Antinous

 Few, if any, male historical figures represented in cameos generate the same excitement as Antinous (also Antinoös), the good-looking Bithynian boy who caught the eye of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, joining his entourage while still a teenager to become the imperial companion and, presumably, lover.  This high-profile homosexual relationship did not in itself make Antinous famous, however; it was more a combination of his mysterious and untimely death by drowning in the River Nile in CE 130 and the extraordinary measures by which Hadrian commemorated him that caused his image to be preserved and to resonate as strongly as it still does.

While accompanying Hadrian on an official tour of Egypt, Antinous drowned in the Nile, in the same spot where Osiris, Egyptian god of the dead and of the afterlife, is said to have perished.  The young man was only nineteen years old.  The local people attached great religious significance to this.   Hadrian’s response was to deify Antinous and to build shrines and temples dedicated to his worship throughout the Empire.  Coins were minted bearing the dead youth’s likeness and Hadrian even founded a whole new city, Antinopolis, in his name.  It was an unprecedented and bold step for an emperor to deify a commoner.  As the cult of Antinous spread, so images of him proliferated.

Antinous was considered the embodiment of male beauty, captured in many sculptures as an athletic-looking youth with soft curls framing a beardless oval face.  He had well-defined eyebrows over fairly deep-set eyes, quite a prominent nose and full, sensuous lips.  Some sculptures exaggerate his chest, which can seem rather broad for a young man under twenty. 

Given Hadrian’s passion for Greek art and culture, with its emphasis on depicting perfectly beautiful male youths (such as athletes), it is likely that these sculptures to some extent idealise Antinous to cast him in that mold.

Whether viewed as a divinized mortal or a fully-fledged deity, Antinous rapidly became identified with a variety of other gods within this emerging cult, including two in particular that shaped his syncretic role as a saviour god.  One was the Egyptian god Osiris, who through his death and subsequent rebirth brought about regeneration and renewal, including vegetative fertility associated with the annual flooding of the Nile.

The other was Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and fertility (or his Roman equivalent, Bacchus) who in certain myths had experienced ‘dying and rising’ and was considered the closest counterpart of Osiris in Greco-Roman culture.  Dionysus was also frequently represented as young, beardless and strikingly handsome – all the features we associate with the mortal Antinous.   This statue of Antinous as Dionysus, thyrsus in hand, is located at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen.

Many images of Antinous from antiquity show him in the guise of the wine god and this can be a problem when it comes to distinguishing Antinous from Dionysus (and some of his followers) in cameos. He can also be confused with other handsome, classical youths as well as certain female subjects.  Some cameos will remain ambiguous – all we can do is point out any inconsistencies as we see them.  The present guide to recognising Antinous in cameos is based largely on key artworks from antiquity which are known to depict him and which have influenced gem engravers and cameo carvers since renaissance times.  One way to categorize images of Antinous is by hair length.