Few, if any, male historical figures represented in cameos generate the same excitement as Antinous (also Antinoös), the good-looking Bithynian boy who caught the eye of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, joining his entourage while still a teenager to become the imperial companion and, presumably, lover. This high-profile homosexual relationship did not in itself make Antinous famous, however; it was more a combination of his mysterious and untimely death by drowning in the River Nile in CE 130 and the extraordinary measures by which Hadrian commemorated him that caused his image to be preserved and to resonate as strongly as it still does.
While accompanying Hadrian on an official tour of Egypt, Antinous drowned in the Nile, in the same spot where Osiris, Egyptian god of the dead and of the afterlife, is said to have perished. The young man was only nineteen years old. The local people attached great religious significance to this. Hadrian’s response was to deify Antinous and to build shrines and temples dedicated to his worship throughout the Empire. Coins were minted bearing the dead youth’s likeness and Hadrian even founded a whole new city, Antinopolis, in his name. It was an unprecedented and bold step for an emperor to deify a commoner. As the cult of Antinous spread, so images of him proliferated.
Antinous was considered the embodiment of male beauty, captured in many sculptures as an athletic-looking youth with soft curls framing a beardless oval face. He had well-defined eyebrows over fairly deep-set eyes, quite a prominent nose and full, sensuous lips. Some sculptures exaggerate his chest, which can seem rather broad for a young man under twenty.
Given Hadrian’s passion for Greek art and culture, with its emphasis on depicting perfectly beautiful male youths (such as athletes), it is likely that these sculptures to some extent idealise Antinous to cast him in that mold.
Whether viewed as a divinized mortal or a fully-fledged deity, Antinous rapidly became identified with a variety of other gods within this emerging cult, including two in particular that shaped his syncretic role as a saviour god. One was the Egyptian god Osiris, who through his death and subsequent rebirth brought about regeneration and renewal, including vegetative fertility associated with the annual flooding of the Nile.
The other was Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and fertility (or his Roman equivalent, Bacchus) who in certain myths had experienced ‘dying and rising’ and was considered the closest counterpart of Osiris in Greco-Roman culture. Dionysus was also frequently represented as young, beardless and strikingly handsome – all the features we associate with the mortal Antinous. This statue of Antinous as Dionysus, thyrsus in hand, is located at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen.
Many images of Antinous from antiquity show him in the guise of the wine god and this can be a problem when it comes to distinguishing Antinous from Dionysus (and some of his followers) in cameos. He can also be confused with other handsome, classical youths as well as certain female subjects. Some cameos will remain ambiguous – all we can do is point out any inconsistencies as we see them. The present guide to recognising Antinous in cameos is based largely on key artworks from antiquity which are known to depict him and which have influenced gem engravers and cameo carvers since renaissance times. One way to categorize images of Antinous is by hair length.
ANTINOUS LONG-HAIRED TYPES
ANTINOUS BRASCHI
One of the most celebrated cameo images of Antinous combines attributes of both Osiris and Dionysus and is derived from the huge marble statue in the Vatican known as the Antinous Braschi after its first owner, a nephew of the Pope. A relatively late discovery, it was excavated in Palestrina in 1793. 
Crowning the head of the statue is a large, leafy-looking bud which has been added by restorers and probably replaces what was originally a lotus flower in bud. The lotus is symbolic of the Nile and of Osiris, linking Antinous to Egypt in the same way as does the hem-hem crown he is often depicted wearing on Roman coins. In the statue he also wears a wreath of ivy comprising leaves and rounded clusters of berries, ivy being a wild evergreen plant just as sacred to the wine god Dionysus as the more familiar grape vine. In addition he holds a thyrsus, a staff topped with a pine cone associated with fertility rites, although this very rarely appears in cameo presentations.
ANTINOUS BRASCHI AND VARIATIONS
Click on photos to enlarge.
The hair is worn long and loose at the back and trails down his neck in wavy tendrils but is cut short across his forehead in a fringe (in American usage, "bangs") and shorter at the sides, curling at the temples. Some cameo carvers omit or truncate the bud or lotus ornament, probably because they do not recognise what it is and prefer to stick with the more familiar ivy wreath.
Click on photos to enlarge.
