horseback on all occasions.  Never at this period did he enter either a chariot or a four-wheeled vehicle.  He covered his head neither in heat nor in cold, but alike in Celtic snows and under scorching Egyptian suns he went about with it bare. [Sidenote:  A.D. 119 (a.u. 872)] In fine, so thoroughly by action and exhortations did he train and discipline the whole military force throughout the whole empire that even now the methods then introduced by him are the soldiers’ law of campaigning.  This best explains why he lived for the most part at peace with foreign nations.  As they saw what support he had and were victims of no injustice, but instead received money, they made no uprising.  So excellently had his soldiery been trained, that the cavalry of the so-called Batavians swam the Ister with their heavy armor on.  Seeing this the barbarians stood in terror of the Romans, and turning their attention to their own affairs [Footnote:  Reading [Greek:  epi] (Dindorf) instead of [Greek:  peri]] they employed Hadrian as an arbitrator of their differences.

[Sidenote:—­10—­] He also constructed theatres and held games as he traveled about from city to city, dispensing, however, with the imperial paraphernalia.  This he never used outside of Rome.  His own country, though he did her great honor and bestowed many proud possessions on her, he nevertheless did not set eyes upon.

He is said to have been enthusiastic over hunting.  Indeed, he broke his collar-bone in this pursuit and came near losing a leg.  And to a city that he founded in Mysia he gave the name of Adrianotherae. [Sidenote:  A.D. 121 (a.u. 874)] However, he did not, while so occupied, leave undone any of the duties pertaining to his office.  Of his enthusiasm for hunting his horse Borysthenes, which was his favorite steed for the chase, gives us an indication.  When the animal died, he prepared a tomb for him, set up a slab, and placed an inscription upon it.  Hence it is scarcely surprising that when Plotina died, the woman through whom he had secured the imperial office, and who was passionately in love with him, he honored her to the extent of wearing mourning garments for nine days, building a temple to her, and composing several hymns to her memory.

When Plotina was dead, Hadrian praised her and said:  “Though she asked much of me, she was never refused aught.”  By this he surely meant to say:  “Her requests were of such a character that they neither burdened me nor afforded me any justification for saying no.”

He was so skillful in hunting that once he brought down a huge boar with a single blow.

[Sidenote:—­11—­] On reaching Greece he became a spectator at the Mysteries.

[Sidenote:  A.D. 122 (a.u. 875)] After this he passed through Judaea into Egypt and offered sacrifice to Pompey, about whom, he is said to have uttered this verse: 

  Strange lack of tomb for one with shrines o’erwhelmed! [Footnote: 
  Compare Appian, Civil Wars, Book Two, chapter 86 (also Spartianus, 14,
  4).]