Life .. Ours to Live

Is it that we always were supposed to live like this throughout the ages? hiding our faces, indulging in fun out of frustration ...

and why can't we be free ? what's the wrong?

it's not even in the context of souls... if two people like each other, then..

i think the act is itself unlawful, denying the basic right to happiness, that every man desrves..

we must fight together..

Legend of 'At 3 am'

LEGEND:

i: refers to the first person, the poet, me :-), as a waiter
he' or his': to the second person, as prostitute/ gigolo
he: refers to the third person, as minister's son.

At 3 am..

Walking on the pavement,
he' opened the door, entered barista
wearing nike, at 3 am
two people saw her...

the flashy dress, all mysterious black,
he' hanged around a little,
looked as if just had an ecstasy
and was going the aftermath..

he' looked divine to me..
but to other, he' was attractive --
only that much for a number
and fifty and thousand rupees..

he walked over to him'
asked him' for hot cuppa' coffee
he' smiled a little,
said his' credit card was outta order

so, he said, dun worry
i have the cash
let's go, wherever you want to,
for he was the minister's son..

Ah! there i wished i had
but a talk and a walk with him'
to get to know him'...
but he' never glanced at me..

he' already had said yes
to go 'uck n forget, yea, and earn
to be the one heck of a slut
but, was he'?

looking into his' hazel eyes, and the
smoothness of his' hands
he' was never meant to be--
his' family couldn't support his' education..

ministers say..
they spend one-fifth on education..
do they? i guess so...
here was how.

he' was ambitious, nay, very
bold and beautiful, coming from
where there are no ideals,
just as the person he' had said yes to..

highest or lowest, it's all the same
i guess, they are without any shame
free, hopeful, and unburdened
totally unaware of what they do!

i had no reaction
but just to ponder over..
on things, as numbers on stock index:
why the fall, why the rise, why the trend?

had he' but was there at 3 pm
walking down the same pavement,
he would never had looked on him'
and i would have asked him' on a date..

Love - Making..

it's all a part of life, part of the youth.. An elixir of life..
The Euphoria of Love-making even puts out the fragrant essence of heaven..,

Love's togetherness, in its action, in its tenderness, in its passion, in its wilderness, in its spontaneity, in its truth, in its joy, in its versatility, in its liberty, in its bliss, is all heavenly.. the love-making..

Even so much beautiful, so much happiness, it's a prayer, whose depth is the deepest, in it's height, the highest, in its expanse, nay, even a thousand universes would be a grain in it..

It's the Everest of what life has.. and when you and me are there, i promise, Even Gods will be Jealous of our Joy!

TOGETHER

My Poem;

TOGETHER

Your breath of fragrance on my nape;
With our legs entwined togeder
like branches of ivy clinging together,
swaying in ecstasy;
Holding you till the end of time..

Lips tasting each other's Joy!
feet over feet,
Arms entangling arms..
Hands in hands
Chest next to chest--
When i am next to yours
And you are next to mine..
And we are complete Together!

Homo Deus Antinous

Antinous was a Homosexual, purely and profoundly Homosexual. Only one other god in history or myth displays a pure love for men, Ganymede, the boy whom Zeus loved. But Ganymede was never widely worshipped as a deity, no powers were attributed to him, no prayers are known to have been addressed to him. It is as though the ancients understood that though he was the dispenser of the cup of immortality, he was unable to offer his gift of ever-lasting life to mankind. He was the servant of the table of heaven, far removed from the world of death and decay, under the watchful eye of Zeus around whom he orbits. The historical humanity of Antinous brings him closer to our human soul, he was widely worshipped and understood to be the deified beautiful boy of the Divine Emperor Hadrian. Antinous is endowed with sublime power over His chosen people, homosexuals, He is neither myth nor legend…He is one of us.

Antinous is a true god, immortal, powerful, ineffable, mysterious and able to affect the lives of living beings. Antinous is free to bless whom-so-ever He chooses, independent of the ethereal beings. For this reason, and because He was born of a woman, lived, and died in a time and in a place of historical truth, Antinous far exceeds the glory of all other gods who are revered as the benefactors of homosexuality.

Antinous is Homosexuality. He is the spirit of those qualities that call our attention to boys and men of all kinds and of all ages that for male homosexuals arises within the heart from an early age. Even when we are children, though we do not understand His language, we hear His voice calling, producing a longing that we cannot resist without pain, suffering and self-loathing. The call of Antinous draws us to the beauty of our own kind, our own sex, compelling us to break away from the expectations of traditional society. In our adolescence, the desire of Antinous takes on the aspect of a torment. We are forced to choose between the courageous act of revealing our truth or of conforming to the order of society. When one of His kind, ignores and resists His call, the result is a life of self-delusion…a sordid existence of deception.

All glory to he who believes in Antinous and seeks after Him. All who search for Antinous in the beauty of the world will find Him...within themselves. Antinous sets the heart of all who love Him free. To follow Antinous is to walk away from the natural order of the world. To become a Sacred Homosexual is to resign from the perpetuation of the human species on Earth, to live for Love and Beauty...in an unnatural state of bliss.

By natural impulse we are compelled to distain the natural perpetuation of life, we are drawn away from our opposites by a longing for our own kind and the forms of love that do not procreate, that are no more than the joy of the body, and of the heart. Antinous removes the weight of procreation, setting us free to find the other joys of life for the benefit of all.

Antinous, by sanctifying mankind with the benediction of Homosexuality, leads us towards the love of our own kind, same-love, which is an extension of the love of the self. Antinous is the lover who dwells within, the purest beauty after whom we spend our lives searching and longing. We find rays of His form shinning through the visage of beautiful men and boys...

But in no man can we ever find the whole and the complete Antinous. The lovely faces that grace the surface of the Earth are for us parts and emanations of the one true Antinous who dwells within. We find His components here and there, and gathering them together, we are led on a journey of reverence and adoration. He is the Beloved, whose countenance is beautiful, and we through the valor and love-joy of our homo-sacred being, are made one with Him. We are His Lovers and He is our Lover.

