Antinous the Pious and Antoninus Pius

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

 

 

 

…. it does not seem at all possible to accommodate conventional history’s long-reigning emperor, Antoninus Pius (c. 138-161 BC), who is thought to have succeeded Hadrian.

 

 

 

 

The successor of Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’ (so-called IV) was, according to I Maccabees 6, the king’s son Antiochus, named ‘Eupator’ (vv. 16-17): “King Antiochus died there in the year 149. When Lysias learned that the king had died, he made the young Antiochus king in place of his father. He had brought up Antiochus from childhood and now gave him the name Eupator”. We know this young and very short-reigned (c. 161-163 BC, conventional dating) ruler as Antiochus V.

 

Now, in my greatly revised scheme of things, the terrible Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes’ was the same person as the emperor Hadrian, who has come down to us, via what I would consider to be pseudo-history, as a Roman emperor, not a Seleucid Greek.

For the possibility of Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes’ being Hadrian, see my series:

 

Antiochus 'Epiphanes' and Emperor Hadrian. Part One: "… a mirror image"

 

https://www.academia.edu/32734925/Antiochus_Epiphanes_and_Emperor_Hadrian._Part_One_a_mirror_image_

 

Antiochus 'Epiphanes' and Emperor Hadrian. Part Two: "Hadrian … a second Antiochus"

 

https://www.academia.edu/35538588/Antiochus_Epiphanes_and_Emperor_Hadrian._Part_Two_Hadrian_a_second_Antiochus_

 

That being the case, and with Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes’ succeeded by a son of his (‘Eupator’) who reigned for only about two years, then it does not seem at all possible to accommodate conventional history’s long-reigning emperor, Antoninus Pius (c. 138-161 BC), who is thought to have succeeded Hadrian.

 

Moreover, the designation Antoninus Pius is too close for my comfort to Antinous the Pious, the supposed teenaged boyfriend of the emperor Hadrian, but who I have argued was simply a later made-up religious cult figure, albeit greatly honoured, based heavily upon Jesus Christ: https://www.academia.edu/38145128/Merging_Maccabean_and_Herodian_Ages._Part_Three_The_King_iv_b_A_portentous_star?email_work_card=thumbnail-desktop

And, just as we had learned in this article (“A portentous star?”), that the city that Hadrian had allegedly built in honour of Antinous in Egypt has, by now, unfortunately, “vanished”, so, too, do we find that the reasonably abundant architecture said to have been constructed by Antoninus Pius has largely “disappeared”.

For thus we read in Steven L. Tuck’s A History of Roman Art, p. 253:

 

Compared to the amount of work under Trajan and Hadrian, very few large-scale buildings were constructed in Rome under the Antonines. Antoninus Pius lived quietly out of Rome at a villa while Marcus Aurelius spent most of his twenty years of rule fighting massive wars along Rome’s frontiers. Those buildings we know of were mostly tombs, temples, altars, columns, arches, and other such forms designed to commemorate the lives and achievements of emperors. The vast majority of these have disappeared or survive only in ruins leaving behind only their decorative sculpture to give a sense of their original forms and political statements.