The cameo on the left, above, in the British Museum, is by Guiseppe or Pietro Girometti. In the centre cameo the carver has replaced one long lock of hair with a fillet or ribbon. In the second from last cameo, the clusters of ivy berries studding the wreath are somewhat stylized and could at first glance be mistaken for composite flowers of the daisy family which are no doubt carved in a similar way. However, each berry is of equal size and sufficiently dimensional not to be confused with the flatter ray florets or petals of a flower.
Could this hardstone cameo depict a flame-haired Antinous? Our subject appears to be wearing a wreath of some sort although it is quite hard to make out. The hair is fairly long and unruly and does not quite conform to the Braschi type but it is possible the carver had Antinous in mind.
Another integral part of the Antinous Braschi "look" is that he is bare chested apart from the cloak fastened at the shoulder. Some cameos depart from the original in showing both shoulders draped. We have also seen one extremely fine cameo in which the carver replicated the Antinous Braschi profile in every detail apart from substituting an animal pelt for the cloak and adding a thyrsus to the left of the head. This is clearly a creative variation on the theme of Antinous as Dionysus. We are unable to reproduce the cameo in question but the upper cameo of the two shown in this photo is similar in its addition of a thyrsus.
This rare turquoise cameo seems to offer an interpretation of the Antinous Braschi with rather juvenile, boyish features and an added pelt.
ANTINOUS VS. DIONYSUS TYPES
We are now entering the somewhat blurred cameo territory between Antinous as the wine god Dionysus and Dionysus proper. How do they differ? While Antinous (as Dionysus) may be crowned with ivy, he very rarely wears vines or grapes in his hair, unlike Dionysus, who may wear either plant. It is perhaps significant that in the only (heavily restored) sculpture we have seen to date of Antinous wearing vines in his hair he is also wearing an ivy wreath (Naples National Archaeological Museum).
Another difference is that Antinous only ever seems to wear his hair long and loose at the back if he’s sporting a fringe at the front, whereas it is more common for Dionysus to have long hair all over which is parted down the centre and partially tied up at the back. Certain other conventions also apply when Antinous is depicted with long hair in the Braschi manner: his head is usually wreathed with ivy (as opposed to grapevines, laurel or flowers) and his chest is not covered or draped except at the shoulder; he does not usually wear an animal pelt, nor carry a thyrsus or any other Dionysiac paraphernalia; finally he does not appear with his back to the viewer nor look skywards – these are the attitudes of Dionysus or his female devotees, the maenads (bacchantes).
According to these various criteria, the ivy- or vine-clad subjects below, some of which are also draped at the shoulders or wearing pelts tied shawl-fashion around their necks, represent Dionysus or a youth in that style, not Antinous:
NON-ANTINOUS (DIONYSUS) TYPES Click on photos to enlarge.
Wreathed classical heads of the type having ivy, fruiting vines or locks of long hair trailing decoratively under the neck are very common in nineteenth century cameos. While echoes of Antinous cannot be ruled out, particularly in the finer examples, they lack the combination of wreath and hair details that would identify them as Antinous based on sculptural and glyptic evidence. Such cameos belong to a generic Dionysus/maenad type. The last cameo head wears an ivy wreath without the trailing stem but clearly follows the same pattern.
AMBIGUOUS DIONYSUS TYPES
Inevitably, shades of ambiguity arise wherever facial or other similarities to Antinous are detected. It is quite likely that some Dionysus-type cameos are influenced by images such as the Antinous Braschi, even though other features such as vines or pelts point to Dionysus.
There are also Dionysus-type gems that show an irrefutable and deliberate facial resemblance to Antinous. It is well worth looking up gems 4227-4229 in the Tassie collection of Oxford University's Beazley Archive. Listed as depicting Dionysus (the 'Greek or Theban Bacchus'), the profiles are instantly recognizable as Antinous and could not have been modelled on anyone else. This would have greatly boosted their appeal to an eighteenth-century clientele of male connoisseurs.
It is no coincidence that at least two (and quite possibly all three) of these gems were engraved by Edward Burch (1739-1814), the same carver who was commissioned by the 4th Duke of Marlborough to engrave copies of his famous antique Roman intaglio of Antinous shouldering a spear, shown in copy here.
The spear over the shoulder in the Marlborough gem is echoed in the shaft of what is surely a thyrsus in two of the Tassie gems, (for some reason it is called a ‘vine branch’ in the catalogue). Why Antinous is not even mentioned in the catalogue entries is a mystery.
