APOTHEOSIS OF AELIUS CAESAR

ON December 31st the Religion of Antinous commemorates the Apotheosis of Aelius Caesar.

Hadrian adopted Lucius Ceionius Commodus Verus, and called him Aelius Verus Caesar.

It was said that beauty was his only recommendation. His poor health soon overtook him and Hadrian is reported to have said, "We have leaned against a tottering wall and have wasted the four hundred million sentences which we gave to the populace and the soldiers on the adoption of Commodus."

He died on the Calends of January in the year 138 -- only a few months before Hadrian -- from an overdose of medicine given to help him make a speech to the Senate thanking Hadrian for the succession.

After Aelius Caesar's death, Hadrian adopted Antoninus Pius (September 19, 86 - March 7, 161) on the condition that Antoninus Pius adopt the younger Lucius Verus and Hadrian's great-nephew by marriage, Marcus Aurelius (April 26, 121 - March 17, 180).

Marcus later co-ruled with Lucius as Marcus Aurelius until Lucius' death in 169, at which time he was sole ruler until his own death in 180. Collectively, they are remembered as the Antonine Dynasty of emperors who ruled wisely over a period noted for its peace and prosperity.

In his classic text The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 18th Century historian Edward Gibbon considers the reign of the Antonines, as well as those of their predecessors Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian, the height of the Roman Empire, after which time the empire began its inexorable decline.

Aelius Caesar is a major character in Marguerite Yourcenar's epic historical novel Mémoires d'Hadrien (Memoirs of Hadrian).

Lucius, as we affectionately call him, is the recipient of much bittersweet love and adoration from followers of the Religion of Antinous. 

For us he represents so many pretty young men whose bright futures are thwarted by tragic illness.

Aelius Caesar is often called the Western Favorite, because of the possibility that he rivaled Antinous for Hadrian's love.

We venerate Aelius Caesar as the fallen Prince of Flowers, the spiritual twin brother of Antinous whose death is the end of the Saturnalia.
 

UNIQUE ROMAN THEATRE FOUND IN BRITAIN

IN ARCHAEOLOGY SCHOOL'S BACK YARD

BRITISH archaeologists have discovered the remains of a Roman theatre dating back 2,000 years - literally right in the back yard of the Kent Archaeological Field School.

Dr Paul Wilkinson, founder of the School, believes it is the first of its kind to be found in Britain, according to a report in the DAILY MAIL.

The theatre with a nearly circular cockpit-style orchestra, which would have seated 12,000 people. It  was found in Faversham, Kent - just behind Dr Wilkinson's back garden where his field school is based.

The site shows activity dating back to the Bronze Age, but it is the Roman theatre - which would have been used for religious occasions - that has really excited history buffs.

Dr Wilkinson is fighting to preserve the unique find for future generations and has applied for it to become an ancient monument site.

He told the Daily Mail: "It really is an amazing find, the first one in Britain, and it is just beyond my garden. This is a unique and wonderful discovery, not only for Faversham but for all of Britain.

"The theatre could have held 12,000 people and we are going to request for it to become an ancient monument site because it is so important and we can preserve it for future generations.

"It would have been a religious sanctuary for the Romans. They would have held religious festivals there. It is called a cockpit theatre.

"There are 150 of them in northern Europe, but none in Britain until now. We were not expecting it."

HADRIAN'S HUGE CENTER FOR THE ARTS

UNEARTHED IN THE HEART OF ROME

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have unearthed a 900-seat performance arts and entertainment center built by Emperor Hadrian under what is now one of Rome's busiest traffic intersections.

What has emerged from the rubble indicates that this was the Ancient Roman equivalent of Broadway or Covent Garden ... the venue where Hadrian (with Antinous at his side) arrived with a fanfare and strode past the glitterati on the opening night of new stage productions, concerts and poetry readings.

The dig site, which our own Flamen Antonyus Subia inspected only weeks ago, is being hailed as the most important Roman discovery in 80 years.

Built by Hadrian in the year 123 AD, the center for the performing arts offered three massive halls where Roman nobles flocked to hear poetry, speeches and philosophy tracts while reclining on terraced marble seating.

The terracing and the huge brick walls of the complex, as well as stretches of the elegant grey-and-yellow marble flooring are now visible at bottom of a 5.5 metre (18 foot) hole in Piazza Venezia, where police officers wearing white gloves direct chaotic traffic like orchestra conductors and where Mussolini harangued thousands of followers from his balcony.

"Hadrian's auditorium is the biggest find in Rome since the Forum was uncovered in the 1920s," said Rossella Rea, the archaeologist running the dig.

The excavations, which are now due to open to the public, are next to a taxi stand and squeezed between a baroque church and the Vittoriano, an imposing monument to Italy's defunct monarchy, which is nicknamed the "The Typewriter" by locals (see photo).

The complex was only unearthed thanks to excavations to build a new subway rail line which will cross the heart of Rome.

"We don't have funds for these kind of digs so this has come to light thanks to the new line," said Rea.

The site sheds new light on Hadrian's love of poetry – he wrote his own verse in Latin and Greek – and his taste for bold architecture – an 11-metre-high (36 foot) arched ceiling once towered over the poets in the central hall.

Today the performing space is riddled with pits dug for fires, revealing how after three centuries of celebrating the arts, the halls fell into disrepair with the collapse of the Roman empire and were used for smelting ingots.

At the center of the main hall, like a prop from a disaster movie, is a massive, nine-by-five-meter chunk of the monumental roof which came crashing down during an earthquake in 848 after standing for seven centuries.

Following the quake, the halls were gradually covered over until a hospital built on top in the 16th Century dug down for cellar space.

"We found pots lobbed down a well after the patients using them died," said Rea. "We could date them because the designs on the glaze were the same we see on implements in Caravaggio paintings."

SAINT NED WARREN

ON December 28th the Religion of Antinous celebrates the life of Saint Edward Perry "Ned" Warren, who died on this day in 1928. 

