ANTINOUS THE GAY GOD

INVITES YOU TO TAKE HIS HAND

AND FLY WITH HIM OVER THE CITY OF ROME

AT THE HEIGHT OF HIS RELIGION

IN THE FOURTH CENTURY A.D.

TARRY A MOMENT WITH ANTINOUS IN HADRIAN's PANTHEON (4:00 min.)

STEVEN SAYLOR'S 'RAIDERS OF THE NILE' IS THE BEST GORDIANUS ADVENTURE YET

ANYONE who neglects to read Steven Saylor's RAIDERS OF THE NILE, which has just been released in Britain, will be soundly lashed, hung upside-down for three days and then fed to a crocodile.

At the very least!

Gordianus the Finder is back ... younger and more daring than ever ... in this prequel to the series of novels 20 years ago which featured Gordianus as a mature sleuth in the waning days of the Roman Republic ... and which established Saylor as a major writer.

A metamorphosis has occurred, befitting a Classical myth: A generation ago, Saylor was a young author writing about a middle-aged Gordianus who had an established reputation for solving inscrutable mysteries by means of his sage deductions. 

Now, Gordianus is a randy and somewhat naive 22-year-old who has a lot to learn ... and Saylor is the mature author with an established reputation for deftly guiding his readers through a tangle of clues as dense as any papyrus thicket in the marshes of the Nile Delta.

This superb historical novel works on so many levels ... as an adventure mystery yarn with the thrills and spills of any Indiana Jones flick ... and also as a brilliant literary spoof of Classical literature which will make scholars nod in recognition.

The story has all the elements of Greek tragicomedic literature: Lovers torn from each other's arms ... mistaken identities ... abductions ... pirates ... poisonings ... rapes ... cuckoldry ... buffoonish potentates ... smart-aleck slaves ... men dressed up as women .... 

Why, there's a Spielbergian cute kid who squeals and gives away secrets at the most inopportune times.

And there's even a cowardly lion whose uncharacteristic courage saves the day.

But this is a novel by Steven Saylor, after all, whose epic best-seller ROMA traced the history of Rome from its founding as a cluster of mud huts on the banks of the Tiber to the city of marble which would influence Western Civilization for all time.

His scholarship is no less meticulous for this novel, set in Ptolemaic Egypt in the chaotic days of the 1st Century BC just before Julius Caesar stepped in to "save" the Egyptians from themselves ... and end Egyptian sovereignty for 1,900 years to come.

As always, his characters are richly drawn and developed. The plot is writhing with villains and brigands, cut-throats and pirates. 

But in the best tradition of the Greek tragicomic novels Saylor used as the basis of this book, each character is more than what it appears to be at first glance. Good and evil dwell in every heart.

This is masterful writing by a master story-teller. 

Other successful writers become jaded and formulaic with success ... and age. But Saylor has rejuvenated not only his protagonist, but also his skills as a story-teller. 

In many ways Raiders of the Nile is the best book for first-time Saylor readers ... the book which best introduces a new reader not only to Gordianus the Finder, but also to Steven Saylor.

IN PRAISE OF MERCURY

WE lift up our hearts to the great wing-footed God Mercury on this day in mid-May when Mercury traditionally leaves stodgy Taurus and wings his way into Gemini, his astrological home.

The Ancient Romans celebrated this cosmic event on May 15th each year with the Mercuralia festival.

Father of Antinous, son of Zeus and Maia, Mercury is the god of speed, the Lord of commerce, communication, and cunning. 

He is forever young and beautiful, the patron of skilled athletes, especially runners, and yet he possesses the infinite wisdom of extreme old age.

When Mercury was one day old, he charmed Apollo by stealing the sun god's prized cattle and crafting an ingenious story to cover his tracks.

Apollo fell in love with Mercury and from that day forward became his godfather and protector, presenting him to Olympus. Zeus was so taken by his son Mercury that he made him the messenger of the gods, and placed in his hand the sacred Caduceus, the serpent-entwined rod.

Hermes (as he was called by the Greeks) was charged with escorting the souls of the dead to the underworld, and to relay messages between heaven and hell. Thus he acquired his mystic powers, which were the inspiration of the Hermits, and of their religion known as Hermeticism.

