Antinopolis
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Antinopolis (Antinoöpolis) (Greek: Ἀντινόου πόλις, Coptic Ansena, modern Sheikh 'Ibada) was the city commemorating Antinous, which was founded to commemorate his deified lover by Hadrian, on the east bank of the Nile, not far from the site in Upper Egypt where Antinous drowned in 130 A.D. 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 at coordinates , nearly opposite Hermopolis Magna.
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[edit] History
The new settlement was colonized by Greeks brought from other cities to whom were given the right of connubium, that is, to marry an Egyptian woman without forfeiting Greek privileges. The city of Antinopolis exhibited the Graeco-Roman architecture of Trajan's age in immediate contrast with the Egyptian style. The city was the center of the official cult of Antinous. The new city at first belonged to the Heptanomis, but under Diocletian (286 A.D.) Antinopolis became the capital of the nome of the Thebaid. As a cultural center, it was the native city of the fourth-century mathematician Serenus of Antinopolis. It was still a "most illustrious' city in a surviving divorce decree of 569 A.D. [1] The city was abandoned around the 10th century A.D.
[edit] Relevance to Christian History
The city of Antinopolis, known in Coptic as Ansena has a particular relevance to the Christians of Egypt. Christian historians assert that the location of the city was blessed by the visit of the Holy Family while in Egypt. A well, known as The Well of the Cloud is said to have sprung from the ground when baby Jesus wanted to drink. The well is still found today, and it is the only fresh-water well in a region where all other wells produce salty water.
Ansena is also important in Egyptian Christian history, because was in front of the city's governors that hundreds of thousands of Christians were tortured and killed in the third and fourth centuries, in an attempt to contain the rapid spread of Christianity in Egypt. In fact, Christians were brought to the city from every place in the Roman Empire for the renowned brutality of its governors. Some of the Christian martyrs killed in Ansena include Saint Dasya.
In the reign of Valens (364-378 A.D.), Antinopolis became the seat of rival bishoprics, one Orthodox and one Arian.
[edit] Structure and Organization
The city of Antinopolis was governed by its own senate and prytaneus or president. The senate was chosen from the members of the wards (φυλαί), of which we learn the name of one – Ἀθηναί̈ς – from inscriptions (Orelli, No. 4705); and its decrees, as well as those of the prytaneus, were not, as usual, subject to the revision of the nomarch, but to that of the prefect (ἐπιστράτηγος) of the Thebaid. Divine honours were paid in the Antinoeion to Antinous as a local deity, and games and chariot-races were annually exhibited in commemoration of his death and of Hadrian's sorrow. (Dictionary of Antiquities, s. v. Ἀντινόεια.)
[edit] Archeological Finds
The earliest finds at the site date to the New Kingdom, when it may have been sacred to Bes or to Hathor (ref. Princeton). A grotto, once inhabited by Christian anchorites, probably marks the seat of the shrine and oracle, and Grecian tombs with inscriptions point to the necropolis of Antinopolis. The ruins of Antinopolis attest, by the area which they fill, the ancient grandeur of the city. The direction of the principal streets may still be traced. One at least of them, which ran from north to south, had on either side of it a corridor supported by columns for the convenience of foot-passengers. The walls of the theatre near the southern gate, and those of the hippodrome without the walls to the east, are still extant. At the north-western extremity of the city was a portico, of which four columns remain, inscribed to Good Fortune, and bearing the date of the 14th and last year of the reign of Alexander Severus, 235.
As far as can be ascertained from the space covered with mounds of masonry, Antinopolis was about a mile and a half in length, and nearly half a mile broad. Near the Hippodrome are a well and tanks appertaining to an ancient road, which leads from the eastern gate to a valley behind the town, ascends the mountains, and, passing through the desert by the Wádee Tarfa, joins the roads to the quarries of the Mons Porphyrites. (Wilkinson, Topography of Thebes, p. 382.)
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Napoleonic surveys were made, a theater, many temples, a triumphal arch, two streets with double colonnades, illustrated in Description de l'Egypte, a circus, and a hippodrome nearby were still to be seen. Today there is little left: blocks of stone were rebuilt into the new sugar factories at El-Rodah (ref. Princeton). Some excavations wrere undertaken by the University of Rome, 1965-68. Papyri from the site were edited and translated by J. W. B. Barns and H. Zilliacus.
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Richard Stillwell, ed. Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, 1976: Antinopolis (Sheikh-'Ibada) Egypt"
- Ptol. iv. 5. § 61; Paus. viii. 9; Dion Cass. lxix. 11; Amm. Marc. xix. 12, xxii. 16; Aur. Vict. Caesar, 14; Spartian. Hadrian. 14; Chron. Pasch. p. 254, Paris edit.; It. Anton. p. 167; Hierocl. p. 730; Ἀντινόεια, Steph. B. s. v., also Adrianopolis, Steph. B. Ἁδριανούπολις)
- Antinoe - Catholic Encyclopedia article on the titular see
- This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography by William Smith (1857).