Estranged and ostracized by "decent" socialites, Saint Ned Warren was a famed gay Bostonian art collector who virtually single-handedly built up the collections of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and Boston Museum of Fine Arts through his passion for Classical art.

As a sissified schoolboy who suffered the taunts of bullies, he wrote a poem comparing a classmate in whom he was infatuated to the beautiful Antinous.

He and his lover John Marshall travelled around Europe seeking out and buying art treasures for great museums. They were referred to snidely as "the bachelors of art" among society circles in Britain and America. 

But Warren was so fabulously rich, and museums depended on him so much, that nobody dared say anything to his face about his blatant homosexuality. His gifts to the Boston MFA made up 90 per cent of its Classical collection, one of the finest in the world.

Even so, he found puritanical Boston deeply disagreeable, and spent most of his life in England when he was not at his apartment in Rome.

The famous Warren Cup and Rodin's statue The Kiss are just two of the most well-known objects he rounded up -- both of which were rejected by museums in Britain and America as being too raunchy. Museum curators feared museum-goers could be lured into thinking unwholesome thoughts.


Warren in fact actually commissioned the The Kiss from Rodin, explicitly saying he wanted large genitals on the man. To this day, photographs of the famous statue tend to avoid a full-frontal male view for that very reason.

The Warren Cup is a solid silver goblet which dates back to the 1st Century CE/AD and was found near Jerusalem. It is believed that it was deposited along with other valuables (some gold coins, jewellery and other precious items) in a cache by the servants of a fleeing Roman nobleman during one of several Jewish uprisings. It is even possible that it was buried during the uprising that was crushed by Hadrian's legions. 

The cup itself is considerably older, and may date to Republican times. And it is done in a retro-style which was a bit archaic even when it was new.

As the photos demonstrate, the Warren Cup shows two scenes (one on each side of the cup) of a man and a youth having sex on a couch. The silverwork is exquisitely done and the hair and draperies and facial expressions are beautifully rendered. It also reflects a bit of tongue-in-cheek wit by showing a servant boy peering curiously around a door frame at the lovers.

On one side a young man (barely more than a boy himself) is having his way with a young boy. On the other side, an older man with a beard is having anal sex with a younger man who is seated on top of him and holding onto what appears to be perhaps part of the drapes of a canopy bed. A servant looks on from the doorway off to the right side.

Saint Ned is believed to have purchased the Warren Cup from an antiquities dealer in Italy.
His efforts to sell it to museums in London and the U.S. were rebuffed.

The Warren Cup's unabashedly gay sex theme is impossible to ignore. The cup has been controversial in the art world ever since it first came to light in the 19th Century.

For many, many years, museums on both sides of the Atlantic refused to obtain it (despite its unquestionable value as a remarkably important historical piece of art) because of Victorian and Edwardian moral objections to its "immoral and beastly" theme.

At one time a curator for the British Museum was interested in acquiring the Warren Cub.

But other experts reminded him that one of the members of the board of directors of the British Museum was the Archbishop of Canterbury. The result was that museum officials were loathe to show his reverence even a photograph of the cup, let alone ask him to condone purchasing it for the collection.

So the cup languished in Warren's personal collection for many years and changed hands many times after his death, never ever being put on public display.

The British Museum finally purchased the Warren Cup for a large sum in 1999 -- and even then there was much titillation in the tabloid press.

Ned Warren wrote extensively about his views that homosexuality is a spiritual state of being, something divinely magical. Taunted as a schoolboy for being a bookworm and a sissy (he would get up at 5 a.m. to read Greek until breakfast), he nonetheless had many crushes on other schoolboys. He wrote about them all in his diary, and even wrote a poem about one especially beautiful boy whom he called a modern Antinous.

As an adult, he continued to proclaim his notion of idealized homosexual love, much to the distress of his family in Boston.

He even wrote a book entitled The Defence of Uranian Love about the same time that Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray was published. 

He also used his wealth to sponsor the educations of numerous boys and young men who showed promise but had no money.

He was very generous and had a big heart. For example, he heard that the daughter of a vicar in his district in England had become pregnant out of wedlock and was going to be forced to give up the child. 

Saying "this is as bad as Boston," he was so outraged that he legally adopted the little boy himself. He allowed mother and son to live upstairs in his home in England at his expense and loudly defied anyone to besmirch her honor or that of Travis, the little boy.

Ned Warren and his lover John Marshall had a stormy, on-again off-again relationship, but they were together at their flat in Rome in February of 1928. On the evening of the 15th, John went to bed early not feeling well. Ned tiptoed in later and kissed him good night and got in bed beside him. John was dead by morning.

Ned never recovered from that blow. He returned to England, where his health declined rapidly. Saying he couldn't face Christmas and New Year's without John, he died in a nursing home in England on December 28, 1928, at the age of 68.

He was cremated on January 1, 1929. But because he had always been blatant about his homosexuality, no members of his family attended the funeral and none of the museums that had benefitted so much from his largesse sent a representative to the memorial service.

His ashes were buried in the non-Catholic cemetery in Bagni di Lucca, Italy, a town known as a spa in Etruscan and Roman times.
 
We honor Edward Perry "Ned" Warren, 1860-1928, who wrote a poem likening a boy he loved to Antinous.

RUSSELL CROWE RESCUES

'GLADIATOR' TOMB

JUST like in the movies, Russell Crowe has come to the rescue of a noble soldier of Rome by convincing Italian authorities that they must restore the tomb of ancient Roman General Marcus Nonius Macrinus.

The recently unearthed tomb of the famous general, who was the inspiration for the character played by Crow in GLADIATOR, had been slated to be re-buried because authorities said they could not afford to restore it.

THIS BLOG REPORTED THAT DECISION.

But Crowe spearheaded a petition drive to keep it open. Now it has been reported that the tomb of the general from the time of Emperor Marcus Aurelius will be saved, at least for this winter.

