Hadrian, Cont...

In my previous blog post before thanksgiving (I hope you all had your fair share of family and good food!) I mentioned that Hadrian had deviated from past emperors in one important manner. Those that had gone before him, those that had to make military decisions, had always made expansion of the empire the overriding theme.

When Hadrian came to power, just as had happened in the past, those that had no love for the empire could not resist probing for weaknesses during the uncertainty that always seemed to be evident whenever an emperor passed away. Trajan during his reign had gone on a military campaign and brought three new provinces into the empire: Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria. These nations seized the opportunity and rose in revolt, Palestine was flirting with rebellion, and both Egypt and Britain had internal issues.

Hadrian considered his options and made two very difficult decisions. The first was to relinquish control of those provinces that Trajan had conquered while trying to save as much "honor" as they could. The second decision was even more enormous - he decided to stop the expansion policies of his predecessors and just maintain the current borders.

Both of these decisions were courageous ones for the new emperor. He had made a clean split from the past and what many in the empire was the normal course of business. Would those that opposed him be able to take advantage of these actions and wrest power back? Head to the store or library and find out for yourselves!



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