ANTINOUS LOOKALIKES
Despite a very plausible resemblance, the youthful, longer-haired but unwreathed figure to the left, with demurely lowered head, is the Eros Centocelle, not Antinous.
Here is another Antinous lookalike:
Close examination reveals a head of snakes for hair, indicating the so-called 'Strozzi Medusa', after a Hellenistic chalcedony intaglio in the British Museum.
OTHER NON-ANTINOUS TYPES
These twentieth-century shell cameos may suggest Antinous Braschi in broadest outline, but fall short in the finer details or lack of them:
Two of these cameos show no evidence of the fringe that should accompany his longer hair at the back. They also seem to feminize their subject in the run-of-the-mill wreath of flowers instead of ivy. All three falter in the shape of the nose (Antinous has a strong, slightly aquiline nose). The shoulders are also draped in a rather vague manner and there is no real sense of a masculine chest.
Such cameos do not have the necessary qualities or features that would identify the subject as Antinous, even though they may be Antinous-inspired.
LANSDOWNE ANTINOUS AND ANTINOUS MONDRAGONE
Apart from the Antinous Braschi (which is the most frequent representation of Antinous in nineteenth century cameos), there are very few--perhaps less than a handful of--other sculptures depicting him with long hair. Of these, the two best known are the Lansdowne Antinous, discovered at Hadrian’s villa and now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (below left), and the haunting Antinous Mondragone bust retrieved from the villa Mondragone, which is displayed in the Louvre (below right). In both sculptures Antinous swaps his trademark fringe for all-over long hair which is parted in the centre and tied back (either partially or entirely) in a style characteristic of a classical Dionysus (below centre).
LANSDOWNE ANTINOUS
In the Lansdowne bust, Antinous wears an ivy wreath and headband (fillet) reminiscent of the Dionysus, shown to his right, a 2nd Century AD copy of an Hellenistic sculpture now in the Louvre. Cameos based on the Lansdowne bust appear to be very rare. The example in agate below dates from the latter part of the nineteenth century.
ANTINOUS MONDRAGONE
Although lacking an ivy wreath, the Antinous Mondragone bust is also widely believed to represent Antinous in the manner of a classical Greek Dionysus or possibly Apollo. His luxuriant long wavy hair is parted in the centre and caught up with a fillet in an elaborately looping style either side of his head and in a double looped bun at the back. Two long ropes of hair fall upon his shoulders and there are two short curls just in front of each ear.
Looking closely, one can also see holes of various sizes drilled at intervals around the head, either on or close to the fillet, the largest hole being at the front above his forehead. These were surely meant for mounting a head ornament of some kind--possibly a lotus bud coronet or uraeus (cobra)--which would have linked the Mondragone presentation with Osiris and with Egypt in the same way as these do features on the Antinous Braschi sculpture. The smaller holes are more of a mystery. They may have been drilled for attaching some plant-related adornment(s) similar to, if not actually, a wreath of ivy (a wreath would have obscured the carefully defined fillet and surrounding hair), or perhaps they contained coloured gem stones. These would not have looked out of place in a sculpture that was originally painted and therefore much more colourful than we see now.
The Mondragone-type portrait seems to be a far less popular choice among cameo carvers than the Braschi model. We know it was one of the subjects engraved by Nathaniel Marchant, for which see the impression in the Amastini Collection of the Beazley Archive.
Another example by an unknown carver is this slate-backed shell cameo in the Victorian & Albert Museum.
ANTINOUS MONDRAGONE VARIATIONS
Perhaps some carvers were put off by the unusual complexity of the hair or perhaps they considered the image less well known and therefore less marketable than the Braschi. Others decided to embellish the Mondragone portrait with a Braschi-style ivy wreath. Adding the wreath certainly highlighted the connection with Dionysus but may also have been done for more commercial reasons, to increase the cameo's appeal to the public. This modification probably originated with a certain carver or workshop early in the nineteenth century.
This citrine intaglio by Luigi Pichler (University of Pennsylvania Museum) appears to follow the Mondragone bust in the pose and the exposed ear, while making significant departures in the facial features (which are noticeably stylized) and hair. Perhaps Pichler based this shorter style of curls and corkscrew tendrils on the two spring-like coils of hair seen just in front of the ear in the Mondragone portrait.
