PURPOSE: To prolong the life of a rolling roll and to stably manufacture high- quality metallic wire rod since the surface of a roll is hardly roughened by forming a hot rolling roll of specified ceramic sintered compact into a ring shape and holding it on a drive shaft.

CONSTITUTION: A sintered compact which is not cracked for a long time and to be stably used as a roll preferably contains 75-99.7% β' type-Si-Al-O-N solidus body and has Charpy absorbing energy exceeding 0.05kgf.m/cm2. The rolling roll is formed into ring shape 9, a tapered sleeve 10 is inserted between the inner peripheral surface and the outer peripheral surface of a drive shaft 8 of a cantilever type hot mill for a metallic wire rod and an annular rolling roll 9 is inserted into the drive shaft and held. Therefore, since the driving force is transmitted to the inner part of the roll 6 in a state that a uniform internal pressure is applied by the sleeve 10 during rolling, too, toughness close to metal is not required. Consequently, a trouble such as a crack failure is very hardly occurred structurally and resistance to crack failure is very high materially.