ANTINOUS: THE CREATION OF A GOD

ANTINOUS: THE CREATION OF A GOD

Quick quiz question: which individual from the ancient world do we have the most statues of?  Julius Caesar? Alexander the Great? Pericles?  Nope. What about that lovable megalomaniac Nero, so self-obsessed that he even toyed with re-naming Rome ‘Neropolis’?  Wrong again.  

Perhaps you won’t find it too surprising that the top two places in the league table are occupied by Roman Emperors - Augustus (a man who really understood the value of propaganda) and Hadrian.  But you might be surprised to learn that the third place doesn’t go to a general, statesman or ruler, but to a boy who drowned in the River Nile at the age of eighteen and subsequently became the focus of a new religious cult – one which still has its adherents today.  

Hadrian & Antinous

The Emperor Hadrian spent almost half his reign travelling round the Roman Empire, aiming to visit as many provinces as possible – even barbarous and distant ones like Britannia.  At the age of 54, in the summer of AD 130, Hadrian arrived in Egypt; among his entourage was his much younger boyfriend, a beautiful youth called Antinous.      

                                                           Hadrian and Antinous, British Museum

We know virtually nothing about Antinous’ background, except that he came from Bithynia, a region which is now part of Turkey.  He was born in a small town called Mantineum near the modern town of Bolu.  We don’t even know when or how Hadrian met Antinous, although they might have been introduced during Hadrian’s tour of the province of Bithynia-Pontus (Pliny’s old province) in AD 123.  This is just conjecture, though, as none of the ancient sources mention Antinous as a companion of Hadrian until their trip to Egypt. The textual sources on Antinous don’t inspire confidence – as Thorsten Opper has pointed out, it’s a bit suspicious that they become more detailed the later they were written, suggesting that they’re padded out with a lot of embroidery and speculation.  We’re therefore in the rather odd position that most of our information about Antinous comes from the surviving images of him, of which there are nearly a hundred.      

At the time of Hadrian’s visit, Alexandria wasn’t just the capital of the Roman province of Egypt, but the second-largest city in the entire Roman Empire (I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you what the largest one was).  Hadrian stayed in Alexandria for a couple of months before embarking on a Nile cruise.  However, tragedy struck on October 24^th when Antinous was found drowned in the Nile at Hermopolis, a major cult centre of the ibis-god Thoth (identified with Hermes by the Greeks).  Hadrian was devastated by grief; one of our ancient sources says that ‘he wept for him like a woman’ (Historia Augusta, Hadrian 14.5). The extraordinary events that followed Antinous’ death allow us to trace the process by which one of the last pagan gods was created, and how his worship was disseminated across the Roman Empire.

 Hadrian Deifies Antinous

By Hadrian’s day, it was not unusual for the Roman Senate to posthumously deify former rulers; the Senate had voted to deify the dictator Julius Caesar, as well as several of Hadrian’s predecessors as emperor:  Augustus, Claudius and Vespasian.  Antinous, however, wasn’t a dictator or an emperor, and Hadrian bypassed the normal deification process.  He announced that the population of Egypt would be encouraged to venerate Antinous as the incarnation of the god Osiris, as Antinous had drowned in the Nile on the same date that Osiris was supposed to have been drowned by his brother Set. 

Within a week of Antinous’ death, Hadrian announced the foundation of a new city, to be called Antinoopolis, to be situated across the river from Hermopolis.  The centrepiece of the new city would be Antinous’ tomb and an accompanying temple of white marble.  Incentives were offered to encourage Greek residents of Egypt and Roman army veterans to move to the new city.  Back in Alexandria, poets wrote gushing panegyrics about Antinous – we still have one by a poet called Pankrates, in which he beefs up Antinous’ divinity by referring to him as a son of Hermes, ‘son of the Argus-slayer’. (Hermes killed the hundred-eyed giant Argus, whose eyes ended up on the peacock’s tail, but we won’t go there now.) 

The cult of Antinous wasn’t restricted to Hermopolis, though.  Another cult-centre was set up at Mantinea in the Peloponnese (the same Mantinea where King Agis II of Sparta won an important battle in 418 BC), as Antinous’ birthplace of Mantineum was originally a colony of Mantinea.  The ancient travel-writer Pausanias, visiting Mantinea some years after Antinous’ death, says that the people of Mantinea had accepted Antinous as a god, holding games in his honour every four years.  Pausanias saw the stadium where the games were held; he also describes a building in the palaestra (exercise-ground) which was full of statues and paintings of Antinous depicted as the god Dionysus.   

At his villa at Tivoli, in the hills outside Rome (the setting for the ending of series two of Killing Eve, incidentally) Hadrian ordered the construction of a set of structures called the Antinoein (including two temples), dedicated to the memory of his dead lover. This area was filled with hieroglyphic inscriptions and Egyptian-style sculptures; it’s likely that some of the surviving statues showing Antinous as the Osiris, in an Egyptian-style nemes or head-dress, came from the Antinoein, as well as the obelisk now on the Pincian Hill in Rome, inscribed with hieroglyphs reading ‘The god who is here, he rests in this place.’     

