Antinous

Bust of Antinous From Patras, (National Archaeological Museum of Athens)
Antinous bust of the Prado museum, Royal collection, Madrid

Antinoüs or Antinoös (Greek: Ἀντίνοος) (c. November 27,[1] 111–October 30, 130) was a member of the entourage of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, to whom he was beloved. Antinous was deified after his death.[2]

Contents

Biography

Antinous was born to a Greek family in Bithynion-Claudiopolis, in the Roman province of Bithynia in what is now north-west Turkey. One version is that Antinous joined the entourage of the Emperor when Hadrian passed through Bithynia in about 124, and soon became his beloved companion who accompanied him on his many journeys through the empire. Another version has it that Hadrian had the empire searched for the most beautiful youth, and chose Antinous. Although some have suggested the two might have had a romantic relationship, it is uncertain if this was true.

In October 130, according to Hadrian, cited by Dio Cassius, "Antinous was drowned in the Nilus". (D.C. 69.11) It is not known whether his death was the result of accident, suicide, murder, or religious sacrifice.

At Antinous's death the emperor decreed his deification, and the 2nd century Christian writer Tatian mentions a belief that his likeness was placed over the face of the Moon, though this may be exaggerated due to his anti-pagan polemical style.[3]

After his death

Antinous (Museo Pio-Clementino)

The grief of the emperor knew no bounds, causing the most extravagant veneration to be paid to his memory. Cities were founded in his name, medals struck with his effigy, and statues erected to him in all parts of the empire. Following the example of Alexander (who sought divine honours for his beloved general, Hephaistion, when he died) Hadrian had Antinous proclaimed a god. Temples were built for his worship in Bithynia, Mantineia in Arcadia, and Athens, festivals celebrated in his honour and oracles delivered in his name. The city of Antinopolis or Antinoe was founded on the site of Hir-wer where he died (Dio Cassius lix.11; Spartianus, "Hadrian"). One of Hadrian's attempts at extravagant remembrance failed, when the proposal to create a constellation of Antinous being lifted to heaven by an eagle (the constellation Aquila) failed of adoption.

After deification, Antinous was associated with and depicted as the Ancient Egyptian god Osiris, associated with the rebirth of the Nile. Antinous was also depicted as the Roman Bacchus, a god related to fertility, cutting vine leaves.

Antinous's was the only non-imperial head ever to appear on the coinage.[4]

The "Lansdowne Antinous" was found at Hadrian's Villa in 1769 (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge)

Worship, or at least acknowledgment, of the idealized Antinous was widespread, although mainly outside the city of Rome. As a result, Antinous is one of the best-preserved faces from the ancient world. Many busts, gems and coins represent Antinous as the ideal type of youthful beauty, often with the attributes of some special god. They include a colossal bust in the Vatican,[5] a bust in the Louvre (the Antinous Mondragone), a bas-relief from the Villa Albani,[6] a statue in the Capitoline museum (the so-called Capitoline Antinous, now accepted to be a portrayal of Hermes), another in Berlin, another in the Lateran and one in the Fitzwilliam Museum; and many more may be seen in museums across Europe. There are also statues in many archaeological museums in Greece including the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, the archaeological museums of Patras, Chalkis and Delphi. Although these may well be idealised images, they demonstrate what all contemporary writers described as Antinous's extraordinary beauty. Although many of the sculptures are instantly recognizable, some offer significant variation in terms of the suppleness and sensuality of the pose and features versus the rigidity and typical masculinity. In 1998 the remains of the monumental tomb of Antinous, or a temple to him, were discovered at Hadrian's Villa.[7]

The cult of Antinous was severely condemned by the Christian Church. It was seen as both a blasphemy and a celebration of an undesirable sexual relationship. A flavour of this condemnation is caught in some lines from the early Christian poet, Prudentius :

Quid loquar Antinoum caelesti in sede locatum ?/ Ilium, delicias nunc divi principis, ilium/ Purpureo in gremio spoliatum sorte virili ...

