SOURCE: Williams, Wynne. “Individuality in the Imperial Constitutions: Hadrian and the Antonines.” Journal of Roman Studies 66 (1976): 67-83.

In the following excerpt, Williams examines edicts and letters of Hadrian as documentary evidence that sheds light on the emperor's personal traits.

1. Internal Evidence and the Authorship of Imperial Constitutions

A considerable number of texts of official pronouncements of Roman emperors (which will be referred to, rather inaccurately,¹ as constitutions, for the sake of brevity) have been preserved on inscriptions, in papyri and in the writings of the classical jurists and the imperial Codes. Such texts provide the kind of documentary evidence which is regarded by historians of more recent periods as primary material, as narrative histories and biographies are not.² Such rigour is not possible in Roman history, but it is clearly desirable to make the best use of these documents, especially in a period such as that between Hadrian...