“I strive to retrace my life to find in it some plan, following a vein of lead, or of gold, or the course of some subterranean stream, but such devices are only tricks of perspective in the memory.”

Hadrian’s reflections in the first part of the book address the process of Constructing Memory and Legacy as he reflects on how to find a narrative throughline for his life. He uses images of mining and navigation to represent the work of self-examination.

“It is in Latin that I have administered the empire; my epitaph will be carved in Latin on the walls of my mausoleum beside the Tiber; but it is in Greek that I shall have thought and lived.”

In reflecting on his life and character, Hadrian tries to reconcile his position of eminence in the Roman world with the way he identifies with Greek culture. Throughout the novel, Rome is ascribed the virtues of discipline and governance, while Greece is attributed the domains of philosophy, art, and beauty.

“It is not that I despise men. If I did I should have no right, and no reason, to try to govern.”

Hadrian’s understanding of, and curiosity about, human nature surfaces often. He locates human experience at the center of existence, as befits the philosophy of humanism, which has its roots in the ancient West. Because this perspective is also a modern one, Yourcenar gives her protagonist views that make him legible as a man of his time but also retable for contemporary readers.

“I nevertheless constrained myself to the utmost politeness toward all these folk, diverse as they were. […] I walked a tightrope, and could have used lessons not only from an actor, but from an acrobat.”

As Hadrian reflects on his efforts to cultivate an acceptable reputation and popularity as heir presumptive, his uses metaphors of performance that stress the necessity of acting and agility in both stagecraft and politics. Hadrian values his reputation and is sensitive about how others perceive him—vulnerabilities that make him a dimensional character.

“I made current an austerity which I practiced myself, inventing the cult of the Imperial Discipline, which later I succeeded in extending throughout the army.”

For all his love of beauty and sensuality, Hadrian also prides himself on his rational behavior and self-discipline. Instituting the Imperial Discipline is his way of imposing his personal values on the empire, entwining his character with his rule and legacy. Since Hadrian believes himself to be divinely destined to reign, when Determining Legitimate Bases of Power and Authority, he assumes as a given that his ideals should become those of his subjects.

“Impoverished Greece lived on in an atmosphere of pensive grace, with a kind of lucid subtlety and sober delight.”

The personification of the Greek provinces as a mature and dignified elder in comparison to the Roman Empire’s comparatively youthful vigor sustains the contrast between the two empires, as Hadrian attempts to position Rome as an inheritor of Greek culture.

“It must be admitted that the end […] was of more concern to me than the means; the essential is that the man invested with power should have proved thereafter that he deserved to wield it.”

Hadrian justifies and dismisses Plotina’s machinations to have him acknowledged as Trajan’s rightful successor and adopted son. This willful ignorance demonstrates Hadrian’s implicit belief that he is a worthy heir, and his reluctance to question the traditional ways of determining legitimate bases of power and authority.

“I knew that good like bad becomes a routine, that the temporary tends to endure, that what is external permeates to the inside, and that the mask, given time, comes to be the face itself.”

This reflection provides an example of the philosophizing that Hadrian as a narrator engages in throughout the novel, particularly when he discusses human nature and his own motives and ambitions as a character.

“For the moment I had enough to do to become, or merely to be, Hadrian to the utmost.”

In his thoughts about being and becoming in the first days of his reign, Hadrian shows an early preoccupation with constructing memory and legacy, which is the underlying strategy for the narrative drive of the memoir.

“I was determined that even the most wretched, from the slaves who clean the city sewers to the famished barbarians who hover along the frontiers, should have an interest in seeing Rome endure.”

Hadrian’s interest in lessening affliction where he can demonstrates his support of humanist philosophies, as well as his interest as a ruler in establishing stability and prosperity throughout his realm. Here, “Rome” stands not only for the empire but for an ideal of civilization—an idea he returns to and develops throughout the memoir.

“I desired that the might and majesty of the Roman Peace should extend to all, insensibly present like the music of the revolving skies.”

Hadrian’s analogy alludes to the ancient Greek philosophy’s concept of the music of the spheres, or the belief that the movement of celestial bodies created melodies that humans cannot perceive but that are nonetheless ever-present. This image of universal harmony emphasizes the Pax Romana as a benevolent and far-reaching system.

“After such long reflection, and so many experiments, some of them reprehensible, I still know nothing of what goes on behind death’s dark curtain.”

The novel’s framing narrative is that of a memoir, in which an ill and aging Hadrian reflects on his life. This is why contemplations on the nature of death are an ongoing motif. Hadian hints in other places that his curiosity about death has led him to violate conventions of morality, which add an element of suspense, as he never describes these experiments in detail.

“When I think back on these years I seem to return to the Age of Gold.”

