However this may be, Hadrian declined to act against the three that Attianus had named. For one thing, Laberius' son-in-law, Bruttius Praesens, was governing Cilicia — and he was Hadrian's man. But when Crassus, descendant of more than one great Republican house, chose to leave his island without authorisation (so at least it was claimed), a procurator had him killed. As for Baebius Macer, whom Pliny had once favoured with details of his polymath uncle's literary production, nothing more is heard of him. He was clearly replaced as soon as Attianus reached Rome. Macer was himself an historian, who wrote an account of Augustus. Perhaps he went back to writing history, as another senator of his generation was doing at this very time - subtly hinting at parallels with current events: Cornelius Tacitus, at work on his Annales.A

Within a few days, perhaps within a few hours, of his acclamation, Hadrian gave the order for the total evacuation of Mesopotamia, Assyria and Greater Armenia. In truth, much of the newly conquered territory had in effect been surrendered by Trajan himself. But as the HA reports the action, Hadrian 'abandoned' everything beyond the Euphrates and Tigris. That meant the immediate withdrawal from the three new provinces. Further, by early in the next year at the latest he had arranged the removal of the puppet Parthian king crowned by Trajan at Ctesiphon, Parthamaspates, and had him installed as ruler of Osrhoene. The rest could be left to Chosroes and his rival Vologaeses to fight over. Hadrian was following, so he was to claim, the example of Cato, who pronounced that 'the Macedonians must have their freedom because they cannot be protected'. Hadrian's devotion to early Latin literature was well known: 'He preferred Cato to Cicero, Ennius to Virgil, Caelius [Antipater] to Sallust', the HA notes later on. Hadrian must have quoted the old Censor's speech De Macedonia liberanda, still extant in late antiquity. It was not a convincing precedent, on any count.5