Hadrian was indeed fascinated by Greek culture - his nickname as a young man was graeculus - "little Greekling" - and with good reason. It was not just the earlier civilisation's accomplishments that drew him but realpolitik too; more Greeks lived in Rome than in any Greek city. But one exhibit in particular encapsulates just how wrong the standard view of him is. In 1861 a bust of the emperor was found among other fragments of sculpture in Cyrene in north Africa. When the pieces were put together, the result seemed to confirm Hadrian's philhellenism. Despite the fact that emperors were traditionally depicted in only three guises - in armour, in a toga or in the nude - the statue showed him wearing a himation, a Greek mantle. It was only in preparation for this exhibition that conservators removed the head and found that it had never been carved to fit the Greek body but rather a different torso altogether: the join between the ill-fitting portions had been carefully masked by Victorian craftsmen under layers of plaster. Hadrian wasn't so Greek after all.

Other elements of his story also need reassessing. In his depictions on coins and statues Hadrian has a distinctive face, with one tell-tale sign that marks out his authentic contemporary portraits: he had a deep diagonal crease across each earlobe, possibly the result of coronary artery disease. He is also usually shown bearded (he was the first emperor to sport a full, groomed beard) and with tightly curled hair which was cared for by specially trained slaves. This distinctive coiffure, however, was not a carefully thought out element of imperial iconography but rather a professional badge. Soldiers, both officers and troopers, often wore their hair in just such a way so Hadrian was not setting himself apart but - emperor or not - showing himself to be one of them.

He had every reason to stress his military credentials. Hadrian's conflict zones have a strikingly modern feel to them - the Balkans, the Caucasus, Judea and Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). His first act as emperor was to consolidate Rome's boundaries: he withdrew his troops from Mesopotamia, establishing the Euphrates as the frontier (as it remains today) and never again fought a war of aggression. His boundaries - Hadrian's Wall in the north, the limes (palisade) in Germany and his forts in north Africa - were boundaries of inclusion as well as exclusion. Those within received the benefits of Roman civilisation, those without didn't.