Antinous

Antinous was a boy-favourite of the Emperor Hadrian who received extraordinary veneration. He held no official position, but more than eighty-five marble busts and statues of him survive today.

He was part of the imperial entourage on a tour of Egypt when he drowned in the Nile in ad 130. Hadrian founded a city there named Antinoopolis after him, and other cities around the Empire established cults honouring him as a hero or god.

Fascination with Antinous’s image and story – as retold by ancient authors – has reached into the modern world. His portraits have represented for many, a seductive ideal of perfect male beauty.

This book aims to explore Antinous’s surprising archaeology. It asks whether the number and range of his portraits were simply the result of a personal relationship with the Emperor or whether the cult of this boy made god had different roots and another significance.

ANTINOUS BOY MADE GOD | R.R.R. SMITH with Federica Gigante, Julia Lenaghan and Milena Melfi

Antinous: boy made god

Antinous boy made god R.R.R. Smith with Federica Gigante, Julia Lenaghan and Milena Melfi

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PREFACE Xa Sturgis, Director, Ashmolean Museum Bert Smith, Curator of the Ashmolean’s Cast Gallery The archaeology of Antinous is a remarkable phenomenon.

Antinous was a country boy from Bithynia (now northwest Turkey) who came to be honoured as a hero and a god across the Roman empire. He was part of the entourage of the Emperor Hadrian on a visit to Egypt when he drowned in the Nile in ad 130. Beyond that we know little certain about him.

His abundant surviving statues, busts and coins are evidence of a strong posthumous cult that began immediately after his death. Ancient authors, especially moralising Christians, writing in the mid-second century and later, viewed Antinous’s cult in strongly negative terms, and as the result of his having been Hadrian’s lover. We cannot know the details of Hadrian and Antinous’s relationship. What is certain, however, is that this interpretation has been central to the later reception and dissemination of Antinous’s image which has provided, and continues to provide, a powerful visualisation of homoerotic attraction in antiquity.

The Ashmolean exhibition centres round a remarkable bust of Antinous from Syria found in 1879. It was dedicated there by a Roman citizen, one Marcus Lucceius Flaccus. Casts of other key portraits of Antinous, as well as coins, later medals and bronze statuettes, reveal the range and variety of Antinous’s reception. Also displayed is an important bust of the popular imperial prince Germanicus (formerly in the collection of Lord Elgin), whose posthumous portrait cult is an important precursor to that of Antinous.

Plaster casts facilitated the spread of Antinous’s image in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when several important statues, such as the Capitoline ‘Antinous’, were taken as portraits of him. Casts of ancient sculptures are much loved objects of the Ashmolean collection, providing wide access to objects that most cannot travel to see in person. Oxford University is an important centre for the

Preface

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study of Greek culture under the Roman empire, and it is here that the cult of Antinous lies, across the disciplines of Archaeology and History. A key argument explored here is that archaeology and visual history can tell a wider, more coherent story of the strange Antinous cult than that found in ancient texts describing the same phenomenon.

We would like to express deep gratitude first to Baron Lorne Thyssen and the Augustus Foundation for their generous sponsorship of the exhibition and for facilitating the loans of the Antinous and Germanicus busts. For loans of important plaster casts we would also like to thank warmly the Art Institute of Chicago, the British Museum and the Faculty of Classics of Cambridge University.

The following generously provided help, photographs and their learning: Charles Arnold (British Museum), Elizabeth Hahn Benge (Chicago), Marianne Bergmann (Berlin), Alessandra Capodiferro (Palazzo Altemps), Dimitris Christodoulou (Chalkis), Robert Cohon (Kansas), Maria de Peverelli (Zurich), Tiziana D’Angelo (Cambridge and Nottingham), Rune Frederiksen (Copenhagen), Yannis Galanakis (Cambridge), Alan Greaves (Liverpool), Iris Harvey (Augustus Foundation), Nadia Jijina (St Petersburg), Ulrike Klotter (Stuttgart), Paolo Liverani (Florence), Ulrich Mania (Pergamon), Karen Manchester (Chicago), Thorsten Opper (BM), Konstantina Panousi (Thasos), Chrissy Partheni (Port Sunlight), Nikos Petrochilos (Delphi), Felix Pirson (Pergamon), Andreas Scholl (Berlin), Stefan Schroeder (Prado), Agnes Schwarzmaier (Berlin), Stacey Sherman (Kansas), Giorgos Spyropoulos (Loukou), Susanne Turner (Cambridge), Alex Truscott (British Museum), Ralf von den Hoff (Freiburg), Nina Willburger (Stuttgart), Claudia Wagner (Oxford), Jeremy Warren (London), and Zilkha Fund (Lincoln College, Oxford).