The Age of Gold alludes to a theory established by the ancient Greek poet Hesiod that human civilization developed in definable periods; the earliest, most prosperous, and most harmonious of these epochs is compared to the most valuable of metals, gold. Hadrian uses this analogy to describe his happiness during the years that Antinous is his companion.

“That was truly an Olympian height in my life. All was there, the golden fringe of cloud, the eagles, and the cupbearer of immortality.”

The morning Hadrian watches the sun rise over the Ionian Sea from the top of Mount Aetna becomes one of several in which he compares himself to Zeus, the chief of the Olympian gods. The eagle is Zeus’s symbol; and among Zeus’s many fabled lovers is his favorite, the young male cupbearer Ganymede. Hadrian sustains the analogy by suggesting that Antinous is his own Ganymede.

“The Olympian Zeus, Master of All, Saviour of the World—all toppled together, and there was only a man with greying hair sobbing on the deck of a boat.”

Hadrian’s self-comparison with Zeus is poignantly shattered when Hadrian learns of the death of Antinous. His pain is described as the toppling of his godhood, returning him to the world where Confronting Mortality and Human Nature is no longer far from his thoughts.

“Had he hoped to protect me by such as sacrifice he must have deemed himself unloved indeed not to have realized that the worst of ills would be to lose him.”

Yourcenar resolves a historical mystery around the death of Antinous by portraying his choice of death by suicide as ritual self-sacrifice, intended to benefit Hadrian magically. Hadrian contemplates now and again the impossibility of truly knowing another being; his bafflement over why Antinous would do such a thing exemplifies this.

“It would take only a few wars, and the misery that follows them, or a single period of brutality or savagery under a few bad rulers to destroy forever the ideas passed down with the help of these frail objects in fiber and ink.”

Speaking to the theme of constructing memory and legacy, Hadrian is frequently concerned in his later years about whether the Roman Empire will endure in the way he wishes. In this passage, the fragility of books as repositories for human knowledge represents how easily civilizations can be disrupted. This adds a thread of dramatic irony, as the reader knows that the historical Western Roman Empire fell and was replaced by tribal nations, the very ones Hadrian considers savage barbarians.

“Sometimes it seemed to me that I was the only one struggling to keep his eyes wholly open.”

Hadrian’s efforts to keep a clear-eyed perspective, even in his darkest periods of grieving Antinous, demonstrate the attribute of his character that disdains to be loyal or exclusive to any one system or dogma. The ideal of independence here also speaks to the isolating effects of power, as Hadrian occasionally feels like “the only one” due to his position.

“No people but Israel has the arrogance to confine truth wholly within the narrow limits of a single conception of the divine, thereby insulting the manifold nature of the Deity, who contains all; no other god has inspired his worshipers with disdain and hatred for those who pray at different altars.”

Hadrian’s appreciation for the cosmopolitan nature of his empire and his belief in the virtues of assimilation make him unable to understand or approve of Jewish belief. This foreshadows his response to the later rebellion in Judea, which he sees as one of the defeats of his reign.

“I admitted that it was indeed vain to hope for an eternity for Athens and for Rome which is accorded neither to objects nor men, and which the wisest among us deny even to the gods.”

Returning to the theme of immortality, and in contrast with his earlier perceptions of himself as a god, Hadrian in later sections of the book has a gloomier outlook about whether civilizations can endure. Yourcenar relies on the dramatic irony of readers being familiar with history in a way Hadrian cannot be. His insight is rendered as if he is correctly predicting the fall of his empire two centuries hence; moreover, the darker tone also reflects the progression of his illness and his character arc.

“Only two things of importance awaited me in Rome: one was the choice of my successor, of interest to the whole empire; the other was my death, of concern to me alone.”

Hadrian presents his future actions as bifurcated into personal trials and affairs of state; however, the simplification of these enormous efforts into the description “two things” reflects Hadrian’s resignation as he nears death. His interest in establishing the succession reflects his need for continuity and stability as well as his concerns about legacy.

“But the gods do not rise; they rise neither to warn us nor to protect us, nor to recompense nor to punish.”

This bitter reflection on the uselessness of the gods contrasts earlier passages in which Hadrian imagined he was godlike himself. This change of perspective supports the darkening tone and his feelings of helplessness around the progression of his illness.

“It seems to me that existence has nothing more to offer: I am not sure, however, that I have not something more to learn from it.”

In another contrast between earlier and later sections of the book, Hadrian’s humility in the face of his own mortality undercuts the assurance of his younger self. His submission to die by natural causes rather than by suicide is a capitulation; he has transformed from a man who has been in a position of absolute authority for two decades into one willing to compromise for the wishes of those around him.