Mark, who is teaching the Love course at The School of Life in September, recommends Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar and a visit to the British Museum's summer exhibition Hadrian: Empire and Conflict.
"Most exhibitions of the great from the past are full of re statues, coins, plinths and papyrus fragments that leave you interested but cold. The statues, coins, plinths and fragments here feel alive with the spirit of the great emperor himself. The sense of connection with Hadrian deepens when you hear that one of his first acts as emperor was to withdraw from an unwinnable conflict in what is now Iraq."
Read more on Mark's Philosophy and Life blog.