Hadrian gave up conquests on purpose and built walls instead
Most Roman emperors wanted more territory. Hadrian handed back Trajan's gains in Mesopotamia, Armenia and beyond, and poured his energy into defensible frontiers, the most famous being a wall across northern Britain. He also rebuilt the Pantheon, toured nearly every province, and left a reputation as generous, cruel and endlessly curious.
Publius Aelius Hadrianus was born on 24 January 76 at Italica, near modern Seville, a town founded by Italian settlers during the Second Punic War; his family's name came from Hadria in central Italy. His father was a senator, his mother from a senatorial family in Gades, and his father's cousin was the future emperor Trajan. Hadrian remained devoted to his wet nurse Germana, a slave he later freed; her funerary inscription turned up at his villa at Tivoli.
Marriage to Vibia Sabina, Trajan's grandniece, helped his rise, and Trajan's wife Plotina probably backed both the match and his succession in 117. Almost at once he had four prominent senators illegally executed, apparently as threats to his rule, and the Senate never forgave him. Abandoning Trajan's expansion drew further criticism, but Hadrian preferred stable borders and binding the empire's many peoples together.
He governed hands-on, especially where building was involved. Beyond the wall marking Britannia's northern edge, he raised the huge Temple of Venus and Roma, rebuilt the Pantheon, created the Villa Adriana at Tivoli and may have rebuilt the Serapeum in Alexandria. A passionate admirer of Greek culture, he promoted Athens as the empire's cultural capital. After the early death of Antinous, the Greek youth to whom he was intensely attached, he founded a cult in his memory that spread widely. The Bar Kokhba Revolt, which he crushed late in his reign, struck him as a failure of his vision of a unified empire.
His last years brought chronic illness, and his marriage was unhappy and childless. In 138 he adopted Antoninus Pius as heir, on condition that Antoninus in turn adopt Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. Hadrian died that same year at Baiae on 10 July, and Antoninus had him deified over Senate objections. Later historians ranked him among the Five Good Emperors; his own senators found him aloof and authoritarian.
Source: Hadrian