Seek then after the one whose voice awoke us from the dreams of childhood, and drew us to our brothers in love and flaming desire. Open your heart for Antinous, whose beauty cannot be covered, and suffer the scorn of a world that is blind to the glory of homo-sanctity. We are the ancestors of the coming Aquarian Age, we are blessed, and sanctified through Antinous, who was assumed into the Nile, who arose and accomplished our salvation. We are living in the most glorious age of man, the turning point, and our enemies have chosen to hold onto the past...the future is therefore ours for the taking.

Lift up your hearts to Homo Deus Antinous, the god who is one with us, our same-god, who draws us toward His ineffable and perfect beauty. Joyfully we find that we are all one with Him, that no effort is needed to follow His will, because at the very moment of our birth His gentle law was inscribed upon our pious heart. We have only to embrace Him, we have only to break away from fear and shame, and self-loathing, and live freely as the Companions of Antinous, desirous of Him, as we find Him in the world and within our selves.

Ahh.. God..

ANTINOUS the God

---

The Last God of Rome

Antinous fell into the Nile, beneath the swirling waves, but when his body was pulled from the water…a God emerged. Antinous is our God, he has accomplished the salvation of all lovers of his beauty. There is no question that for us, he was elevated to reign among the immortals. Look above and you will find him with his loins swathed in the light of the Milky Way, with the never-setting stars, in the presence and in the fullness of Unbegotten Love.

On the 28th of October, in the year 130 of this era, the gilded barge of the Imperial court of Hadrian came to the sacred bend in the river Nile where Antinous fell, and became star-infused. Green-skinned Osiris embraced him below the current, and opened his pomgranate mouth to the black muddy water that had once rained down over the mountains of the moon, freeing the flood from its embankment.

For three days Hadrian searched in a panic among the reeds and channels, leading dog-headed priests. His world turned vague and destitute, his desperation was that of Isis asking children if they had seen the body of the beloved pass over the water. Death called out across the desert, and the jackals, the scavenging hounds, were the first to hear its voice, coming as if from nowhere. Anubis led his morbid priests to the perfect body of Antinous, to feed upon it and carry it away to the underworld.

The Egyptian priests of Hadrian's court were the first to know that Antinous had become a God as they intoned the chants of deification that called Antinous back from his journey into darkness where he conquered Death, and was lifted up by the thundering feathers of the flaming eagle.

On the third day, Hadrian came upon the body of Antinous on the riverbank, his head resting on the sand, his feet floating among the red lotus flowers. In the Roman sacerdotal fashion, Hadrian covered his head, and blessed the shore where he had found his beloved, before daring to touch the departed flower of the new god. Surrounded by the beautiful youths of the court, the bearded priests, the steel covered guards, the shaved scribes, the questioning philosophers, the distant poets, the necromancers and the somber Imperial ladies... Hadrian chanted,

"Antinous Mortuos Est."

The ivory chest and dark heavy curls, the pomegranate mouth, the grace of His limbs, the serenity of his voice, even the distance of His eyes had turned to cold stone, growing ever more pale and other-worldly. The Classic beauty of the true Antinous, the exact perfection of His face, and the distinguished ripples of His hair were given over to the Priests of Anubis for eternal preservation. The macabre cruelties of mummification were inflicted on the smooth, white corpse of Antinous, forever desiccating His beatitude, while making it forver imperishable.

As Persephone, Antinous was led down to the embrace of the Lord of the City of the Dead, through gates of Adamantine, over roads paved with tear-soaked stones. Bloodstained Anubis escorted Him through the valleys of oblivion and torment, to the place of Judgment, where the denizens of earthly fate weigh the heart of the once living.

But the beauty of Antinous was radiance like sunlight in the underworld. The shades vanished in His brilliance, and the magistrates of reincarnation fled with their scales, before He could destroy them forever. The vine of eternal sleep shriveled at His touch. His illuminated face caused even the Lords of Corruption to tremble and weep. In darkness Antinous came forth by day, in silence He spoke, in cold, His living-fire broke forth. The Unknown Father swept his wing over the flames of Antinous and brushed away the clouds of grayed oblivion that gathered around. His blessed feet caused the stones of Tartarus to shake beneath his steps, as Anubis led the Adonis of the Underworld, resplendid in the glory of His beauty, into the throne room of the Most Low.

But Antinous was not just a reevaluation of the old gods. Though compared to many various deities, his own identity was never lost. He was a new unprecedented God. The majority of his statues portray him without any divine attributes at all. He stands completely naked and unadorned. His body alone was his divinity, he was the perfect youth, the perfect beauty that all men love and adore. Though infused with deeper mysteries, the bare surface of his faith was the love of his naked skin, purely carnal, and worldly. Antinous first showed his followers how to love the body, our vessel in this world. In this message was contained the hope and Glory of Hadrian's reign. That this world is just and good, and beautiful. That all men have the right to live in it in peace and splendor. That mankind is a brotherhood, living on and united by the Great Mother, the Earth, and the Roman Empire, beneath a Universal pantheon of Gods. As Rome decayed, so too did Hadrian's dream. But now, as the tide of Christianity slowly subsides, we find these same ideals rising from the sand.

A sacred city was built in the desert on the very bank where Antinous drowned. At the center of the city, his most splendid Temple was built, and his most solemn rituals observed. The priests must have been Homosexuals, only we can have been so deeply drawn to his message. Only we would have reason to devote our lives to his service, and the sustenance of his name. He was held sacred by those subtle admirers of the beautiful form of male human flesh. His beauty was the absolute desire and motivation of his followers. They wanted only to follow him to the stars, to sit beside him on his celestial boat for eternity. His face, the mysterious penetration of his eyes, became a fixation. The mysterious penetration of his eyes became a place where people were transformed into mirrors, into which he gazed, opening up the doors of infinity. Much as though two mirrors were held before each other and the observer stood perfectly in the middle, becoming the observed.

Antinous was given a star in the heavens. Perhaps as the historian Dio Cassius says, a new star appeared, a super nova, within the constellation Aquila, which the court astrologers took to be the soul of Antinous. New lines were drawn between already famous stars in the arms of the Eagle. The meaning of the star is clear, Antinous had been taken up, body and soul, into the heavens to serve at the table of the most high. Pouring out wine to the immortals. Antinous was the new Ganymede.

