Hadrian: The Emperor Who Gave Back an Empire and Built a Wall Across Britain | The Caesars Ep. 17

Visuals are AI-generated reconstructions, except the real images credited below. 122 CE. On a ridge in the far north of Britain, a Roman emperor orders a wall: eighty Roman miles from sea to sea. Hadrian gave back Trajan's eastern conquests, walked his empire bareheaded from the German snows to the Egyptian sun, rebuilt the Pantheon, lost Antinous in the Nile, put down the Bar Kokhba revolt in Judea, and died so unpopular that the Senate nearly refused to honour him. Told with the real busts, coins, ruins and inscriptions that survive. The Caesars · Season 3: The Five Good Emperors · Episode 17 (Hadrian) Watch the whole series in order: The Caesars playlist on this channel. ◀ Previous: Ep. 16 — Trajan, Part 2 (see the channel) Next ▶ Ep. 18 — Antoninus Pius (see the channel) Chapters 0:00 Cold open: The Wall (122 CE) 0:45 The Unwanted Heir 1:26 The Emperor Who Walked 1:47 The Builder 2:15 Antinous 2:48 Judea 4:12 Little Soul Disputed points are marked on screen with their ancient source. The Historia Augusta is our main source for Hadrian's life, but it is not always reliable; Cassius Dio (books 69–70) survives only in a later summary. How Antinous died is uncertain, and the ancient accounts disagree. Chapter 5 follows both records: Cassius Dio for the Roman side, and the Mishnah (Taanit 4:6), which remembers the fall of Betar on the Ninth of Av. The figure of 580,000 killed in the Bar Kokhba revolt is Cassius Dio's; modern historians debate it. When the ban on circumcision came is also debated. Sources Historia Augusta, Life of Hadrian Cassius Dio, Roman History 68–70 Eutropius, Breviarium 8 Mishnah, Taanit 4:6 Further reading: A. R. Birley, Hadrian: The Restless Emperor (1997). Real images (Wikimedia Commons; author, license) Hadrian's Wall on Housesteads Crags - 06 (Benjamin Smith, CC BY-SA 4.0); Bronze head of Hadrian found in the River Thames in London (FollowingHadrian, CC BY-SA 4.0); Bust Hadrian Musei Capitolini MC817 (Marie-Lan Nguyen, Public domain); Hadrian's Wall and Housesteads Roman Fort aerial (Lieven Smits, CC BY-SA 4.0); Interior oculus of the Rome Pantheon (T. Le Berre, CC BY-SA 4.0); Pantheon — Pediment and Inscriptions (14625355770) (Amphipolis, CC BY-SA 2.0); Villa Adriana Canopus (AlMare, CC BY-SA 2.5); Antinous. Musée Delphes. Grèce (Jebulon, CC0); Hadrian founder Aelia Capitolina (CNG, CC BY-SA 2.5); Barkokhba-silver-tetradrachm (CNG, CC BY-SA 3.0); Castel Sant'Angelo at dusk, Rome, Italy (Jebulon, CC0). Narration: AI voice. Music and sound effects: AI-generated. #Hadrian #TheCaesars #AncientRome #RomanEmpire #History More from Rendlow 🎧 Our podcast, Unto the Land: https://open.spotify.com/show/3znsIq3... ▶ Unto the Land on YouTube:    • Unto the Land   ▶ Rendlow, the company channel:    / @rendlow   ▶ AI Flash Visions:    / @aiflashvisions   🌐 https://rendlow.com · All links: https://linktr.ee/rendlow 💬 Talk about this episode with other viewers: https://rendlow.com/community/8sV2vr8...