Antinous
Antinous was a Greek youth from Bithynia and a lover of the Roman emperor Hadrian. Following his premature death, Antinous was deified on Hadrian's orders and worshipped in both the Greek East and Latin West. He was sometimes worshipped as a god (θεός, theós) and sometimes as a hero (ἥρως, hḗrōs).
↻ synthesized from 3 sources
When
- First attested
- 100 CE
- Attested period
- 100 – 2020
- Historical notes
- Deified by Hadrian after his death in 130 CE.
Relationships
- co occurs with
- Osiris-Antinous, Julius Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, Osiris, Thoth, Alpheus
Mentioned by
Sources
- peer reviewed
Source passages
“Hadrian was devastated by the death of Antinous, with contemporaries attesting that he "wept like a woman." In Egypt, the local priesthood immediately deified Antinous by identifying him with Osiris due to the manner of his death. In keeping with Egyptian custom, Antinous's body was probably embalmed”
#37519 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001
“Antinous, the lover of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. Antinous was a Greek youth who had drowned in the Nile River. After he was deified, coins of the period depict him as Alpheios or Hadrian with Alpheios.”
#42303 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001
“Antinous, the favourite of Hadrian, was adored in Egypt a century after his death (Origen, Contra Celsum, iii. 36)”
#44340 · extracted by openai/gpt-oss-20b:free