Pancrates wrote an Epic poem found buried in the sand along with thousands of other papyrus fragments, the battered and deteriorated poem by Pancrates was used as a bottle stopper by its last owner. Only a small part survives. In sumptuous language, it tells of the ritual Lion hunt in the desert of Libya. Antinous, in his fullest, and most vigorous manhood, rides close to the Emperor. Together they corner the beast, Hadrian holds back his horse, letting Antinous move against it with the dogs. He spears the lion but not mortally, so that it rushes upon him in a fury. The strength and skill of Hadrian intervene at the moment of crisis, killing the lion by a careful blow. From the blood, pouring from the neck of the lion, Pancrates tells us that rose-colored lotuses sprouted. Thus Antinous acquired a flower, preserved from death, by the strength of Hadrian, only for a moment out of time. Wreathes of the red lotus were called Antinoeios in his memory.

But the practice of naming beautiful living things after Antinous did not end with the Romans, even if his star is no longer recognized, and his flower is only called a red water lily. There is a species of Brazilian Tarantula named for him, called Pamphobeteus Antinous, one of the largest tarantulas in the world, and one of the most beautiful. It is indeed appropriate that such a creature should be compared to the mysterious boy, now that he has been banished to the shadows by the Church, having been transformed by them into a demon. This tarantula seems to point to the darker side of Antinous as an unpredictable god with hidden dangerous aspects. Walking along the silken threads that join the worlds, moving silently through the underbrush of the surreal forest of our dreams.

These opposed emblems are a poetic intimation of the double nature of the god. Temples of Antinous have been found from Spain to Arabia, and from North Africa to the Danube, every corner of the Empire. But he was received most devotedly by the Greeks. His seven major centers of worship were the cities Antinopolis, Alexandria, Athens, Corinth, Bithynian Claudiopolis, Rome, and the mysterious city of Mantineia. Located in Greece, Mantineia was said to be the original homeland of Antinous's ancestors. This is one possible origin of the name Antinous, as it is said that the mythical founder of the city was a princess named Antinoa, the female form of his name. Some have suggested that it means a flowering or blossoming. A third possibility for his name is the only other Antinous of notoriety in History. The Antinous of Homer's Odyssey, leader of the suitors, who is even said to rape Penelope. This Antinous is the famous coward and parasite whom Odysseus and his son, Telemachus, triumphantly kill with their arrows. Even this side of Antinous must be considered. Homer's lines so prophetically set into motion the fall of the east, the establishment of Greece, and through Aeneus, the eventual rise of Rome. He also sets into motion the Antinoian Mysteries with Antinous, leader of the suitors, carnal and cruel, full of lust and greed, the manifestation of Desire, in the service of Venus and Mars, exacting payment for the horrors of the Trojan War upon Odysseus it's master mind. Antinous, leader of the Suitors is Eros, the beautiful and insatiable son of Venus, his death by arrows is like a sign.

The name Antinous, in vague derivatives, is spread out in the world. Take for example a similar event transpiring while Antinous, leader of the suitors, crowded around the Bridal Chamber. Virgil tells us in the Aeneid that two groups, not one escaped the burning of Troy. Here the Goddess Venus, demands of Jupiter that he keep his promise made at the fall of Troy. She complains that if he allowed Antenor, the nephew of Priam to escape with his followers and settle in Italy, where the Timavus River burst into nine mouths, then surely he must let Aeneas, Her son, settle on the Tiber, on the seven hills. Before Rome was ever built, according to Virgil, Antenor founded the city of Padua. This coincidence of name would be meaningless were it not for the conjunction of yet another. In the eleventh century, a follower of St. Francis was brought to die beside the Timavus River. He was still young but ravaged by disease and a life of pious denial, he had wasted away seeking god. When death was near, he asked to be carried to the city of Padua where a Basilica now stands over his miraculous remains. His name was St. Anthony of Padua, whose golden mouth poured forth the beauty of God. He preached to the fish, and to donkeys, and from treetops. He was able to bi-locate, so that he was seen preaching in two places at once. Late at night, he was observed holding the infant Jesus in his arms, along with a book, the sacred word of God. After he died, his body was exhumed and it was found that his tongue had remained miraculously incorruptible, though the bones all around were completely desiccated.

On this sacred tongue, in the guise of Christ, was a spark that traveled from Asia Minor in the arms of Antenor. The Priests of the Cult of Magna Mater, of Attis, of Adonis, and the first wave of an invasion that would reach it's height with Antinous, arrived before the foundation of Rome. The Deification of Antinous was the culmination of a long-lost faith, that would only carry on in whispers and traces, but would forver be preserved by the images of Antinous himself.

There are so many Gods through all the cultures of men that bear subtle similarities, and meaningful differences. It's very easy to fit Antinous into the mold of the "God of this World." It was Hadrian's intention that our hearts would see through these masks. The lover employs parables of images and doctrines to fool the blind spirits of the cave-world.

It isn't Antinous, or Dionysus, or Jesus, or Mithras, or Buddha, or Kristna, or Jehovah, or any of these gods whom we are searching for, it is not to them that we pray. It is the lover within to whom we speak, for whom we desire. He calls us to him by our own name. It is our true name that we are looking for.

"Endeavor to ascend into thyself, gathering in from the body all thy members which have been dispersed and scattered into multiplicity from that unity which once abounded in the greatness of its power. Bring together and unify the inborn ideas and try to articulate those that are confused and to draw into light those that are obscured."

- Prophery, the Neo-Platonist

Antinous is not contrary to Jesus, but is one with his mystical teachings. The people of Antinopolis seem to have taken to him warmly. They could not have rejected the sayings of the young Jewish prophet, who reflected so much of what Antinous was to them. Almost like lotus flowers, new visions of Jesus spring up all over the Empire, under the Heresiarchs. Participation in the early formation of the Catholic Church, by the Priests of Antinous seems possible. Threatened by Bishops like Athanasius, many perhaps converted, bringing with them their methods of worshipping Antinous completely intact. They began to turn away from the mortal Jesus of Nazareth, as they had the mortal Antinous of Bithynia, and began to worship Jesus Christ, the fully Divine Manifestation of the Creator. They began to doubt whether the Creator being perfect, could ever fully assume the guise of the flesh, as he would no longer be perfect. A thousand heresies were born from this utterly pagan sense of faith.

