Hadrian

A brilliant intellectual, an exceptional military leader, a successful ruler of the Roman Empire, the successor of the "best prince" Trajan - this is how Emperor Hadrian entered history. He sharply changed the foreign policy of his predecessor: he ended the aggressive wars and switched to defending the Empire's borders from barbarians, founded cities, built temples and public buildings, and patronized scholars, philosophers, and writers, paying special attention to the development of the Empire's economy. But despite his enlightenment and religious tolerance, he was sometimes not averse to cruelty and unjust persecutions. The biography of this extraordinary person is provided by the author, a Doctor of Historical Sciences, a professor, against the broad background of the political, cultural, and socio-economic life of the Roman Empire at the turn of the 1st and 2nd centuries.