As Proceed at Your Own Risk is currently reporting (http://rjr10036.typepad.com/proceed_at_your_own_risk/2008/01/history-and-que.html), the British Museum is going to OUT one of the greatest leaders in world history as an openly gay man. No, it's not Alexander the Great, although he too would qualify. Rather it is the Roman emperor Hadrian, who had a lover he notoriously acknowledged, the young Greek boy Antinous. BTW, Antinous died by drowning in the Nile in October, 130 AD**. Here are some story highlights: Sponsored by British Petroleum, "Hadrian: Empire and Conflict'' (July 24 - Oct. 26) will feature some 200 loans from 31 countries and take place in the British Museum's specially refitted circular Reading Room. Hadrian ruled the Roman Empire from 117 to 138 A.D. and ordered the building of a wall dividing England and Scotland.
"Hadrian is part of a series of exhibitions on great empires that have shaped the world,'' MacGregor told reporters earlier this week. "It's those great empires that established the connections and patterns that the world is still living with.'' But, MacGregor was also quick to point out that this Roman emperor was also selected because multiple new discoveries offered a "chance to write new history,'' which is part of the British Museum's purpose, he said.
"Hadrian was gay, and we can say it," said Thorsten Opper, a British Museum curator who is publishing a profile of Hadrian to coincide with the show. In fact, Hadrian's lover, the young Greek boy Antinous, whose death caused the emperor tremendous grief, will feature throughout the exhibition. A head of Antinous, borrowed from Paris's Louvre Museum, will be displayed, as will a bowl from Georgia with his effigy. Upon his lover's death, Hadrian elevated Antinous to the status of God, a God celebrating same sex romantic love, a fact I suspect few of you were taught in school.
The exhibition will reveal the many faces of Hadrian, a skilled and ruthless military leader who crushed the Jewish revolt of 132 A.D. and faced down rebellions in Britannia, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Mesopotamia. At the same time, Hadrian's patronage of the arts will be celebrated. It was he who built Rome's Pantheon, one of the most emulated monuments in architectural history, which the British Museum's Reading Room itself was modeled after.
Hadrian supported one of Rome's most lively periods of art, music and literature in an environment that also celebrated male beauty and male homosexuality. Histories have often "speculated" that Hadrian "might have been bi-sexual." This was dishonest and incredibly offensive, but such is gay history--until now.
** within a few years of his death there were temples, statues by the thousands and devotion throughout the entire known world. He was the very last of the Roman gods, Antinous the Beloved.
1 comment:
Queer Truth? The use of "queer" for anything other than "odd" first appeared in the Fifties, along with "gay." Gay prevailed, until Queer Theorist resurrected the DEVIANT motif of their hero, Michel Foucault.
Was Foucault deviant? If being gang fisted by men in leather is deviant, then I suppose so. Was he "gay?" He refused to be pinned down, unless his master did the pinning.
Homophilia was obviously widespread in antiquity, until Judeo-Christian homophobia vanquished it. Hadrian, like Caligula, was more "queer" than "gay" in our common use of the terms, but men who believe they are gods have a tendency to over-estimate their power.
The 1979 film Caligula circulated among metropolitan audiences, but unless Foucault, the Anvil, and the Folsom Barracks is one's idea of being Queer, then I don't recommend renting it on DVD. But it will distinguish a "queer" from a "homophile," alias "gay."
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