The support of the New Zealand actor was decisive, after he launched the petition "Save the Gladiator's Tomb" with support from the American Institute of Archaeology.

The actor was among the first to sign it, and called on Italians to remember the outstanding achievements of their ancestors.

As a result, Roman authorities have agreed not to bury the tomb, but cover it instead.

A team of archaeologists unearthed fragments of the tomb near the Via Flaminia in Rome in 2008.

The burial place of the general who advised the Emperor features Latin inscriptions, as well as marble roof tiles and pillars.

The tomb had to undergo preservation works to keep it open. Up to $4 million was reportedly needed to preserve the ancient site.

When the mausoleum was opened up its condition deteriorated due to air pollution.

EARLIEST MAYAN CALENDAR FOUND,

IT GOES ON FOR TRILLIONS OF YEARS

THE oldest-known version of the ancient Maya calendar has been discovered adorning a lavishly painted wall in the ruins of a city deep in the Guatemalan rainforest.

The hieroglyphs, painted in black and red, along with a colorful mural of a king and his mysterious attendants, seem to have been a sort of handy reference chart for court scribes in A.D. 800 — the astronomers and mathematicians of their day. 

Contrary to popular myth, this calendar didn't represent a countdown to the end of the world in December 2012, the study researchers said.

"The Mayan calendar is going to keep going for billions, trillions, octillions of years into the future," said archaeologist David Stuart of the University of Texas, who worked to decipher the glyphs. "Numbers we can't even wrap our heads around."

The newly discovered calendar is complex indeed, featuring stacked bars and dots representing fives and ones and recording lunar cycles in six-month chunks of time. 

The Maya recorded time in a series of cycles, including 400-year chunks called baktuns. It's these baktuns that have led to rumors of an end-of-the-world catastrophe on Dec. 21, 2012 — on that date, a cycle of 13 baktuns was completed. 

But the idea that this means the end of the world is a misconception, Stuart said. 

In fact, Maya experts have known for a long time that the calendar doesn't end after the 13th baktun. It simply begins a new cycle. And the calendar encompasses much larger units than the baktun.

THE SATURNALIA

THE GOLDEN AGE OF SATURN

IN celebration of the return of Antinous Invictus, for the five days between December 25th and the 1st of January, we commemorate the Golden Age of the reign of Saturn.

This is a time outside of time, and an occasion for joy and freedom from the world.

The divine twins are born, Osiris and Isis, Seth and Nephthys, Castor and Pollux, Freyr and Freya (for whom this time is also known as Yule).

We celebrate the Saturnalia with indulgence and as the festival of Liberty and total Freedom. There shall be no authority and no submission during this sacred period.

There is to be no war, and no form of violence committed, only peace and harmony and the many joys of ecstasy are allowed.

The rejoicing of the Saturnalia ends with the apotheosis of the Prince of Flowers, Aelius Caesar, on January 1st.

THE SUN GOD SHINES ON ANTINOUS DURING THE SATURNALIA

DURING the festival of the Saturnalia in late December of the year 129 AD, Hadrian and Antinous visited the city of Emesa in Syria to pay their respects to the androgynous sun deity Elegabal at the Solstice.

The city of Emesa in Syria was sacred to the God Elagabal, a sun deity and patron god of the later Emperor known as Elagabalus ... history's first recorded transgender teen emperor. The god of Emesa was Phoenician in origin, but had become somewhat Hellenized.

Elagabalus the Emperor lived almost exactly one hundred years after Antinous, and died when he was 18 or 19 years old ... almost exactly the same age that Antinous died ... after being emperor only four years.

Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus was born on an unknown date in the winter of 204 AD in the city of Emesa. His birth name was Varius Avitus Bassianus, and he is believed to have been the son of Caracalla, for which reason he was declared Emperor by the Legions of Syria during an uprising against the short-lived Emperor Macrinus who had assassinated Caracalla and taken the throne.

Varius Bassianus was only 14 years old when he became sole ruler of the Roman Empire and took the name of Antoninus. 

He was the last Emperor to bear the sacred name of the most glorious rulers of the world, the Antonines. He is known to history as Elagabalus, because he was from birth the high priest(ess) of the androgynous sun deity Elagabal.

He brought his strange, phallic religion to Rome, and very shortly began to impose Elagabal, going so far as to nullify all other cults and force the Romans to accept his one god. It is even claimed that he closed and demolished the temple of Antinous at Tibur and perhaps others, but this is rumor.

What Elagabalus is famous for is that he was an extreme homosexual phallus worshipper with an insatiable fondness for chariot racers who he often elevated to the highest positions of authority simply based on the size and grace of their penises. 

He is criticized by ancient historians for portraying himself as Venus on Mount Ida, and allowing himself to be sodomized on stage by his chariot racers in the roles of various gods in full view of an audience.

History is slanted by anti-tranny prejudice. Elagabalus is recorded as having been one of the most infamous and degenerate figures in Roman history. 

This despite the fact that he was not particularly cruel or demonstrably mad. He simply offended the sensibilities of later historians ... particularly Victorian historians who were appalled by the fact that a trans teen had been acclaimed emperor of Rome.

Victorian historians record Elagabalus' life as scandalous, yet an examination of their remarks reveal a troubled trans youth struggling with his identity:

"Not only was he bi-sexual, but also a transvestite. He would go to the taverns at night wearing a wig, woman's clothes and makeup and ply the trade of a prostitute. This activity only ended when he met Hierocles, a Carian slave, and became his wife. Hierocles was even permitted to beat the emperor when displeased, as any man might beat his wife. Even more scandalous Elagabalus not only acted and dressed like a woman, but he wanted to be physically transformed into one. He asked his physicians to contrive a vagina for him, promising huge rewards for success."

In other words, he was a transgender teenager who had the power and money at his disposal to create the gender-bending reality he desired to live in.