We are by nature better able to accept gods like Jupiter and Venus, because their consecration comes from the dark and forgotten past. But we are unable to accept the same miracle when the events are well documented and the people involved are completely human. But Jupiter and Venus were instituted by the same authority as Antinous, and even as Jesus and all the Saints. The second King of Rome, successor of the Mythical Romulus, was Numa Pompilius. He was a Priest King who delineated the grand Religion of the Roman People. He consecrated the Gods, and showed the Romans how to pray and offer sacrifice. Chief among these gods was Jupiter, Venus and Mars. With this same authority, Hadrian consecrated Antinous. Numa was the King of a tribe, the Latins, while Hadrian was King of the entire world. Jesus chose Peter as his Rock, and buried him on the Vatican. His successors, the Bishops of Rome soon replaced the Emperors, and still retain the authority of Numa today. We still call the priest king of Rome by the same title as Numa and Hadrian...Pontifex Maximus. Under Pontifical authority, which from the most ancient foundation of Rome has meant supreme blessedness, Jesus was declared Our Lord. If we are willing to accept the authority of Numa to institute the Goddess Venus, and of the Pope to elevate heroic souls to Blessed Sainthood, then we cannot refuse the possibility that Antinous was also truly deified. The Pope is the direct descendant of Numa Pompilius, through an unbroken chain of priestly fathers. Hadrian stands in the middle of this line, and is ultimately the last to use its powers after the fashion of the ancient pagans, before the transition to Christianity. Antinous has the powerful distinction of being the last god of the ancient faith of our fathers.

The Religion of Antinous has always been held by few, those who are able to do away with the many faces and see the true Lover within us all. It isn't about praying to a God seated high above on a throne in Olympus. It isn't about worshipping a beautiful boy who died almost nineteen hundred years ago. The message of Antinous is to find yourself, within yourself, and rise up to godliness, by your own will.

In worshipping Antinous, one becomes self-sacred, learning how to love idols less and the self more. It is about loving the God within...Nothing more. The process of awakening Antinous within the heart of all gay men is called Homotheosis.

The message of Antinous cannot be spread around the world like a seed, because it is a germ that is not of this world. The voice of Antinous falls silent upon those who are not of his kind. But to his children, the name ANTINOUS resonates like a reed in the soul.

God of HomoLove

GOD OF HOMOSEXUALITY

Antinous The Beautiful
His face is full of Grace,
His Countenance is Beautiful.
The Restorer, The New Dionysus
Whose Salvation Has been Accomplished
He has again been Raised to Life.

ANTINOÜS, a beautiful youth of Claudiopolis in Bithynia, was the favourite of the emperor Hadrian, whom he accompanied on his journeys. He committed suicide by drowning himself in the Nile (A.D. 130), either in a fit of melancholy or in order to prolong his patron's life by his voluntary sacrifice. After his death, Hadrian caused the most extravagant respect to be paid to his memory. Not only were cities called after him, medals struck with his effigy, and statues erected to him in all parts of the empire, but he was raised to the rank of the gods, temples were built for his worship in Bithynia, Mantineia in Arcadia, and Athens, festivals celebrated in his honour and oracles delivered in his name. The city of AntinoOpolis was founded on the ruins of Besa where he died (Dio Cassius lix. I I; Spartianus, Hadrian). A number of statues, busts, gems and coins represented Antinoos as the ideal type of youthful beauty, often with the attributes of some special god.

Antinous was born in Claudiopolis, a city in the Roman province of Bithynia, in the year 111 A.D. or the thirteenth year of the reign of Trajan (98-117 A.D.) He was of humble parentage, his father perhaps held a position of prestige in the city. Claudiopolis, now the city of Bolu in modern Turkey, was situated at a major crossroads of the highway that led from Greece to Syria. Almost all land transport coming from the rich cities of the east, or from Europe passed through Claudiopolis. Antinous was therefore born in the right place and at the right time to be found by the only Emperor to personally travel by land to every corner of the Empire.

Hadrian toured Greece, Asia Minor and the Danube in the year 123 A.D., he would surely have passed through Claudiopolis, and it is during this tour that he most likely found the thirteen year old Antinous. Exactly how is unknown, all attempts to portray the event are just elegant poetry. Margaret Youcenour in her Memoirs of Hadrian gives us the Emperor surrounded by the noble youth of the city with a quiet, mysterious boy at the back of the crowd, listlessly gazing into a fountain. A scene in which Socrates would have been comforted. What ever may have been, Hadrian was overcome by Antinous. The event seems to have occurred in June of the year 123.

From Claudiopolis, Antinous was taken to Rome, presumable not by force, but most enigmatically with the good will of his parents. This was a time far removed from our present abhorrence both of Homosexuality and of Pederasty. To be chosen by the Emperor for explicit reasons was seen not as shameful but as a wonderful opportunity for advancement. The Platonic concept of love for boys with the aim of their education and furtherance was prevalent, acceptable and encouraged. Antinous was lifted up from the obscurity of his birth and sent to the extravagance of the greatest metropolis of the time, and installed in the Paedagogium, a finishing school for boys. Officially designed to prepare the most promising youth of the day for positions in the government, it had an alternate purpose as a training school for the male concubines of the rich who preferred polished, educated, well mannered boys to ruffians, of which they had many. Antinous found himself surrounded by the finest boys of his day, from all around the Empire, beauties of extraordinary grace of whom he was the star. There they were educated in Latin, Literature, Philosophy, Mathematics, and most importantly physical training. It was essentially a place for Antinous to become exposed to the grandeur of the Roman court into which he would soon find his place.

Though of Humble background, it is plain to see that Antinous was no ordinary boy. He must have possessed a penetrating mind, a depth of feeling, or that certain magnitude of soul that draws both the wise and the simple inexorably to him. He was captivating enough to forever change the Emperor of Rome. Hadrian was of course no ordinary Emperor, his wide record of accomplishments is proof enough. To capture him required divine qualities, beauty alone was insufficient, and there were certainly many rivals in his youth-loving court who might even have surpassed Antinous in this regard. If his beauty was combined with a profoundness of mind unlike anything in Rome, one can begin to see where the broad intelligence of Hadrian might have been intrigued. But this can only have been the beginning, like any love affair, there is a moment of love-at-first-sight that either dissipates like drunkenness, or intensifies as the petals slowly open, revealing an ever-deepening transportation. This can only have been the case, the circumstances of Hadrian and Antinous's love must have been above and beyond the usual story of Emperor and favorite. Had Antinous been female, we might have had another Justinian and Theodora.