It seems likely that Pichler could take more creative risks with the subjects of his cameos not just because his high reputation allowed it, but because his clients to some extent expected it. They did not want "their" version of a subject to be a mere imitation of the last one, they wanted it to stand out in some way.
A similar case of artistic licence can be seen in this Saulini cameo which appears to combine elements of both the Braschi and Mondragone portraits in a novel image somewhere between the two.
At first glance, it might be mistaken for a fairly typical, right-facing profile of Antinous Braschi, albeit in a version without the lotus ornament. He has the crucial ivy wreath and long, wavy locks of hair trailing down his nape. Looking more closely, we see that the fringe has been replaced by long, centre-parted hair drawn back and restrained with a fillet in the Mondragone style, including the loose, "figure-of-eight" bun at the back. Notice also how the shoulder clasp of the cloak in the Braschi portrait has turned into a lock of hair resting on the far shoulder--another Mondragone feature.
It is easy to imagine how a cameo of this quality from such an eminent workshop might be copied by other carvers with less understanding of the original subject, giving rise to a whole new range of Antinous "hybrids".
ANTINOUS MONDRAGONE LOOKALIKES
The cameo on the right is similar in concept to the Saulini above but the shoulders and chest are covered with a knotted pelt not seen in either the Braschi or Mondragone images. The face has also become noticeably feminine. If this is meant to be Antinous, the carver has stretched the definition too far.
The intentions behind this cameo are also unclear:
While the carver seems to have taken his cue from the Antinous Mondragone in the styling of the hair, the added wreath of roses seems more consistent with a female subject--a goddess or nymph, perhaps--than with Antinous. If Antinous wears flowers, they are not of this type as far as we know. Also, the nose does not seem sufficiently prominent for Antinous. This kind of deviation arises over time through the repeated copying of images by different carvers who were often copying from other cameos that were themselves copies of copies. Knowledge of the original easily became lost and consequently images mutated. Besides interpreting details subjectively, individual artisans were also likely to make modifications which suited their particular style, skills or limitations or which might enhance their sales in a changing market.
It is worth remembering that Italian craftsmen were under constant pressure to cater for the tastes of their largely foreign customer base, from the wealthy, upper class Grand Touristes of the eighteenth- and early nineteenth century to the new wave of Victorian middle-class buyers. Being both status- and fashion-conscious, they preferred ostentatious jewellery with cameo subjects of a prettier, more romantic, sentimental nature to the stricter classical themes of earlier times. This to some extent explains a loosening in the way Antinous was depicted in favour of the more ambiguous, romanticized and feminized images shown above.
One of the lots recently featured in a US auction catalogue was a marble bust (shown far right) "after the Antinous Mondragone in the Louvre Museum". The same figure (near right), also listed as ‘Antinous’, has since turned up in cameo form on a well-known internet auction site. Compare these with the actual Antinous Mondragone bust (left). Despite a superficial similarity in the ropes of hair coming forward from behind the ears and the angle of the head, the busts clearly differ significantly. The lotus flower at the brow indicates this is Isis.
ANTINOUS MEDIUM-LENGTH HAIR
HEAD NOT WREATHED (ANTINOUS FARNESE, MARLBOROUGH ANTINOUS AND OTHERS)
Images on coins and sculpture showing Antinous with medium-length hair (above the shoulders but below the nape) greatly outnumber those of him with long hair but seem strangely under-represented in cameos. Some of the sculptures (like the Farnese Antinous) show him in full body, others have survived as busts (like the Ecouen and Townley portraits), but in all of them Antinous keeps his fringe, even if it is centre-parted occasionally. This is surely how he wore his hair most often in real life.
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On coins his shoulders may be either bare or draped. The coin shown above at the top left depicts Antinous wearing a hemhem crown, a symbol of Egyptian sovereignty and of rebirth. The coin below it shows an unusually fine portrait reminiscent of the Marlborough gem (see below).