None of his works, or generous gifts to the people, were sufficient to offset his reputation among the elite, tarnished by his promiscuous behavior with men and women. But we must remember that most teenagers be self-indulgent if they suddenly found themselves with absolute powers. Many of the adult emperors did no less.

He was assassinated by his own Praetorian guards, and his body was dragged through the streets before being hurled into the Tiber, the punishment for the most vile criminals.

Flamen Antonyus Subia says:

"He is considered to be one of the most perverted and cruel of all the Emperors, but the open phallicism that he imposed upon Rome, and the dramatic exhibition of his homosexuality warrant his deification. He is included as a saint of Ecclesia Antinoi because he was a homosexual of extreme proportions, and because he was the last Emperor to bear the name Antoninus. Antinous blessed and was blessed by the God Elagabal on this occasion, the Saturnalia in Emesus, and it was from this consecration that the power of the later Emperor Elagabalus came forth. We consecrate ourselves to the Phallic Sun God Elagabal, in memory of the Last Antonine."

EGYPTIANS SOLD THEMSELVES TO TEMPLES

RATHER THAN LIVE ON THE STREETS

ILLEGITIMATE Egyptians sometimes sold themselves into slavery at temples rather than live on the streets and be forced into manual labor or military service, according to new findings.

And they even paid a monthly fee for the "privilege," according to Egyptologist Kim Ryholt from the University of Copenhagen, the first researcher who has studied this puzzling phenomenon. 

"I am your servant from this day onwards, and I shall pay 2½ copper-pieces every month as my slave-fee before Soknebtunis, the great god." 

This is a translation of a formulaic pledge found in 100 papyrus slave contracts signed 2,200 years ago at the temple city of Tebtunis. 

University of Copenhagen Egyptologist Kim Ryholt is the first researcher to have analysed these collectively in his recent article "A Self-Dedication Addressed to Anubis - Divine Protection against Malevolent Forces or Forced Labour?" from the forthcoming publication Lotus and Laurel - Studies on Egyptian Language and Religion.

Today, it is difficult to comprehend why anybody would voluntarily join the ranks of the temple slaves and even pay the temple a monthly fee. But if you, like Kim Ryholt, can read the contracts, which were written in the ancient Egyptian language Demotic, a plausible explanation surfaces: 

"Ninety per cent of the people who entered into these slave contracts were unable to name their fathers, although this was normally required. They were presumably children of prostitutes. This is a clear indication that they belonged to the lower classes which the king could subject to forced labour, for example digging canals, if he so desired. However, we know from other contemporary records that temple slaves were exempt from forced labour," says Kim Ryholt.

"Many therefore chose to live as temple slaves because it was the only way of avoiding the harsh and possibly even deadly alternative; the temple was simply the lesser of two evils for these people. And for the temples, this was a lucrative practice that gave them extra resources and money."

According to Kim Ryholt, the possibility of avoiding forced labour by entering into slave contracts with temples was limited to a 60-year-period – from roughly 190 BC to 130 BC. There is no indication that the practice existed in any other period in ancient Egypt; probably because the royal family could not, in the long run, afford to yield that many resources to the temples.

 A contract comprised of
  fragments from Papyrus 
  Carlsberg and British Museum.
 

The papyrus slave contracts were found in a rubbish dump next to the Tebtunis temple in illicit excavations and were subsequently scattered across Egypt, Europe and the United States. So it has taken Kim Ryholt years to collect and analyse the contracts.

"The Papyrus Carlsberg Collection at the University of Copenhagen contains a large number of contracts, but many are fragmentary, and in order to study the whole material I have had to visit many other collections where there would be a chance to find Tebtunis contracts, including the British Museum, university collections in New Haven, Michigan and Florence, and not least Tebtunis itself where I participate in the modern excavations. 

"In some cases, a contract might be physically divided between, for instance, Copenhagen and the British Museum, and the fragments are then scanned and put together virtually on the computer," Kim Ryholt says.

GRIEVING HADRIAN TRAVELS ALONE TO THE LAND OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE

AFTER the tragic death of Antinous in the Nile in October of the year 130 AD, a grieving Hadrian had no choice but to complete his scheduled goodwill tour of Egypt and to head back to Asia Minor, the birthplace of his beloved.

Leaving Egypt behind, the Imperial entourage separated, with the majority returning to Rome, while Hadrian and his close circle continued into the Euxine Sea, known today as the Black Sea, going as far as the ancient city of Colchis in what is now called the Republic of Georgia.

Colchis was the destination of Jason and the Argonauts who went in search of the Golden Fleece.

Not far from Colchis is Mount Caucus, where legend has it that Prometheus had been bound for thirty thousand years before being set free by Hercules.

This is the furthest East that Hadrian would ever journey, and it is possible that he carried the mummified body of Antinous with him.

Flamen Antonius Subia explains the significance from a gay spiritual standpoint based on the 72 days of the Egyptian mummification process:

"Spiritually, in the process of deification and triumph over the 72 Archons, we observe that Antinous confronts the 52nd Archon, who is the ruler of the four elements. Antinous is on the verge of leaving our cosmos."

ANTINOUS TWITTER SERVICE LAUNCHED

THE priests of Antinous are proud to announce the launch of the Official ANTINOUS TWITTER service.

All posts on this blog will be available on Twitter starting now ... the exact moment of the December 2012 Solstice!

Make sure to follow @antinousgaygod to keep up with Antinous the Gay God wherever you are!

Link: https://twitter.com/antinousgaygod

ANTINOUS INVICTUS CASTS LIGHT

ON THE MAYAN CALENDAR

ON Friday at 11:11 a.m. Universal Time (midday in the UK and Europe) we finally come to that fateful date everyone has been talking about for years — the December 21, 2012, Solstice.

This is a special day every year in the Religion of Antinous for it marks the return of SOL INVICTUS, the Unconquerable Sun.

The return of the sun is the Conquest of Unconquered Light over chaos and darkness, the emergence of Phanes-Eros-Dionysus from the cosmic egg.

