A Rosy Lotus for Antinoos: Hadrian, Egypt, and Roman Religions

by Moriya Vanderhoef

The Center’s lecture last Friday caught my eye on the schedule of events. Who isn’t fascinated by ancient Egypt and Rome? The presenter, Roberta Mazza from the University of California-Santa Barbara, caught my attention right away with the question, “How can we make sense of the ancient past when we filter it through the modern influence of books, movies, video games, and blogs?”

While Professor Mazza’s lecture was difficult to understand at times, where she truly shined was in the question and answer period afterwards. Her off-the-cuff answers were clear, concise, and showed a high degree of knowledge in her field. With the talk papers left on the lectern, she truly engaged my attention to the details of her presentation for the first time. I learned more in the fifteen-minute question and answer session then I had in the presentation leading up to it. What I learned was fascinating.

From 117AD to 138, Rome had a restless Emperor, Hadrian. He was the first Emperor in Rome’s history who spent more time traveling than at home in the capitol. He had a young, attractive, male lover, Antinous (the Latin version was used during the lecture, while the Greek version of his name, Antinoos, was used to title the lecture), who was the “James Dean” of his day. While in Egypt, the two ran into a lion, which Antinous killed. During the ensuing celebration, Antinous sacrificed himself in the Nile. At the time it was believed that if you drowned in the Nile, you were deified. A religious cult soon grew and spread around Antinous, fueled by Hadrian in an attempt to control the ‘multifaceted religious faces of the Roman Empire’. Hadrian’s desire for religious control was soon able to bring everyone in the Empire under his thumb, except the Jewish people. His thirst for control may have been a contributing factor to the emergence and rise of Christianity within the Roman Empire.

See what you can learn in fifteen minutes? I highly recommend sticking around for the question-and-answer sessions after presentations; I doubt you’ll regret it!