ANTINOUS, a beautiful youth, who was page to the emperor Hadrian, and greatly beloved by him. After his mysterious death by drowning in the Nile (130 a.d.), Hadrian—for whose sake, according to one account, he had offered himself a voluntary victim to destiny—caused the most extravagant respect to be paid to his memory by ceremony and monument. Not only were cities called after him, medals struck with his effigy, and statues erected to him in all parts of the empire, but he was raised to the rank of the gods, temples were built for his worship, festivals celebrated in his honour, and oracles delivered in his name. The cities that showed most zeal for the new divinity were Bithynium (Antinoopolis) his birth-place, Besa (Antinoopolis) in Egypt, Mantinea in Arcadia, and Athens. It was in Athens that his greatest festivals were held—the Avτιvoαα εv' aστeι (in the city) and the Avτιv0∈ια εv Ελeυ<rιvι (at Eleusis). A remarkable impulse was given to the art of sculpture by the endeavour to produce an idealised representation of the deified page. We still possess a colossal bust in the Vatican, a bust in the Louvre, a bas-relief from the Villa Albani, a statue in the Capitol, another in Berlin, another in the Lateran, and many more. The medals with his head are equally numerous. (Levezow, Ueber den Antinous'; 0. Müller, 'Handbuck der Archäologie; Müller-Wieseler, Denkmäler der alten Kunst.)