Quizzes

Hadrian Quiz

To commemorate Hadrian's birth on 24 January in AD 76, have a go at this quiz all about the Roman Emperor, famous for constructing the frontier of the Roman Empire across Northern England.

Image: Bust of Roman emperor Hadrian in lorica. Marble. 117-138 AD. Capitoline Museums. Rome. Italy. Ⓒ Alamy
Image: Bust of Roman emperor Hadrian in lorica. Marble. 117-138 AD. Capitoline Museums. Rome. Italy. Ⓒ Alamy

1. In what year did Hadrian visit Britain?

2. What was Hadrian’s original full name in Latin?

3. What fashion does the historian Cassius Dio credit Hadrian with popularising?

4. Where did Hadrian govern before he became Emperor?

5. Who did Hadrian want the Greeks to worship?

Image: Hadrian, 76 – 138. Roman emperor. From Ward and Lock's Illustrated History of the World, published c.1882 Ⓒ Alamy
Image: Hadrian, 76 – 138. Roman emperor. From Ward and Lock's Illustrated History of the World, published c.1882 Ⓒ Alamy

6. Who did Hadrian succeed as Emperor of the Roman Empire?

7. What was Hadrian’s relationship to his predecessor?

8. What happened to the four senators who opposed Hadrian’s appointment as Emperor?

9. Where was Hadrian born?

10. What was Hadrian’s wife’s name?

Hadrian's Wall

11. How did Hadrian’s young lover Antinous die?

12. What was Hadrian’s nickname as a child?

13.How long was Hadrian’s Wall in Roman miles?

14. What was Hadrian’s cause of death in 138 AD?

15. Who was Hadrian’s successor?

  • Click to reveal answers:

    1. 122 AD.

    2. Aelius Traianus Hadrianus Augustus.

    3. Growing a beard.

    4. Syria.

    5. His dead male lover, Antinous (a young Bithynian – possibly a slave).

    6. Trajan (r. 98 to 117).

    7. Hadrian was Trajan’s ward and later adoptive son.

    8. They were executed.

    9. Rome. His family were famously from ltalica in the Roman province of Hispania (Spain).

    10. Sabina Augusta (Trajan’s great-niece).

    11. He drowned whilst sailing down the Nile (he was only 20 years old).

    12. Graeculus (‘little Greek’) due to his passion for ancient Greek culture.

    13. 80 (73 modern miles); it ran continuously from Wallsend in the east to Burgh-by-Sands in the west.

    14. Heart disease.

    15. Antoninus Pius (r. 138 to 161).