Antinopolis

Antinopolis (Antinoöpolis, Antinoopolis, Antinoë) (Greek: Ἀντινόου πόλις, Coptic ⲁⲛⲧⲓⲛⲱⲟⲩ Antinow) modern Sheikh 'Ibada) was a city founded at an older Egyptian village by the Roman emperor Hadrian to commemorate his deified young beloved, Antinous, on the east bank of the Nile, not far from the site in Upper Egypt where Antinous drowned in 130 AD. Antinopolis was a little to the south of the Egyptian village of Besa (Βῆσσα), named after the goddess and oracle of Besa, which was consulted occasionally even as late as the age of Constantine I. Antinopolis was built at the foot of the hill upon which Besa was seated. The city is located nearly opposite of Hermopolis Magna.

History

During the New Kingdom, the city was the location of Ramesses II's great temple, dedicated to the gods of Khmun and Heliopolis. The city of Antinopolis exhibited the Graeco-Roman architecture of Hadrian's age in immediate contrast with the Egyptian style. The city was the center of the official cult of Antinous. It first belonged to the Heptanomis, but under Diocletian (286 AD) Antinopolis became the capital of the nome of the Thebaid. According to the Greek Menaea, it was at Antinoe that Saint Julian underwent martyrdom during the Persecutions of Diocletian. As a cultural center, it was the native city of the 4th-century mathematician Serenus of Antinopolis. Antinopolis was still a "most illustrious' city in a surviving divorce decree of 569 AD.