At the Ashmolean the following provided invaluable support: Alexandra Baldwin, Daniel Bone, Aisha Burtenshaw, Graeme Campbell, Timothy Crowley, Elisabetta di Virgilio, David Gowers, Kevin Jacques, Byung Kim, Jerome Mairat, Declan McCarthy and Agnes Valencak. We are very grateful to all of these friends and colleagues who have made this exhibition and this catalogue possible.

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INTRODUCTION Antinous was a boy who made a deep impression both on the emperor Hadrian and his contemporaries. Following his death by drowning in the Nile in ad 130, he received extraordinary honours. Hadrian founded a new city in Egypt near where he died, named Antinoopolis or Antinous City after him, and other cities around the empire established cults in his honour.

An authorised portrait of the boy was created by a master sculptor working for the court, and this portrait image was widely received and reproduced. More than 85 statues, busts and heads survive, and more than 30 cities in the Greek East issued coins representing Antinous in a wide range of heroic and divine forms. This is a remarkable set of honours for a person who held no public position whatsoever, neither in his city nor in the empire.

The discussion here asks whether the moralising ancient texts that record an affair between the emperor and Antinous are enough to explain the archaeology, or whether the huge numbers of Antinous sculptures need to be seen from other perspectives as well. The main components of the exhibition exploring this debate may be briefly introduced. At its centre is one of the most striking ancient portraits of Antinous to survive, an inscribed bust from Syria found in 1879; little seen since 1901, it has been recently conserved in the Ashmolean Museum (cat.1). A plaster cast of the bust showing its condition before restoration (cat.2) is also displayed.

Casts of other key portraits of Antinous consider the image of a country boy who became a god and hero with empire-wide reach. The Townley Antinous (cat.3) is a large portrait head from Rome with a Dionysian ivy wreath – Dionysos was one of Antinous’s most frequent divine assimilations. The LudovisiChicago bust (cat.4) highlights a recent discovery made through casts: the missing face of the Ludovisi bust has been shown to survive in a fragment in Chicago, and the cast displayed here unites the two ancient parts. The Braschi Antinous, displayed in a part cast (cat.5), was an exceptional

Introduction | 9

cult figure – both opulent and colossal – from a villa near Praeneste, east of Rome. The imposing Egyptian-style Antinous-Osiris from Tivoli (cat.6) is a genuinely transcultural image, evoking the roots of the Antinous cult in Egypt. The famous relief of Antinous in the Villa Albani (cat.7), perhaps also from Tivoli, is another exceptional and sumptuous monument, believed by J. J. Winckelmann to be one of the very greatest works of antiquity. Winckelmann and this relief were instrumental in launching the cult of Antinous in the modern era.

The exhibition includes a high-quality portrait bust of Germanicus (cat.8), formerly in the collection of Lord Elgin at Broomhall in Scotland. When the popular young prince Germanicus died in Syria in mysterious circumstances in ad 19, intense, empire-wide mourning sparked a posthumous cult similar to that of Antinous. A bust of Hadrian (cat.9) stands for his important part in the story.

The Capitoline ‘Antinous’ (cat.10) is one of several famous statues which were identified as Antinous in the eighteenth century, but which we can now be sure represent other subjects. The Capitoline statue inspired a proliferation of small eighteenth-century bronzes, of which cat.11 is an example.

Another such statue was the famous Belvedere ‘Antinous’ in the Vatican, of which a small seventeenth-century bronze is included (cat.12), together with a small eighteenth-century bronze reduction of the Townley Antinous (cat.13).

The Malborough Antinous gem, shown here in a superb eighteenth-century copy by Edward Burch (cat.14), represents private portable veneration. Some examples of Antinous coins show widespread public veneration in the cities of the Greek East (cats 15–16). These coins had a strong impact in the Renaissance when new bronze medallions were made, copying the ancient coin-types closely but with new sharpness and intensity (cats 17–20).

The discussion highlights the range and variety of Antinous’s reception and reveals how his images constitute a fascinating visual record that transcends the hostile textual accounts of later pagan and Christian writers alike.

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Figs 25a–b Alabaster bust of Antinous.

Private veneration permeates this small bust carved in Egyptian alabaster, which was made to be dismantled easily into its four constituent parts (bust, base, acanthus foot and columnar support behind). This seems to have been a travel-bust representing a favoured divinity of its owner.

