The biographer of the Empresses cannot escape the conclusion that Sabina was not a fitting mate for so versatile and constructive a genius. Her superiority in decency is enormously outweighed by Hadrian’s magnificent work for the Empire. The natural alienation of the two in sentiment would not encourage her to co-operate in his work, in the fashion set by Livia and Plotina, but one feels that this is not the sole explanation, and that her mediocre faculty was entirely absorbed in a small pursuit of culture. It is not impossible that, if there had been cordial co-operation between them, she would have saved Hadrian from the only serious stains on the record of his reign. The first of these occurred in the year following his accession. Bringing to the Imperial task a fresh and vigorous mind, untainted by mere military ambition--though he was an excellent soldier--Hadrian glanced round the Empire, and saw that peace must first be established on its frontiers. The East was aflame with revolt, the African and German boundaries were disturbed, and trouble was announced from Britain. He at once sacrificed the conquests beyond the Tigris and Euphrates, appeased the Jews and the other peoples of the East, and passed to Lower Germany to still the restlessness of the northern frontier. There had been some discontent among the older soldiers and statesmen of Rome at his being forced on them. From Judæa he had imprudently sent one of Trajan’s most fiery commanders, the Moorish prince Lusius Quietus, back in some disgrace to the capital, and this man and others formed a party of opposition. When they saw that he was sacrificing Trajan’s conquests and reversing his policy, and especially when he proposed to evacuate Dacia also, they entered, it is said, into something of the nature of a conspiracy. How far Hadrian was really responsible for the execution of the leaders of this party we cannot say, and his emphatic denial of responsibility is entitled to consideration. We know that, when the aged statesman Attianus wrote to urge him that the Roman prefect and other distinguished malcontents ought to be removed, he refused to take any action. The Senate now announced that a plot to assassinate Hadrian had been detected, and it put to death, without trial, four men of consular rank, Nigrinus, Palma, Celsus, and Lusius Quietus. A sullen murmur passed through the city, and Hadrian hastily composed his affairs on the Danube and went to Rome. He resolutely denied that he had consented to the executions, and the question remains open.