This selection of shorter-haired Antinous cameo or intaglio portraits is gleaned mainly from museum collections. The onyx or sardonyx double portrait cameo of the confronted busts of Hadrian and Antinous (Metropolitan Museum of Art) is thought to date from the mid-18th century; the blue and white example below (British Museum) is eighteenth-century moulded glass by James Tassie. It appears to be based on the Marlborough gem of Antinous shouldering a spear, a cast of which is shown alongside. The intaglio shown (Royal Collection) is also based on the Marlborough Antinous.
HEAD WREATHED: ANTINOUS AS DIONYSUS (BACCHUS)
Many of the sculptures showing Antinous with shorter hair include an ivy wreath and this again links him to a youthful shorter-haired Dionysus or Bacchus. Typically he has a pensive, slightly downward gaze.
Compare the wreathed heads of Antinous above with the 1st century A.D. head of a young Bacchus from the Getty Villa on the left. Although very similar in physical appearance and wreath, the Getty Bacchus has a quite different facial expression with open mouth and a direct, trance-like gaze.
ANTINOUS AS DIONYSUS (BACCHUS) - PALAZZO GRIMANI TYPE
One of the more overtly Bacchic images of Antinous likely to be encountered in cameos is taken from a bust presentation of him wearing an ivy wreath and animal pelt.
Marble busts of this type can be seen in Venice, Florence and at Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli, near Rome. This fine example in Venice from the Grimani collection was long believed to be a renaissance copy of the bust in Florence but is now hailed as an original and masterful Roman sculpture contemporary with Hadrian. A very similar renaissance bust in bronze (presumably a copy) by Guglielmo della Porta is located in Naples and was previously in the Farnese Collection.
From the photographs studied so far, the busts seem to differ mainly in subtle details relating to the pelt that is worn across the chest and knotted or clasped at the shoulder. The visible head and hooves indicate that this is a goatskin or perhaps a combination of skins. Although it is more typical for Dionysus/Bacchus to wear a panther skin, the goat (and hence its skin) is also closely connected with his cult as a fertility god and his devotees.
All of the busts show Antinous with medium-length hair curling just below the nape. As in so many sculptures, his head is inclined slightly downwards. The ivy crown has a stub-like projection at the front, presumably for fixing a head ornament such as a lotus bud or similar. It is interesting that the carver of the shell cameo below right has faithfully retained the stub, even though it is a structural part of the sculpture rather than a compositional element. Filippo Tignani, who cut the cameo below left, cleverly resolved this problem by turning the stub into an ivy leaf (note the rounded indentations). He also avoided any potential ambiguity over the pelt by omitting the animal's head altogether.
The cameo below left is similar in the wreath and pelt but the subject lacks any facial resemblance to Antinous and is also looking upwards in the manner of Bacchus/Dionysus. The cameo on the right seems closer to the Antinous portrayed in the busts, despite the rather basic carving.
HEAD WREATHED: ANTINOUS VERTUMNUS (VILLA ALBANI TYPE)
In this bas-relief discovered at Hadrian’s Villa and subsequently moved to the Villa Albani, Rome, Antinous has shorter-length hair and is largely bare chested. He has the same slightly brooding expression of the Braschi statue in the Vatican but this time his head is wreathed with flowers and he holds a similar garland in his hand.
The wreath is understated rather than showy, comprising smallish flowers that are mostly in bud and is tied with a fillet or ribbon with one of its long ruched ends draped on his shoulder. The bas-relief is believed to portray Antinous as Vertumnus, the personification of Spring.
As a cameo subject, the Albani bas-relief is seen far less often than the Braschi type and is invariably abbreviated to a head or bust presentation.
Cameos of the type shown above can be confidently identified as Antinous Vertumnus as in the Albani bas-relief. They include an appropriate floral wreath, the fillet draped on his shoulder and detail of the robe on the other side, as well as hair of just the right length, covering the ear.
Notable gems featuring the Villa Albani Antinous include a fine yellow sard intaglio by Nathaniel Marchant currently in the Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon. Similar gems signed ‘PICHLER’ (for Giovanni or Luigi Pichler, renowned carvers contemporary with Marchant) are in the Royal Collection, Buckingham Palace, London, and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
We also know of two cameos by Guiseppe Girometti that were clearly inspired by the Albani Antinous. In the cameo on the far left left (titled ‘Allegory of Spring’ in a Paris collection) Girometti emphasizes the floral wreath using the rich dark translucent layer of the stone while reinforcing the masculinity of the subject by giving him shorter hair. In the cameo to its right, (described as a 'portrait of Bacchus') in the British Museum, he substitutes ivy for the floral wreath. Although neither cameo is identified as Antinous, their facial features are very similar to those in Girometti's cameo depicting Antinous Braschi in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
Based on the photographic evidence found to date, the only cameos we have seen featuring the full torso as depicted in the bas-relief show signs of being moulded copies rather than genuine carvings in stone or lava. On close inspection the pinkish example on the far right exhibits an uneven, porridge-like surface and a rather strange sheen.
