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127-574: Antinous , also called Antinoös , ( / æ n ˈ t ɪ n oʊ ʌ s / ; ‹See Tfd› Greek : Ἀντίνοος ; c.  111 – c.  130 ) was a Greek youth from Bithynia and a favourite and lover of the Roman emperor Hadrian . Following his premature death before his 20th birthday, Antinous was deified on Hadrian's orders, being worshipped in both the Greek East and Latin West , sometimes as

254-613: A basic model of Antinous's likeness for other sculptors to follow. These sculptures were produced in large quantities between 130 and 138, with estimates being in the region of around 2,000, of which at least 115 survive. Forty-four have been found in Italy, half of which were at Hadrian's Villa Adriana, while 12 have been found in Greece and Asia Minor, and 6 in Egypt. Over 31 cities in the Empire,

381-577: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,

508-523: A deity and announced that a city should be built on the site of his death in commemoration of him, to be called Antinoöpolis . The deification of human beings was not uncommon in the Classical world. However, the public and formal divinisation of humans was reserved for the Emperor and members of the imperial family. Thus, Hadrian's decision to declare Antinous a god and create a formal cult devoted to him

635-558: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in

762-560: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on

889-737: A fire in AD 27. Jerome alleges that Marcus Aurelius was born on the Caelian Hill in AD 121. In the 4th century rich domus , surrounded by vast parks, stood on the hill, such as the ones belonging to the Symmachi (near which rose the Basilica hilariana ) and Tetrici families, as well as the domus Faustae , perhaps belonging to the wife of Constantine I . The property of the Annii , of Domitia Lucilla Minor (the mother of Marcus Aurelius) and of

1016-564: A flotilla along the River Nile . The retinue included officials, the Prefect, army and naval commanders, as well as literary and scholarly figures. Possibly also joining them was Lucius Ceionius Commodus , a young aristocrat whom Antinous might have deemed a rival to Hadrian's affections. On their journey up the Nile, they stopped at Hermopolis Magna , the primary shrine to the god Thoth . It

1143-487: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near

1270-683: A former slave in Roman society. There is no surviving reliable evidence attesting to Antinous's family background, although Lambert believed it most likely that his family would have been peasant farmers or small business owners, thereby being socially undistinguished yet not from the poorest sectors of society. Lambert also considered it likely that Antinous would have had a basic education as a child, having been taught how to read and write. The Emperor Hadrian spent much time during his reign touring his empire, and arrived in Claudiopolis in June 123, which

1397-473: A god ( θεός , theós ) and sometimes merely as a hero ( ἥρως , hḗrōs ). Little is known of Antinous's life, although it is known that he was born in Claudiopolis (present day Bolu , Turkey), in the Roman province of Bithynia et Pontus . He was probably introduced to Hadrian in 123, before being taken to Italy for a higher education. He had become the favourite of Hadrian by 128, when he

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1524-570: A mystical-religious need for his companionship. Lambert described Antinous as "the one person who seems to have connected most profoundly with Hadrian" throughout the latter's life. Hadrian's marriage to Sabina was unhappy, and there is no reliable evidence that he ever expressed a sexual attraction for women, in contrast to much reliable early evidence that he was sexually attracted to boys and young men. For centuries, pederasty existed among Greece's leisured and citizen classes, with an older erastes (the "lover," aged between 20 and 40) undertaking

1651-407: A remarkable fact considering that his cult was the target of intense hostility by Christian apologists, many of whom vandalized and destroyed artefacts and temples built in honour of the youth. By 2005, classicist Caroline Vout could note that more images have been identified of Antinous than of any other figure in classical antiquity with the exceptions of Augustus and Hadrian. She also asserted that

1778-480: A sexual relationship with an eromenos (the "beloved," aged between 12 and 18) and taking a key role in his (the latter's) education. There is no historical evidence available to support at what age Antinous became a favourite of Hadrian. Such a societal institution of pederasty was not indigenous to Roman culture, although the practice was somewhat common among the patricians. It is known that Hadrian believed Antinous to be intelligent and wise, and that they had

1905-485: A shared love of hunting, which was seen as a particularly manly pursuit in Roman culture. Although none survive, it is known that Hadrian wrote both an autobiography and erotic poetry about his boy favourites; it is therefore likely that he wrote about Antinous. During their relationship, there is no evidence that Antinous ever used his influence over Hadrian for personal or political gain. In March 127, Hadrian – probably accompanied by Antinous – travelled through

