Adrianopŏlis, a town of Thrace on the Hebrus.——Another in Ætolia,——in Pisidia,——and Bithynia.
Adriānus, or Hadrianus, the 15th emperor of Rome. He is represented as an active, learned, warlike, and austere general. He came to Britain, where he built a wall between the modern towns of Carlisle and Newcastle, 80 miles long, to protect the Britons from the incursions of the Caledonians. He killed in battle 500,000 Jews who had rebelled, and built a city on the ruins of Jerusalem, which he called Ælia. His memory was so retentive, that he remembered every incident of his life, and knew all the soldiers of his army by name. He was the first emperor who wore a long beard, and this he did to hide the warts on his face. His successors followed his example, not through necessity but for ornament. Adrian went always bare-headed, and in long marches generally travelled on foot. In the beginning of his reign, he followed the virtues of his adopted father and predecessor Trajan; he remitted all arrears due to his treasury for 16 years, and publicly burnt the account-books, that his word might not be suspected. His peace with the Parthians proceeded from a wish of punishing the other enemies of Rome, more than from the effects of fear. The travels of Adrian were not for the display of imperial pride, but to see whether justice was distributed impartially: and public favour was courted by a condescending behaviour, and the meaner familiarity of bathing with the common people. It is said that he wished to enrol Christ among the gods of Rome; but his apparent lenity towards the Christians was disproved, by the erection of a statue to Jupiter on the spot where Jesus rose from the dead, and one to Venus on mount Calvary. The weight of diseases became intolerable. Adrian attempted to destroy himself; and when prevented, he exclaimed, that the lives of others were in his hands, but not his own. He wrote an account of his life, and published it under the name of one of his domestics. He died of a dysentery at Baiæ, July 10, A.D. 138, in the 72nd year of his age, after a reign of 21 years. Dio Cassius.——An officer of Lucullus. Plutarch, Lucullus.——A rhetorician of Tyre in the age of Marcus Antoninus, who wrote seven books of metamorphoses, besides other treatises now lost.
Adrimētum, a town of Africa, on the Mediterranean, built by the Phœnicians. Sallust, Jugurthine War.
Aduataca, a town of Belgic Gaul, now Tongres, on the Maese.
Adŭla, a mountain among the Rhætian Alps, near which the Rhine takes its rise, now St. Gothard.
Adulis, a town of Upper Egypt.
Adyrmachīdæ, a maritime people of Africa, near Egypt. Herodotus, bk. 4, ch. 168.
Æa, a huntress changed into an island of the same name by the gods, to rescue her from the pursuit of her lover, the river Phasis. It had a town called Æa, which was the capital of Colchis. Flaccus, bk. 5, li. 420.——A town of Thessaly,——of Africa.——A fountain of Macedonia near Amydon.
Æacēa, games at Ægina, in honour of Æacus.
Æacĭdas, a king of Epirus, son of Neoptolemus and brother to Olympias. He was expelled by his subjects for his continual wars with Macedonia. He left a son, Pyrrhus, only two years old, whom Chaucus king of Illyricum educated. Pausanias, bk. 1, ch. 11.