Word: opper
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...state in crisis. Trajan, his predecessor, had stretched the Roman Empire to its furthest reaches through aggressive military campaigns, sparking rebellions from Britain to the shores of the Persian Gulf. Once installed as ruler, Hadrian reversed the expansionist trend and withdrew troops from what is now Iraq. Thorsten Opper, a curator of Greek and Roman antiquities at the British Museum, says Hadrian realized then what coalition forces realize now: that it's easier to control territory through a friendly, well-functioning government than through occupation...
...reign, which lasted 21 years until his death in A.D. 138, Hadrian set about reshaping Rome's overreaching foreign policy. He withdrew troops from flashpoints such as Armenia, but maintained influence overseas through complicated negotiations and treaties. "The Romans could still project power beyond their borders," says Opper, but "they did it through diplomacy." Meanwhile, he used financial carrots to win over citizens at home: the show features a relief in which wax tablets listing Romans' debts are carried off by soldiers to be burned...
...display are implements that belonged to refugees from this conflict - mirrors, pans, house keys and a jewelry box found alongside their skeletons in a cave where they hid. "The last people to touch these items before our colleagues in Israel's museums," says Opper, "were the people awaiting Hadrian's onslaught." These humble objects - perfectly preserved in the desert heat - may be quotidian, yet they offer as resonant an insight into Hadrian's world as the exquisitely refined statues that he commissioned to memorialize the love he had lost...