2032-535: A surviving obelisk contains an inscription strongly suggesting that Antinous's body was interred at Hadrian's country estate, the Villa Adriana at Tibur in Italy. It is unclear whether Hadrian genuinely believed that Antinous had become a god. He would have also had political motives for creating the organised cult, for it enshrined political and personal loyalties specifically to him. In October 131, Hadrian proceeded to Athens , where from 131/32 he founded

2159-573: A visit to Trapezus in 131, he proclaimed the foundation of a temple devoted to Hermes, where the deity was probably venerated as Hermes-Antinous. Although Hadrian preferred to associate Antinous with Hermes, he was far more widely syncretised with the god Dionysus across the Empire. The cult also spread through Egypt, and within a few years of its foundation, altars and temples to the god had been erected in Hermopolis, Alexandria, Oxyrhynchus , Tebytnis, Lykopolis , and Luxor . The cult of Antinous

2286-582: A year, visiting Syria , Arabia , and Judaea . From there, Hadrian became increasingly critical of Jewish culture, which he feared opposed Romanisation, and so introduced policies banning circumcision and building a Temple of Zeus-Jupiter on the former site of the Jewish Temple . From there, they headed to Egypt. Arriving in Alexandria in August 130, there they visited the sarcophagus of Alexander

2413-507: Is a sort of long promontory about 2 km (1.2 mi) long, 400 m (0.25 mi) to 500 m (0.31 mi) wide, and 50 m (160 ft) tall in the park near the Temple of Claudius . The hill overlooks a plateau from which the Esquiline , Viminal and Quirinal hills also arise. Caeliolus (also Caeliculus or Caelius Minor ) corresponds to a section of the hill, maybe

2540-804: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout

2667-773: Is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system

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2794-479: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During

2921-412: Is likely, however, that those which Hadrian was directly involved in, such as at Antinoöpolis, Bithynion, and Mantineia, were often grander, while in the majority of cases, shrines or altars to Antinous would have been erected in or near the pre-existing temples of the imperial cult, or Dionysus or Hermes. Worshippers would have given votive offerings to the deity at these altars; there is evidence that he

3048-519: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to

3175-825: Is said to have been particularly devoted to his sanctuary. In the Republican age (as well in Imperial Rome ) the Caelian Hill was a fashionable residential district and the site of residences of the wealthy. A section of Pliny the Elder 's Natural History , "Who Was the First to Encrust the Walls of Houses at Rome with Marble", attests to this. Mamurra , a soldier who served under Julius Caesar in Gaul and profited tremendously from corruption, achieved this expensive feat on

3302-850: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Caelian Hill The Caelian Hill

3429-526: Is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around

3556-763: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,

3683-407: Is that official models were sent out to provincial workshops all over the empire to be copied, with local variations permitted. It has been asserted that many of these sculptures "share distinctive features – a broad, swelling chest, a head of tousled curls, a downcast gaze – that allow them to be instantly recognized". About a hundred statues of Antinous have been preserved for modernity,

3810-650: Is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with

3937-570: The Odyssey . Another possibility is that he was given the male equivalent of "Antinoë", the name of a woman who was one of the founding figures of Mantineia , a city which probably had close relations with Bithynia. Although many historians from the Renaissance onward asserted that Antinous had been a slave, only one of around fifty early sources claims that. This possibility remains unlikely, as it would have proven heavily controversial to deify

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4064-492: The Arch of Constantine . On this tondo it was clear that Antinous was no longer a youth, having become more muscular and hairier, perceptibly more able to resist his master; and thus, it is likely that his relationship with Hadrian was changing as a result. Throughout history there has been much controversy concerning the relationship between Hadrian and Antinous. In Royston Lambert's book Beloved and God , he writes "But as far as

4191-509: The Basilica of St. Stephen in the Round , the church of San Giovanni a Porta Latina , the church of San Gregorio al Celio , the church of San Tommaso in Formis , the church of San Sisto Vecchio Monasteries, often surrounded by estates and gardens, were also founded on the hill, as well as some towers of noble families, mainly in the 10th and 11th centuries. A new destruction was suffered with