On this day, we observe the moment when the unknown god Bythus-Narcissus gazed into the pool of the abyss and saw his own reflection. His image caused the birth of the thrice-great Phanes-Eros-Zagreus, the saviors, who together are called Antinous Invictus.

The three-fold mystery of their birth is the descent of Phanes-Beauty, Eros-Love and Zagreus-Ecstasy into our world. These great spirits are the divine light of Antinous the God, it is their presence at the ground of our soul that is our immortal spark.

Within us all is the perfect image of the perfect face of light and love, a reflection of Narcissus-Bythus gazing down into the darkness of our world.

This year, of course, is extra special because 21st December is the final date in the Mayan Long Count calendar. Despite all the croakings of doom by alarmists, we do not believe that the December Solstice 2012 is the end of the world.

But we do believe it is the end of an exceedingly long cycle called The Great Year which lasts for 26,000 years. It is the end of a Great Cycle. But it is also the beginning of the next one.

It is an ending — but not the end of the world. It is the darkness just before dawn.

That twilight began with the discovery of the planet Uranus in 1781. Uranus is the planet of abrupt "eureka" discoveries and just think how our world has been revolutionized since 1781!

Then in 1996 Uranus entered its home sign of Aquarius, which many consider the true dawning of the Age of Aquarius, which marks the first 2,000-year segment of the new Great Year which will last 26,000 years.

It is no coincidence that, soon after Uranus entered Aquarius in the 1990s, Antonyus Subia founded the New Religion of Antinous.

We cannot say what will happen except that Aquarius is not only beneficent and altruistic but also somewhat cold and brainy-rationalistic. Above all, Aquarius loves change for the sake of change ... anything can happen ... and it will happen way differently than anything we can imagine.

No, the world won't come to an end on 21st December 2012 — not the climactic way it did at the movies.

But in a few short years we will begin to see that the world is becoming vastly different — just remember that this change began back in 1781 — and it is now moving to warp speed.

And as religions which have dominated the world for the past 2,000 years fall by the wayside, the once and future Religion of Antinous will shine anew.

Antinous Invictus the perfect image of the perfect face of light and love will illuminate the way ahead.

It was Hadrian's dream to create the perfect civilization ... a civilization based on the Hellenistic principles of love, beauty, learning and tolerance. And it was his dream to create the perfect religion ... a religion which would encompass all others.

So the Priests of Antinous urge you not to crawl under your bed in fear of "doomsday" but instead to celebrate the love and beauty of Antinous ... the gay god who embraces all other deities ... from Kukulkan to Freyr ... as seen in this portrait by Flamen Antonyus Subia....

MARGUERITE YOURCENAR SHOWS YOU

HOW TO PRONOUNCE THE NAME 'ANTINOUS'

IN a rare interview with our beloved Marguerite Yourcenar, author of the landmark classic historical novel MÉMOIRES D'HADRIEN (Memoirs of Hadrian), notice how she pronounces the name "Antinous."

The INTERVIEW was done for French television in 1979.

You will hear his name spoken correctly at exactly 5:45 minutes into the VIDEO where she says that "Hadrian was the only man to raise a cult for a male lover for a boyfriend for whom he was preoccupied with creating the greatest multitude of portraits in antiquity of any other person than of ANTINOOS!"

She pronounces it "On-Dthee-Noh-Oows" which is the Greco-Latin way. And according to the glyphs on the Obelisk of Antinous, it is the correct pronunciation. 

In English it is usually pronounced "an-TINN-oh-us" which cannot be how he called himself.

Flamen Antonyus Subia, who is from El Paso, explains:

"Latin is only straight-forward for Latinos...and by that I do not mean only for Hispanics, but for all Latinos...Anglo-Saxons pronounce everything in their Germanic accent...all the vowels and some of the consonants are usually wrong.

"I feel sweetly vindicated and comforted by hearing that the Grand Lady herself says his name the same way that I say it...the way I knew that it should be pronounced...

"We should speak his Most Holy Name the way that He himself said it, the way that his his mother said it the day he was born, and the way that Hadrian said it...when he spoke to him directly...and the way the ancient priests said it when they prayed to HIM."

TEMPLE TO POSEIDON/NEPTUNE FOUND ON BULGARIA'S BLACK SEA COAST

EXPERTS working at a dig on the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria say they have found a well-preserved altar to Poseidon/Neptune which suggests the surrounding ruins were once a major temple to the god of the seas.

Archaeologists found the building in front of the medieval fortified wall of the seaside town of Sozopol, according to Bozhidar Dimitrov, director of Bulgaria’s National History Museum.

It is a little-known fact that Antinous was associated in a gay context with the classical god of the seas, called Poseidon by the Greeks and Neptune by the Romans.

Coins minted by a priest of Antinous at Corinth named Hostilius Marcellus (from whom our own Uendi Hostilia Marcella takes her priestly name) show Antinous as Neptune/Poseidon.

It is a reference to the myth that Poseidon became enthralled with another marine male deity, Nerites, who was said to be the handsomest of all males on Earth, in the Heavens or in the Seas.

The sexual union of Poseidon and Nerites produced Anteros, god of requited love.

In those days, few people could read or write, but everyone knew these myths. So anyone who held one of these Antinous/Poseidon coins could "read" the gay symbolism.

So any discovery concerning Neptune/Poseidon is of great interest to us, since the dig could ultimately reveal Antinous-related artefacts.

At the Sozopol site, Dimitrov said that the numerous pieces of marble found during excavations indicate that the temple was destroyed after the declaration of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman empire in 330 AD.

The structure was partially pulled down and partially reconfigured as a Christian house of worship dedicated to a Christian saint, whose iconography was similar to that of the ancient god Neptune.

Dimitrov said that in Sozopol, there was a simiar example of how a temple to the Thracian horseman in the centre of the old town was converted into a church dedicated to Saint George, riding a horse to slay a demon dragon.

