Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) -- British Museum Director Neil MacGregor, who is drawing thousands of visitors with an exhibition on the Chinese ruler Qin Shihuangdi, plans to fete another epoch- making sovereign this year: the Roman Emperor Hadrian.

MacGregor, who is among those mentioned as a potential successor to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's retiring director Philippe de Montebello, declined to comment on the New York museum at a press conference today.

Sponsored by BP Plc, ``Hadrian: Empire and Conflict'' (July 24 - Oct. 26) will feature some 200 loans from 31 countries and take place in the British Museum's specially refitted circular Reading Room. Hadrian ruled the Roman Empire from 117 to 138 A.D. and ordered the building of a wall dividing England and Scotland.

Hadrian is part of ``a series of exhibitions on great empires that have shaped the world,'' MacGregor told reporters gathered in the wood-paneled Enlightenment Room of the museum. ``It's those great empires that established the connections and patterns that the world is still living with.''

`New History'

The Roman emperor also was picked because multiple new discoveries offered a ``chance to write new history,'' which is part of the British Museum's purpose, he said.

The exhibition will reveal the many faces of Hadrian, a skilled and ruthless military leader who crushed the Jewish revolt of 132 A.D. and faced down rebellions in Britannia, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Mesopotamia.

At the same time, Hadrian's patronage of the arts will be celebrated. It was he who built Rome's Pantheon, one of the most emulated monuments in architectural history, which the British Museum's Reading Room itself was modeled after.

There's another side of the emperor that will emerge from the exhibition: ``Hadrian was gay, and we can say it,'' said Thorsten Opper, a British Museum curator of Greek and Roman sculpture, who is publishing a profile of Hadrian to coincide with the show.

Hadrian's lover Antinous, whose death caused the emperor tremendous grief, will feature throughout the exhibition. A head of Antinous, borrowed from Paris's Louvre Museum, will be displayed, as will a bowl from Georgia with his effigy.

Other objects displayed will include the Vindolanda tablets from Hadrian's Wall, and a bronze 2nd-century head of Hadrian, fished out of the Thames River in 1834, which will leave the museum for the first time to be shown at both ends of Hadrian's Wall before the London exhibition opens.

The sturdy bronze head, with a cavity above one ear, was shown at the press conference. According to Opper, seeing the bust at the British Museum inspired the late French author Marguerite Yourcenar to write her 1951 novel ``Memoirs of Hadrian.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Farah Nayeri in London at farahn@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 10, 2008 08:44 EST