4318-495: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It

4445-516: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as

4572-583: The Panhellenion , an attempt to nurture consciousness of Greek identity, to erode the feuding endemic to the Greek city-states, and to promote the worship of the ancient gods; being Greek himself, Antinous as a god assisted Hadrian's cause in this, presenting a symbol of pan-Hellenic unity. In Athens, Hadrian also established a festival to be held in honour of Antinous in October, the Antinoeia. Antinous

4699-663: The Quintilii became part of the Domus Vectiliana of Commodus . In the interurban area of the hill several barracks were built for the troops stationed in the capital: in the site of the Basilica of Saint Stephen in the Round there were the Castra Peregrina (built under Trajan and restored several times in the following centuries), close to a large house of the Valerii ( domus Valerii ). Opposite, stood

4826-669: The Sabine area of Italy, Picenum , and Campania . From 127 to 129, the Emperor was then afflicted with an illness that doctors were unable to explain. In April 128, he laid the foundation stone for a temple of Venus and Rome in the city of Rome, during a ritual where he may well have been accompanied by Antinous. From there, Hadrian went on a tour of North Africa, during which he was accompanied by Antinous. In late 128, Hadrian and Antinous landed in Corinth , proceeding to Athens , where they remained until May 129, accompanied by Empress Sabina ;

4953-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in

5080-727: The sack of 1084 . From the 12th century, it was part of the Regio Montium , which even extended to the Quirinal Hill . Today the Caelian Hill is included in the Rione of the same name and, continuing its vocation for assistance, hosts the Policlinico Militare del Celio , built on a project by Salvatore Bianchi and Filippo Laccetti. George Santayana lived in a room at the Convent of English Blue Sisters on

5207-583: The sack of Alaric in 410; starting from this period, the hill was subject to increasing abandonment and ruralization. In the 6th century it was part of the II Roman ecclesiastical region due to its proximity to the Lateran basilica, so much so that the toponym of "Laterano" was often used for the entire hill. The erection of the Patriarchium , which probably dates back to the 6th Century, gave rise to

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5334-470: The 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into

5461-474: The 4th century, Antinous was championed by members of the latter. As a result of this, the Christian poet Prudentius denounced his worship in 384, while a set of seven contorniates depicting Antinous were issued, based upon the designs of those issued in the 130s. Many sculptures of Antinous were destroyed by Christians, as well as by invading barbarian tribes, although in some instances were then re-erected;

5588-539: The Antinoeia, they would be held annually for several centuries, being noted as the most important in Egypt. Events included athletic competitions, chariot and equestrian races, and artistic and musical festivals, with prizes including citizenship, money, tokens, and free lifetime maintenance. Antinoöpolis continued to grow into the Byzantine era, being Christianised with the conversion of the Empire. However, it retained an association with magic for centuries to come. Over

5715-567: The Antinous cults come from figures like Tertullian , Origen , Jerome , and Epiphanios . Viewing the religion as a blasphemous rival to Christianity, they insisted that Antinous had simply been a mortal human and condemned his sexual activities with Hadrian as immoral. Associating his cult with malevolent magic, they argued that Hadrian had imposed his worship through fear. During the struggles between Christians and pagan worshippers in Rome during

5842-454: The Antinous statue at Delphi had been toppled and had its forearms broken off, before being re-erected in a chapel elsewhere. Many of the images of Antinous remained in public places until the official prohibition of pagan religions under the reign of Emperor Theodosius in 391. Some contemporary Neo-Pagan groups have re-sacralized Antinous. Because of his same-sex relationship with Hadrian, Antinous's modern cult mainly appeals to members of

5969-644: The Caelian Hill was one of the 14 divisions of the town , called Caelimontium . The area between the Lateran and Porta Maggiore was included in the v Regio ( Esquiliae ), though physically it is part of the hill. On the higher point of the side facing the Colosseum, the Temple of Claudius was erected on a huge supporting platform. It was dedicated to the Emperor Claudius and begun by his widow Agrippina after his death and deification in 54 AD; it

6096-686: The Caelian Hill; Horace and Catullus mocked him accordingly. Most of the hill was outside the boundaries of the pomerium , therefore temples to foreign divinities were allowed to be built, such as the Temple of Minerva Capta or the old Sacellum of Diana, outside the Servian Wall . Some sepulchres, such as the burial chamber in Via Celimontana, just before Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano , date back to this period. Under Augustus

