The love of Hadrian

 The picture above is a color photograph taken in 1894 in Greece.  Here is a statue of a Roman god who was once revered and despised by the Romans.  This god is called ‘Antinius’.

 Although called a god, he was an ordinary human being in Roman civilization before he became a god.  His story unfolds as the lover of Emperor Hadrian, who ruled Rome.  The couple’s love affair ends with the drowning of the Antineus Nile.  It is unknown at this time what he did to cause the fire.

 The history book states that the emperor Hadrian mourned the death of his beloved emperor in the same way that no other Roman emperor mourned the death of his friends.  Emperor Hadrian created statues of his beloved and sent them to churches throughout Rome to tell everyone about his lover.  Hadrian did not want to hide his passion for Antioch.

 Hadrian does not stop there.  She also builds a city named after her boyfriend in Egypt.  It is called Antinopolis and was the only city in Egypt built by a Roman emperor.  Surprisingly, a young man named Antinius was loved and respected by many in Rome.  As a result, he eventually became a Roman god.  Emperor Hadrian made statues of his lovers and sent them throughout Rome because he wanted the people of Rome to honor him as a god.

 In time, as Christianity spread throughout Rome, they began to destroy pagan churches and statues in an attempt to wipe them out (non-Christian beliefs).  They also found a precious statue of their lover made by the Hendrian emperor.  Antinius has now become a god to the Romans.  As a result, the rebels cut off both arms of the statue.

 But the devotees of Antiochus dug a large hole in the ground to protect the statue from being completely destroyed.  Today, the statue is nearly 1,900 years old, and the following is an excerpt from the 1894 discovery of the statue.

 I have no doubt you have different opinions about love.  But you can not honestly deny that this statue represents the intense love of a person who lived beyond one thousand nine hundred years.

Excerpted from Wasit’s Facebook page