We have news on this very beautiful young man, Hadrian's favorite with Lucio Ceionio Comodo Vero, from the already cited Spaziano: he would be been born around the 110 d.C. to Bidynium/Claudiopolis in Asia Minor and met the emperor between the 123 and the 125 during the first travel of the monarch in the East. The emperor became infatuated with him so much that said special concessions to the Bitinia (of which the young man was native) promoting this district even to imperial province.

Castel Sant'Angelo

Officially Antinoo died tragically falling in the Nilo at Besa, on the right side of the river, in the face of the city of Hermopolis, but there are other versions: suicide or, for someone, homicide.
Hadrian, saddened, deified him: this action provoked clamour because this honour was only reserved to the members of the imperial family. Also he numbered him among the Pantheon's divinities and he dedicated to him the cited city of Antinoopolis. To this young man many artists have dedicated sculptural works, that portray Antinoo's features.

Among the Hadrian's great building activities in Rome we remember: the remaking of Pantheon, destroyed from a fire; the beginning of the construction of the Tempio di Venere in Rome and the greatest work, for wealth and architectonic fantasy, that is the Villa near Tivoli, where the emperor passed the last years of his reign, dedicating his time to meet philosophers and intellectuals, entertaining them with hospitality and disputing with them of several arguments. He dedicated himself, while still alive, to the construction of his own tomb (the gigantic mausoleo that today is called Castel Sant'Angelo), placing it on the right side of the Tevere, connected with an appropriate bridge (Helium) in order to catch up.