6223-914: The Caesernii brothers, frequent companions of the Emperor; and Pedanius Fuscus the Younger (a great-nephew of Hadrian). It was in Athens in September 128 that they attended the annual celebrations of the Great Mysteries of Eleusis , where Hadrian was initiated into the position of epoptes in the Telesterion . It is generally agreed, although not proven, that Antinous was also initiated at that time. From there they headed to Asia Minor , settling in Antioch in June 129, where they were based for

6350-470: The Classical study of these Antinous images was particularly important because of his "rare mix" of "biographical mystery and overwhelming physical presence". Lambert believed that the sculptures of Antinous "remain without doubt one of the most elevated and ideal monuments to pederastic love of the whole ancient world", also describing them as "the final great creation of classical art". There are also statues in many archaeological museums in Greece including

6477-432: The Egyptian city founded in his honour. The common image of Antinous is of an ephebic teenager which would be of the age of 18 or 19 years old. R. R. R. Smith suggests that the statues of Antinous are concerned with depicting the real age of Antinous at the age of his death, and that this is more likely to be "around thirteen to fourteen". An ephebe of eighteen or nineteen would be depicted with full pubic hair, whereas

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6604-449: The Empire that at Antinous's cultic centre in Antinoöpolis, there were "sacred nights" characterised by drunken revelries, perhaps including sexual orgies. The cult of Antinous endured far beyond Hadrian's reign. Local coins depicting his effigy were still being struck during Caracalla 's reign, and he was invoked in a poem to celebrate the accession of Diocletian , who reigned more than a century after Antinous' death. The cult of Antinous

6731-434: The Empire. Hadrian founded the city of Antinoöpolis close to Antinous's place of death, which became a cultic centre for the worship of Osiris-Antinous . Hadrian also founded games in commemoration of Antinous to take place in both Antinoöpolis and Athens, with Antinous becoming a symbol of Hadrian's dreams of pan-Hellenism. The worship of Antinous proved to be one of the most enduring and popular of cults of deified humans in

6858-485: The Great of Prussia. Vout noted that Antinous came to be identified as "a gay icon." Novelist and independent scholar Sarah Waters identified Antinous as being "at the forefront of the homosexual imagination" in late 19th-century Europe. In this, Antinous replaced the figure of Ganymede , who had been the primary homoerotic representation in the visual arts during the Renaissance . Gay author Karl Heinrich Ulrichs celebrated Antinous in an 1865 pamphlet that he wrote under

6985-413: The Great . Although welcomed with public praise and ceremony, some of Hadrian's appointments and actions angered the city's Hellenic social elite, who began to gossip about his sexual activities, including those with Antinous. Soon after, and probably in September 130, Hadrian and Antinous travelled west to Libya , where they had heard of a Marousian lion causing problems for local people. They hunted down

7112-401: The Greco-Roman pantheon like Apollo , Dionysus, and Silvanus as well as mortal youths beloved by gods in classical mythology like Ganymede , Hylas , Hyacinth , and Narcissus , and that images of the sensuous youth invited imaginary erotic bonding between him and his worshippers. These characteristics were common also to the cults of Attis , Endymion , and Adonis . Like the latter, Antinous

7239-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit

7366-425: The Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than

7493-442: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in

7620-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow

7747-446: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community

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7874-482: The LGBT community, especially gay men . The surviving statues show a well-proportioned body, with downcast eyes and thick, curly hair nestling at the nape of the neck. It is a very classical and, unsurprisingly, a very Greek image. And it is one which remains very familiar as the archetype of perfect beauty. Antinous was not just the last pagan god; he was the inspiration of the last glorious fluorescence of classical art. Hadrian "turned to Greek sculptors to perpetuate

8001-435: The Messiah, which later became the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran, partially occupied the area of the Severian camp. The decisive battle in the 271 revolt of mint workers, led by Felicissimus , took place on the Caelian Hill. It is possible that this uprising was somehow connected with the senatorial and equestrian classes, as Aurelian executed several senators. The buildings of the Caelian hill were badly damaged during

8128-412: The National Archaeological Museum in Athens, the archaeological museums of Patras, Chalkis and Delphi . Although these may well be idealised images, they demonstrate what all contemporary writers described as Antinous's extraordinary beauty. Although many of the sculptures are instantly recognizable, some offer significant variation in terms of the suppleness and sensuality of the pose and features versus

