Interesting, erudite and quite easy reading, offering a marvellous take on the ancien Roman world. Yourcenar in essence does an experiment in empathy, by looking at the world through the eyes of a Roman emperor. Although we like to think the Roman world was very akin to ours, in fact she perfectly illustrates it wasn't: while reading these memoirs I was impressed by how different Hadrian looked at life as we do now (not everything of course). In this sense this is an impressive work.

But there are some flaws: the picture we get of Hadrian is rather flattering, he only had good intentions and presumedly abhorred power politics; I find this hard to believe. But of course these are so called memoires, they HAVE to be apologetic. There also are many anachronisms, especially when Hadrian reflects about the future, and expresses the expectation that one day christans and barbarians would come to rule the world.