Hadrian's World: Leadership Lessons from a Roman Emperor

A Bogliasco Foundation Special Event
A talk by Barry Strauss, 2016 Bogliasco Fellow
Strauss, an author, military historian, and professor of History and Classics at Cornell University, speaks about the lessons today's leaders can take from the Roman emperor Hadrian's policies and strategy.
Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò
New York University
October 10, 2017

[@ericsarnoski6278]

After all the personal accolades the gist of the lecture begins at 7:30. It is a good lecture.

[@stephenparker4083]

Loved Margeurite Youcenar’s novel “Memoirs of Hadrian.” Helped get inside Hadrian’s skin. Even got me back into collecting ancient coins.

[@bananensocke]

Thank you for sharing! Hadrian is sorta my favorite. That was really informativ, interesting, clever and refreshing told. All in all - well done! Enjoyed it very much.

[@jimmypockets2337]

He built a canny wall near my home

[@KnownNiche1999]

JVDEA DELENDA EST (c) Hadrian, the Chad Emperor

[@norseca542]

another dovah chad, i love you anon

[@Gabsboy123]

Dude didn't finish the job though

[@the_mad_bear3683]

@@Gabsboy123he clubbed em so hard they were gone for nearly 2000 years

[@BardachKOT]

"Gone" lol learn history fucks

[@Pan_Z]

*IVDEA. Roman Latin lacked a J letter

[@stconstable]

I've been to Rome and visited the Pantheon! Amazing!

[@Senecamarcus]

Good video but misleading title. There’s nothing about leadership or insights that you can use to get an edge. If you want to know more about Hadrian get the book Hadrian Memoirs by Marguerite Yourcenar!

[@DarkSolace33]

Fantastic lecture.

[@neonczolgosz3245]

Very interesting and entertaining. Thank you.

[@lio48]

I don’t think Antinous is messed up in the head. I hate that when researchers do research on Hadrian they neglect the tragic beauty of that story of the boy who knew Hadrian wouldn’t let him leave but in time he would be forced out, with I’m pretty sure not much to his name but as a mistress to the emperor. In that time, I feel like he made a sacrifice that I honestly think is very sad but beautiful in away. Antinous chose his fate without allowing others(including Hadrian) to chose it for him. I do think Hadrian made him out to believe he was a jewel to the world and from readings, it sounds like he was. He probably believed that he was the jewel to change the fate of Hadrian and the flooding Nile. He deserves to be recognized of being brave enough to take a risk and believe in something bigger then him and even if it wasn’t an accident , it’s kind of strange how things it all somehow worked out 😊 I love the story of the ruler Hadrian and his beautiful god Antinous. May their love live on and be shared with the world!

[@wow5heyy]

I've always read the events in exactly the same way. Glad to see this perspective echoed in your comment!

[@isabelalina]

Although Antinous did not add to Hadrian's life & health (and, as Yourcenar has put it, even added to the emperor's demise in a way, because of sorrow), he has added to Hadrian's immortality: as Fernando Pessoa (a Portuguese poet) wrote beautifully about Hadrian, "a thousand unborn eyes weep with his misery". So we do! :)

[@jaybee9269]

Or, he accidentally drowned. Or, he was tired of being the imperial favorite…but really, favorite victim. No one knows. He should still have his constellation though. You don’t unconstellate a boy.

[@michae2425]

great conference.

[@isabelalina]

I do not understand how can Hadrian be called "murderous"? I dont read much about the other emperors, but really! It was Rome, and it was Romans. He had to act quickly, or the others would have taken the emperorship from him --- and really!, he seems to have really fought for that. Why would he go like: OK, the first to arrive in Rome gets the crown! Come on. As for the last two killings --- that Fuscus wanted a coup, he tried to murder Hadrian!!! What do you when someone called Fuscus tries to be Emperor when you are in a terrible bad mood, slowly dying, at 62? You kill him. He was not a murderer. He was balancing the powers. That was a very difficult position to be sweet. Would'nt you!!

[@GoldenOne2422]

The unfortunate part of modern historians, and maybe this was the same then, is applying current world standards to those who lived in times completely different from our own. Kind of sad really as it taints history in my opinion

[@_greenrunner_]

He genocided half a million jews and decimated their culture and existence for thousands of years.

[@Infected_Apple]

True enough those senators in the beginning of his emperorship were also said to conspire to murder him. Augustus purged almost the entire senate and anyone who got in his way and most emperors after him weren't that much more lenient.

[@MrRooibos123]

Hadrian had an epic villa

[@Nighthawk799]

Really really good lecture.Roman emperors were really special people and some were of great personality. I'd like to have a similar lecture on Augustus.

[@cengizcayan4683]

Teşekkürler

[@martind349]

👍 Lecture and presenter

[@nieshaz77]

Hadrian's sister. Was her name Adrianna? Just wondering. Trying to learn of his relatives. Thank you for this.

[@isabelalina]

paulina

[@simonelliott2030]

I wonder what he saw in Marcus Aurelius to name him his successer if Marcus was still a child at the time of proclaiming him..surely there would have been a multitude of young eligible men maybe in there early twenty's to choose as his successer..!! Was it a lot to do with maybe some kind of family or political ties that pushed him a lot towards Marcus..!!