8255-414: The Roman empire, and events continued to be founded in his honour long after Hadrian's death. Antinous became a symbol of male homosexuality in Western culture, appearing in the work of Oscar Wilde , Fernando Pessoa and Marguerite Yourcenar . Antinous was born to a Greek family near the city of Claudiopolis , which was located in the Roman province of Bithynia , in what is now north-west Turkey. He

8382-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),

8509-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of

8636-423: The beardless figure is a representation of Antinous-Osiris, the only pictorial representation that has survived of a statue of the deified young man. Hadrian was keen to disseminate the cult of Antinous throughout the Roman Empire. He focused on its spread within the Greek lands, and in Summer 131 travelled these areas promoting it by presenting Antinous in a syncretised form with the more familiar deity Hermes . On

8763-406: The central issues go – the history of Antinous, his relationship with Hadrian and the death – we have precious little more information than the earliest writers." Many of these early writers were biased towards Hadrian especially in regard to his relationship with Antinous. The controversy surrounding the relationship between Hadrian and Antinous is due to a lack of extant evidence for where Antinous

8890-425: The centuries, stone from the Hadrianic city was removed for the construction of homes and mosques. By the 18th century, the ruins of Antinoöpolis were still visible, being recorded by such European travellers as Jesuit missionary Claude Sicard in 1715 and Edme-François Jomard the surveyor c.  1800 . However, in the 19th century, Antinoöpolis was almost completely destroyed by local industrial production, as

9017-401: The chalk and limestone were burned for powder while stone was used in the construction of a nearby dam and sugar factory. An excavation of the city in the early twentieth century revealed a relatively realistic funeral tondo painted on wood. Although the men in the portrait are traditionally identified as brothers, there is speculation that they were lovers, the reason for this being that behind

9144-664: The character Enjolras is likened to Antinous. "A charming young man who was capable of being a terror. He was angelically good-looking, an untamed Antinous." Hugo also remarks that Enjolras was "seeming not to be aware of the existence on earth of a creature called woman." In "Klage um Antinous", Der neuen Gedichte anderer Teil (1908) by Rainer Maria Rilke , Hadrian scolds the gods for Antinous's deification. "Lament for Antinoüs", translation by Stephen Cohn. Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized :  Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized :  Hellēnikḗ )

9271-529: The city perimeter under the reign of Ancus Marcius . The list of Septimontium mentions it, and it was part of the 1st city quarter ( Suburana ) in the division made by Servius Tullius. In the later Augustan division , it became the Regio II Caelimontium . A trace of the archaic period remains in the memory of cults of woods and sources, such as that of the nymph Egeria in the wood of Camenae , just outside Porta Capena . Numa Pompilius

9398-549: The creation of various tituli (the oldest places of Christian worship, often within private houses) and xenodochia (centers for the assistance and reception of pilgrims and sick). New churches continued to be built, initially to supersede the former tituli , later independently, such as the Basilica of Saints John and Paul , the Basilica of the Four Crowned Martyrs , the Basilica of St. Mary in Domnica ,

9525-567: The cult's followers for several centuries. Later survivals of his cult largely rested in the Eastern Roman Empire, where his acceptance into the pantheon of gods was better received. Games held in honour of Antinous were held in at least 9 cities and included both athletic and artistic components. The games at Bythynion, Antinoöpolis, and Mantineia were still active by the early 3rd century, while those at Athens and Eleusis were still operating in 266–67. Rumours spread throughout

9652-480: The different societal classes in the Empire. Archaeological finds point that Antinous was worshipped in both public and private settings. In Egypt, Athens, Macedonia, and Italy, children would be named after the deity. Part of the appeal was that Antinous had once been an ordinary person himself, and thus was more relatable than many other deities. It is also possible, however, that his cult borrowed power from parallels between Antinous and beautiful young male immortals in

9779-404: The early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of

9906-618: The epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute

10033-478: The exact date is not known, Royston Lambert , one of Antinous's biographers, asserted that it was probably on 27 November. Given the location of his birth and his physical appearance, it is likely that part of his ancestry was not Greek. There are various potential origins for the name "Antinous"; it is possible that he was named after the character of Antinous, who is one of Penelope 's suitors in Homer 's epic poem,

