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Updated: June 12, 2025
"Nay, not that but I should like to be permitted to live for ever with a few chosen friends." "And should I be one of them?" "Yes indeed," cried Antinous warmly and pressing his lips to Hadrian's hand. "I was sure of it but even with the promise of never being obliged to part with you my darling, I would never sacrifice the only privilege which man enjoys above the immortals."
The divine honours which he paid to the dead youth lead us to suppose that they formed the reward of a self-sacrifice, which, according to the custom of those times, constituted a highly moral action, and was looked upon as heroic devotion. At any rate, we will assume that this sacrifice sank into the Nile without Hadrian's will.
Balbilla and her husband gave their corrupt fellow-citizens the example of a worthy, faithful marriage on the old Roman pattern. The poetess's bust had been completed by Pollux in Alexandria, and with all its tresses and little curls, it found favor in Balbilla's eyes. Verus was to have enjoyed the title of Caesar even during Hadrian's lifetime, but after a long illness he died the first.
The whole suite of the Imperial pair celebrated Hadrian's decision by splendid banquets, but the Emperor did not himself take part in them, but crossed to the other bank of the Nile and went to Antaeopolis in the desert, meaning to penetrate from thence into the gorges of the Arabian desert and to chase wild beasts.
The goal of the singing, shouting, howling mob with whom Antinous was carried along, was between Alexandria and Canopus and far enough from Lochias; thus it fell out that it was long past midnight when Hadrian's favorite, dirty, out of breath, and his clothes torn, at last appeared in the presence of his master.
Hadrian half turned his head towards the speaker and said indifferently but with strong and insulting contempt: "In Rome too it is the custom to greet honest people." Then looking down again at the mosaic he said, "Exquisite, exquisite an inestimable and precious work." At Hadrian's words Keraunus' eyes almost started out of his head.
With these words he tore himself loose from the miserable old man who left the room with his head hanging down, and who soon was standing at the door of the Emperor's rooms with the letter in his hand. Hadrian's appearance and manner had filled him with terror and respect, and he dared not knock at the door.
It might even have been wise on his part to pocket his pride and to induce his former scholar, by lavish promises, to return to his workshop; but the evening before he had been betrayed into speaking before the Emperor with so much indignation at the young artist's evil disposition, of his delight at being rid of him, that, on Hadrian's account, he must give up that idea.
I do not recall any of the sculpture, except a colossal bas-relief of Antinous, crowned with flowers, and holding flowers in his hand, which was found in the ruins of Hadrian's Villa.
It was all very different from our notions of classic times which we had imbibed from our Latin lessons in school. But it is the impression which Rome itself makes upon the mind. One afternoon, among the vast ruins of Hadrian's Villa, I tried to picture the villa as it was when its first owner walked among the buildings which his whim had created.
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