page_title: Antinous
section_title: Life with Hadrian
hierarchical_section_title: Antinous / Biography / Life with Hadrian
caption_attribution_description: English: Marble busts of Hadrian (left, 117-138 CE, probably from Rome) and Antinous (right, 130-138 CE, from Rome). Antinous was Hadrian's lover. He met Hadrian in 120s CE and died in the Nile, Egypt, in 130 CE. The British Museum, London.
context_page_description: Antinous was a Bithynian Greek youth and a favourite beloved of the Roman emperor Hadrian. 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 and sometimes merely as a hero.
  Little is known of Antinous's life, although it is known that he was born in Claudiopolis, in the Roman province of Bithynia. He was probably introduced to Hadrian in 123, before being taken to Italy for a higher education. He had become the favourite of Hadrian by 128, when he was taken on a tour of the Empire as part of Hadrian's personal retinue. 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. In October 130, as they were part of a flotilla going along the Nile, Antinous died amid mysterious circumstances. Various suggestions have been put forward for how he died, ranging from an accidental drowning to an intentional human sacrifice or suicide.
  Following his death, Hadrian deified Antinous and founded an organised cult devoted to his worship that spread throughout the Empire.
context_section_description: The Emperor Hadrian spent much time during his reign touring his Empire, and arrived in Claudiopolis in June 123, which was probably when he first encountered Antinous. Given Hadrian's personality, Lambert thought it unlikely that they had become lovers at this point, instead suggesting it probable that Antinous had been selected to be sent to Italy, where he was probably schooled at the imperial paedagogium at the Caelian Hill. Hadrian meanwhile had continued to tour the Empire, only returning to Italy in September 125, when he settled into his villa at Tibur. It was at some point over the following three years that Antinous became his personal favourite, for by the time he left for Greece three years later, he brought Antinous with him in his personal retinue.
  Lambert described Antinous as "the one person who seems to have connected most profoundly with Hadrian" throughout the latter's life. Hadrian's marriage to Sabina was unhappy, and there is no reliable evidence that he ever expressed a sexual attraction for women, in contrast to much reliable early evidence that he was sexually attracted to boys and young men. For centuries, sexual relations between a man and a boy had been socially acceptable among Greece's leisured and citizen classes, with an older erastes (the "lover", aged between 20 and 40) undertaking a caring sexual relationship with an eromenos (the "beloved", aged between 12 and 18) and taking a key role in his (the latter's) education. Hadrian took Antinous as a favoured servant when they were aged about 48 and 13 respectively. Such a societal institution of pederasty was not indigenous to Roman culture, although bisexuality was widely socially accepted in the upper echelons of Roman society by the early 2nd century.
  It is known that Hadrian believed Antinous to be intelligent and wise, and that they had a shared love of hunting, which was seen as a particularly manly pursuit in Roman culture. Although none survive, it is known that Hadrian wrote both an autobiography and erotic poetry about his boy favourites; it is therefore likely that he wrote about Antinous. Early sources are explicit that the relationship between Hadrian and Antinous was sexual. During their relationship, there is no evidence that Antinous ever used his influence over Hadrian for personal or political gain.
  In March 127, Hadrian – probably accompanied by Antinous – travelled through the Sabine area of Italy, Picenum, and Campania. From 127 to 129 the Emperor was then afflicted with an illness that doctors were unable to explain. In April 128 he laid the foundation stone for a temple of Venus and Rome in the city of Rome, during a ritual where he may well have been accompanied by Antinous. From there, Hadrian went on a tour of North Africa, during which he was accompanied by Antinous. In late 128 Hadrian and Antinous landed in Corinth, proceeding to Athens, where they remained until May 129, accompanied by Sabina, the Caeserii brothers, and Pedanius Fuscus the Younger. It was in Athens in September 128 that they attended the annual celebrations of the Great Mysteries of Eleusis, where Hadrian was initiated into the position of epoptes in the Telesterion. It is generally agreed, although not proven, that Antinous was also initiated at that time.
  From there they headed to Asia Minor, settling in Antioch in June 129, where they were based for a year, visiting Syria, Arabia, and Judaea. From there, Hadrian became increasingly critical of Jewish culture, which he feared opposed Romanisation, and so introduced policies banning circumcision and building a Temple of Zeus-Jupiter on the former site of the Jewish Temple. From there, they headed to Egypt. Arriving in Alexandria in August 130, there they visited the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great. Although welcomed with public praise and ceremony, some of Hadrian's appointments and actions angered the city's Hellenic social elite, who began to gossip about his sexual activities, including those with Antinous.
  Soon after, and probably in September 130, Hadrian and Antinous travelled west to
caption: British Museum busts of Hadrian (left) and Antinous (right)
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