HEAD WREATHED: OTHER TYPES
This unusual sardonyx cameo in an enamelled mount (Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris) is believed to show Antinous as Apollo, wearing a laurel wreath.
ANTINOUS AS HERMES? SHORT-HAIRED TYPES
CAPITOLINE ANTINOUS
It is ironic that two of the statues from antiquity that won earliest and widest acclaim as representing Antinous may not portray him after all. Since the nineteenth century the identities of the so-called Capitoline Antinous (shown right) and Antinous Belvedere (shown left) have been questioned. Opinion is still divided, but most now agree that the Antinous Belvedere (which has been known as Antinous since the mid-1500s) represents the messenger god Hermes and that the Capitoline Antinous portrays either Hermes or Antinous in his guise. Both figures have heads of tight curls, the shortest hairstyle in the Antinous range.
One of the reasons for connecting Antinous with Hermes was the freedom with which the messenger god travelled between the mortal world and the divine and his important role as psychopomp, escorting souls to the afterlife. In appearance Hermes was represented as handsome, beardless and boyish, essentially like Antinous.
Cameos based on the Capitoline Antinous traditionally show a rather graceful and distinctly youthful male portrait captured in three-quarter back view with slightly lowered head and the right shoulder coming forward.
The cameos below show the head raised to a more level position. They are not unlike the Matineian coin depicting a young Antinous with short (if not particularly curly) hair also shown. The Arcadian city of Mantineia became an important centre for the worship of Antinous, observing a festival and holding games in his honour. Coins were minted bearing his image, if not his name (it is the name of the Greek sponsor of the coinage, Verturius, that appears alongside his portrait in this and other Mantineian coins depicting Antinous).
CAPITOLINE ANTINOUS: LOOKALIKES AND AMBIGUOUS TYPES
As a cameo subject the Capitoline Antinous is sometimes confused with portraits of the youthful curly-haired Hercules without his usual beard and lion-pelt headdress. This profile is based on an ancient intaglio by the Greek gem engraver Gnaios. A fine cameo example of this Hercules type carved by Girometti is shown here from the British Museum.
The hero has squarer, heavier facial features somewhat reminiscent of a modern-day rugby player with a broken nose and a muscular neck. Some versions also include his club in the background.
Whether cameos such as this nineteenth century glass example can claim to represent Antinous is open to question. The heads and busts of idealized Grecian youths with short or close-cropped hair decorated cameos long before Antinous was born. Yet Antinous came to be widely regarded as a continuation and embodiment of that type. While we cannot know the intention of the artisan who made this particular cameo, the portrait lacks any special identifying features. It is best assumed to represent the "head of a youth, possibly Antinous" rather than the "head of Antinous".
CONCLUSION
Ultimately Hadrian’s devotion to Antinous immortalized him not as a god (at least, not for most of us), but as an iconic figure in art and in gay history. There is a portrait of one of the world’s greatest art historians, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, (who was himself homosexual), holding an engraving of the Albani bas-relief of Antinous--clearly a favourite work and one that enthralled a whole generation of Grand Tourists.
Along with other antique sculptures, the villa Albani relief formed the starting point for neo-classical cameo carvers to explore anew the nature of Antinous in their gems. Masters such as Marchant, Morelli, Girometti, the Pichlers and later the Saulinis led the field. Lesser known and many unknown carvers followed, some of whom created equally captivating shell cameos of Antinous well into the nineteenth century. 
Fresh examples come regularly to light but the sculptures that underlie them remain the same and must be our principal reference when it comes to identification. They hold the vital clues that help distinguish between cameos that truly represent Antinous (including those containing legitimate artistic variations) and cameos of male (as well as female) subjects that may show his influence but lack the decisive, if sometimes subtle, features and attitudes that set his image apart.
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