When Trajan died in 117 CE, the imperial succession went smoothly. This time, to yet another emperor with Spanish family connections, Hadrian. Hadrian has particularly captured the imagination of scholars over the centuries, because of his extraordinary variety of talents and interests. He was a capable administrator and a commander in chief who is best known for the construction Hadrian's Wall in England, which represented almost he furthest northwest point the Roman Empire would control. Only Antoninus Pius, his successor, would have briefly a further reaching such wall. Hadrian had a restless spirit, which caused him to wander the Roman world, consolidating and improving provincial functions everywhere he went. As a serious Hellenophile, Hadrian was initiated into the Greek mystery cults, and helped to revive and reglorify Athens with his constructions. In sculpture, his taste tended to the highly polished, ultra white, gleaming look. Although sculptors with polychromy, with very gated colors, were also very popular with him. He popularized the fashion of male bearded portraits, allegedly due to a birth defect on his chin that he wished to cover up. Hadrian had a wife, Sabina, the grandniece of Trajan, of whom he was not so fond. He also had a male lover. A handsome young boy from Bithynia on the Black Sea, named Antinous, who was apparently the real passion of his life. Images of Antinous, who died very young, supposedly by drowning accidentally in Egypt's Nile River, abounded in the Roman world. After his death, he became worshipped as a god in many areas, but hit portraiture reflects a style that is typically Adriatic. The portraits were often highly polished. And made of fine white marble of which several varieties were available. The face was smooth and idealized, and resembled the classical Greek God, while the hair was thick and bushy and often showed the effects of a bow drill, making it into abundant curls or waves by drilling them. The eyes were now finely and lightly drilled to indicate the inner parts of the eye. This style has been termed Pictorialism, a contrasting of the smooth idealized face and lots of restless hair, and sometimes beard. Hadrian was also an architect of some note. He was particularly fascinated with circles, squares, spheres, and cubes, and he brought these all into play in a magnificent temple to all the Gods, which was later made into a church, and still survives relatively intact today. It is called the Pantheon. And it has been an inspiration to later architects from Palladio to Thomas Jefferson. Originally set into a large, colonnaded courtyard, the Pantheon had three main parts. The front gave the illusion that one was entering a standard Greek temple. Then there was the middle block, which allowed for a transition to the completely curved third part of the building, which contained exedrae, or recesses, in which were images of the gods and goddesses of the Roman Pantheon. The building was covered with a massive dome, which was made by building it first with wooden framework, and then pouring in the concrete using an aggregate of stone that got gradually lighter as the dome went up to its apex. At the top of the dome was an oculus, or an opening, that allowed sunlight to come in and play around the interior of the building and highlight the various images of the gods within. The building also was constructed with little open spaces in the walls, or key chambers as they're called, which allowed the massive amounts of concrete to settle and breathe. At the same time, a large number of unseen, relieving arches were constructed in brick, to channel away the heavy downward thrust of the settling building. The plan for execution must have worked very well, because the structure is still standing after what is closing in on 2,000 years. The back of the building was actually heavily buttressed. By having another structure, large two story building, known as the Basilica of Agrippa, built right up against the main apps. When tourists go to Rome today, the Pantheon Square is one of the main attractions, filled with restaurants and cafe's, although originally it was part of a whole complex of Adriatic buildings just as the Aropocas Argustae had been the place where Augustus left his mark. Join me won't you as we go to Rome for a few moments and pay a little visit to the Pantheon.
