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OK, what's the deal with these two? Is all this gay stuff just some post-modern homosexual fantasy or was it an actual gay relationship? There are two written references to this, one has absolutely nothing to do with a lover-type relationship, the other can maybe be interpreted that way if that's what you're looking for.I think it is one of two things: a type of religious relationship - I read somewhere that Antinuous saccrificed himself to save Hadrian's life and empire because an oracle said this had to happen. Another thing, and this is what I think most likely, is that their relationship was father/son/heir like. Hadrian was childless and I wonder if he wanted to adopt Antinous and groom him as future emperor. He obvioulsy loved him and was very distraught about his death...just as any father would be if his son died. Also, didn't emperors only deify members or adopted members of their family? So why did Hadrian deify Antinous? Hadrian had statues of Antinous all over the empire and 25 statues in Hadrian's Villa alone. I just find it incredibly hard to believe that, if this was a homosexual relationship, a Roman emperor would be so "out" about it. Or maybe I'm just being completely blind, naive, or biased because I think Hadrian was kind of cool.
I had heard about this somewhere not too long ago. Can't remember exactly where.I do know, however, that a number of emperors were odd to begin with - pederasty, suicide, megalomania....so deviant lifestyles would fit in there. I'm not sure about the specific case of Hadrian and Antinuous, though. Have you read what the sources tell about this relationship? Or the position that Antinous had in the empire? You are right that this does seem odd.
Have you read what the sources tell about this relationship?
First of all, many of the sources are crap. There's many that claim something like "his lover, Antinous" but then the author(s) don't source it. There's one that seemed academic, but the author also mentions she is writing a book about sexuality in ancient times, so I'm wondering if she's showing bias.
Or the position that Antinous had in the empire? You are right that this does seem odd.
I don't really think he had any position in the empire so to speak. The two primary Roman sources just say he was a travelling companion. All I really know is he was deified and there also was a cult to him in Greece. There are also "egyptianized" statues of Ant. and I wonder if that has any major religious significance.
Hadrian, like many educated Romans, was a Greek freak realizing that their culture was much moresophisticated and artistically attractive than that of Rome. As we have discussed earlier, to no smalldegree of consternation and confusion, older man-younger man relationships between members of theupper classes was not homosexual or gay in our definition of the term. The lover and the beloved had a"loving" relationship regardless of whether the sexual contact involved penetration or merely intercrualsex. We have a hard time dealing with this--but if you go to the sources you will see that that was the way it was in Classical times--at least until Constantine established (?) Christianity as the official religion of the Empire. Coda; The Turks found this in Constantinople in 1453 and kept it. There is a whole world of Persian and Turkish poetry about this subject which Alas I cannot read.
We may never know for sure. One of the primary sources was biased against Hadrian, so he may have “embellished” his interpretation. I won't jump on either the pro or anti gay bandwagon, but I would reckon that the relationship had some religious or cultish overtones to it. Hadrian was quite the philhellene, so it wouldn't be surprising if he emphasized the Greek practice of pederasty, however one may define that. Considering the insignificance of Antinous to history (except to Hadrian) there sure are a lot of statues made in his honor. It's that fact alone that makes me lean more towards a father/son relationship than anything else because deifying offspring was a common practice in Rome. I'm very curious how Antinous died. Was it sacrificial, accidental, or murder?
