pt the latter, Hadrian's sorrow
itself becomes inexplicable; and we must attribute the foundation of
Antinoe and the deification of Antinous to remorse. It may be added,
while balancing these two solutions of the problem, that cynical
sophists, like Hadrian's Graeculi, were likely to have put the worst
construction on the Emperor's passion, and to have invented the
worst stories concerning the favourite's death. To perpetuate these
calumnious reports was the real interest of the Christian
apologists, who not unnaturally thought it scandalous that a
handsome page should be deified. Thus, at first sight, the balance
of probability inclines toward the former of the two solutions,
while the second may be rejected as based upon court-gossip and
religious animosity. Attention may also again be called to the fact
that Hadrian ventured to publish an account of Antinous quite
inconsistent with what Dion chose to call the truth, and that
virtuous Emperors like the Antonines did not interfere with a cult,
which, had it been paid to the mere victim of Hadrian's passion and
his superstition, would have been an infamy even in Rome. Moreover,
that cult was not, like the creations of the impious emperors,
forgotten or destroyed by public acclamation. It took root and
flourished apparently, as we shall see, because it satisfied some
craving of the popular religious sense, and because the people
believed that this man had died for his friend. It will not,
however, do to dismiss the two hypotheses so lightly.

The alternative of self-devotion presents itself under a double
aspect. Antinous may either have committed suicide by drowning with
the intention of prolonging the Emperor's life, or he may have
offered himself as a voluntary victim to the magicians, who required
a sacrifice for a similar purpose. Spartian's brief phrase, _aliis
eum devotum pro Hadriano_, may seem to point to the first form of
self-devotion; the testimony of Aurelius Victor clearly supports the
second: yet it does not much matter which of the two explanations we
adopt. The point is whether Antinous gave his life willingly to save
the Emperor's, or whether he was murdered for the satisfaction of
some superstitious curiosity. It was absolutely necessary that the
vicarious victim should make a free and voluntary oblation of
himself. That the notion of vicarious suffering was familiar to the
ancients is sufficiently attested by the phrases [Greek:
antipsychoi], [Greek