10160-650: The exception of the Temple of Ramses II . Hadrian also had political motives for the creation of Antinoöpolis, which was to be the first Hellenic city in the Middle Nile region, thus serving as a bastion of Greek culture within the Egyptian area. To encourage Egyptians to integrate with this imported Greek culture, he permitted Greeks and Egyptians in the city to marry and allowed the main deity of Hir-we, Bes , to continue to be worshipped in Antinoöpolis alongside

10287-452: The following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in

10414-538: The headquarters of the V Cohort of the Vigiles ( stazio cohortis V vigilum ). In a land possession of the Laterani family Septimius Severus built between 193 and 197 the castra nova equitum singularium , a new barrack for the knights corps of the imperial guard, opposite the former barrack built under Trajan ( castra priora equitum singularium ). When Constantine I dissolved the corps, the new basilica dedicated to

10541-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn

10668-579: The king kissing a statue of 'the Bithynian slave of Hadrian' in a passage describing the young king's aesthetic sensibilities and his "...strange passion for beauty...". Images of other classical paragons of male beauty, Adonis and Endymion , are also mentioned in the same context. Additionally, in Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray , the artist Basil Hallward describes the appearance of Dorian Gray as an event as important to his art as "the face of Antinous

10795-467: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write

10922-404: The lion, and although the exact events are unclear, it is apparent that Hadrian saved Antinous's life during their confrontation with it, before the beast itself was killed. Hadrian widely publicised the event, casting bronze medallions of it, getting historians to write about it, commissioning Pancrates to write a poem about it, and having a tondo depicting it created which was later placed on

11049-401: The majority in Greece and Asia Minor, issued coins depicting Antinous, chiefly between the years 134–35. Many were designed to be used as medallions rather than currency, some of them deliberately made with a hole so that they could be hung from the neck and used as talismans . Most production of Antinous-based artefacts ceased following the 130s, although such items continued to be used by

11176-419: The melancholy beauty, diffident manner, and lithe and sensuous frame of his boyfriend Antinous," creating in the process what has been described as "the last independent creation of Greco-Roman art". It is traditionally assumed that they were all produced between Antinous's death in 130 and that of Hadrian in 138, on the questionable grounds that no-one else would be interested in commissioning them. The assumption

11303-588: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek

11430-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and

11557-485: The new primary deity, Osiris-Antinous. He encouraged Greeks from elsewhere to settle in the new city, using various incentives to do so. The city was designed on a Hippodamian grid that was typical of Hellenic cities, and embellished with columns and many statues of Antinous, as well as a temple devoted to the deity. Hadrian proclaimed that games would be held at the city in Spring 131 in commemoration of Antinous. Known as

11684-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks

11811-536: The objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It

11938-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as

12065-408: The pseudonym of "Numa Numantius." In 1893, homophile newspaper The Artist , began offering cast statues of Antinous for £3 10s. At the time, Antinous's fame was increased by the work of fiction and writers and scholars, many of whom were not homosexuals. The author Oscar Wilde referenced Antinous in both " The Young King " (1891) and " The Sphinx " (1894). In "The Young King", a reference is made to

12192-428: The rigidity and typical masculinity. In 1998, monumental remains were discovered at Hadrian's Villa that archaeologists claimed were from the tomb of Antinous, or a temple to him, though this has been challenged both because of the inconclusive nature of the archaeological remains and the overlooking of patristic sources (Epiphanius, Clement of Alexandria) indicating that Antinous was buried at his temple in Antinoöpolis,

12319-519: The sky between the Eagle and the Zodiac to be Antinous, and came to associate the rosy lotus that grew on the banks of the Nile as being the flower of Antinous. It is unknown exactly where Antinous's body was buried. It has been argued that either his body or some relics associated with him would have been interred at a shrine in Antinoöpolis, although this has yet to be identified archaeologically. However,

12446-469: The southern side of the Caelian Hill in a structure called the Aqueductium . The Aqueductium distributed the water via conduits to reservoirs behind the nymphaeum and to the site of the temple. The remains found in the area of the hill allow one to reconstruct a conspicuous housing phase in the second half of the 2nd century AD, while former buildings of the 1st century BC were probably destroyed by

12573-453: The statues have no pubic hair, it is just as likely that the artist thought clumps of hair were unattractive and either left them off or painted them in lightly after the sculpting was done as almost all Roman statues were painted. Except where otherwise noted, the notes below indicate that an individual's parentage is as shown in the above family tree. Antinous remained a figure of cultural significance for centuries to come; as Vout noted, he

