Talk:Hadrian

His estate
At Hadrian's villa in Tivoli(?)

So far, 15 steps, each 27 feet wide, have been identified and archaeologists did not rule out uncovering more.

''Archaeologists who have been digging for more than a year at the villa of Roman Emperor Hadrian in Tivoli have unearthed a monumental staircase, a statue of an athlete and what appears to be a headless sphinx. ''

There is no evidence Hadrian stated in his autobiography that he was born in Rome.

 * This is a conjecture of the Wikipedia article, based on a faulty reading of the 'Augustan History' biography of Hadrian, purportedly written by one Aelius Spartianus.
 * I refer to the actual text of the biography.
 * http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/Hadrian/1*.html
 * In the opening paragraph of the the biography, only one reference is made to claims Hadrian made himself in his autobiography:
 * "The original home of the family of the Emperor Hadrian was Picenum, the later, Spain; for Hadrian himself relates in his autobiography that his forefathers came from Hadria, but settled at Italica in the time of the Scipios."
 * However, the mention of Hadrian's birth in Rome is an inference of the Augustan History biographer:
 * "Hadrian was born in Rome on the ninth day before the Kalends of February in the seventh consulship of Vespasian and the fifth of Titus."
 * Nevertheless, the footnote referring to this claim in the English translation (Loeb Classical Library) says:
 * "This is, of course, a fiction, and the biography contradicts itself, for Italica is clearly the patria referred to in c. ii.1 and 2, and c. xix.1."
 * As for the reference to Hadrian's own autobiography, the footnote says:
 * "For the Autobiography of Hadrian, now lost, cf. c. xvi. It seems to have been written toward the close of his life, and, to judge from scanty citations from it, its purpose was to contradict current statements about himself which he considered derogatory to his reputation and to present him in a favourable light to posterity."
 * Jacob Davidson

Name and title
I have deleted a weird sentence, but the page was updated before I could explain what I had done:

Deleted sentence:

"In Latin, the full imperial title of Hadrian was also rendered as Tito Ael[io] Hadriano, just as it appears in ancient epigraphic records."

Commentary:

The "full imperial title" is not given of any emperor, only part of a name. Moreover, this is not Hadrian (whose praenomen was Publius) but Antoninus Pius whose praenomen was Titus and whose full imperial name was (CIL III 116 = 6639): [Imp(eratori) Caes(ari)] Tito Ael(io) Hadriano Antonino Aug(usto) Pio p(atri) p(atriae) pontiflici) augur(i) d(ecreto) d(ecurionum)

As this is a dedicatio to the emperor the names and titles are in the dative. They should be rendered in the nominative in an English translation of the Latin text!!!

The historicity of Hadrian's sexuality
It is somewhat anachronistic to categorise Hadrian under the contemporary socio-political heading of "LGBT". It's impossible to know whether these categories would align with Hadrian's own understanding of his sexuality and I wonder to what extent it might be more accurate to create a new category along the lines of "Homosexuality/bisexuality in the ancient world" or something similar. There are issues with this too but it would perhaps feel less like retrospective recruitment. Perhaps a more experienced Wikipedian with the necessary academic understanding might consider this? Either way, if "LGBT" is retained, it's applied unevenly to ancient world pages. For example, Plato is not listed in that category. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C6:1403:B801:99DA:914D:1566:454B (talk) 23:11, 30 November 2022 (UTC)


 * The article does not provide any sourced information on the LGBT claim, and the categories must be removed. (I remember I removed them a few years ago, but apparently some of them were restored). Ymblanter (talk) 17:21, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
 * If the "LGBT Roman Emperors" category continues to exist, I find it difficult to see how Hadrian can reasonably be excluded from it. This page and the Antinous page both have references to the fact that they were lovers and it is common to talk about Hadrian as gay/homosexual/LGBT in contemporary media (e.g. ) and scholarship (e.g. R. B. Parkinson, A Little Gay History 2013; Danziger & Purcell, Hadrian's Empire, 2006 "Like his predecessor Trajan, Hadrian's orientation seems to have been exclusively homosexual"). I'm not aware of any current scholarship that disputes this. The attention paid to this in contemporary media means that it is probably a "defining" characteristic. Obviously, "LGBT" is a modern term, but any discussion of the appropriateness of using it to categorise ancient people should happen elsewhere (CfD or relevant wikiprojects), not here. 21:28, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Right now, the statement is not sourced. Why do not you source it and then you can add the category.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:34, 28 December 2022 (UTC)