The Passion of Antinous

In October of 130 CE, on the Nile during Hadrian's grand tour of Egypt, Antinous drowned. He was perhaps twenty years old. The circumstances were never explained — accident, sacrifice, or something else entirely — and Hadrian never recovered.

What followed was unprecedented in the ancient world. The grieving emperor declared Antinous a god, founded a city in his name, commissioned his image in marble across every province of the empire, and named a star after him. No private citizen in Roman history was ever mourned so publicly, or immortalized so completely.

The Passion of Antinous triptych gives the tragic story of Antinous and Hadrian the Renaissance treatment it deserves. And yes, we're still obsessed.