Publius Aelius Hadrianus assumed control over the vast Roman Empire in AD 117 following the death of his adoptive father, Trajan. He was born in AD 76 in Rome, his family coming from ltalica in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica (near Seville in modern-day Spain). Hadrian’s father having died when he was ten, he and his sister became wards of his father’s cousin, the future emperor Trajan.
As emperor, Trajan (AD 98–117) was ambitious and aggressive, and Hadrian gained substantial military experience as a legatus (general) in Dacia (modern-day Romania) and Parthia (modern-day Iraq). He also served as consul – traditionally an executive role of the highest honour – and twice as a governor of provinces of the Roman Empire. He was a cultured and well read man, who admired the Hellenistic culture, but some Senate members thought him distant and authoritarian. Many described him as cold, he could be argumentative, with a capacity for both personal generosity and extreme cruelty, driven by curiosity, conceit, and ambition (Encyclopedia Britannica). In the Historia Augusta, Hadrian is described as ‘a little too much Greek, too cosmopolitan for a Roman emperor’.
In the hierarchy of the Roman Empire, (and still is nowadays in some circles, think Charles and Diana here) Hadrian had to marry, and so he opted for a politically arranged marriage to Sabina, the 18 year old great-niece of the former emperor Trajan, which in effect, set up his succession. But unfortunately, it was a loveless marriage and no children came along.
Whilst married, Hadrian also had many male lovers. This was common practice for Roman men, including the emperors, and while they would be classified by our modern society as ‘bisexual’, the Romans did not define sexuality, or themselves that way. The relationships between Hadrian and his male lovers were sexual relationships between a grown man and a younger boy, that were legal and accepted in the ancient world. As emperor, Hadrian was ahead of his time not just because of the way he ruled his empire, or his sexual preferences, but also his appearance. Emperors before Hadrian were all clean shaven, however he preferred a ‘Greek philosopher’ type beard, and made them so fashionable that most emperors after him followed his example.
The most famous of Hadrian’s male lovers was a young Bithynian called Antinous, of Greek origin and possibly a slave (although some scholars dispute this), who Hadrian met in Claudiopolis, Bithynia (modern-day Turkey). Antinous was sent by Hadrian to the Paedogogium, a boarding school in Rome for two years, to be educated and trained as a page to serve the emperor but then rose to the status of an imperial favourite. The youth accompanied Hadrian and his wife on visits throughout the empire, including Greece, Syria, Arabia and Judaea, ending up in Egypt, where they visited the tomb of Alexander the Great and hunted together. During a lion-hunt the wounded animal charged Antinous and nearly killed him, had not Hadrian stepped in and dispatched the animal. The event was later widely publicised by Hadrian with a tondo (circular work of art), depicting his great deed, and it can still be seen today on the Arch of Constantine in Rome.
Soon after, Hadrian set off for a trip on the Nile River. He arrived in Heliopolis, where the emperor consulted a priest named Pachrates about an illness that had been causing him problems, possibly seeking a cure. Then, Hadrian and his group celebrated the Festival of the Osiris, in October 130 AD. But shortly afterwards, Antinous drowned while sailing down the Nile, he was 20 years old. His body was found floating in the river but it was never fully explained what had led to the tragedy. Hadrian said that it was an accident. But rumours abounded that he had been murdered by Hadrians jealous wife, or perhaps sacrificed on purpose to try and prolong Hadrian’s life, as the Romans sometimes believed that sacrificing one human being could extend the life of another. This theory came from the writings of the historian Cassius Dio who wrote his histories some 80 years after the tragic event took place. Others thought it was suicide, Antinous believing his love affair with the emperor was doomed.
Whether an accident, sacrifice or suicide, Hadrian was distraught at the death of his lover, and he mourned Antinous’ death intensely and publically, rather than in private as was custom, and near the spot where he died, he founded a new city named Antinöpolis in his honour (it’s ruins lie approximately 250 miles south of Cairo) on the banks of the Nile, as well as erecting statues throughout the empire celebrating his youthful beauty. Hadrian also had Antinous deified – an honour usually reserved for a member of the imperial family. This cult of Antinous became very popular, particularly in the eastern provinces of the empire, and perhaps unbelievably, more images of Antinous survive than any other figure from the Roman world besides those of Augustus and Hadrian himself.
There are around 80 known statues of the young man who so captivated the emperor, many of them in the museums of Rome, but as a man, Antinous remains to us an unknown — nothing can be stated about him with certainty and other than the statues, only a few references survive, mostly just a poem written on papyrus, featuring the two men hunting together, and memorials to the dead lover at Hadrian’s villa in Tivoli.
Hadrian was to die of heart failure, aged 62, in July 138 AD at Baiae in Italy, leaving his adopted son Antoninus Pius to rule the empire. Hadrian is best known to us today for ordering a wall to be built from coast to coast across northern Britain, his tragic love-affair just a side note, but this year English Heritage has recognized Hadrian’s Wall as a landmark “linked to England’s queer history,” upholding the LGBTQ+ ties to one of the most prominent relics of the Roman Empire, through the emperor’s well-documented history of gay relationships, and the NML (National Museums Liverpool) hails Hadrian and Antinous as one of the “the most famous homosexual couples in Roman history”.
Hadrian liked to write poetry, and today four complete poems of Hardrian’s survive, including Little Soul, which he supposedly composed as he lay dying:
Little soul, gentle and drifting, guest and companion of my body, now you will dwell below in pallid places, stark and bare; there you will abandon your play of yore. But one moment still, let us gaze together on these familiar shores, on these objects which doubtless we shall not see again… let us try, if we can, to enter death with open eyes.
Transalted by Marguerite Yourcenar (in collaboration with Grace Frick), The Poetry Foundation
everythinglatin.co.uk 
Leave a reply to Mark Cancel reply