He was known to them as Hermes Tristmegistus, the "thrice-great", and was said to have taught the secret knowledge of salvation to mankind.

As Hermes of the crossroads, he was a Phallic god, whose image was a herme, or column with a bearded head and a large penis that was placed at forks in the road to protect travelers.

Mercury made love to Venus and was father of Pan, Priapus, Hermaphroditus, and of Fortuna. He was the craftiest inventor, who created the lyre, which he gave to Apollo. And he invented written language, weights and measurement.

Mercury was the god of good business, but also of dishonesty and absolute capitalism. He invented dice and was the lord of gambling and all games of chance.

Antinous was often compared to Mercury in the statues and in the artefact fragments (bust above). His powers of youth, virility and physical fitness were central parts of the Religion of Antinous. But the hermetic sages, from whom so much of the salvation of Antinous extends, deepened this fascade. He is, along with Dionysus, Apollo and Osiris, a major facet of the Spirituality of Antinous.

We acknowledge and extol Mercury, the wing-footed god, and pray to him as Antinous to run by our side and give us good fortune throughout our travels and in our communication with the divine.

MAGNUS HIRSCHFELD SAINT OF ANTINOUS

ON May 14th, the Religion of Antinous honors the life of the Father of Gay Liberation, Doctor Magnus Hirschfeld, who died on this day in 1935 (which was his 67th birthday) while in exile form his native Germany in Nice, France. He died a broken and embittered man.

A life that had started out with such lofty ambitions ended in disillusionment. He was of Jewish ancestry and began his career as a medical doctor but very soon devoted his life to the study of homosexuality.

In 1897 he founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which was an organization whose publication, called The Yearbook of Intermediate Sexual Types, was devoted to the repeal of "Paragraph 175", a law passed by the Reichstag in 1869.

The work of the committee included ongoing lobbying supported by the scientific studies of Dr. Hirschfeld into human sexuality. This study culminated in the formation of the Institute for Sexual Science in 1919.

Dr. Hirschfeld spent the majority of his career writing and lecturing around the world on the nature of homosexuality and other "intermediate" sexual types, including cross dressers. The word "transsexual" was coined by Dr. Hirschfeld to describe the phenomenon that he argued was a natural extension of human sexuality.

His philosophy centered on the contention that there was a third sex, called the Uranian, which was neither male nor female, but a combination of both that was manifested in homosexuality, which was not to be considered an impure deviation, or even as an illness, but as a natural and phenomenal component of human nature.

For his work, the Nazis targeted Dr. Hirschfeld as an example of decadent Bolshevistic/Jewish influence infecting the purity of the German people, luring the Aryan race into impure and destructive perversity. He was ultimately driven into exile and burned in effigy as an emblem of evil. His institute was ransacked May 6th and his books were publicly burned in a bonfire on May 10th, 1933.

The slogan with which he began his speeches, "Uranians of the World, Unite!" was not to be realized until our own time. For his courage and his career of some thirty years, all of which was spent in tireless devotion to the cause of Gay Liberation, we venerate Saint Magnus Hirschfeld.

SOON YOU CAN SEE THE CARYATIDS AS ANTINOUS SAW THEM 1,900 YEARS AGO

SOON visitors to Athens will be able to see the "Caryatids" as they looked when Antinous and Hadrian visited them 1,900 years ago.

Blackened by decades of air pollution, they are getting a laser face-lift by a team of experts … and will be unveiled in June.

Perched high above the city of Athens, the Acropolis dominates the city's skyline.

For 2,500 years, the six statues flanked the columns of the Erechtheion Temple on the Acropolis. Hadrian and Antinous saw them in Athens during their journeys together.

One was taken to the British Museum in the early 19th Century. The other five were moved to the Acropolis Museum in the 1970s for protection against the air pollution and acid rain. 

Now they are getting a makeover.

In the centre of the museum, laser machinery is being used to burn away the dirt from the marble maidens.

Three goggle-clad conservators are busy zapping decades of grime off the statues.

Conservators use an award-winning technology that combines two infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths, to avoid causing discoloration or abrasion to the original surface.

The laser beam hits the layer of crust that has formed over the years. The crust, which has a much lower threshold than the marble, absorbs the energy and disintegrates, while the marble is unaffected.