[@shaneowen4177]

Mike Duncans podcast on the history of Rome is better in my view but a good presentation nevertheless, thank you

[@brucekraus5777]

Why won't the camera person simply leave the room and stop distracting from the lecture?

[@lucianopavarotti2843]

Why do ALL American events begin with at least two introducers? Everybody seems greedy for airtime.

[@robertalpy9422]

Augustus does not mean reverend as it's understood today. Perhaps a better translation is revered one.

[@histguy101]

That's also what reverend means

[@robertalpy9422]

@@histguy101 In modern usage reverend has religious connotations rather than political or social ones. Augustus was not a religious title like Pontifex Maximus but a civil one like pater patria.

[@jamesg19912011]

Someone needs to fire the camera man for the next one aha

[@roccodelauro4345]

Anyone want to hit me with the cliffnotes?

[@alvar534]

One of the four roman emperors spain gave to rome

[@patjohn775]

I thought it was a Roman military colony he came from. If you are born on a US military base in Spain to US parents you are just an American in my eyes. You aren’t Spanish

[@alvar534]

@@patjohn775 trajan, hadrian and many others were truly spanish indigenous, members of old spanish families, and not just romans comissioned in spain. A so-called spanish party had developed over centuries (powerful merchants, politicians, philosophers as séneca, writers as lucan,columela, tertulian etc, all of them genuine spaniards), that made it possible to reach a high level of influence and power in rome. Marcus terencius varro told the well-known anecdote that the strong spanish accent of hadrian (when speaking latin) sounded so funny to some senators that made them laugh. By the way, many of the legionaries that conquered britania were spaniards, and some of the governors of the british island sent from rome were of spanish origin as well

[@samkaplan5659]

Good summary but no new information or new approach offered.

[@sebastianolmsted2867]

I agree

[@huldrrrr9486]

49:51 lol

[@mikechurch5965]

What's with all the lip smacking? Need better editing.

[@vivians9392]

A disgusting bad habit!

[@sardargulamwahid8798]

Learn from history.

[@GloryToParadis]

*IVDEA DELENDA EST*

[@philiproseel3506]

Hadrian thought of the Roman Empire to be more of a commonwealth, “like the EU”? More like a dictatorship, then.

[@isabelalina]

One more thing: Gibbons should have been bouncing on branches, and eating bananas, and leaving serious, unbiased History to others. Tyrant? Oh come on.

[@JB-uv4hm]

No history is unbiased.

[@histguy101]

Aren't all micromanagers tyrants?

[@TWOCOWS1]

when talking about the Holy Land, Jews and things, PLEASE realise that only those from Juda/Judea were called Jews and had issues with Rome. North from there, the land was the old Kingdom of Israel, people were Samaritans, neutral or friendly to Rome, and are still here today in the Holy Land. Only Jews of Judea were killed or deported. Samaritans are Hebrews and children of Israel. They follow Moses and his Pentateuch, but are NOT Jews. In fact, it was the king of Juda, David, who stole the Ark from the original temple at Shechem, Samaria (modern Neopolis/Nabolus) and took it to his new town of Jerusalem, building a brand new temple for it. Noting this, you will better understand the Roman-Hebrew relationship, instead of just Roman-Jewish relationship

[@andersliljevall2946]

My favorite sugar daddy

[@ZephLodwick]

(42:51) 'He probably met Hadrian when he was about 16.' FBI! Open up!

[@roriben]

Hadrian born in Rome? No, I don't think so.

[@petersclafani4370]

I could have done a better job. He is not a good speaker.

[@joshuahalpern4426]

The most historically consequential Hadrian legacy was the renaming of Judea to "Palestina", after the Philistines. The Philistines were the historic foes of the Hebrews and ceased to exist by that time, as they were assimilated, mostly within the Israelites. That "Palestinian" redesignation of the Judean nation and country, enforced by the Roman Emperors, resulted from their visceral hate for the Jews and their intention to obliterate the Jewish existence, like they did earlier with the Carthaginians. Omitting this historic fact from your presentation seems to me deliberate and misleading on purpose. There was a question from the audience to this effect, which was given weak answer.

[@histguy101]

Let's not pretend that Hadrian just came along and wiped out some altruistic Judeans simply because "Romans hated the Jews." It was their third major military revolt in 60 years. These were massive wars, and horrible, horrible, just grizzly reprehensible acts were committed by the Judeans too, and not just against Roman soldiers, but innocent civilians, women and children, of other religions. I don't know as much about this revolt as the Kitos revolt or war of 66-70ad, but Hadrian had to assemble something like ten legions to fight this war.

[@joshuahalpern4426]

​@@histguy101You are not the first one to condemn the Jews for their struggle for independence and for freedom of religion. Romans first tried to impose idolatry on the Jews and later Christianity, which Jews saw as a compromise of Judaism with idolatry. Funny that you call yourself after Joshua who was fully Jewish and the Roman assigned his mane to a new religion 300 years after his death. Your narrative sounds pretty much like a phrase from a Goebbels instruction book.

[@fcouperin]

he didn’t omit it, it just isn’t important enough to be mentioned.

[@joshuahalpern4426]

@@fcouperin RIGHT!