I’m not sure at what point during my reading of Memoirs of Hadrian it is that I finally notice that the bookmark I’ve been using, picked up from the bookmark pile more or less at random, bears a photo of a Roman aqueduct. It’s the Pont du Gard in France. Not a bad double synchronicity, for a novel of imperial Rome originally written in French, although the Pont du Gard was built before Hadrian’s time. (It’s estimated to’ve been begun in 19 BC, or as late as the mid-first-century AD. Hadrian lived from 76 to 138 AD.) Shown above is the photo, Dave McKean’s “Travels”; the bookmark it’s on is an old insert flier for his A Small Book of Black and White Lies.