He said, according to a report by local news agency Focus, that in the case of the temple to Neptune – the god of the sea – the time of its destruction saw the building of a Christian church a very short distance away, dedicated to Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of fishermen and sailors.

The statement about one of the latest archaeological finds in Sozopol is the town’s newest headline-maker on the archaeological front this year.

In the early summer archaeologists found a skeleton staked post-mortem to prevent the deceased from rising as a vampire at Sozopol.

In September, archaeologists made another unusual find in the skeleton of a man who appears to have been such an inveterate gambler that he took his knucklebones to the grave, perhaps in hopes of winning his freedom by challenging Hades to a game of chance.

The skeleton has been provisionally dated to the 5th Century BC. As part of the funeral rites, the deceased was buried with a Greek dish that had 80 astragaloi – roughly cubic-shaped ship ankle bones used for gambling in the ancient times.

In August, it emerged that an ancient incense vessel in the shape of a bull’s head, estimated to date from the 6th Century BC, had been found by archaeologists on St Kirik island off Sozopol. The discovery was made on the last hour of the last day of the 2012 summer archaeological season in Bulgaria.

CAIRO'S LANDMARK EGYPTIAN MUSEUM

TO GET A MAJOR FACELIFT

IT was looted during rioting last year. It forms the backdrop of continuing rioting and bloodshed at Tahrir Square in the heart of the Egyptian capital.

After decades of neglect, it has been in the news spotlight around the world for more than a year, sharing headlines with insane calls by Islamic clerics with close ties to Egypt's repressive new regime to destroy "pagan idols" such as the Sphinx.

Shamed into action, authorities in Egypt have suddenly announced plans to renovate and modernize the dusty, badly lighted, and crumbling Egyptian Museum.

Following a brief inspection of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square on Sunday, Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim gave the go-ahead for a long-overdue initiative aimed at revamping the famous museum over the next two years.

Egyptian Museum Director Salwa Abdel-Rahman said the development project would be completed in three phases. The first phase will involve the development of Hall 32, home to a large collection of Old Kingdom artefacts unearthed at the Saqqara Necropolis; and Hall 37, which displays the funerary collection of Queen Hetepheres, mother of King Khufu, the builder of Egypt's Great Pyramid.

Abdel-Rahman says that displays in both halls will be revamped to provide visitors with a better view of the artefacts.

The museum's main dome will also undergo a thorough cleaning and its long-broken widows will be replaced. A new lighting system has already been installed to provide better lighting that will not harm the ancient objects on display.

Ibrahim told Ahram Online that financing for the project's first phase would be provided by the Association of Lovers of the Egyptian Museum and not from the ministry's budget. He added that the three phases of the planned development project would be carried out one after another until their final completion in 2015.

In the midst of the volatile crisis which has engulfed Egypt, however, it remains to be seen whether any of the plans will become reality ... or whether Egyptians will destroy their cultural heritage as has so often occurred during the course of the past 5,000 years.

SAINT JALALUDDIN RUMI

ON December 17th the Religion of Antinous celebrates the life of the Sufi mystic Jalaluddin Rumi who dedicated his life to the illumination he received through the love of another man.

The mystic lover and poet Jalaluddin Rumi, better known simply as Rumi, was united with his beloved on this day. 

Born in Afghanistan in 1207 CE, his family moved to Turkey while he was still young. 

In the city of Konya, not far from the Bithynian birthplace of Antinous, Jalaluddin Rumi established himself as a traditional Islamic teacher.

But then one day he met Shams-e-Tabriz, a wandering Sufi mystic. 

Shams set Jalaluddin free from worldly concern and revealed the inward love of god as expressed through music, poetry and the whirling dance that simultaneously confuses and centers the soul of one who spins.

When Shams mysteriously disappeared, Jalaluddin went in search of him, only to discover that Shams was within his own heart.

From that day forward, Jalaluddin Rumi became a profound teacher of mystic eloquence whose poetry refers to god as the Lover within. 

The homoerotic character of Jalaluddin Rumi's spirituality, referring both to his love for Shams and his love for god, has ingratiated him to gay men because of the depth and sensitivity and sacred intimacy that his words exude.

Jalaluddin Rumi and his Mevlevi Order are the last remnants of the Bithynian-Phrygian ecstasy cults of Dionysus and Attis, and they are distantly connected to the Religion of Antinous, through the mystical charge of homoerotic spirituality.

Jalaluddin Rumi expressed total love, proclaiming that all religions were one. And on the day of his funeral, his bier was followed by a procession made up of representatives from five different faiths.

We sanctify Jalaluddin Rumi as a Saint in the Religion of Antinous. He died on December 17th, 1234.

ALEXANDER THE GREAT

CONQUERS AUSTRALIA

ALEXANDER the Great conquered the known world 2,400 years ago. He got as far as India but never quite made it to Australia ... until now ....

Now Alexander (whom we honor as a Gay Saint of Antinous) has made his triumphal entry into the largest city on the seventh continent.

Some 400 priceless artefacts are being shown outside Europe for the first time at the AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM in Sydney, drawing rave reviews and large crowds of visitors to the unprecedented exhibition, which runs through April 28, 2013.

Alexander was born in 356 BC and became king of Macedon at 20 and ruler of the civilized world at 30. His body was interred in a crystal sarcophagus at the city in Egypt named for him, Alexandria.

It is the first time the collection "Alexander the Great: 2000 Years of Treasure" from the State Hermitage in St Petersburg, Russia, is on display outside of Europe.

The only other place to host the exhibition is the State Hermitage in Amsterdam.

Australian Museum director Frank Howarth said the collection was a major coup for Australia.

"It's a vote of confidence from the State Hermitage that we can look after and tell the amazing story of a truly amazing man," he said.

A team of 29 curators accompanied the exhibition from Russia.

The collection explores what the world looked like when Alexander took over as King of Macedonia in 336 BC, as well as tracing his campaigns and influence on western civilisation.