12700-400: The statues of Antinous depict him as prepubescent "without pubic hair and with carefully represented soft groin tissue". As for the statues of Antinous portraying his real age, one must remember the statues are artistic representations. If the statues look young, it may only be how the artist envisioned him. Most of the artists never saw Antinous and based their works on sketches and examples. If

12827-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of

12954-532: The westernmost one, towards the valley that houses the Colosseum , or the one now occupied by the Basilica dei Santi Quattro Coronati . Under the reign of Tullus Hostilius , the entire population of Alba Longa was forcibly resettled on the Caelian Hill. According to a tradition recounted by Varro , the hill received its name from the Etruscan folk hero Caelius Vibenna , because he either settled there or

13081-460: Was "arguably the most notorious pretty boy from the annals of classical history." Sculptures of Antinous began to be reproduced from the 16th century; it remains likely that some of these modern examples have subsequently been sold as Classical artefacts and are still viewed as such. Antinous has attracted attention from the homosexual subculture since the 18th century, the most illustrious examples for this being Prince Eugene of Savoy and Frederick

13208-574: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or

13335-475: Was also seen as a conqueror of death, with his name and image often being included in coffins. In the west, Antinous was associated with the Celtic sun-god Belenos . Emperor Hadrian established quinquennial games and annual celebrations in honour of Antinous which were called Antinoea (τὰ Ἀντινόεια). The city of Antinoöpolis was erected on the site of Hir-we. All previous buildings were razed and replaced, with

13462-568: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of

13589-557: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe

13716-429: Was at some point over the following three years that Antinous became his personal favourite, for by the time he left for Greece three years later, he brought Antinous with him in his personal retinue: The way that Hadrian took the boy on his travels, kept close to him at moments of spiritual, moral or physical exaltation, and, after his death, surrounded himself with his images, shows an obsessive craving for his presence,

13843-459: Was born in the territory to the east of the city called Mantineion, a rural locality: This was important later for the cult character expressed in his statues: he was a figure of the country, a woodland boy. The year of Antinous's birth is not recorded, although it is estimated that it was probably between 110 and 112  CE . Early sources record that his birthday was in November, and although

13970-706: Was criticised by various individuals, both pagan and Christian . Critics included followers of other pagan cults, such as Pausanias , Lucian , and the Emperor Julian , who were all sceptical about the apotheosis of Antinous, as well as the Sibylline Oracles , who were critical of Hadrian more generally. The pagan philosopher Celsus also criticised it for what he perceived as the debauched nature of its Egyptian devotees, arguing that it led people into immoral behaviour, in this way comparing it to Christianity. Surviving examples of Christian condemnation of

14097-470: Was devastated by the death of Antinous, with contemporaries attesting that he "wept like a woman." In Egypt, the local priesthood immediately deified Antinous by identifying him with Osiris due to the manner of his death. In keeping with Egyptian custom, Antinous's body was probably embalmed and mummified by priests, a lengthy process which might explain why Hadrian remained in Egypt until spring 131. While there, in October 130, Hadrian proclaimed Antinous to be

14224-458: Was during the years from 123–130 CE. The first mention of Antinous is from Pancrates and his Lion Hunt poem from 130 CE. Hard evidence regarding Antinous's life is available in the form of the Pincian obelisk on Pincian Hill . On the west side of the relief is a mutilated phrase which states "he grew up to be a beautiful youth". This would suggest that Antinous was already an ephebe and that he

14351-582: Was established in his home in Bithynia when he met Hadrian. Many scholars believe, with the circumstantial evidence, that the relationship of Hadrian and Antinous lasted approximately three years: from 127 CE to October 130 CE, when Antinous drowned in the Nile. The conclusion is that there is little documentation for or about the actual relationship of Hadrian and Antinous. In late September or early October 130, Hadrian and his entourage, among them Antinous, assembled at Heliopolis to set sail upstream as part of

14478-403: Was given gifts of food and drink in Egypt, with libations and sacrifices probably being common in Greece. Priests devoted to Antinous would have overseen this worship, with the names of some of these individuals having survived in inscriptions. There is evidence of oracles being present at a number of Antinoan temples. Sculptures of Antinous became widespread, with Hadrian probably having approved

