#hadrian and antinous

[imaginal-ai]

"Imagining Antinous"

[quidam-sirenae]

Thinking about dogs in the Iliad.

Thinking about Alexander and Augustus and Achilles and Antinous.

Thinking about Mesalla Corvinus’s utter devotion to Cassius that came to nothing

[iwasnotaslasher]

Oscar Isaac as Emperor Hadrian and Timothée Chalamet as Antinous.

[scurvydogs]

not my typical art of 18c stuff but I was very proud of this small, quick, acrylic painting of Antinous I did today :)

[chicalepidopterareblogs]

After watching Gladiator II (which I enjoyed ngl) you know what I'm craving? I'm craving historical epic blockbuster drama about Emperor Hadrian and his boyfriend Antinous. Give me

[glossc1]

OSIRIS-ANTINOUS. antinous enters the nile human, and leaves a statue 🪷

[kebriones]

"An emperor, a philosopher, a general and a god walk into a cafe"

Hadrian, Antinous, Socrates and Alcibiades hanging out at a cafe! The modern AU crossover you didn't know you needed! (in honor of @scribl1ta and I hanging out in Athens recently :D )

[orpheuslament]

just saw a tiktok of someone basically calling hadrian Problematic™. girl he was a roman emperor

[illustratus]

[tragediambulante]

Antinous, XVIII century

[remixingreality]

[breaker0fdays]

Dumb lil sketches of Antinous

[ancientcharm]

Antinous, sculpture from Hadrian's Villa. Louvre.

"Antinous died in Egypt after falling into the Nile, according to what Hadrian wrote or, according to what really happened, because he was offered as a sacrifice. Hadrian was a great enthusiast of all kinds of divinations and enchantments. Thus, Hadrian honored Antinous - because of his love for him or because he would have agreed to die freely ." -Dio Cassius

"The reason for this would have been that Hadrian wanted to prolong his life and that upon asking a magician to take his place, everyone backed off but Antinous offered to do so." -Aurelius Victor

Emperor Hadrian (reign: 117-138)

Born on January 24, 76, he was the nephew of his predecessor, Trajan. He was married to Vibia Sabina, grandniece of Trajan, with whom he had a bad relationship but he loved his mother-in-law, Salonia Matidia (Trajan's niece) like a mother. He is the third of the so-called "Five Good Emperors", however Hadrian was the only one of the five who was not very popular with the Senate because:

He was the one who stopped - forever - the expansion of the Roman empire. For the first time, borders were marked with the famous Hadrian's Walls.

He used to have sudden attacks of anger becoming aggressive, and hours later he would lament bitterly and try to repair any damage done. This was seen as a non-Roman attitude.

No one before or after him toured the entire empire as Hadrian did, which is why he is known as 'The Traveling Emperor'. His endless travels were not well regarded by the Senate.

His relationship with Antinous, considered inappropriate. The young man attended public events with the emperor dressed as a member of the imperial family. Hadrian did not care what they thought about this, and according to historians, the Empress did not care about this situation either.

But despite everything he was a good emperor, and ruled for 21 years. The most positive thing about this emperor is that he prohibited torture and was characterized by several laws that today we would call humanitarian.

Hadrian met Antinous in Bithynia, Roman province in the northwest of��Asia Minor (present-day Türkiye ), where the young man lived. According to historians, Hadrian fell in love immediately and Antinous also loved the emperor. From that moment until the day of his death, when he was around 20 years old, he did not separate from emperor; In fact, died while Hadrian was with him.

What really happened on the Nile

Marble bust of Hadrian and Antinous. Photo: Leonardo / CC BY-NC 2.0

Shortly before the death of Antinous, the emperor began to feel ill to the point that he feared an imminent death. But as was his custom, instead of looking for medicine, he looked for magic spells in the East.

When Hadrian arrived in Egypt with Antinous on October of the year 130, the arrival coincided - and was not so coincidental - with the beginning of the religious ceremony commemorating the death of Osiris, drowned in the Nile and then resurrected by his wife Isis. During the days of the commemoration, death and resurrection of Osiris, Isis was invoked in healing incantations.

Dio Cassius suspicion that Antinous' death was not accidental is the same as that of modern historians due the death was during that religious ritual.

But the ancient historians agree that it was not Hadrian who asked Antinous to sacrifice himself. As the Roman historian Aurelius Victor wrote, he asked a magician for the sacrifice, but that man and the others backed away, so Antinous voluntarily decided to enter the Nile.

It is very likely that he really believed in those practices, that is, he believed that by doing that, his emperor could heal and live longer.

Antinous' body was immediately recovered and then cremated in a proper funeral. Hadrian placed the urn containing the ashes in his luxurious villa outside Rome.

Hadrian deified him, founded in Egypt the city Antinoöpolis ('Antinous city') in his honor, and ordered sculptures and reliefs to be made in which Antinous is represented as different deities.

Antinous depicted as the Egyptian god Osiris. Vatican Museums. Photo: Brett Bigham /CC BY-SA 4.0/ Wikimedia Commons

Bronze medallion minted by the city of Smyrna during the reign of Hadrian. The reverse depicts a bust of Antinous with inscription ΑΝΤΙΝΟΟϹ ΗΡΩϹ (“Antinous hero”)

Antinous depicted as Bacchus. Vatican Museums.

[scribl1ta]

Sleep well tonight everybody

[glossc1]

im not really interested in engaging in moral discourse surrounding the relationship of zeus and ganymede bc 1. i like to leave things up to the viewer and 2. the inherent horror and tragedy of being the “most beautiful boy to exist” is more interesting to me since we’ve seen it play out horribly in real life. i take inspiration from björn adrésen, quotes from the young river phoenix, the lives of castrati and antinous more than anything lol.

i see ganymede being taken as something that mirrors the inevitable “death” that either occurs literally or metaphorically to beautiful young men. they either “die” by aging out of their perceived beauty or die in some tragic way that preserves their young grace in peoples minds. ganymede cannot die in the traditional sense as he is immortal, but him being taken is a “death” of sorts in that the memory of his beauty is frozen in time. the ganymede inside everyone’s heads will stay the same forever and can be deified both literally and figuratively.

so did zeus “kill” ganymede or save him? is there love in the “kill” and greed in his conservation? is there liberation in “death” when you are the most beautiful boy to exist? can you ever be liberated? is ganymede dead or alive?

[youuuuegg]