Besides the laser operators, other conservators step in to stabilize cracks in the marble.

Rather than putting the star exhibits into a lab for years, museum officials choose to do the job as publicly as possible, not only to make the museum more "alive", but also to avoid the potential hazards of moving them.

The cleaning is displayed on a closed-circuit television live to museum visitors. 

To limit exposure, laser operators spend a maximum of three hours on the job every day, and it takes about seven months to clean each of the 4.5-meter tall statues. 

Work began in 2011, and is expected to be finished in June.

YOU'LL NEVER BE LATE FOR WORK AGAIN WHEN YOU WEAR THESE WINGED SANDALS

AN Ancient Greek myth says the gods and goddesses had their sandals made on the beautiful island of Crete by a gifted sandal maker who enriched each pair with magical powers. 

Famous for having made the "talaria" flying sandals for Hermes, the sandal maker also embellished them with his personal signature, a golden wing buckle. 

It's no mystery why shoe designer, Christina Martini, Greece native, chose the island of Crete to embark upon launching her first footwear line. 

With the brand concept to create sandals that appear as archaeological finds with a modern twist, Martini and partner Nickolas Minoglou’s line of handmade leather sandals have done just that. 

Ancient Greek Gods and myths, pottery, jewellery and sculpture inspire the collections. 

Persephone, Aphrodite and Athena inspire the shoe designs in vegetable-tanned leather and handmade construction, adding a nod to mythical magic in every pair of Ancient Greek Sandals.

They have been praised by The New York Times, Elle and Vogue Magazine and even The Financial Times, while many other fashion magazines and blogs are talking about the "magic" sandals from Greece. 

The shoe line is currently being sold in 180 stores in 40 different countries and is the new fashion trend in Hollywood. 

Stars such as Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Elle Macpherson, Rihanna, Sarah Jessica Parker and many others have been seen wearing Christina Martini's creations.

Christina Martini, the 37-year-old fashion designer, abandoned her studies in Marketing in Athens, and chose to study footwear design in London. 

The next stop in her journey was Venice, where she worked as product manager for the famous fashion house Chloé.

A year later, she was discovered by Louis Vuitton’s fashion house and was invited to join their design team. 

Later in her career she collaborated with Marc Jacobs until 2008, when she moved to the house of Balenciaga. 

She remained there until 2011 when she decided that it was time to take a leap of faith and try to create own line.

Christina Martini quit her brilliant career at leading fashion houses and returned to the islands of Greece … to turn myth into reality.

ON MOTHER'S DAY WE REMEMBER THE MOTHER OF ANTINOUS

TODAY is Mother's Day throughout Continental Europe and the Americas ... and we take this opportunity to remember the mother of Antinous ... she proudly wraps her loving arm around her young son in this portrait by PRIEST UENDI.

Little is known of the origins of Antinous except that he was from the Bithynian city of Claudiopolis modern-day Bolu, Turkey.

It has been speculated that he was a slave ... or even a provincial prince. 

The OBELISK OF ANTINOUS, which now stands atop the Pincian Hill in Rome, is covered in Egyptian hieroglyphs which tell us much about Antinous the Gay God. But sadly, there are huge gaps where the text has been worn away.

There is, for example, an intriguing reference to the mother of Antinous which is incomplete. Did a missing portion of the text talk about his biological family back in Bithynia? We'll never know.

We wonder how many brothers and sisters Antinous had? He must have had cousins and other "ephebe" male relatives. How on earth could the mother of Antinous ever have parted from him?

For that matter, no one knows what happened to the earthly remains of Antinous after his tragic death in the Nile in October 130 AD. Were they returned to his family in Bithynia? Did his mother weep over them? Were they interred in a family crypt ... and were the ashes of his mother interred beside his after she died?

This Mother's Day prayer was written by our beloved WARREN WILLIAMSON before his untimely death a couple of years ago. We join Warren in praising the Mother of Antinous the Gay God:

O most glorious Mother of Antinous our God, accept our prayers and present them to thy son our God, that He may, for thy sake, enlighten and bring our souls unto the most holy city of Antinoopolis where we shall dwell with thee and the Imperator God Hadrian forever and ever.  Be it so now and forever.