The Death of Antinous
The emperor’s favorite vanished beneath the Nile—no one knows if it was accident, sacrifice, or something darker.
Antoniazzo Romano (Antonio di Benedetto Aquilio) — "Saint Francis of Assisi" (ca. 1480–81), public domain
A golden youth, lost to the Nile.
In 130 AD, Antinous—barely twenty, beautiful and aloof—traveled with Emperor Hadrian through Egypt. One night, he disappeared into the dark current of the Nile. Some whispered he slipped, others said he was chosen as a human sacrifice. The river gave no answers.
Grief becomes a new god.
Hadrian was devastated. He ordered statues raised in every province, cities re-named, even an oracle founded in Antinous’s name. Across the empire, people left offerings, treating the drowned youth as a new divinity. In marble, Antinous became immortal.
A mystery the Nile keeps.
No historian agrees on what really happened. Was it an accident, devotion, or imperial politics at work? All that’s certain is that Antinous—once just a boy from Bithynia—became the most famous face in the Roman world.
Antinous’s mysterious death launched a new cult across the Roman world, his face appearing in marble from Egypt to Britain.
