Ms. Yourcenar worked on this fictional memoir of the Roman emperor Hadrian for at least 20 years and it is considered a classic of historical fiction. I found it fine, but its greatness may be beyond me. I was very interested in the postscript in which the author describes how she wrote the book, her literary and human sources, which characters were real and which were created, and how and why she made various decisions about content. The only thing that caught my eye was a mention of Jesus which seemed to be an anachronism for someone born in the year 76 CE who was not a Christian.

I read a Kindle version of this book which is not listed in the Goodreads database. It lists illustrations with what looks like an associated dead internet link; so, I saw no figures. Many of the described figures are easily found on the internet.