                             Antinous-Osiris, probably from Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, with unidentified goddess

                                Plaster cast of the Vatican statue, Ashmolean Cast Gallery, Oxford

Conspiracy Theories

In his autobiography (now lost), Hadrian claimed that Antinous’ death was just an accident.  However, in antiquity it was seen as no coincidence that he drowned in the Nile on the same date as Osiris.  In Egypt it was believed that drowning in the Nile, in the same way as Osiris did, offered rebirth and eternal life.  This coincidence, combined with Hadrian’s obsessive and (possibly) guilt-ridden reaction, gave rise to plenty of ancient conspiracy theories – speculation which still continues today.    

The Historia Augusta, a late, unreliable but enjoyably salacious source, repeats some of the rumours: ‘some people assert that Antinous had devoted himself to death for Hadrian’s sake, others – what both his beauty and Hadrian’s excessive sensuality make obvious.  The Greeks, to be sure, consecrated him a god at Hadrian’s wish.’

Did Antinous sacrifice himself for Hadrian?  Perhaps he believed that, like Osiris, he would achieve eternal life - which he has done, after a fashion.  Or did Hadrian, perhaps influenced by his astrologers, persuade Antinous to take his own life, re-enacting the myth of Osiris as a form of human sacrifice?  It has also been suggested that Antinous may have committed suicide because of social pressures within Greco-Roman society, as he had now reached the age where it would be considered unacceptable for him to continue having a sexual relationship with Hadrian.  It was acceptable for men to have relationships with teenage boys (or with ‘non-persons’ like slaves, actors or dancers) but as a freeborn adult man it would be considered demeaning for Antinous to continue being Hadrian’s boyfriend.  

Images of Antinous

There are almost a hundred surviving images of Antinous, found across many countries which were once part of the Roman Empire: Italy, Greece, Spain, Lebanon, Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Libya and Georgia.   Over thirty cities in the Roman Empire issued coins with his image on.  It seems likely that Hadrian commissioned an ‘official’ portrait, models of which were then sent out to the provinces to be copied, particularly in the Hellenised eastern half of the empire.  The quickest way of creating a statue of the new god was simply to replace the head of an existing statue – as happened at Leptis Magna in Libya, where the head of a statue of Apollo was replaced with a portrait head of Antinous.   

 

Two renditions of Antinous with the attributes of Dionysus:

Left:  British Museum bust with ivy-leaf wreath

Right: Head of Vatican statue, with pine-cone wreath

Once you’ve seen a bust of Antinous, you can easily recognise other versions, as they’re generally so consistent.  He’s depicted as a solemn-looking youth with full lips, deep-set eyes, striated eyebrows and a rounded chin.  His hair is so distinctive that art historians have worked out a ‘lock scheme’, labelling each lock of hair individually.  The youthful prettiness of the face contrasts with the masculinity of the broad chest, the same combination of a youthful face with a honed body which was considered so attractive in High Classical Greek sculpture. Antinous’ face is usually turned slightly to the right, rarely looking directly at the viewer, with a downward gaze which could be interpreted as modesty or thoughtfulness. 

Many of the surviving busts of Antinous, including the one in the British Museum, were originally from full-length statues, some of which must have been colossal – the Mondragone Head in the Louvre would have been part of a statue that was three metres tall.  

 

Images of the Mondragone Head in the Louvre.  Recent cleaning work found that visitors had stuffed sweet-wrappers and fag-ends in the holes that had been drilled in the hair to support a metal wreath

What was Antinous’ appeal to ancient worshippers?

Although it could be argued that the cult of Antinous was initially promoted by senators and city-councils keen to curry favour with Hadrian, the fact that it didn’t fizzle out after Hadrian’s death in AD 138 suggests that it managed to fill a niche or meet the needs of worshippers, especially in the Greek-speaking half of the Roman Empire.  Art historians tend to assume that most of the images of Antinous were created during the eight year period between the deaths of Antinous and Hadrian, but given the continuing popularity of the cult, this may not be the case. In fact, the new god became so popular that Christian writers like Origen saw him as a serious rival to Christianity in the Eastern half of the Empire – like Jesus, he could be seen as combining the human and the divine, a deity with whom it was possible to form a personal relationship.  Christian writers in antiquity therefore sought to denounce Antinous by claiming that he encapsulated everything which was wicked and degenerate about Roman paganism.   

Another factor in the success of Hadrian’s new god was that Roman religion, being polytheistic, was pretty fluid, allowing for the inclusion of new gods in the Roman pantheon.  One reason why the Romans were such successful imperialists was their readiness to syncretize other culture’s gods with their own gods (provided that these other cultures did not use their religion as a focus for rebellion against Rome, or practise monotheism, like the Jews).  Antinous could be ‘sold’ as a new deity by presenting him as sharing attributes with other gods, most commonly Osiris, Dionysus and Apollo – although he was also syncretized with more minor agricultural deities such as Sylvanus, Autumnus and Iachos (who was associated with the cult of the Eleusinian Mysteries).  The association with Osiris could be emphasised through Egyptianized images, showing Antinous wearing the nemes (head-dress) and uraeus (coastal cobra), representing him as a god of fertility and rebirth. The red sandstone image of Antinous in Dresden was misidentified as an Egyptian sphinx for over a hundred years.  Dionysus was also a god of fertility, as well as a god of drinking and sensuality, and many images of Antinous show him with a Dionysian wreath of ivy-leaves or vine-leaves.  Antinous’ association with Apollo plays on his androgynous Greek-style beauty to present him as a god of civilisation.  