Antinous is mostly unknown, like a myth or a legend, his own words have vanished, whether because they were ignored, or perhaps destroyed, lost, or covered in dust and decay, one can never know. That he was not a saint in the canonical sense is immediately apparent, there are no tales of miraculous deeds, nothing resembling charity, not a single austerity during the course of his life. His first virtue, his most overpowering, the one of which we can be certain, is that he is among the most beautiful and perfect of all creations. He is a beauty that transcends the stone into which it was invested by inspired ancient sculptors. This is his power and his virtue, this is why he deserves to be understood as a god.

He came to flower during the spring of the most glorious period of western civilization, a golden age known as the reign of the Antonines. The subjugation of the ancient world was accomplished, almost simultaneously with the birth of Antinous, during the wars of the Spanish born Emperor Trajan. His chosen successor Hadrian preferred to improve the interior of the civilized world over further vainglorious conquests. His public works and monuments are among the only remnants of the greatest and most lasting culture the western world has ever known. But until recently, these massive efforts have been almost completely ignored because of two actions which Christian moralists have viewed as completely detrimental to his character, both religious and even to our modern minds radical and shocking. The first was Antinous, and the second the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersal of the Jews.

HADRIAN'S LOVE ...

Hadrian was a passionate hunter, already from the time of his youth according to one source.^[22] In northwest Asia, he founded and dedicated a city to commemorate a she-bear he killed.^[23] It is documented that in Egypt he and his beloved Antinous killed a lion.^[23] In Rome, eight reliefs featuring Hadrian in different stages of hunting on a building that began as a monument celebrating a kill

Hadrian was especially famous for his relationship with a Greek youth, Antinous, whom he met in Bithynia in 124 when the boy was thirteen or fourteen. While touring Egypt in 130, Antinous mysteriously drowned in the Nile. Deeply saddened, Hadrian founded the Egyptian city of Antinopolis, and had Antinous deified - an unprecedented honour for one not of the ruling family.

Legacy

Antinous (Museo Pio-Clementino)

After his death, the grief of the emperor knew no bounds, causing the most extravagant respect to be paid to his memory. Cities were founded in his name, medals struck with his effigy, and statues erected to him in all parts of the empire. Following the example of Alexander (who sought divine honours for his beloved, Hephaistion, when he died), Hadrian had Antinous proclaimed a god. Temples were built for his worship in Bithynia, Mantineia in Arcadia, and Athens, festivals celebrated in his honour and oracles delivered in his name. The city of Antinopolis or Antinoe was founded on the ruins of Besa where he died (Dio Cassius lix.11; Spartianus, "Hadrian"). One of Hadrian's attempts at extravagant remembrance failed, when the proposal to create a constellation of Antinous being lifted to heaven by an eagle (the constellation Aquila) failed of adoption.

After deification, Antinous was associated with and depicted as the Ancient Egyptian god Osiris, associated with the rebirth of the Nile. Antinous was also depicted as the Roman Bacchus, a god related to fertility, cutting vine leaves.

The "Lansdowne Antinous" was found at Hadrian's Villa in 1769 (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge)

Worship, or at least acknowledgment, of the idealized Antinous was widespread, although mainly outside the city of Rome. As a result, Antinous is one of the best-preserved faces from the ancient world. Many busts, gems and coins represent Antinous as the ideal type of youthful beauty, often with the attributes of some special god. They include a colossal bust in the Vatican,^[3] a bust in the Louvre (the Antinous Mondragone), a bas-relief from the Villa Albani,^[4] a statue in the Capitoline museum (the so-called Capitoline Antinous, now accepted to be a portrayal of Hermes), another in Berlin, another in the Lateran and one in the Fitzwilliam Museum; and many more may be seen in museums across Europe. There are also statues in many archaeological museums in Greece including the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, the archaeological museums of Patras, Chalkis and Delphi. Although these may well be idealised images, they demonstrate what all contemporary writers described as Antinous's extraordinary beauty. Although many of the sculptures are instantly recognizable, some offer significant variation in terms of the suppleness and sensuality of the pose and features versus the rigidity and typical masculinity. In 1998 the remains of the monumental tomb of Antinous, or a temple to him, were discovered at Hadrian's Villa.^[5]

Immortal love of alexander the great $ Hephaestion

Little is known of Hephaestion's personal relationships, beyond his extraordinarily close friendship with Alexander. Alexander the Great was an outgoing, charismatic man, who had many friends, but his dearest and closest friend and confidant was Hephaestion.^[32] Theirs was a friendship which had been forged in boyhood. It endured through adolescence, through Alexander's becoming king, through the hardships of campaigning and the flatteries of court life, and their marriages.

Alexander and Hephaestion enter the tent of the captive royal family of Darius. From a 1696 edition of Curtius.

Their tutor, Aristotle, described such a friendship as "... one soul abiding in two bodies".^[33] That they themselves considered their friendship to be of such a kind is shown by the stories of the morning after the battle of Issus. Diodorus^[34], Arrian^[35] and Curtius^[36] all describe the scene, when Alexander and Hephaestion went together to visit the captured Persian royal family. Its senior member, the queen Sisygambis, knelt to Hephaestion to plead for their lives, mistaking him for Alexander, because he was the taller, and both young men were wearing similar clothes. When she realised her mistake, she was acutely embarrassed, but Alexander reassured her with the words, "You were not mistaken, Mother; this man too is Alexander."^[37] Their love for each other was no secret, as is borne out by their own words. Hephaestion, when replying to a letter to Alexander's mother, Olympias, said "… you know that Alexander means more to us than anything."^[38] Arrian says that Alexander, after Hephaestion's death, described him as "... the friend I valued as my own life."^[39] Paul Cartledge describes their closeness when he says: "Alexander seems actually to have referred to Hephaestion as his alter ego."^[40]

Their friendship was also a working partnership; in all that Alexander undertook, Hephaestion was at his side. They worked well together; it is possible to discern a pattern, when studying Hephaestion's career, of Alexander's constant trust in, and increasing reliance on Hephaestion. By the time of the advance into India, after the deaths of senior generals from the older generation, there had been worrying instances among senior officers of their own generation, of treachery^[41], a lack of sympathy with Alexander's aims of further integration of Persians into the army^[42], and of sheer incompetence^[43]. Time after time, when Alexander needed to divide his forces, he entrusted half to Hephaestion, knowing that in him he had a man of unquestionable loyalty, who understood and sympathised with his aims, and above all, who got the job done.

