date of its formation, so soon after his
death, would confirm the hypothesis that he was known to have
devoted his life for Hadrian.

While speaking of Antinous as a divinised man, adscript to the gods
of Egypt, accepted as hero and as god in Hellas, Italy, and Asia
Minor, we have not yet considered the nature of his deity. The
question is not so simple as it seems at first sight: and the next
step to take, with a view to its solution, is to consider the
various forms under which he was adored--the phases of his divinity.
The coins already mentioned, and the numerous works of glyptic art
surviving in the galleries of Europe, will help us to place
ourselves at the same point of view as the least enlightened of his
antique votaries. Reasoning upon these data by the light of classic
texts, may afterwards enable us to assign him his true place in the
Pantheon of decadent and uninventive Paganism.

In Egypt, as we have already seen, Antinous was worshipped by the
neo-Hellenes of Antinoopolis as their Eponymous Hero; but he took
the place of an elder native god, and was represented in art
according to the traditions of Egyptian sculpture. The marble statue
of the Vatican is devoid of hieratic emblems. Antinous is attired
with the Egyptian head-dress and waistband: he holds a short
truncheon firmly clasped in each hand; and by his side is a
palm-stump, such as one often finds in statues of the Greek Hermes.
Two colossal statues of red granite discovered in the ruins of
Hadrian's villa, at Tivoli, represent him in like manner with the
usual Egyptian head-dress. They seem to have been designed for
pillars supporting the architrave of some huge portal; and the wands
grasped firmly in both hands are supposed to be symbolical of the
genii called Dii Averrunci. Von Levezow, in his monograph upon
Antinous in art, catalogues five statues of a similar description to
the three already mentioned. From the indistinct character of all of
them, it would appear that Antinous was nowhere identified with any
one of the great Egyptian deities, but was treated as a Daemon
powerful to punish and protect. This designation corresponds to the
contemptuous rebuke addressed by Origen to Celsus, where he argues
that the new saint was only a malignant and vengeful spirit. His
Egyptian medals are few and of questionable genuineness: the
majority of them seem to be purely Hellenic; but on one he bears a
crown like that of Isis, and on another a lotos w