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Antinous & Hadrian
Jul. 10th, 2013 10:09 am
Born in a province of Imperial Rome that is now in Turkey, Antinous (27 November, c. 111 – before 30 October 130) was the handsome young lover of the Emperor HADRIAN. When Antinous drowned in the Nile at age eighteen, the anguished emperor declared him reborn as a god, and Antinous was worshipped as such for hundreds of years. He was the subject of countless sculptures, medallions, coins, and religious shrines. According to some historians, the early homophobia of the Christian church may have been partly motivated by competition with the cult of Antinous, since he died young and was believed to have risen from the dead like the Egyptian god Osiris and the Christian God Jesus. (Picture: The "Lansdowne Antinous" was found at Hadrian's Villa in 1769 (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge))Thorsten Opper in Hadrian: Empire and Conflict notes: "Hardly anything is known of Antinous' life, and the fact that our sources get more detailed the later they are does not inspire confidence." At an irreducible minimum he was born to a Greek family in Bithynion-Claudiopolis, in the Roman province of Bithynia in what is now north-west Turkey, and joined the entourage of the emperor Hadrian at a young age, although nothing certain is known of how, when, or where he and Hadrian met. He is constantly described and depicted as a beautiful boy and youth. The relationship is believed to have been sexual.
Antinous drowned in the Nile in October 130. The death was presented as an accident, "but it was believed at the time that Antinous had been sacrificed or had sacrificed himself," and Hadrian "wept for him like a woman." Hadrian went through the process of deifying him soon afterwards, a process previously exclusively reserved for imperial family members rather than friends or lovers of non-Roman origin.
Source: Stern, Keith (2009-09-01). Queers in History: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals (Kindle Locations 1512-1517). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.
Hadrian (Latin: Publius Aelius Traianus Hadrianus Augustus 24 January 76 – 10 July 138), was a Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in all his tastes. He was the third of the so-called Five Good Emperors.Hadrian was born Publius Aelius Hadrianus to an ethnically Italian family in Italica near Seville, in today´s Spain. His predecessor Trajan, also Hispanic himself, was a maternal cousin of Hadrian's father. Trajan never officially designated an heir, but according to his wife Pompeia Plotina, Trajan named Hadrian emperor immediately before his death. Trajan's wife and his friend Licinius Sura were well-disposed towards Hadrian, and he may well have owed his succession to them.
During his reign, Hadrian traveled to nearly every province of the Empire. An ardent admirer of Greece, he sought to make Athens the cultural capital of the Empire and ordered the construction of many opulent temples in the city. He used his relationship with his Greek favorite Antinous to underline his philhellenism and led to the creation of one of the most popular cults of ancient times. He spent extensive amounts of his time with the military; he usually wore military attire and even dined and slept amongst the soldiers. He ordered military training and drilling to be more rigorous and even made use of false reports of attack to keep the army alert. Upon his ascension to the throne, Hadrian withdrew from Trajan's conquests in Mesopotamia and Armenia, and even considered abandoning Dacia. Late in his reign he suppressed the Bar Kokhba revolt in Judaea, renaming the province Syria Palaestina. In 136 an ailing Hadrian adopted Lucius Aelius as his heir, but the latter died suddenly two years later. In 138, Hadrian resolved to adopt Antoninus Pius if he would in turn adopt Marcus Aurelius and Aelius' son Lucius Verus as his own eventual successors. Antoninus agreed, and soon afterward Hadrian died at Baiae.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian
( Further Readings )
Alejandro "Alec" Mapa (born July 10, 1965) is a Filipino American actor, comedian and writer. Mapa is openly gay and lends his support to various projects supporting the gay, lesbian, and Asian American communities. In 2008, Mapa legally married Jamison 'Jamie' Hebert, after dating since 2002. On the TV series The Gossip Queens, Mapa stated in the opening episode that he and his husband had recently adopted a 5 year old boy.
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I asked to all the authors joining the UK GLBTQ Fiction meet in Manchester in July (