Hephaestion played a full part in Alexander's regular consultations with senior officers, but he was the one to whom Alexander would also talk in private, sharing his thoughts, hopes and plans. Curtius^[44] states that Hephaestion was the sharer of all his secrets, and Plutarch^[45] describes an occasion when Alexander had a controversial change to impose, and implies that Hephaestion was the one with whom Alexander had discussed it, and who arranged for the change to be implemented. According to the painting done by Aetion, of Alexander's first wedding, Hephaestion was his torch bearer (best man), showing by this not only his friendship, but also his support for Alexander's policies, as Alexander's choice of an Asian bride had not been a popular one. By the time they returned to Persia, Hephaestion was officially, by title, Alexander's second-in-command, as he had long been in practice, and also his brother-in-law. Hammond sums up their public relationship well: "It is not surprising that Alexander was as closely attached to Hephaestion as Achilles was to Patroclus"^[46], and "At the time of his death Hephaestion held the highest single command, that of the Companion Cavalry; and had been repeatedly second in command to Alexander in the hierarchy of the Asian court, holding the title of Chiliarch, which had been held by under Darius by Nabarzanes. Thus Alexander honoured Hephaestion both as the closest of his friends and the most distinguished of his Field Marshals."^[47]

Alexander, left, and Hephaestion, right. The Getty Villa Museum.

It has been suggested that as well as being close friends, Alexander and Hephaestion were also lovers. None of the ancient sources states this in so many words. By the time the extant sources were written—some three hundred years later—homosexual affairs were looked upon with less favour than they had been in ancient Greece—Horace^[48] speaks of the Greek vice—and so had already begun the process which has continued intermittently ever since, the "airbrushing" of Hephaestion out of history. However, Arrian^[49] describes the occasion when Alexander and Hephaestion publicly identified themselves with Achilles and Patroclus, who were acknowledged, by Plato and Aeschylus among others, to have been lovers. It happened right at the beginning of the campaign in Asia, when Alexander led a contingent of the army to visit Troy, scene of the events in his beloved Iliad. He laid a wreath on the tomb of Achilles, and Hephaestion laid a wreath on the tomb of Patroclus, and they ran a race, naked, to honour their dead heroes. Arrian discreetly draws no conclusions from this. However, Robin Lane Fox, writing in 1973, says: "It was a remarkable tribute, uniquely paid, and it is also Hephaestion's first mention in Alexander's career. Already the two were intimate, Patroclus and Achilles even to those around them; the comparison would remain to the end of their days and is proof of their life as lovers, for by Alexander's time, Achilles and Patroclus were agreed to have enjoyed the relationship which Homer himself had never directly mentioned."^[50]

Hephaestion and Alexander grew up in a time and place where homosexual affairs were seen as perfectly normal, but the pattern that such affairs followed was not the same in every city-state. Roman and later writers, taking the Athenian pattern as their example, have tended to assume either that their sexual relationship belonged to their adolescence, after which they left it behind, or that one of them was older, the lover (erastes) and the other was the beloved (eromenos).

The former assumption has persisted to the present day, with writers of fiction, such as Mary Renault, and the film director Oliver Stone among its proponents, as well as modern historians such as Paul Cartledge, who says: "Rumour had it—and rumour was for once surely correct—that he [Hephaestion] and Alexander had once been more than just good friends."^[51] Aelian takes the latter view when he uses just such an expression when describing the visit to Troy: "Alexander laid a garland on Achilles' tomb and Hephaestion on Patroclus', indicating that he was Alexander's eromenos, as Patroclus was of Achilles."^[52]

However, what was the case in Athens was not necessarily the case in Macedon. As Robin Lane Fox says, "... descendants of the Dorians were considered and even expected to be openly homosexual, especially among their ruling class, and the Macedonian kings had long insisted on their pure Dorian ancestry."^[53] This was no fashionable affectation; this was something that belonged at the heart of what it was to be Dorian, and therefore Macedonian, and had more in common with the Theban Sacred Band than with Athens.^[54] In light of this, it is not surprising that there is evidence that their sexual relationship was indeed lifelong. Lucian, writing in his book On Slips of the Tongue^[55] describes an occasion when Hephaestion's conversation one morning implied that he had been in Alexander's tent all night, and Plutarch^[56] describes the intimacy between them when he tells how Hephaestion was in the habit of reading Alexander's letters with him, and of a time when he showed that the contents of a letter were to be kept secret by touching his ring to Hephaestion's lips. Diogenes of Sinope, in a letter written to Alexander when he was a grown man, accuses Alexander of being "... ruled by Hephaestion's thighs."^[57]

No other circumstance shows better the nature and length of their relationship than Alexander's overwhelming grief at Hephaestion's death. As Andrew Chugg says, "... it is surely incredible that Alexander's reaction to Hephaestion's death could indicate anything other than the closest relationship imaginable."^[58] The many and varied ways, both spontaneous and planned, by which Alexander poured out his grief are detailed below. In the context of the nature of their relationship however, one stands out as remarkable. Arrian says that Alexander "... flung himself on the body of his friend and lay there nearly all day long in tears, and refused to be parted from him until he was dragged away by force by his Companions."^[59]

Such an all-encompassing love often leaves little room for other affections. Hephaestion's lover was also his best friend, his king, and his commanding officer, so it is not surprising that we hear of no other close friendships or attachments in his life. There is no evidence, however, that he was anything but popular and well-liked among the group of Alexander's close friends and Companions who had grown up together, and worked well together for so many years. It is possible that he was closest to Perdiccas, because it was with Perdiccas that he went on the mission to take Peuceolatis and bridge the Indus, and by that time, as Alexander's effective second-in-command, he could doubtless have chosen any officer he cared to name.^[60] They accomplished everything they set out to do with great success, which indicates that the two of them worked well together, and that Hephaestion found the irrepressible Perdiccas a congenial companion. It is notable that their two cavalry regiments in particular were selected by Alexander for the dangerous crossing of the river Hydaspes, before the battle with the Indian king, Porus. On that occasion, superb teamwork would have been of paramount importance.^[61]

