Hadrian was renowned for his travels, spending more than half his reign outside of Italy. Though such peripatetic behavior would become increasingly common as the empire grew more militarized in the 3rd century, this was unusual for the time. Nero had been criticized for taking a pleasure-trip to Greece. Born in Spain, Hadrian’s first trip was to Britain, where he ordered the construction of Hadrian’s Wall, perhaps the most famous tangible memory of Rome’s control of the faraway island province.

But it is his trip to Egypt that concerns us, as this large bronze coin above was struck there, in Alexandria, in 133/134 AD. Hadrian, bisexual and a lover of Greek culture, had meet a young man, Antinous, in the province of Bithynia around 124 AD. He fell in love with him, and Antinous traveled with Hadrian on many of his subsequent trips, including Egypt. The pair arrived at the Nile Delta in August of 130 AD. Hadrian initially took care of business, rededicating the tomb to the great Republican general Pompey and dealing with local officials. But then, as now, Egypt was also a phenomenal vacation spot.

Above: A large (34 mm in diameter) bronze medallion of Antinous, struck at Sardis, Lydia, in 131 AD. After his death, several eastern cities, including ones that Antinous had visited, struck coins and medallions with his likeness.

Hadrian and Antinous hunted lions together in the Libyan desert and then headed back to the Nile for a cruise southbound towards Upper Egypt. Within weeks of their arrival in Egypt, and presumably only a week or so into the Nile cruise, Antinous drowned, under mysterious circumstances. He was 19.

Mystery swirled around the incident then and now – we still do not know exactly how he died. He probably drowned, but speculation remained that Antinous had either committed suicide or been killed willingly as part of an opaque ritual or sacrifice. Human sacrifice was essentially nonexistent in both Roman and Greek culture, so these theories are probably gossip, as the Historia Augusta (3rd century AD) notes “some claim that he had devoted himself to death for Hadrian and others.” Hadrian, distraught, nevertheless continued southward up the Nile. He founded a city in Antinous’ honor and even did some sightseeing at Luxor, the historic capital of southern Egypt, whose ruins were thousands of years old even then.