page_title: Antinous
section_title: The cult's spread
hierarchical_section_title: Antinous / Deification and the cult of Antinous / The cult's spread
caption_attribution_description: English: Colossal statue of Antinous as Dionysos-Osiris (ivy crown, head band, cistus and pine cone). Marble, Roman artwork. Français&#160;: Statue colossale d'Antinoüs en Dionysos-Osiris, portant la couronne de lierre, le bandeau, le ciste et la pomme de pin. Marbre, œuvre romaine.
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: Hadrian was keen to disseminate the cult of Antinous throughout the Roman Empire. He focused on its spread within the Greek lands, and in Summer 131 travelled these areas promoting it by presenting Antinous in a syncretised form with the more familiar deity Hermes. On a visit to Trapezus in 131, he proclaimed the foundation of a temple devoted to Hermes, where the deity was probably venerated as Hermes-Antinous. Although Hadrian preferred to associate Antinous with Hermes, he was far more widely syncretised with the god Dionysus across the Empire.
  The cult also spread through Egypt, and within a few years of its foundation, altars and temples to the god had been erected in Hermopolis, Alexandria, Oxyrhynchus, Tebytnis, Lykopolis, and Luxor.
  The cult of Antinous was never as large as those of well established deities such as Zeus, Dionysus, Demeter, or Asclepios, or even as large as those of cults which were growing in popularity at that time, such as Isis or Serapis, and was also smaller than the official imperial cult of Hadrian himself. However, it spread rapidly throughout the Empire, with traces of the cult having been found in at least 70 cities. The cult was most popular in Egypt, Greece, Asia Minor, and the North African coast, but a large community of worshippers also existed in Italy, Spain, and northwestern Europe. Artifacts in honor of Antinous have been found in an area that spans from Britain to the Danube.
  Although the adoption of the Antinous cult was in some cases done to please Hadrian, the evidence makes it clear that the cult was also genuinely popular among the different societal classes in the Empire, and archaeological finds point that Antinous was worshipped in both public and private settings. In Egypt, Athens, Macedonia, and Italy, children would be named after the deity.
  Part of the appeal was that Antinous had once been human himself, and thus was more relatable than many other deities. It is also possible, however, that his cult borrowed power from parallels between Antinous and beautiful young male immortals in the Greco-Roman pantheon like Apollo, Dionysus, and Silvanus as well as mortal youths beloved by gods in classical mythology like Ganymede, Hylas, Hyacinth, and Narcissus, and that images of the sensuous youth invited imaginary erotic bonding between him and his worshipers. These characteristics were common also to the cults of Attis, Endymion, and Adonis. Like the latter, Antinous was treated as a dying-and-rising god not only in Egypt, but in Rome and Greece; the Obelisk of Antinous in Rome describes the honorand, "Osirantinous" as "the Reborn" and "the Everlasting".
  At least 28 temples were constructed for the worship of Antinous throughout the Empire, although most were fairly modest in design; those at Tarsos, Philadelphia, and Lanuvium consisted of a four-column portico. It is likely however that those which Hadrian was directly involved in, such as at Antinoöpolis, Bithynion, and Mantineria, were often grander, while in the majority of cases, shrines or altars to Antinous would have been erected in or near the pre-existing temples of the imperial cult, or Dionysus or Hermes. Worshippers would have given votive offerings to the deity at these altars; there is evidence that he was given gifts of food and drink in Egypt, with libations and sacrifices probably being common in Greece. Priests devoted to Antinous would have overseen this worship, with the names of some of these individuals having survived in inscriptions. There is evidence of oracles being present at a number of Antinoan temples.
  Sculptures of Antinous became widespread, with Hadrian probably having approved a basic model of Antinous's likeness for other sculptors to follow. These sculptures were produced in large quantities between 130 and 138, with estimates being in the region of around 2000, of which at least 115 survive. 44 have been found in Italy, half of which were at Hadrian's Villa Adriana, while 12 have been found in Greece and Asia Minor, and 6 in Egypt. Over 31 cities in the Empire, the majority in Greece
caption: Antinous (Museo Pio-Clementino)
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