14605-467: Was highly unusual, and he did so without the permission of the Roman Senate . The Emperor was criticised for his immense grief at Antinous's death, especially considering that he had delayed the apotheosis of his own sister Paulina when she died. Although the cult of Antinous therefore had connections with the Roman imperial cult , it remained separate and distinct. Hadrian also identified a star in

14732-456: Was honored posthumously by his friend Servius Tullius . Other authors have linked the name to the Latin caelum , " heaven ". Nevertheless, the former name of the hill probably was Querquetulanus mons due to the abundance of oaks (Latin: Quercus ). Scholarship suggests that there existed the ethnic name Querquetulani as a designation of the previous inhabitants of Caelius, in pre-Etruscan times. Mons Caelius would have been included in

14859-544: Was most popular in Egypt, Greece, Asia Minor, and the North African coast, but a large community of worshippers also existed in Italy, Spain, and northwestern Europe. Artefacts in honour of Antinous have been found in an area that spans from Britain to the Danube . Although the adoption of the Antinous cult was in some cases done to please Hadrian, the evidence makes it clear that the cult was also genuinely popular among

14986-417: Was never as large as those of well-established deities such as Zeus , Dionysus , Demeter , or Asclepios , or even as large as those of cults which were growing in popularity at that time, such as Isis or Serapis and was also smaller than the official imperial cult of Hadrian himself. However, it spread rapidly throughout the Empire, with traces of the cult having been found in at least 70 cities. The cult

15113-596: Was not ultimately finished until the reign of Vespasian . Nero added a grand nymphaeum (tiered water fountain) to the eastern retaining wall of this platform, with semi-circular and rectangular niches. The water to supply this fountain was supplied by a special branch of the Aqua Claudia , called the Arcus Neroniani , which extended 2 kilometres west from the Claudia at Porta Maggiore and terminated on

15240-517: Was probably when he first encountered Antinous. Given Hadrian's personality, Lambert thought it unlikely that they had become lovers at this point, instead suggesting it probable that Antinous had been selected to be sent to Italy, where he was probably schooled at the imperial paedagogium at the Caelian Hill . Hadrian meanwhile had continued to tour the empire, only returning to Italy in September 125, when he settled into his villa at Tibur . It

15367-423: Was shortly after this, in October 130 – around the time of the festival of Osiris – that Antinous fell into the river and died, probably from drowning. Hadrian publicly announced his death, with gossip soon spreading throughout the Empire that Antinous had been intentionally killed. The nature of Antinous's death remains a mystery to this day; however, various speculations have been put forward: Hadrian

15494-938: Was taken on a tour of the Roman Empire as part of Hadrian's personal retinue. Antinous accompanied Hadrian during his attendance of the annual Eleusinian Mysteries in Athens , and was with him when he killed the Marousian lion in Libya , an event highly publicised by the Emperor. In October 130, as they were part of a flotilla going along the Nile , Antinous died amid mysterious circumstances. Various suggestions have been put forward for how he died, ranging from an accidental drowning to an intentional human sacrifice or suicide. Following his death, Hadrian deified Antinous and founded an organised cult devoted to his worship that spread throughout

15621-485: Was to late Greek sculpture." Furthermore, in a novel attributed to Oscar Wilde, Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal , Des Grieux makes a passing reference to Antinous as he describes how he felt during a musical performance: "I now began to understand things hitherto so strange, the love the mighty monarch felt for his fair Grecian slave, Antinous, who – like unto Christ – died for his master's sake." In Les Misérables ,

15748-579: Was treated as a dying-and-rising god not only in Egypt, but in Rome and Greece; the Obelisk of Antinous in Rome describes the honour and, "Osirantinous" as "the Reborn" and "the Everlasting." At least 28 temples were constructed for the worship of Antinous throughout the Empire, although most were fairly modest in design; those at Tarsos, Philadelphia, and Lanuvium consisted of a four-column portico. It

15875-580: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect

16002-426: Was understood differently by his various worshippers, in part due to regional and cultural variation. In some inscriptions he is identified as a divine hero , in others as a god, and in others as both a divine hero and a god. In Egypt, he was often understood as a daemon . Inscriptions indicate that Antinous was seen primarily as a benevolent deity, who could be turned to aid his worshipers and cure them of ailments. He

16129-673: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage

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