Lambert Royston. Beloved and god: The Story of Hadrian and Antinous

Viking Penguin Inc., 1984. — 298 p. — ISBN 0-670-15708-2.One day in the slanting sunlight of late October in the year 130 AD a body was found in the murky receding floodwaters of the river Nile. It was that of a young man, aged between eighteen and twenty, athletic in build, with a massive chest and poignant beauty that it was to haunt the imagination for nearly two thousand years.
This volume investigates the mysteries that surround how this obscure Greek boy came to dominate the powerful emperor Hadrian. The author re-creates the glory and decadence of the Roman Empire ripe for decline. Antinous was the lover of the Roman emperor Hadrian.
The author demonstrates that Hadrian's private life and his obsession with his young lover Antinous did have an impact on policy and his public actions, particularly the establishment of Antinous as a state sponsored god, to be worshiped by the citizens of the Roman Empire.
When Antinous, around age 20, was accidentally drowned on the Nile, the 54 year old Hadrian was devastated and his grief changed the Empire.List of illustrations
List of emperors of Rome
Map of the Roman Empire under Hadrian
ForewordScandal of the centuries
Antinous, the young Greek, c. 110-23 years
Hadrian, the Roman Emperor, 76-123 years
Traces in lime
Rise to imperial favourite, 123-8 years
Pederasty in the imperial age
Hadrian and Antinous
‘A brilliant light’, Greece and the east, 128-30 years
‘Clouds hiding the sun’, Egypt, August-October 130 year
Death in the Nile, October 130 year
Life eternal, 130-31 years
The secret of the tomb
The bitter end of Hadrian, 131-8 years
The new god
‘A belief in Antinous’ - the cult
The rise and fall of Antinoopolis
‘The crown and glory of sculpture’Appendices:
The sculptures of Antinous
The coins and gems