The new cultural homogeneity found one of its most splendid expressions in the lavish beautification, from Vespasian to Antoninus Pius, of the world's
capital in a cosmopolitan architectural style, though the advancement of so many provincials gave a boost to competitive display in cities all over the
Empire. The result-'the glitter of our age' (nitor saeculi), as Pliny calls it-was the imperial architecture which forms such an important part of our picture of
the ancient world (below, pp.786ff.) The political life of the time involved the intrigues of the court and the struggle for personal advancement among the
Emperor's entourage more than it had done before, for the Augustan ideal of the Principate had finally ended, and with it had come the age in which we
may first legitimately call the princeps Emperor. Paradoxically it was now that relations between princeps and Senate became most amicable; even the
fluctuation in popularity of Emperors, the variations in their adherence to the increasingly clear rules for respecting senatorial autonomy, became an
endlessly repeated pattern. With the concerns of the Emperor increasingly related to the provinces, it mattered much less whether he was 'good' like Pius
(138-61) or 'bad' like Commodus (180-93): except, perhaps, that Commodus' murder precipitated the crisis referred to at the beginning of this account.
Hadrian (A.D. 117-38). Great nephew and adopted successor of Trajan, he hailed, like his predecessor, from Spain and brought a new cosmopolitan
outlook to his office: more than half his reign was spent on tours of the provinces. His revival of the fashion for wearing a beard broke with a tradition of
clean-shaven chins stretching back to Hellenistic times.