(Why should I speak of Antinous, placed in his heavenly abode ?/ That person, the pet now of the divine emperor, that person/ In his purple embrace, despoiled of his manly lot ...)

Gallery

As Bacchus, Vatican

As Bacchus, Vatican

from Delphi

Antinous Mondragone at the Louvre Museum

Antinous Ecouen, from Villa Adriana at Tivoli

Bust of Antinous in the Palazzo Altemps museum in Rome.

Vatican Museums, colossal bust, from Villa Adriana

As Bacchus, Capitoline Museums

The Antinous Braschi type (Louvre)

Antinous as a priest of the imperial cult (Louvre)

Antinous Farnese, Naples National Archaeological Museum

Capitoline Antinous, Capitoline Museums, from the Villa Adriana

Villa Albani relief from the Torlonia collection, Rome

Relief, as Sylvanus, National Museum of Rome

Antinous as Osiris

Head (the bust is modern), Antikensammlung Berlin

Egyptianizing statue of Antinoos, National Archaeological Museum of Athens.

Antinous as Osiris, found in the ruins of Hadrian's villa during the 18th century

Cultural references

A "sexually ambivalent" young man ('Murugan Mailendra') in Aldous Huxley's Island is likened to Antinous, and his lover Colonel Dipa (an older man) to Hadrian, after the narrator discovers the two are having a secret affair.

The story of Antinous' death was dramatized in the radio play "The Glass Ball Game", Episode Two of the second series of the BBC radio series CAESAR, written by Mike Walker, directed by Jeremy Mortimer and starring Jonathan Coy as "Suetonius", Jonathan Hyde as "Hadrian" and Andrew Garfield as "Antinous". In this story, Suetonius is a witness to the events before and after Antinous's death by suicide, but learns that he himself was used as an instrument to trick Antinous into killing himself willingly to fulfill a pact made by Hadrian with Egyptian priests to give Hadrian more time to live so that Marcus Aurelius may grow up to become the next Emperor.

In Oscar Wilde's story The Young King, a reference is made to the king kissing a statue of 'the Bithynian slave of Hadrian' in a passage describing the young king's aesthetic sensibilities and his "...strange passion for beauty...". Images of other classical paragons of male beauty, Adonis and Endymion, are also mentioned in the same context. Additionally, in Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, the artist Basil Hallward describes the appearance of Dorian Gray as an event as important to his art as "the face of Antinous was to late Greek sculpture." Furthermore, in a novel attributed to Oscar Wilde, "Teleny, or the Reverse Of the Medal", Dex Grieux makes a passing reference to Antinous as he describes how he felt during a musical performance. "..I now began to understand things hitherto so strange, the love the mighty monarch felt for his fair Grecian slave, Antinous, who-- like unto Christ-- died for his master's sake."

In Marguerite Yourcenar's Mémoires d'Hadrien (1951), the love relationship between Antinous and Hadrian is one of the main themes of the book.

References

  1. ↑ Lambert, Royston, Beloved and God, New York: Viking, 1984, p. 19
  2. ↑ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/28279/Antinous
  3. ↑ Tatian, "Tatian's Address to the Greeks" Ch.X - "And how was the dead Antinous fixed as a beautiful youth in the moon? Who carried him thither: unless perchance, as men, perjuring themselves for hire, are credited when they say in ridicule of the gods that kings have ascended into heaven, so some one, in like manner, has put this man also among the gods, and been recompensed with honour and reward?"
  4. ↑ Lambert, Royston, op. cit., p. 147.
  5. ↑ Antinoo ai Musei vaticani (picture)
  6. ↑ Antinous bas-relief of the Villa Albani (picture)
  7. ↑ Mari, Zaccaria and Sgalambro, Sergio: The Antinoeion of Hadrian's Villa: Interpretation and Architectural Reconstruction, American Journal of Archaeology, Vol 111, No 1, Jan 2007.

Sources

Ancient Literary Sources

External links