Stuttgart, WĂźrttembergisches Landesmuseum, inv. Arch 74/3 (H: 29 cm)

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Figs 26a–c Antinous-like portraits.

Antinous’s image both emerged from, and acted as, a multiplier for a range of stylish portraits of boys and youths in Italy and the Greek East. a) Bust from Italy, c.ad 140–150.

Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, inv.59-3; b) Bust from Perge, c.ad 150. Antalya Museum, inv. I.S.2.44; c) Statue of youth wearings a toga, from Aphrodisias, c.ad 120–130.

Aphrodisias Museum, inv.83-64

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ANTINOUS-LIKE PORTRAITS

Opposite page: Fig.27

Antinous’s image sat firmly within the portrait norms for young aristocrats of the Greek East from which it comes, but it also had a multiplier impact on such boy portraits around the empire (Fittschen 1999, 80–2). They share the combination of young ideal features, portrait-like elements and a hairstyle treated with the best of contemporary marble technology.

Unlike moderns, who are keen to find Antinous portraits wherever possible, ancient portrait production avoided confusion by careful use of the named model.

There are many surviving Antinous-like boy portraits, but they employ distinct hairstyle details and usually also different physiognomical formulations (figs 26a–c). They are found in Rome and the East. A togatus statue of a young aristocrat in Aphrodisias has a mannered, youthful face and an Antinouslike hairstyle of soft, long, unstyled locks (fig.26a) (Smith et al.

2006, no.3). A naked portrait bust from Italy now in Kansas has an Antinous-like physiognomy, but very much its own thick cap of tighter curls covering the boy’s head, ears and brow (fig.26b) (Fittschen 1999, 81, no.12). A recently discovered bust from Perge has Antinous-like hair but in a different scheme; its portrait face is also clearly of a different subject (fig.26c) (Delemen 2010).

Bust of Polydeukion. In the next generation Herodes Atticus mourned his favourite young pupil Polydeukion as Hadrian had mourned Antinous. He commissioned a portrait of him that survives in 25 marble versions – the most for a private person in the Roman empire, excepting Antinous.

Polydeukion Herodes Atticus, the great Athenian sophist and benefactor, a younger contemporary of Hadrian, seems to have modelled extravagant honours for his favourites on those for Antinous. One of these favourites (trophimoi), one Polydeukion, who died as a boy, is the only private youth we know who has an archaeology in any way comparable to that of Antinous. Some 25 surviving marble busts and heads from around Attica were made after a single authorised portrait of the boy (fig.27) (Meyer 1985). He has a plain-haired portrait wearing a tightly configured himation – less hero or god, more well-behaved schoolboy.

From Athens, c.ad160–170. Berlin, Staatlichen Museen, inv.SK413

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Cat.8 Bust of Germanicus, formerly in Elgin collection. Photo: Steve Wakeham Photography.

Cat.9 Bust of Hadrian (and profile view) plaster cast. Cambridge, Museum of Classical Archaeology. Photo: courtesy S. Turner.

Cat.10 Capitoline Antinous, plaster cast. Ashmolean Museum.

Photo: Ashmolean Museum (David Gowers).

Cat.11 Capitoline Antinous, bronze statuette. Ashmolean Museum. Photo: Ashmolean Museum (David Gowers).

Cat.12 Belvedere Antinous, bronze statuette. Ashmolean Museum. Photo: Ashmolean Museum (David Gowers).

Cat.13 Townley Antinous, small bronze bust. Ashmolean Museum. Photo: Ashmolean Museum (David Gowers).

Cat.14 Antinous Malborough gem. a) Burch copy, Ashmolean Museum. b) Original: private collection. Photos: The Beazley Archive (C. Wagner).

Cat.15 Antinous coin of Smyrna. Ashmolean Museum. Photos: Ashmolean Museum (David Gowers).

Cat.16 Antinous coin of Smyrna. Ashmolean Museum. Photos: Ashmolean Museum (David Gowers).

Cat.17 Antinous coin of Nicomedia, sixteenth– seventeenth century. Ashmolean Museum. Photos: Ashmolean Museum (David Gowers).

Cat.18 Antinous medal. Ashmolean Museum, sixteenth century.

Photos: Ashmolean Museum (David Gowers).

Cat.19 Antinous medal, sixteenth century. Ashmolean Museum.

Photos: Ashmolean Museum (David Gowers).

Cat.20 Antinous medal, sixteenth century. Ashmolean Museum.

Photos: Ashmolean Museum (David Gowers).