At the end of his days, sitting in his villa outside Rome, the Emperor Hadrian writes a long letter to his adopted son, and next great leader of Rome, Marcus Aurelius. In Hadrian’s world, thoughts duel with power, ideas with reality, books with life. Aurelius often gets praise as the first philosopher king, but in this telling it’s Hadrian who is as much thinker as conqueror. Marguerite Yourcenar’s towering intellect and faultless prose bring Second Century Rome to life.