It would be wrong to imply that Hephaestion was universally liked or admired. Outside the close-knit coterie of the Macedonian high command, he had his enemies. This is clear from Arrian's comment about Alexander's grief: "All writers have agreed that it was great, but personal prejudice, for or against both Hephaestion and Alexander himself, has coloured the accounts of how he expressed it."^[62]

However, given the factions and jealousies that arise in any court, and that Hephaestion was supremely close to the greatest monarch the western world had yet seen, it is remarkable how little enmity he inspired. Arrian^[63] mentions a quarrel with Alexander's secretary, Eumenes, but because of a missing page in the text, the greater part of the detail is missing, leaving only the conclusion, that something persuaded Hephaestion, though against his will, to make up the quarrel. However, Plutarch, who wrote about Eumenes in his series of Parallel Lives,^[64] mentions that it was about lodgings, and a flute-player, so perhaps this was an instance of some deeper antagonism breaking out into a quarrel over a triviality. What that antagonism might have been, it is not possible to know, but someone with the closeness to the king of a secretary might well have felt some jealousy for Hephaestion's even greater closeness.

The weddings at Susa; Alexander to Stateira (right), and Hephaestion to Drypetis (left). Late 19th century engraving.

In only one instance is Hephaestion known to have quarrelled with a fellow-officer, and that was with Craterus. In this instance, it is easier to see that resentment might have been felt on both sides, for Craterus was one of those officers who vehemently disliked Alexander's policy of integrating Greek and Persian, whereas Hephaestion was very much in favour. Plutarch tells the story: "For this reason a feeling of hostility grew and festered between the two and they often came into open conflict. Once on the expedition to India they actually drew their swords and came to blows ...".^[65] Alexander, who also valued Craterus highly, as a most competent officer, was forced to intervene, and had stern words for both. It is a measure of how high feelings were running over this contentious issue, that such a thing should have happened, and also an indication of how closely Hephaestion identified Alexander's wishes with his own. Hephaestion gave perhaps the ultimate proof of this in the summer of 324 BC, when he accepted as his wife, Drypetis, daughter of Darius and sister to Alexander's own second wife, Stateira. Up till this time, Hephaestion's name had never been linked with any woman, or indeed any man other than Alexander. Of his short married life, nothing is known, except that at the time of Alexander's own death, eight months after Hephaestion's, Drypetis was still mourning the husband to whom she had been married for only four months.^[66]

For Alexander to marry a daughter of Darius made good political sense, allying himself firmly with the Persian ruling class, but for Hephaestion to marry her sister shows the high esteem in which Alexander held him, bringing him into the royal family itself. They became brothers-in-law, and yet there was more to it than that. Alexander, says Arrian "... wanted to be uncle to Hephaestion's children ...".^[67] Thus, it is possible to imagine Alexander and Hephaestion hoping that their respective offspring might unite their lines, and that ultimately, the crown of Macedon and Persia might be worn by one who was a descendant of them both.^[68]

[edit] Death and funeral

In spring 324 BC Hephaestion left Susa, where he had been married, and accompanied Alexander and the rest of the army as they travelled towards Ecbatana. They arrived in the autumn, and it was there, during games and festivals, that Hephaestion fell ill with a fever. Arrian says that after the fever had run for seven days, Alexander had to be summoned from the games to Hephaestion, who was seriously ill. He did not arrive in time; by the time he got there, Hephaestion was dead.^[69] Plutarch says that, being a young man and a soldier, Hephaestion had ignored medical advice, and as soon as his doctor, Glaucias, had gone off to the theatre, he ate a large breakfast, consisting of a boiled fowl and a cooler of wine, and then fell sick and died.^[70]

Piecing the accounts together, it seems as if Hephaestion's fever had run its course for seven days, after which time he was sufficiently recovered for his doctor, and Alexander himself, to feel it was safe to leave him, and for Hephaestion to feel hungry. His meal, however, seems to have caused a relapse that led to his rapid death. Precisely why this should have happened is not known. As Mary Renault says, "This sudden crisis in a young, convalescent man is hard to account for."^[71] The explanation that fits most of the facts is that the fever was typhoid, and that solid food perforated the ulcerated intestine that the typhoid would have caused. This would have led to internal bleeding, though it would be unusual in that case for death to follow quite as swiftly as it seems to have done here. For that reason, it is not possible altogether to discount other possible explanations, one of them being poison.

Hephaestion's death is dealt with at greater length by the ancient sources than any of the events of his life, because of its profound effect upon Alexander. Plutarch says "... Alexander's grief was uncontrollable ..." and adds that he ordered many signs of mourning, notably that the manes and tails of all horses should be shorn, the demolition of the battlements of the neighbouring cities, and the banning of flutes and every other kind of music.^[72] Arrian relates an account that "... he flung himself on the body of his friend and lay there nearly all day long in tears, and refused to be parted from him until he was dragged away by force by his Companions ..."^[73], another that said "... he lay stretched upon the corpse all day and the whole night too ..."^[74], and another which told how he had the doctor, Glaucias, executed for his lack of care.^[75] Arrian also mentions Alexander ordering the shrine of Asclepios in Ecbatana to be razed to the ground^[76], and that he cut his hair short in mourning^[77], this last a poignant reminder of Achilles' last gift to Patroclus on his funeral pyre: "... he laid the lock of hair in the hands of his beloved companion, and the whole company was moved to tears."^[78]

Another hint that Alexander looked to Achilles to help him to express his grief may be found in the campaign which shortly followed these events, against a tribe called the Cossaeans. Plutarch says they were massacred as an offering to the spirit of Hephaestion, and it is quite possible to imagine that to Alexander, this might have followed in spirit Achilles' killing of "... twelve high-born youths ..." beside Patroclus' funeral pyre.^[79]

Arrian states that all his sources agree that "… for two whole days after Hephaestion's death Alexander tasted no food and paid no attention in any way to his bodily needs, but lay on his bed now crying lamentably, now in the silence of grief."^[80] Alexander ordered a period of mourning throughout the empire, and Arrian tells us that "Many of the Companions, out of respect for Alexander, dedicated themselves and their arms to the dead man ..."^[81] The army, too, remembered him; Alexander did not appoint anyone to take Hephaestion's place as commander of the Companion cavalry; he "... wished Hephaestion's name to be preserved always in connexion with it, so Hephaestion's Regiment it continued to be called, and Hephaestion's image continued to be carried before it."^[82]

Alexander sent messengers to the oracle at Siwa, to ask if Amon would permit Hephaestion to be worshipped as a god. When the reply came, saying he might be worshipped not as a god, but as a divine hero, Alexander was pleased, and "... from that day forward saw that his friend was honoured with a hero's rites."^[83] He saw to it that shrines were erected to Hephaestion's memory, and evidence that the cult took hold can be found in a simple votary plaque now in Thessaloniki Archaeological Museum, inscribed, "To the Hero Hephaestion".