In one of his first battles, before becoming king, the young Alexander proved himself by defeating the Sacred Band of Thebes, the army of homosexual lovers who were the most famous and courageous warriors of their time.

Alexander is said to have wept at their destruction, and buried them with honor, erecting a statue of a Lion over their graves.

He would later go one to conquer the entire Eastern world, Asia Minor, Syria, Judea, Egypt, and all of Persia, as far East as India. The Empire of Alexander spread Greek culture throughout the world, and made the communication of far-distant ideas possible so that the new Hellenistic culture that he created, was a combination of classical Greece and of the exotic cultures that were imported from every corner.

After the death of Alexander, at only 33 years of age, he was deified by his generals who divided his great Empire among themselves. 

The Religion of Antinous praises the glorious warrior Alexander of Macedonia, and we elevate him, and worship him as a God, an example of the greatness of homosexuality, and a heroic protector of the Divine Antinous.

BIRTH OF THE DIVINE LUCIUS VERUS

ON December 15th the Religion of Antinous celebrates the birth of the Divine Lucius Verus, who was born 48 days after the death of ANTINOUS in the year 130 AD (Year 19 of Antinous). As an 8-year-old boy he was hand-picked by Hadrian to become future co-emperor with Marcus Aurelius.

And Hadrian's wisdom in choosing him was realized when Lucius Verus proved to be a wise and diligent leader who combined efficiency in government along with a sense of charisma and high-drama style.


A handsome young man with naturally sandy-blond hair, he instructed his team of imperial stylists to sprinkle gold dust in his carefully coiffed hair and beard to highlight the natural blond sheen. 

Verus led a high-stepping lifestyle and kept a coterie of glitterati, actors and favourites with him. He had a replica tavern built in his house -- a sort of in-house Studio 54 -- where he staged lavish parties with his friends until dawn. 

He also enjoyed roaming around the city among the population, without acknowledging his identity. The games of the circus were another passion in his life, especially chariot racing.


Lucius Ceionius Aelius Aurelius Commodus Antoninus was the son of Lucius Aelius Caesar, His mother's name was Avidia. After the unexpected death of young Lucius's father, Lucius Aelius Caesar, Hadrian then adopted Antoninus Pius to be his successor, and ordered that Antoninus adopt Marcus Aurelius, Hadrian's 17-year-old nephew, and the 8-year-old Lucius who took the name Lucius Verus.

As a boy Lucius Verus was educated by the foremost Roman scholars including the historian Marcus Cornelius Fronto. He was watched over by a devoted freedman of his father named Nicomedes, a name with Bithynian connotations and of almost homosexual allusion.

Originally Hadrian desired that Lucius should marry Faustina the Younger, daughter of Antoninus, but then Antoninus canceled this arrangement and Faustina married Marcus Aurelius instead. Lucius married Lucilla, the daughter of Marcus Aurelius, in 161 a year after becoming Emperor in 161.

War broke out with the Parthians and Marcus Aurelius sent Lucius Verus to head the Campaign, but he is said to have spent his time drinking and banqueting, leaving the war in the capable hands of his generals. It was a wise decision. For this victory, he was awarded a triumph.


In general, the duties of running the government were left in the hands of Marcus Aurelius, while Lucius Verus spent his time with actors and musicians, and at the chariot races. 

He is said to have excelled his eccentric father Lucius Aelius in ostentatiously exhibiting his pleasures on an Imperial scale, much to the disapproval of the stoic Marcus Aurelius. The two co-emperors, however, always maintained cordial relations.

Lucius Verus was born in the year 130, only 48 days after the Death of Antinous. This is of course very important to consider, and certainly must have left a life-long impression of Lucius Verus. Considerations of reincarnation are open for contemplation.

His death in the year 169 was sudden and unexpected, occurring during a military inspection, likely due to dysentery or possibly smallpox, as he died during a widespread epidemic known as the "Antonine Plague". 

Despite the minor differences between them, Marcus Aurelius grieved the loss of his adoptive brother. He accompanied the body to Rome, where he offered games to honour his memory. After the funeral, the senate declared Verus divine to be worshipped as Divus Verus.

Many people (even modern-day pagans) balk at believing in the divinity of the emperors, preferring instead the Classical deities of the Roman Republic.

Pagans find it extremely difficult to worship human beings as legitimate gods, because they have no believable supernatural powers, it's too obvious. There are other reasons of course, but this is one.


Why not Worship Lucius Verus and Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius and all the Antonines, why not call out to them, why not praise them and declare our loyalty to them and hope for whatever benefit we might gain? 

The odds seem as favorable with them as with anything else that people call Gods.

For this reason, among others...we turn to ANTINOUS...because he IS a human being...and he WAS deified...ANTINOUS is in every way Both God and Man...we can believe whatever we want about him...but only so long as we do not delude ourselves into thinking that we can placate ANTINOUS, that by worshiping HIM, that we will somehow purchase his good favor...that we will be rewarded for our good faith.

We don't see any harm in asking ANTINOUS to give us the Moon and the Stars and the Beautiful Things of the Land and the Sea...and we are proud to ask ANTINOUS to watch over His People, all the Homosexuals of the World, to protect them and Guide into the Future.

This may seem to be a violation of our personal creed of not asking for fulfillment of our selfish whims...but it is not a violation of that creed...perhaps because it is not for ourselves...and also because we do not expect ANTINOUS to respond in any way or form...it is not so much a response from ANTINOUS Himself that we are seeking, but a Response from the Antinous within Our Hearts and from the Antinous within All of Our Hearts.

It is We who must watch over ourselves and the whole world...through the Power of Antinous Love within us all.

Lucius Verus IS a god and he represents the Power of the Antinous Love which resides within us all.

