Antinous

Antinous as Aristaeus (2nd century)

Antinous was a beautiful young man from what is now NW Turkey who was deified by Emperor Hadrian after he drowned in the River Nile in 130 CE. He was aged around 20 at the time of his death, which some believed was an act of sacred self-sacrifice. Temples of Antinous were erected and his cult was popular, as evidenced by numerous sculptures, gems, and coins depicting him from the Roman period. A city in Egypt was founded in his honour shortly after his death, Antinoöpolis, where the citizens were considered Greek, though they were permitted to marry Egyptian women. Antinoöpolis was important enough to have Bishops assigned to it in the 4th century. The city survived until the 8th century and its ruins were grand enough to still be visible until the early 19th century.

It is unclear what we may regard as Antinous’ domain. As the probable lover of Hadrian he may be regarded as a God of youthful masculine beauty and sexual allure, if not male homosexuality, but homosexuality cannot have been his sole domain, as a 3rd or 4th century spell from Roman Egypt invokes Antinous and asks him to:

Death from a Roman Perspective

Mercury by Caraglio (1526)

Ancient Romans tended towards to a wide array of afterlife possibilities, as to which see Roman Beliefs Regarding the Afterlife. For an exploration of the major Roman deities of death see Dis Pater and Proserpina, Hecate in the Roman Tradition – Trivia of the Crossroads and The Nature of Mercury. Localised deities of death include:

• Benevolent spirits The Di Manes are protecting, or at least friendly, spirits of the dead. Suitable offerings to Di Manes include salted grain/wheat, bread/wheat soaked in wine and violets, incense and wine. Some Di Manes may be ancestral spirits, in which case they may be known as Di Parentes and worshipped as such. Alternately, offerings for their well being in the after-life may be made. “The Roman house itself was the centre of family and private religion. In richer and middle-ranking houses a common feature was a shrine of the household gods – now conventionally known as a lararium … these shrines contained paintings or statuettes of household gods and other deities; they might also include (in a wealthier house) commemoration of the family’s ancestors”: Beard et al at 4.12. Between 13 February and 21 February ancient Romans traditionally honoured their dead, especially the ancestral dead; this was the Parentalia. On the final day ritual offerings were made at family tombs. See Ovid’s Fasti, especially the entry for 21 February, for more. Ancestor veneration can extend to Gods as well, for example, the family of the Julii claimed divine descent from Venus and so worshipped her as a divine ancestor.

Roman Pagan Beliefs

Fresco of Diana (image by Mentnafunangann)

The massive historical and cultural imprint that Rome has on Europe means that Roman history and culture is familiar to most Westerners and so the Roman way to the Gods is a language that is easily understood. Often it is said that Roman polytheism is based on what you do, and not on what you believe, but obviously no-one would practice unless they were at least open-minded as to certain beliefs. In Roman polytheism there are no commandments prescribing the morals by which you must live, there is no holy text in which you must believe, and there is no institution that can claim to represent the Roman Gods. Rather, Roman polytheists work towards a state of Pax Deorum (peace with the Gods), meaning a harmonious relationship with the Gods and the universe at large. Certain perspectives tend to be associated with Roman polytheism, including:

• Appreciating that ancient Romans had a completely different conception of the cosmos (by which I mean the earth, the sun and the stars) which necessarily influenced their spiritual ideas. Many ancient Romans believed that space was composed of aether where Gods lived, and that Earth was fundamentally lower in the hierarchy of the cosmos. This lent itself to ideas about the inferiority of the material realm and a spiritual orientation that was vertical. For more on this see Greco-Roman Cosmos.

Major Roman Deities

Bust of Antinous (image by Nguyen)

A more complete list is available at A Long List of Deities.

Aesculapius

The domain of Aesculapius is that of healing medicine. Suitable offerings likely include replicas of the part of the body healed, incense and wine. For more see Aesculapius – God of Medicine.

Antinous

The domain of Antinous is that of youthful masculine beauty and sexual allure. Suitable offerings include incense and wine, and wearing white may be optimal. For more see Antinous.

Apollo

The domain of Apollo is light, healing (and disease), music (especially stringed instruments), poetry, archery and prophecy. Suitable offerings include laurel, traditional Roman cakes / pastries (especially in nines), incense and wine. For more see Apollo – God of Healing, Music and the Sun and The Hyperboreans and Apollo.

The Other Website is Gone Now

I've managed to get myself locked out of the sister website I set up at romanpagan.wordpress.com. After nearly a week of trying to get back in it looks unlikely that I will be able to restore my access, so I asked the WordPress team to make the site private (this is the most control they would allow me to exercise) in light of the some of the content there being personal in nature. While that site mostly just copied and repackaged content from this blog, some of the content did not appear here. I have copies of most of that material on my computer and will turn them into posts on this blog very soon. 

So if you are wondering what happened to that website this is the story.

The advantage of the WordPress site was it had great drop-down menus to enable quick navigation of content. Please check out the Labels / Index of this Blog on the left-hand side of the screen if you want to navigate through content in a similarly thematic manner.

'The Three Fates' by Rothaug (circa 1910)

Written by M' Sentia Figula (aka Freki), find me at neo polytheist