that Hadrian was gay, but that he insisted that Antinous be given the status of a god after his death in the Nile in 130AD. One of many statues of Antinoushere as the Egyptian god Osirisstands proudly outside the entrance to the exhibition. Hadrian himself died at 62, perhaps of coronary heart disease (a condition sometimes indicated by a crease in the earlobe). He had not created the role of emperor, but no one played it better. El legado de Adriano BRITISH MUSEUM 17-07-2008 El Pais Vdeo de la British Museum sobre la exposicin