And another thing

Paul Johnson

Wednesday, 1st October 2008

From Hadrian to Gordon: sublime to ridiculous

The ruins of Hadrian’s enormous villa, near Tivoli, have been tidied up and are worth a visit. I was last there a year or two ago with Margaret Thatcher. When I asked her what she thought of it, she said: ‘Well, I think I could have done with something a little smaller.’ Then she added: ‘But of course Denis might have had different ideas.’ My guess is that he would have had it pulled down: ‘Think of the maintenance, old boy!’ It was criticised at the time, notably for its umbrella domes. Trajan’s old architect, Apollodorus, called them ‘pumpkins’. This inflamed Hadrian’s artistic amour-propre, and he promptly had the man slaughtered. Now I am all for taking strong measures against architects. I don’t go so far as the late Bron Waugh, who laid down: ‘All modern architects should be executed, on principle.’ Hadrian should have kept his temper. I suspect he was put up to it by the rent-boy. I am also pretty sure that Apollodorus’s scorn was justified. I myself don’t like Hadrian’s other two ‘masterpieces’, the Pantheon and the Castle Sant’Angelo, which I have drawn many times. Rather on the heavy side, both, like his youth.

Now what I think about Hadrian is this: why did he do it, this endless ruling and administering, this perpetual travelling to inspect, rebuke, reward and punish? He obviously took a lot of trouble over his villa. But he cannot have spent much time there. Too busy ruling, or rather peregrinating. If Gibbon is right and he did the whole thing on foot, he was one of the great pedestrians of the ancient world. And all for duty, not pleasure. Cui bono? Accounts show that Hadrian grew more unpopular as he got older. Did he know this? Presumably. Did he not ever think: why am I doing this? What is the point of going on being emperor, sweating away at the job until I drop? What is it all for?