ROME'S LOST PORT IS BEING REDISCOVERED

THANKS TO COMPUTER IMAGING

VIEWERS in Britain are being treated to amazing images of the port which served the city of Rome during the Hadrian Era thanks to the BBC documentary special ROME'S LOST EMPIRE.

And the BBC documentary producers were able to show such amazing images thanks to computer imaging by British archaeologists which is revealing the long lost secrets of the lost port city of Portus.

In the 2nd Century AD, during the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian, Portus was a gateway to the Mediterranean. Hadrian and his massive entourage of sea-going vessels passed through Portus on his many trips to far-flung corners of his empire.

But today, due to silting, the sprawling site now lies two miles inland, close to the runway at Fiumicino airport. It sits incongruously next to the airport runway and the team digs to the sound of jet engines on land owned by Duke Sforza Cesarini - from one of Italy's oldest noble families - and the Italian government.

Everyone has heard of Ostia, the ancient port of Rome for centuries. But the Empire outgrew Ostia and so Trajan ordered the enlargement of nearby Portus at the mouth of the Tiber which became the major shipbuilding and cargo port during the Imperial era.

Portus, which simply means "port" or "harbor," was built two miles north of Ostia, with the Romans using concrete that could set under water.

But because of the airport and urban sprawl, archaeologists have had little to work with. That is all changing now, thanks to sophisticated computer imaging technology.

In recent years computers have revealed a major shipyard larger than a football field and also an astounding amphitheater as large as the Pantheon, according to Professor Simon Keay, Portus Project Director and leading expert in Roman Archaeology at the University of Southampton.

In the BBC documentary, the TV producers boldly said the shipyard was where Roman warships were built. But the archaeologists caution that there is no evidence to indicate just what sort of vessels were built there.
 
The five-story-tall structure, built out of brick-faced concrete, is thought to be from about 117 AD, in the reign of Trajan. It was used to either build or service ships that travelled across the empire nearly 2,000 years ago to keep Rome supplied with food and goods.

The largest find of its kind in Italy or the Mediterranean, it was found close to a distinctive existing hexagonal basin or "harbor" at the center of the huge ancient port complex, which covers two square miles.

Teams of oxen would probably have been used to drag ships in and out of the dry dock.

The massive building is also close to an imperial palace, leading archaeologists to think that it may have been a base for galleys that transported emperors to the farthest-flung parts of the Roman world. The palace possibly served as a kind of "VIP lounge" for dignitaries and their huge retinues arriving or awaiting departure.

The University of Southampton's PORTUS PROJECT WEBSITE has been updated for the BBC TV special and offers incredible 3-D computer renderings of the latest discoveries.

"It's amazing, a fantastic find," says Professor Keay, the director of the project. "We knew there was a lot ship building and repairing going on in the port but until now we didn't know where it was.

"It was a monumental arcade opening onto two harbor basins. Our excavations show that it was divided into very long bays, about 12 meters wide, and they were separated from one another by massive concrete piers. We're finding tacks which were used to attach lead to the underside of ships."

Portus was constructed when the earlier harbor, Ostia, proved to be too small to handle the vast amounts of goods needed by the imperial capital.

Research has been underway at Portus for several years and Professor Keay hopes to continue working there. "This is one of the most important archaeological sites in the world," he says.

"Certainly it should be rated alongside such wonders as Stonehenge and Angkor Wat in Cambodia. So much of this Imperial port has been preserved and there is much more to learn about its role in supplying Rome and in the broader economic development of the Roman Mediterranean," he says.

MAYOR INTERCEDES TO SAVE

ROME'S ROAMING CATS

STRAY cats roaming the Roman ruins can rest easy on their marble pedestals -- a feline colony tucked away near the spot where Julius Caesar was murdered is no longer threatened with closure.

"These cats are not up for debate, they are part of the history of Rome," Mayor Gianni Alemanno said on a visit to the feline shelter, which currently looks after around 250 cats, providing them with food and vaccinations, according to an AFP report.

"This is a praiseworthy, historical, wonderful enterprise. The feline colony must not be hounded out. Woe to those who lay a finger on the cats," he said.

City heritage officials have been threatening to close down the shelter, located in an tiny, cave-like structure at one end of the ancient site where Marcus Junius Brutus and his fellow assassins stabbed Julius Caesar to death.

Claims that the enclosure where sick cats are nursed back to health is unsanitary and was built without proper planning permission have been fiercely denied by the dozens of volunteers who help keep the project running.

They say that they found the unused space 19 years ago and transformed it from a damp and dark cavern into a home for abandoned cats, many of whom have lost limbs or eyes in car accidents, or are sterilised and put up for adoption.

The site has become a popular tourist attraction in its own right, with visitors who drop by to denote money or take photographs of the felines who sun themselves on the remains of pillars once part of the city's imposing Senate.

Just last month a stray cat made headlines around the world with the miraculous case of the CAT AND THE CATACOMB in Rome.
 

POMPEII COMES TO LIFE IN MADRID

POMPEII, Herculaneum and Stabiae come to life in a stunning new show which opened last week and runs through May 5th, 2013, at Madrid's Fundación Canal art exhibition center.

The exhibition features wall-size projections along with murals, silverware, sculptures from the House of Menander, Pompeii's House of the Citarista and Villa del Petraro di Stabia. 

The exhibition concludes with a section dedicated to the role of the House of Bourbon, especially Charles III, in the discovery of the vesuvian sites. He was the King of Naples (who became King of Spain in 1735) to kick start the excavations ( not yet completed) that brought to light the buried city.

The exhibition was organized by the Foundation with the Landesmuseum Halle (Germany).

For further information about this exhibition visit the website www.fundacioncanal.com.

The Los Angeles Getty Museum also dedicated a spectacular exhibition to the imaginary of Pompeii and the BRITISH MUSEUM is preparing another one meant to be the Exhibition Event of the Spring 2013.  

Fundación Canal
Calle Mateo Inurria 2
Metro: Plaza de Castilla.
From 6 December 2012 to 5 May 2013.