Rent: Beloved and God : The Story of Hadrian & Antinous

This book adequately demonstrates that Hadrian's private sexual 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.

Antinous was the beautiful young Greek lover of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. When Antinous, around age 20, was accidentally drowned on the Nile, the 54 year old Hadrian was devasted and his grief changed the Empire. There is some evidence to indicate that Hadrian and Antinous had a 9 year acquatance before Antinous' death. We are unsure if the relationship was sexual in the beginning when Antinous was a child of 11. Other evidence would indicate that he gradually rose to prominence in the Imperial household and became the lover of the Emperor in the final two years of his short life. There are some descriptions of the couple that would indicate Antinous's maturity beyond his years and his calming wise personality brought relief to the restless personality of Hadrian. There is also some evidence that they shared spiritual beliefs and together joined a mystery cult. Hadrian established a cult around Antinous that spread throughout the Mediterranean. There were at least 40 cities with evidence of worship and cults to this state sponsored god. There is some evidence that the cult of Antinous and the cults of Dionysos and Hermes are overlapping since both were named the gods of farm animals, fertility and crops. Sculptors created statues of male adolescent beauty in honor of Antinous, which established the canon of adolescent perfection for many years in the classical world.

Hadrian was an amazing fellow. In his later years he lived at Tivoli in a fantasy village containing replicas of the great landmarks of the empire. He was surrounded by multiple images of his deceased lover.

There is some belief that Antinous was a human sacrifice of some kind to appease the gods or to benefit Hadrian. Handrian himself denied this to be true in his later years. Others believe he was a slave boy. This is certainly false since Rome was built on slave labor and to raise a slave to god status would have been totally beyond the economic and class structures of Rome. Reports that Antinous was a castrated eunich are also to be questioned since the statues all indicate fully developed muscular male beauty and Hadrian outlawed castration of slaves. Some records indicate Hadrian wrote erotic poetry to Antinous but none survives.

Also remember that the cult of Antinous was a competitor with early Christianity. With very few exceptions, writing about the relationship between Antinous and Hadrian are not homophobic with the exception of early Christian writings which were scandalized by the religious cult established by the Emperor in honor of his lover. The festivities around the cult of Antinous supposedly endorsed homosexual orgies. This book is very well researched and documented and certianly is broad reaching and thorough. I would suggest however Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian as a companion book. Hadrian become Emperor at 41, mature and wise to the ways of worldly power. He beame emperor after his Spanish cousin, Trajan, a major character in Yourcenar's Memoirs. Trajan, a childless but happily married man, never showed favoritism to Hadrian and never acknowledged him as his successor. This may have save Hadrian's life and character since he was supposed not favored above others in his military career. his political skills increased as the speech writer for his cousin Trajan. Hadrian quickly consolidated power when Trajan died of a stroke in Syria. He wore a short beard, the first of the Emperors to do so but a style followed by all the others. Twice assassination attempts were made on his life. Hadrian ws known for never forgetting the names of men who served with him in the military and was known to bathe and eat alongside common soldiers. There was never a hint of a military takeover during his reign.

Much like Elizabeth I, he kept his own council, never really trusting those around him. He married Sabina but all indications would indicate this was a marriage of convenience. He respected the Senators but retained the lion's share of power.

Hadrian was known for his many state trips and spent half of his reign outside of Rome. Of the 44 provinces making up the Empire, he visited 38. He died at age 62 atter ruling Rome for 21 years. Lambert has written a good book, speculating sometimes but sticking to the skimpy facts most of the time. The nature of this Imperial homosexual relationship remains a mystery in many ways. The fact that a gay Emperor ruled Rome at the height of power and world dominance, was able to establish a religious cult to his beautiful young deceased lover, and have very little negatively reflected in the surviving texts is testimony that homophobia need not always infect a society.

To love this book as much as I did you may need a pre-existing interest in the subject matters of the mystery religions of ancient Rome, and the history of homoeroticism. Short of loving the book, if you have an interest in History and/or Gay studies, then you will certainly at least like it a great deal.

For those that aren't simply history buffs, it describes what can only be called one of the most romantic gay love stories in history...the story of the Emperor Hadrian and his beloved Antinous. If your Gay and care at all about your history this book is a must read. Hadrian loved Antinous so much that he started a religion based on him...a once very popular religion it would seem. Upon seeing the many photos of sculptures of Antinous in the book, you may be tempted to worship him yourself! Love, amazing beauty, tragedy, and real history...it doesn't get any better than this.

The book is a very well documented historical document in English that covers everything that we know in detail about the life that Hadrian and Antinous shared together and the world in which they lived. Wherever facts are not known, the several existing theories are exposed. It is an open minded, honest book that recovers some of the facts that, due to the political and religious agendas of previous sources, have remained hidden or were not disclosed or explored fully previously.

I really liked this book since it illustrated a little known (at least to the general reader) story of Hadrian and Antinous and examined the evidence in a convincing manner. While some of the art history may be a little dry, the author wisely saves this material for last. Lambert pieces the story together well from his scant written evidence and manages to illustrate a complicated relationship between the two. Lambert leaves it up to the reader to fill in the blanks and give Hadrian's and Antinous's relationship depth.

Anyone reading this review likely already knows that Antinous was the greek teenage (male) lover of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who ruled effectively at the height of the pax romana. Antinous drowned in the Nile while in Hadrian's entourage and the distraught Emperor subsequently deified him. Antinous (the god) remained popular until his cult was stamped out by Christianity.

Royston Lambert's book, subtitled The Story of Hadrian and Antinous, is as much about the story of the story of Hadrian and Antinous than about the couple themselves. The facts left to us by ancient history are so scant that we must deduce from prejudiced "secondary sources" for most of what can be surmised about their lives together. Yet Lambert's exposure of the context and motivations of these secondary sources does as much or more to tell us a story as does the laying out of the bare facts.

"The secrets of the imperial bedchamber must for ever be denied to us, and, in view of all the hideous and speculative publicity about their love, Hadrian and Antinous are surely entitled to keep this ultimate and intimate secret." the author says. Although we can know few if any of the details of the relationship between the boy and the Caesar, Lambert gives us much about how others later saw it. This is, in my opinion, the most interesting aspect of Lambert's book. From the early Christian condemnations to the Victorian bowdlerization and rehabilitation, past historians do much to expose their own prejudices and opinions and very little to expose the imperial bedchamber. And just as all the previous commentaries have done, the present text's cool, objective style will give future generations more insight into how today's historians view pederastic behavior than into the lives of two ancient homosexual lovers. Maybe all historical works do more to comment on the times in which they are written than on the times in which they hope to comment?

Beloved and God gives us a story of the last of the gods of classical times and an insight into the cultures of Greece and Rome which remain as the foundations of our own. It was worthwhile for me to learn from Lambert how much times have changed, and yet remain the same.