The common image of Antinous is of an ephebic teenager which would be of the age of 18 or 19 years old. This reassessment of Antinous's age brings into question the accuracy of the reconstruction of his life with Hadrian. A boy, pais, up to the age of 17 would be depicted as prepubescent, which is consonant with the depiction of Antinous in the Delphi statue, discovered in a chamber adjacent to the temple of Apollo.
BLACK MATURE GAY PORN FULL
An ephebe of eighteen or nineteen would be depicted with full pubic hair, whereas the statues of Antinous depict him as prepubescent "without pubic hair and with carefully represented soft groin tissue". Smith to accompany the Ashmolean Museum's 2018 exhibition on Antinous, "Antinous: boy made god", suggest that the statues of Antinous are concerned with depicting the real age of Antinous at the age of his death, and that this is more likely to be "around thirteen to fourteen".
Given the location of his birth and his physical appearance, it is likely that part of his ancestry was not Greek. Early sources record that his birthday was in November, and although the exact date is not known, Lambert asserted that it was probably on 27 November. The year of Antinous's birth is not recorded, although it is estimated that it was probably between 110 and 112 CE. "This was important later for the cult character expressed in his statues: he was a figure of the country, a woodland boy (Robert 1980, 132-8 Jones 2010,75)." He was born in the territory to the east of the city called Mantineion, a rural locality: The historian Thorsten Opper noted that "Hardly anything is known of Antinous's life, and the fact that our sources get more detailed the later they are does not inspire confidence." Antinous's biographer Royston Lambert echoed this view, commenting that information on him was "tainted always by distance, sometimes by prejudice and by the alarming and bizarre ways in which the principal sources have been transmitted to us." Childhood Īntinous was born to a Greek family near the city of Claudiopolis, which was located in the Roman province of Bithynia, in what is now north-west Turkey. The Classicist Caroline Vout noted that most of the texts dealing with Antinous's biography only dealt with him briefly and were post-Hadrianic in date, thus commenting that "reconstructing a detailed biography is impossible". Īntinous became a symbol of male homosexuality in Western culture, appearing in the work of Oscar Wilde and Fernando Pessoa. The worship of Antinous proved to be one of the most enduring and popular of cults of deified humans in the Roman empire, and events continued to be founded in his honour long after Hadrian's death. Hadrian also founded games in commemoration of Antinous to take place in both Antinoöpolis and Athens, with Antinous becoming a symbol of Hadrian's dreams of pan-Hellenism. Hadrian founded the city of Antinoöpolis close to Antinous's place of death, which became a cultic centre for the worship of Osiris-Antinous. Various suggestions have been put forward for how he died, ranging from an accidental drowning to an intentional human sacrifice or suicide.įollowing his death, Hadrian deified Antinous and founded an organised cult devoted to his worship that spread throughout the Empire. In October 130, as they were part of a flotilla going along the Nile, Antinous died amid mysterious circumstances. Antinous accompanied Hadrian during his attendance of the annual Eleusinian Mysteries in Athens, and was with him when he killed the Marousian lion in Libya. He had become the favourite of Hadrian by 128, when he was taken on a tour of the Roman Empire as part of Hadrian's personal retinue. He was probably introduced to Hadrian in 123, before being taken to Italy for a higher education. Little is known of Antinous's life, although it is known that he was born in Claudiopolis (present day Bolu, Turkey), in the Roman province of Bithynia et Pontus. After his premature death before his twentieth birthday, Antinous was deified on Hadrian's orders, being worshipped in both the Greek East and Latin West, sometimes as a god ( θεός, theós) and sometimes merely as a hero ( ἥρως, hḗrōs). 111 – before 30 October 130 ) was a Greek youth from Bithynia and a favourite beloved of the Roman emperor Hadrian.
Heliopolis, River Nile, Ancient Egypt (now Egypt)Īntinous or Antinoös ( / æ n ˈ t ɪ n oʊ ʌ s/ Greek: Ἀντίνοος 27 November, c. Bust of Antinous from Patras, ( National Archaeological Museum, Athens)Ĭlaudiopolis, Bithynia, Roman Empire (now Bolu, Turkey)