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Ancient
Antinous Documents
PAUSANIAS
DESCRIPTION OF GREECE
Book VIII, Archadia
On Antinous
"Antinous too was deified by them;
his temple is the newest in Mantineia. He was a great favorite of the
Emperor Hadrian. I never saw him in the flesh, but I have seen images
and pictures of him. He has honors in other places also, and on the Nile
is an Egyptian city named after Antinous. He has won worship in Mantineia
for the following reason. Antinous was by birth from Bithynium beyond
the river Sangarius, and the Bithynians are by descent Arcadians of Mantineia.
For this reason the Emperor established his worship in Mantineia also;
mystic rites are celebrated in his honor each year, and games every four
years. There is a building in the gymnasium of Mantineia containing statues
of Antinous, and remarkable for the stones with which it is adorned, and
especially so for its pictures. Most of them are portraits of Antinous,
who is made to look like Dionysus" VIII, 9, 7-8
"On the left of the highway leading
to Tegea there is, beside the walls of Mantineia, a place where horses
race, and not far from it is a race-course, where they celebrate the games
in honor of Antinous." VIII, 10, 1
On Queen Antinoe
"Now there are plain indications
that it was in another place that Mantineus the son of Lycaon founded
his city, which even today is called Ptolis (City ) by the Arcadians.
From here, in obedience to an oracle, Antinoe, the daughter of Cepheus,
the son of Aleus, removed the inhabitants to the modern site, accepting
as a guide for the pilgrimage a snake; the breed of snake is not recorded.
It is for this reason that the river, which flows by the modern city,
has received the name Ophis (Snake ). If we may base a conjecture on the
verses of Homer, we are led to believe that this snake was a dragon. When
in the list of ships he tells how the Greeks abandoned Philoctetes in
Lemnos suffering from his wound, he does not style the water-serpent a
snake. But the dragon that the eagle dropped among the Trojans he does
call a snake. So it is likely that Antinoe's guide also was a dragon."
VIII, 8, 4-5
How Hadrian changed the name of the City
"Antigonus of Macedonia, who was
guardian of Philip, the father of Perseus, before he came of age, was
an ardent supporter of the Achaeans, and so the Mantineans, among other
honors, changed the name of their city to Antigoneia. [12] Afterwards,
when Augustus was about to fight the naval engagement off the cape of
Actian Apollo, the Mantineans fought on the side of the Romans, while
the rest of Arcadia joined the ranks of Antonius, for no other reason,
so it seems to me, except that the Lacedaemonians favoured the cause of
Augustus. Ten generations afterwards, when Hadrian became Emperor, he
took away from the Mantineans the name imported from Macedonia, and gave
back to their city its old name of Mantineia." VIII, 8, 11-12
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