Skip to main content

Beloved and God


Let me start with a disclaimer. This is not a book review though I’m relying on Royston Lambert’s book, Beloved and God (1984) for most of the information contained in this post.

The eponymous hero of the book is Antinous who died in his early 20s. Soon after his death he became a God in the Roman Empire because he was the beloved of Emperor Hadrian. What I wish to highlight is how a god can be created pretty easily and how the religion founded in his name can become popular too as easily. I think my country’s present leaders can take some lessons from here.

Hadrian was quite a good emperor. A benevolent dictator, in the judgment of many historians. He did very many good things for the benefit of his people instead of going around conquering more territories. [China too can learn something.] One of those many things was giving the people a new god and religion. He did much better things earlier, of course.

Antinous was an adolescent boy when Hadrian’s eyes fell on him first. A handsome young boy of Greek origin. Hadrian who loved to travel extensively met him in Turkey and fell in love with him instantly. Love at first sight. Our ancient kings were good at that sort of love. Hadrian took Antinous to Rome with him.

Most of the kings fell in love with women, even other men’s women. Hadrian was a gay, apparently. Homosexuality, even pederasty, was not a sin or a crime until Christianity became the official religion of Rome. When Julius Caesar (100-44 BCE) was accused of plotting with an older conspirator against Domitian, the young Julius acquitted himself easily with the excuse that the old man was making love to him. Marcus Aurelius (r 161-180 CE), philosopher-king, had an erotic relationship with Fronto who wrote such lines to the emperor as: “What is sweeter to me than your kiss? That sweet fragrance, that delight which dwells for me on your neck and on your lips…” Marcus replied asserting his passionate love for Fronto.

Diogenes Laertius wrote of Alcibiades, the Athenian general and politician of the 5th century BCE, that “in his adolescence he drew away the husbands from their wives, and as a young man the wives from their husbands.” Alexander the Great was interested in boys in ways that would be frowned upon today. 

This bust of Antinous is in the Vatican Museum now

In the fourth century, when Christianity became the official religion of Rome, sexual morality underwent a revolution. The great temples and statues that Hadrian had put up for his beloved Antinous were all torn down promptly.

Hadrian was in his fifties when the young Antinous died apparently in a boat accident on the Nile. The death brought the emperor’s seven-year long passionate relationship to a tragic end. Antinous had become an inseparable companion of the emperor. The boy was Hadrian’s travelling companion. Sabina, the queen, stayed in the palace without even the consolation of having her own children. When the accident happened on the Nile, Antinous was with Hadrian. What exactly happened? Nobody knows.

Some said it was an accident, the young man fell into the river. Some said he was killed by men who did not like the emperor’s obsession with him. A few said that his death was a case of human sacrifice. Some of this last group even went to the extent of saying that the young man sacrificed himself in order to bring good health to the emperor who was beginning to show signs of senility.

Soon after his death, Antinous became a god. Hadrian proclaimed him a god. Temples were built for him. A colossal statue of his was erected in bronze in Antinoopolis, a place named after him. Interestingly, the Romans accepted this new god gladly. He was different from the old gods who had become rather antiquated and wearisome. Royston Lambert says that this new god “represented a moment of balance between the forces of old and new, past and future, between Roman organisation and Greek culture, classical religion and eastern faiths, traditional society and provincial blood.” A new god with new and relevant promises.

In a matter of a couple of centuries, however, he would be replaced by another new god, Jesus. The rest is known history and hence requires no telling here.

PS. Royston Lambert’s book is free to read at Internet Archive.

Comments

  1. Hari OM
    Just as many have been put on pedestals through each century... only to later be torn down... again we find history proves nothing is learned, yet holds constant warning. YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shelley's Ozymandias puts it best.
      "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
      Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
      Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
      The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

      Delete
  2. The larger context of this story will be relevant always, till then i guess i'll just enjoy reading the "love" story~

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In this Wonderland

I didn’t write anything in the last few days. Nor did I feel any urge to write. I don’t know if this lack of interest to write is what’s called writer’s block. Or is it simple disenchantment with whatever is happening around me? We’re living in a time that offers much, too much, to writers. The whole world looks like a complex plot for a gigantic epic. The line between truth and fiction has disappeared. Mass murders have become no-news. Animals get more compassion than fellow human beings. Even their excreta are venerated! Folk tales are presented as scientific truths while scientific truths are sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. When the young generation in Nepal set fire to their Parliament and Supreme Court buildings, they were making an unmistakable statement: that they are sick of their political leaders and their systems. Is there any country whose leaders don’t sicken their citizens? I’m just wondering. Maybe, there are good leaders still left in a few coun...

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Death as a Sculptor

Book Discussion An Introductory Note : This is not a book review but a reflection on one of the many themes in The Infatuations , novel by Javier Marias. If you have any intention of reading the novel, please be forewarned that this post contains spoilers. For my review of the book, without spoilers, read an earlier post: The Infatuations (2013). D eath can reshape the reality for the survivors of the departed. For example, a man’s death can entirely alter the lives of his surviving family members: his wife and children, particularly. That sounds like a cliché. Javier Marias’ novel, The Infatuations , shows us that death can alter a lot more; it can reshape meanings, relationships, and even morality of the people affected by the death. Miguel Deverne is killed by an abnormal man right in the beginning of the novel. It seems like an accidental killing. But it isn’t. There are more people than the apparently insane killer involved in the crime and there are motives which are di...

When Cricket Becomes War

Illustration by Copilot Designer Why did India agree to play Pakistan at all if the animosity runs so deep that Indian players could not even extend the customary handshake: a simple ritual that embodies the very essence of sportsmanship? Cricket is not war, in the first place. When a nation turns a game into a war, it does not defeat its rival; it only wages war on its own culture, poisoning its acclaimed greatness. India which claims to be Viswaguru , the world’s Guru, is degenerating itself day after day with mounting hatred against everyone who is not Hindu. How can we forget what India did to a young cricket player named Mohammed Siraj , especially in this context? In the recent test series against England, India achieved an unexpected draw because of Siraj. 1113 balls and 23 wickets. He was instrumental in India’s series-levelling victory in the final Test at the Oval and was declared the Player of the Match. But India did not celebrate him. Instead, it mocked him for his o...

Whose Rama?

Book Review Title: Whose Rama? [Malayalam] Author: T S Syamkumar Publisher: D C Books, Kerala Pages: 352 Rama may be an incarnation of God Vishnu, but is he as noble a man [ Maryada Purushottam ] as he is projected to be by certain sections of Hindus? This is the theme of Dr Syamkumar’s book, written in Malayalam. There is no English translation available yet. Rama is a creation of the Brahmins, asserts the author of this book. The Ramayana upholds the unjust caste system created by Brahmins for their own wellbeing. Everyone else exists for the sake of the Brahmin wellbeing. If the Kshatriyas are given the role of rulers, it is only because the Brahmins need such men to fight and die for them. Valmiki’s Rama too upheld that unjust system merely because that was his Kshatriya-dharma, allotted by the Brahmins. One of the many evils that Valmiki’s Rama perpetrates heartlessly is the killing of Shambuka, a boy who belonged to a low caste but chose to become an ascetic. The...