Ah they and welcome to emperors of Rome a podcast about the rulers of the ancient Roman Empire.

I'm your host Matt Smith and with me as always is Dr.

Eannen Evans, a lecturer in ancient Mediterranean studies at Latrobe University.

This is episode L. V. what Hadrian loves best.

With Hadrian safely back from his travels,

we now pause for a moment to look at what could be the greatest loves of Hadrian's life.

All of these are open for debate.

One, impressive buildings.

Two, his wife, Vivia Sabina, and three,

a certain young man named Intinuous. Here's Rianna Evans.

When Hadrian gets back to Rome, he needs to make his mark on the city.

He's already someone known for helping out and building in the provinces. So now he needs to make himself known to the people of Rome.

And he embarks upon a series of building projects, most of which we're not entirely sure exactly when they were completed except during his reign,

but some of them clearly were marked out towards the beginning of the rain in 117 or18 when he gets back.

And they're very imposing building projects

because almost all of them are big buildings.

So he's somebody who really does want to put his stamp on the city and even the buildings that have been made over by emperors who follow

They can't really kind of deconstruct everything and rebuild it because it's so big to

start with so he's interested in big structures in the city which is quite an

achievement because of course by this point in the second century Rome has a lot of

buildings in it and the emperors who've come before him have already

put up a lot of structures so for example the very middle of Rome around the forum

...