Memoirs of Hadrian
53 pages • 1-hour read
Marguerite YourcenarMemoirs of Hadrian
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Themes
Content warning: This section of the guide contains reference to illness or death.
Confronting Mortality and Human Nature
One of the tensions in the book is the disconnect that Hadrian experiences between his status as an emperor with absolute power that feels god-like, and the reality of his mortality and physical limitations. When reckoning with the subject of mortality, Hadrian often contemplates human nature, drawing conclusions about existence as a whole and his own part within it.
The novel is bookended with the ill and aged Hadrian reflecting, from a place of physical infirmity, on the ways his body has not complied with or supported his will. As he reports to Mark on the visit of his physician, which lowers him from imperial status to the indignity of physical frailty, “It is difficult to remain an emperor in presence of a physician, and difficult even to keep one’s essential quality as man” (3-4). Hadrian’s later curiosity about the exact placement of the soul within the body suggests that he sees the intellect and consciousness as an essence constrained by the physical limitations of illness and death. However, this curiosity is spurious: Even though he is an emperor and expects to be deified after his death, near the end of his life, Hadrian has no faith that his soul will live on in an afterlife. In periods of health and vigor, in the flush of love for Antinous, and in the exercise of imperial authority, Hadrian feels godlike, surpassing the boundaries of power and perception allotted to mortals. However, eventually, he is reduced to patiently enduring physical suffering: At the end of his life, immortality and divinity are merely imaginative exercises. His various experiments with different superstitious or magical practices and his effort to turn Antinous into a god suggest that Hadrian’s perceives divinity as little more than a complement to human efforts, enlarging mortal experience rather than offering an entirely different mode of existence.
While he favors and enjoys his existence on earth—his philosophies can be described as humanism—Hadrian harbors no ideals about human nature. He sees his fellow beings as predictably flawed and selfish in ways he can manipulate:
In most men I have found little consistency in adhering to the good, but no steadier adherence to evil; their mistrust and indifference, usually more or less hostile, gave way almost too soon, almost in shame, changing too readily into gratitude and respect, which in turn were equally short-lived; even their selfishness could be bent to useful ends (42).
Later, as emperor, he maintains that there is a trace of good in each person, beneath the instinct for self-preservation. This is reason enough for him to use his authority to create laws that attempt to reduce suffering and allow each man as much liberty as possible over his own actions. It is this attempt to live well that Hadrian implicitly believes is the purpose of human life; the only real immortality is a lasting image, book, or memory that can offer proof of one’s life on earth.
Determining Legitimate Bases of Power and Authority
Hadrian, as a character, never doubts his right to be in a position of authority. He questions neither the validity of his decisions nor the extent of his near absolute power as emperor. Despite his interest in the culture of Greek antiquity, Hadrian never turns his attention to the democratic governance for which Athens was famous. Likewise, though the Roman Senate retains vestiges of its function as a governing body, Hadrian sees it as his sole responsibility to govern the empire, make laws he finds appropriate, correct the problems and injustices he has observed, and appoint civil servants he chooses. He assumes that the values to which he personally adheres will be beneficial for all. He accepts as a given that the custom of imperial succession is the appropriate form of power transfer. For Hadrian, custom and tradition are sound bases for authority over others.
Through his own example, however, Hadrian models rule as a public service. He identifies service as an ideal during his time with the military and in the various government posts he is assigned. Service likewise is one reason he does not dispute over Trajan’s ambitions to extend the borders of the Roman provinces into the east; Hadrian sees it as his duty to support his emperor, and he never questions Trajan’s authority, just as he never questions Plotina about how the documents declaring him as Trajan’s successor came to be. Hadrian only judges the outcome of such decisions, for instance reflecting negatively on the rule of emperors less committed to service, like Nero. Even in times of personal affliction, when Hadrian is ill or emerging from the shock and grief over Antinous’s death, Hadrian acknowledges his responsibility to keep the imperial administration running. This is how Hadrian justifies his own fitness and right to rule.
In assigning authority to others, Hadrian likewise believes that service should be the ideal, and he expresses contempt for those officials who use their role for personal enrichment. Notably, Hadrian as a ruler adheres to ideals of fairness; he passes laws to limit or prohibit brutality or exploitation of less powerful members of society, like enslaved people and women, and he institutes reforms where sees a need to correct great inequities. But at the same time, he never admits to errors of judgment and rarely apologizes for his actions, which he is always able to justify in some manner. In presenting the life of a man in a position of absolute power, who never doubts that he has made judicial use of it, Yourcenar raises questions around how bases of power are acquired and legitimized, how authority is exercised, and the justification for the consequences of such exercise.
Constructing Memory and Legacy
In a memoir, even a fictional one, the role of memory in shaping the meaning of a human life and organizing identity is an implicit concern. Yourcenar presents Hadrian’s mature memory recollection as a coherent operation that unfolds within a chronological framework and provides an arc of character evolution. Hadrian views the legacy he leaves Rome and the imperial succession as an objective summation, but the novel makes clear that his memoir is a carefully constructed narrative that reveals his values, fears, and fundamental beliefs.
Yourcenar reduces the inherent unreliability of a first-person narrator by presenting her protagonist as a self-aware individual prone to rational thought and common sense. Readers do not doubt the integrity of his memories and accept them as a matter-of-fact chronicle. Moreover, Hadrian skips over early life, where recollection could be challenged, and sticks to relating events with believable details. This adds to the impression that his memories directly and objectively portray the incidents of the plot.
Above all, Hadrian examines his memories for self-evaluation; while he does not often reflect on what events taught him, he does see each memory—each government post, each journey, each love affair—as providing useful knowledge about himself and the world. This information then shapes his opinions, his purposes, and his ambitions. His reflection illustrates how humans intuitively seek to make broader sense of their experience, either as information to guide future actions or to justify choices they made. Secondarily, Hadrian posits his memoirs as an educational experience for his young heir, Marcus Aurelius, suggesting Marcus glean lessons from Hadrian’s hopes, interests, disappointments, and loves. This dual purpose for Hadrian’s memoir reveals Hadrian as a character with a cohesive and consistent sense of identity.
The project of constructing memory and legacy shows most vividly in Hadrian’s efforts to establish and disseminate the cult of Antinous. Memorializing the beloved youth is a direct effort to create meaning, both demonstrating what Antinous meant to Hadrian personally and creating an image that will hold relevance for others. However, the result shows how any single symbol becomes open to interpretation. The worship of Antinous takes many forms around the empire, escaping Hadrian’s ability to control or direct it. Based on this example, Hadrian is even more dedicated to controlling his own legacy, through tactics like building his own mausoleum, arranging his successors for two generations, and instating reforms of law like the Perpetual Edict. Even then, he acknowledges that change is inevitable and his reach through time is necessarily limited.
By labeling the work a memoir, Yourcenar undertakes the examination of a historical life not through the lens of accomplishment but as a project of defining a character realized and a purpose fulfilled, actions which to which construction of memory and defining of legacy contribute.
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