The Upright Antinous
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Hadrian’s lover Antinous drowned in the Nile when he was almost 20 years old. The emperor was grief-stricken. Hadrian had Antinous deified all across Rome.
There’s an ancient statue of Antinous on display in a museum in Delphi. It was found standing upright on its pedestal.
When I saw this statue and heard its excavation story, I was captivated. He stands in contrapposto, nude, akin to a classical god or hero. To be found in such a holy condition, head tilted in meditation — upright! — how moving. Poetic. To me, this says: Hadrian succeeded in venerating his lover, in making Antinous a god, something indestructible against history.
I understand what it’s like to worship a man. Even in my young life (I’m only 20), I have had lovers I wanted to preserve in marble and erect across my imaginary empire, to convince others they were just as godly as I took them to be. Love can be a powerful thing; lust even more. Letting go of someone you see as perfect, as Olympian, feels impossible when compared to the prospect of immortalizing them.
I’ve tried it. After my first boyfriend broke up with me, I kept all the gifts he gave me — a mug, a sheet of stickers, handwritten letters, etc. — in a shoebox labeled with his name shoved to the back of my closet. Somehow I thought this could cement and ultimately revive our relationship. I slept in a sweatshirt he left me every night for weeks, desperate to hold on to his smell. It did not work. I never saw him again.
When my next man of interest left me, I tried to divinize him through poetry. I handwrote poems in a journal. They were imperfect, so I’d cross them out in angry black pen and try again. And again. And again. My writing would never satisfy me. My trash can was full of paper balls.
The difference between Hadrian and me (well, besides the whole Roman empire thing) is that he succeeded in enshrining his lover for all of eternity. Antinous still stands upright in Delphi, just as he was found when excavated in 1894, just as he was erected circa 130 CE. Hadrian kept Antinous as perfect and heavenly as he knew him to be. He did something romantics have always strived to do, but few have achieved.
My visit to Greece has forced me to confront the verb “excavate.” Much of my trip has involved archaeological sites: the Acropolis in Athens, the Oracle in Delphi, the Akrotiri settlement in Santorini, and soon-to-be Ancient Corinth, Ancient Messini, the Temple of Poseidon on Cape Sounion, Tiryns in Argolis, and several others. Before Greece, I saw ruins in Rome: The Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Pantheon. I’ve learned more than I can process about handling and preserving buried remains. Ruins are such a curious thing, not just because they teach us about past civilizations. Because they are a testament to humanity’s predisposition to build things that last. To attempt immortality.
I get attached way, way too easily. A few days ago in Santorini, I met a boy who felt perfect. He had everything I wanted: sharp Greek looks, mature humor, kindness so unusual it caught me off-guard. Foreign enough to be out of reach. Familiar enough to convince me otherwise. A sailor for his family’s tourist cruise business. A traditional Greek dancer. My own Mamma Mia fantasy. Today I booked a round-trip ferry back to Santorini to spend a weekend with him when I’m supposed to be in Athens. Here I am, trying to eternize a summer romance meant not to last longer than it already has. I’m setting myself up for heartbreak. But I can’t help but try to hold on to something that felt so mythic.
As a writer, my lifelong dream is to pull off what Hadrian did — to find my ultimate muse and apotheosize him so successfully, so sweepingly, that the world will find him as upright as I carve him. Most writers never realize this dream. Few arguably have: Allen Ginsburg, Oscar Wilde, Frida Khalo, Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Robert Browning. I often feel discouraged, hopeless. Sometimes I go months without writing because of this frustration and despair. I find little interest in writing about things of other topics, like nature or adventure. All I want to do is lionize love. To carve men with my pen into nude contrapposto. And when that fails, I do not want to write at all.
After 759 words of somber rambling, what I mean to say is this: Hope for me (or don’t) that Santorini boy provides (or doesn’t) what I am looking for.