Hephaestion was given a magnificent funeral. Its cost is variously given in the sources as 10,000 talents or 12,000 talents. It is difficult to give a modern equivalent for such a huge amount, but we know that in Hephaestion’s time, the daily wage of a skilled worker was two or three drachmas. Today, in western Europe, 2008, that would be between £50 and £100, so the lowest possible value for 1 drachma in modern terms is £25. We know there were 6,000 drachmas in a talent, so even at the most conservative estimate, Hephaestion’s funeral would have cost £150,000,000. Alexander himself drove the funeral carriage part of the way back to Babylon, with some of the driving entrusted to Hephaestion's friend Perdiccas.^[84] At Babylon, funeral games were held in Hephaestion's honour. The contests ranged from literature to athletics, and 3,000 competitors took part, the festival eclipsing anything that had gone before, both in cost and in numbers taking part.^[85] Plutarch says that Alexander planned to spend ten thousand talents on the funeral and the tomb. He employed Stasicrates, "... as this artist was famous for his innovations, which combined an exceptional degree of magnificence, audacity and ostentation ...", to design the pyre for Hephaestion.^[86]

The pyre was sixty metres high, square in shape, and built in stepped levels. The first level was decorated with two hundred and forty ships with golden prows, each of these adorned with armed figures, and with red banners filling the spaces between. On the second level were torches, with snakes at the base, golden wreaths in the middle, and at the top, flames surmounted by eagles. The third level showed a hunting scene, and the fourth a battle of centaurs, all done in gold. On the fifth level, also in gold, were lions and bulls, and on the sixth, the arms of Macedon and Persia. The seventh and final level bore sculptures of sirens, hollowed out to conceal a choir who would sing a lament.^[87] It is possible that the pyre was not burnt, but that it was actually intended as a tomb or lasting memorial; if so, it is likely that it was never completed, as there are references to expensive, uncompleted projects at the time of Alexander's own death.^[88]

One final tribute remained, and it is compelling in its simplicity and in what it reveals about the high esteem in which Hephaestion was held by Alexander. On the day of the funeral, he gave orders that the sacred flame in the temple should be extinguished. Normally, this was only done on the death of the Great King himself.^[89]

My Pillow..

Sometimes, in the dead of the night,
when everyone's asleep,
my eyes shed a tear,
that wets the pillow,that i rest my head on..

betrayals and lies, is all i hear
in the day by tongues known, and unknown..
the relationships so filled with emptiness
that envelops my mind throughout..

you came, you went,
you left me alone..
before i ever met you,
i used to laugh in my dreams on my pillow

what is it that you did to me?
that this pillow, all mine
now i want it to share...
is my pillow big enough to share?

you slept with someone else,
whilst ur tongue was licking my feet..
i have nothing to cry or shout about..
just need to say one last thing..

you once rested on my pillow,
and i have burnt it down, made a new one..
for myself, for now..
for my fears, for my tears...

My pilllow < a smooch >
i love it , for it will always be there with me..
through my dreams, my love.. the only one..
my own, till the very end, my shoulder to caress me forever..

What is Love?

Ohk.. i believe in love and not soulmates..

i mean how can the two souls be predestined to be together? isn't that boring? you get to change your lifestyle, and not the eople around u.. pathetic :-)

anyways, i think you should be with someone you deserve. i see no point in hanging out with a person tons of time inappropriate for you, not to make you happy and totally worthless, even if the guy is all over you. i mean that's gonna be more like a master-dog relationship <> .. and i assure you it doesn't work out either...

Is there My Own?

lolz.. so the title eluded u? mayb..

well, the crap here is gonna b personal.. so dont worry ! u dont have to know this on bed <> lolz..

anyways, seriously, i am basically gonna take my heart out, and pour words like water over here.. maybe some truths, some views.. and seriously, i hate lies.

secondly, i dont admire any personal questions :-)

"Thats My Prerogative"

//////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////
"Thats My Prerogative"

People can take everything away from you
But they can never take away your truth
But the question is..
Can you handle mine?

They say I'm crazy
I really don't care that's my prerogative
They say I'm nasty
But I don't give a damn getting boys is how I live

Some ask me questions
Why am I so real?
But they don't understand me
I really don't know the deal about my sister
Trying hard to make it right
Not long ago before I won this fight

Everybody's talkin' all this stuff about me
Why don't they just let me live? (tell me why)
I don't need permission
Make my own decisions (oh)
That's my prerogative
That's my prerogative

It's my prerogative
Its the way that I wanna live
It's my prerogative
You can't tell me what to do

Don't get me wrong
I'm really not souped!
Ego trips is not my thing
Fuck all these strange relationships
It really gets me down
See nothing wrong spread myself around

Everybody's talkin' all this stuff about me
Why don't they just let me live? (tell me why)
I don't need permission
Make my own decisions (oh)
That's my prerogative
That's my prerogative

Everybody's talkin' all this stuff about me
Why don't they just let me live? (tell me why)
I don't need permission
Make my own decisions (oh)
That's my prerogative
That's my prerogative

Its the way that I wanna live
It's my prerogative
But you can't tell me what to do

Why can't I live my life?
Without all of the things that people say
Ohhhhh

Oh

Everybody's talkin' all this stuff about me
Why don't they just let me live? (tell me why)
I don't need permission
Make my own decisions (oh)
That's my prerogative

(They Say I'm crazy) Everybody's talkin' all this stuff about me
Why don't they just let me live? (tell me why)
(they say I'm nasty)I don't need permission
Make my own decisions (oh)
That's my prerogative (ahhh)

It's my prerogative