With the British Museum currently celebrating the runaway success of its First Emperor exhibition (reviewed earlier), it seems almost churlish for the museum to be promoting its next one. There is a connection though, as Hadrian: Empire and Conflict is also about an emperor, this one Roman. It will be held in the same venue too, the circular Reading Room in the Great Court, and will be the the last exhibition held there before the room reverts back to being a historic library.

Unlike the First Emperor exhibition, the objects are being borrowed from institutions across 31 different countries. And whilst there’s no terracotta army, pre-publicity is promoting a bronze head of the emperor, which somewhat bizarrely ‘will travel to both ends of Hadrian’s Wall’.

The main themes of the exhibition will be Hadrian ruthless military strategy, his love of culture and architecture, and his homosexual relationship with a young lover. To promote the exhibition, the British Museum have published a trailer, dramatically narrated by Patrick Stewart, which certainly whets the appetite, and promises an exhibition which will show how Hadrian ‘changed history forever’.

Hadrian: Empire and Conflict will be on at the British Museum between 24 July and 26 October 2008. Admission charges apply, and tickets are on sale now.