inous. Now Antinous was a native of
Bithynium, a city of Bithynia, which we also call Claudiopolis. He
was Hadrian's favourite, and he died in Egypt: whether by having
fallen into the Nile, as Hadrian writes, or by having been
sacrificed, as the truth was. For Hadrian, as I have said, was in
general over-much given to superstitious subtleties, and practised
all kinds of sorceries and magic arts. At any rate he so honoured
Antinous, whether because of the love he felt for him, or because he
died voluntarily, since a willing victim was needed for his purpose,
that he founded a city in the place where he met this fate, and
called it after him, and dedicated statues, or rather images, of him
in, so to speak, the whole inhabited world. Lastly, he affirmed that
a certain star which he saw was the star of Antinous, and listened
with pleasure to the myths invented by his companions about this
star having really sprung from the soul of his favourite, and having
then for the first time appeared. For which things he was laughed
at.'

We may now hear what Spartian, in his 'Vita Hadriani,' has to say:
'He lost his favourite, Antinous, while sailing on the Nile, and
lamented him like a woman. About Antinous reports vary, for some say
that he devoted his life for Hadrian, while others hint what his
condition seems to prove, as well as Hadrian's excessive inclination
to luxury. Some Greeks, at the instance of Hadrian, canonised him,
asserting that oracles were given by him, which Hadrian himself is
supposed to have made up.'

In the third place comes Aurelius Victor: 'Others maintain that this
sacrifice of Antinous was both pious and religious; for when Hadrian
was wishing to prolong his life, and the magicians required a
voluntary vicarious victim, they say that, upon the refusal of all
others, Antinous offered himself.'

These are the chief authorities. In estimating them we must remember
that, though Dion Cassius wrote less than a century after the event
narrated, he has come down to us merely in fragments and in the
epitome of a Byzantine of the twelfth century, when everything that
could possibly be done to discredit the worship of Antinous, and to
blacken the memory of Hadrian, had been attempted by the Christian
Fathers. On the other hand, Spartianus and Aurelius Victor compiled
their histories at too distant a date to be of first-rate value.
Taking the three reports together, we find that antiquity differed
about the detai