Reception of Antinous

In the modern era, the person who really put Antinous on the map was Johan Joachim Winckelmann, the German scholar who was the first person to attempt to organise Greek sculpture into a chronological sequence. Enthusing about Classical sculpture was an acceptable way for gay men in the eighteenth-century to express their feelings, and for Winckelmann Antinous represented the ultimate standard of beauty.  He described a relief sculpture of Antinous, owned by his employer Cardinal Albani, as ‘the glory and crown of art in this age, as well as in all others.’ 

                                                   Resin cast of the Albani relief of Antinous

Winckelmann loved this sculpture so much that he chose to have his portrait painted with an engraving of it.   Here’s the portrait, painted in 1768, the year that Winckelmann was murdered (but that’s a story for another article).   

                                                Portrait of Winckelmann by Anton von Maron, 1768

                                                              Schlossmuseum, Weimar

Winckelmann’s endorsement of Antinous as the gold standard of Classical beauty put busts and statues of Antinous on the shopping list of Grand Tourists, wealthy noblemen from North-West Europe ‘doing’ the sights in Italy.  This increased demand was fed by passing off pretty well any Roman statue of a pretty youth as an ‘Antinous’ – we know of plenty of busts that were recut with Antinous’ hairstyle, or statues which had their heads replaced.  Eighteenth-century buyers didn’t like fragmentary sculptures: a good example of a ‘restored’ statue is the Antinous from Thomas Hope’s collection (now in the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight) which was ‘completed’ to depict Antinous in the role of Zeus’ cupbearer Ganymede, complete with wine jug and cup.

                                                       'Hope Antinous', Lady Lever Art Gallery

In the nineteenth century, Antinous became a touchstone for late Victorian queer aesthetics.  Any self-respecting ‘decadent’ fin-de-siècle novel or collection of poetry had to reference Antinous, couching homosexual allusions in a cloak of Classical respectability.  In Oscar Wilde’s The Portrait of Dorian Gray, the portrait which ages isn’t the only portrait of Dorian which Basil Hallward paints: as well as painting him as several figures from Classical mythology – Paris, Adonis, Narcissus, he also paints him ‘crowned with heavy lotus-blossoms … on the prow of Adrian’s barge, gazing over the green turbid Nile.’  Emphasising Dorian’s status as his muse, Basil Hallward says: ‘what the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of Antinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will some day be to me.’ 

Antinous still has his modern adherents who worship him not only as a gay god and LGBTQ role model but also as a god of youth, love, beauty and purity.  There are several online communities devoted to Antinous worship, some of which train their own priesthoods, offer a calendar of festivals and suggest possible prayers and rituals – my favourite suggestion is that swimming could be seen as a way of worshipping Antinous.  If you want to have a look, a couple of them are listed below).  

Antinous might have been one of the very last pagan gods created in Classical antiquity, but he’s outlasted most of the others.  I doubt there are any online communities dedicated to the worship of the deified emperor Vespasian, but Antinous still offers a timeless image of beauty, love and devotion. 

Where to See It

The marble bust of Antinous-as-Dionysus which forms the starting-point of this article is displayed in the British Museum, beside a bust of Antinous’ lover Hadrian.

A small selection of the other images of Antinous is listed below

Louvre, Paris – the Mondragone Head (colossal marble head of Antinous)

Albertinum, Dresden – red sandstone head of Antinous as Osiris

Hermitage, St Petersburg – marble bust

Munich, Glyptothek – marble bust

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge – marble head of Antinous, probably from

Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli

Vatican Museum, Vatican City – marble statue of Antinous- Osiris (Hadrian’s Villa)

Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight – marble statue of Antinous, reworked as a

figure of Ganymede with wine-jug and cup

Cast Gallery, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford – cast of Vatican statue of Antinous-Osiris

Royal Cast Gallery, Copenhagen – cast of Antinous bust

                                            Bust of Antinous in the Glyptothek, Munich

Further Reading & References

Hadrian’s autobiography is now lost, although the Belgian novelist Margeurite Yourcenar tried to recreate it in her novel Memoirs of Hadrian (1951)

Thorsten Opper, Hadrian: Empire & Conflict (London: British Museum Pres, 2008)

Caroline Vout, Antinous: The Face of the Antique (Leeds: Henry Moore Institute,

2006)

Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian (1951) – a novel which attempts to

recreate Hadrian’s lost autobiography

Modern Online Communities of Antinous Worshippers

www.antinopolis/org/religion/new-religion.htm

https://naosnatinoou – Naos Antinoou:  a Temple of Antinous