newsEmperor Hadrian’s first century Roman Wonder Wall
Part of the 73 mile-long wall that was build by Emperor Hadrian to protect and mark the end of the Roman Empire in England (Picture: Trevor Grundy)
Books help when it comes to learning about how the Romans, their allies and slaves, ran such a large part of England so ruthlessly and so well between the time of Julius Caesar’s visits to our then little-known island in BC55 – 54 and the effective start of Roman rule in AD 43 under Emperor Claudius and the departure of the legions to defend a broken and soon to fall Rome to barbarian invaders in AD 411.
But books and films are no substitute for a well-informed guide who is able to introduce the history-hungry to our country’s most important sites.
So, three cheers for Kevin Robson who has an easy but extremely well-informed way of making life in English parts of the Roman Empire live again.
Kevin Robson – A tour leader with an infectious desire to spread knowledge about Roman life in Northumberland.(Picture: Trevor Grundy)
Kevin was leader of the tour which started at Cawfield Quarry, close to Hexham in Northumberland on June 24.
During visits to the Vindolanda archaeological site –probably the best Roman site in the western world – and Housesteads Roman Fort (and then along parts of the 73 miles long Wall named after Emperor Hadrian) Kevin answered questions in a way that showed how deeply he has studied his subject which is the history of Rome in Northumberland during the reign of Emperor Hadrian (AD117 until his death in AD138).
Kevin runs a Northumberland-based company, Ancient Britain, with his wife, Sara, a company which specialises in guided tours and bushcraft.
Visitors from Africa and various Commonwealth countries often ask me* to recommend companies and guides who are able to succinctly explain British history to them on their visits to what used to be called “the Mother Country.”
I cannot praise Kevin and Sara Robson too highly.
*Trevor Grundy is a life member of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and a member of the Commonwealth Journalists Association (CJA).
The art of any good teacher – or guide – is to leave students (visitors) hungry to know more.
For a first steps to understanding this great military leader, politician, scholar and builder what about a slim volume by Thorsten Opper who specialises in Greek and Roman sculptures?
Its publication coincided with a British Museum exhibition on the life and times of Emperor Hadrian in 2008 and Opper explains how Hadrian’s love for Greek culture was just as strong as his love for Greek boys.
To ordinary Romans, it mattered little if a leader was straight, or gay, as long as he delivered the goods – military victories outside Italy, bread and circuses in Rome.
Emperor Hadrian could do both brilliantly.
This great emperor’s name became associated with one individual, Antinous.
Emperor Hadrian and his Greek teenage lover, Antinous
When this handsome teenager drowned in mysterious circumstances in the River Nile in October AD130 Hadrian was consumed by grief. He founded a new city, Antinoupolis, close to the spot where his Greek lover died.
Everyone on the June 24 tour of Hadrian’s Wall (73 miles or 80 Roman miles) knew that Hadrian was a gay man.
Not so familiar was how Hadrian alienated so many Jews after banning circumcision and placing idols in Jewish holy places in Jerusalem.
Some Jewish observers in 2008 felt that Hadrian’s show of cruelty against Jewish ‘rebels’ led by Simon Bar Kochba made him an inappropriate subject for an exhibition at Britain’s foremost museum..
According to Thorsten Opper, great efforts were made to explore the many contradictions in Hadrian’s personality.Hadrian was a cultured intellectual and also a hard military man – a very tough one.
Opper explained that the main reason for the Jewish rebellion breaking out in BC 132 was Hadrian’s construction plans for Rome’s New Jerusalem.
In AD 130, on his grand tour of the eastern part of the Roman Empire, Hadrian visited the devastated city of Jerusalem, accompanied by his young lover Antinous.
He decided he would re-build the city after its destruction at the end of the First Roman-Jewish War of AD 66-73. as a major Roman colony, making it clear to Jews that Rome would not allow them to re-build their Temple.
Hadrian named it Aelia Capitolina (his own family name) and placed a statue of himself in the Holy of Holies.
In AD 135 the Jewish uprising was crushed.
Bar Kochba and his soldiers were massacred when the fortress at Betha fell after a siege of six days. During that terrible war, some 585,000 Jews were killed and almost 1,000 villages burnt.
In the following years, Hadrian banned Torah study and Sabbath observance and he ordered the execution of an unknown number of Jewish scholars.
The prominent Jewish military historian Martin Sugarman said in a letter published in The Times on July 22, 2008 that those attending the Hadrian exhibition at the British Museum should remember that in the worldwide Jewish community that Roman emperor is reviled as one of the worst persecutors, “perhaps more so than Hitler.”
Sugarman added: “So when the public visit the exhibition or see Hadrian’s Wall they should spare a thought for the fact that this emperor above all was the root cause of Jewish homelessness, persecution and the diaspora, of un-told horrific suffering and anti-Semitism in the longest hatred of all, over 2,000 years.”