It must also be noted that Apollodorus' advise was accepted: the temple of Venus and Roma was in fact build on high ground, and still dominates the Sacred Way, and there is a basement that could be used to store machines for the amphitheater (= the Colosseum). Senators could be a serious threat, especially when they commanded an army, but there was no need to kill a mere architect. Most scholars believe that it is not true that Hadrian ordered the assassination of the architect. note Damascus, milestone, inscription mentioning Apollodorus

Indeed, his nature was such that he was jealous not only of the living, but also of the dead at any rate he abolished Homer and introduced in his stead Antimachus, whose very name had previously been unknown to many. 'For now,' he said, 'if the goddesses wish to get up and go out, they will be unable to do so.' When he wrote this so bluntly to Hadrian, the emperor was both vexed and exceedingly grieved because he had fallen into a mistake that could not be righted, and he restrained neither his anger nor his grief, but slew the man. Secondly, in regard to the statues, he said that they had been made too tall for the height of the cella. The architect in his reply stated, first, in regard to the temple, that it ought to have been built on high ground and that the earth should have been excavated beneath it, so that it might have stood out more conspicuously on the Sacred Way from its higher position, and might also have accommodated the machines in its basement, so that they could be put together unobserved and brought into the amphitheater without anyone's being aware of them beforehand. He sent him the plan of the temple of Venus and Roma by way of showing him that a great work could be accomplished without his aid, and asked Apollodorus whether the proposed structure was satisfactory.

When he became emperor, therefore, he remembered this slight and would not endure the man's freedom of speech. You don't understand any of these matters.' (It chanced that Hadrian at the time was pluming himself upon some such drawing.) The reason assigned was that he had been guilty of some misdemeanor, but the true reason was that once when Trajan was consulting him on some point about the buildings he had said to Hadrian, who had interrupted with some remark: 'Be off, and draw your gourds. first banished and later put to death Apollodorus, the architect, who had built the various creations of Trajan in Rome: the forum, the odeum and the gymnasium. The Roman architect Apollodorus of Damascus is mentioned in only two ancient sources, but we can also identify several of his buildings. Apollodorus of Damascus (active first quarter second century CE): Roman architect, courtier of the emperor Trajan.

Pantheon architect hadrian