Under Hadrian, an emperor greatly drawn to intellectual and artistic achievement, a number of surviving sculptures were made, which-depict his favorite, the Bithynian youth, Antinous, who was deified after death, as Pausanias (8.9.7—8) writes:

Of all the temples in Mantinea [in central Greece] that of Antinous is the newest. This person was loved with great ardour by the emperor Hadrian. I never saw him while he lived among men, but I have seen him in images and paintings ... The emperor instituted honors to him in Mantinea as well, with sacrifices to him every year, and games in his honor every, four years. There is a chamber in the gymnasium in Mantinea which contains images of Antinous and is worth seeing, among other reasons, for the stones with which it is adorned and above all for its paintings. There are, among these, portraits of...