Inaugural Message

Dear Friends,

Today I am pleased and proud to launch my new website, The Sacred Antinous. Over a year in the making, and created with a vision to have it continually evolve and grow over the course of my life, The Sacred Antinous is a sprawling work of historical fiction that takes a microscope to the mysterious and fascinating character of Antinous – the last god of the Roman pantheon before the rise of Christianity.

Unlike most of the other gods the Romans worshiped, Antinous (an-TIN-oh-us) was an historical figure who actually lived and walked the planet earth. He was the young, Greek lover of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. Their romance was brief – only a few short years – but its effects can be felt even down to the modern age. When they met, Antinous was in his teens; Hadrian in his 50’s. Their relationship (from about 126 – 130 CE) was defined by passion and zeal, hope and heroism, tragedy and despair. In its aftermath, Hadrian (and his Empire) would mourn the loss of Antinous by calling him a god and building a vast and devoted cult in his name. Meanwhile, the early Christian fathers would point to the so-called deity as a symbol of all that was corrupt in the pagan world: a sexually debauched culture that raised its concubines to a state of godhood.

The historical record is painfully lacking in details about Antinous. Mostly, all we have to affirm his existence are the spectacular statues that have survived from the glory days of his cult. But very little has come down to us about his character. Understandably, the Christian propagandists did much to promote him as nothing more than a stupid whore. Yet the fact of Hadrian’s devout love for him belies this claim, for the Emperor was then and is now roundly acknowledged as one of Rome’s finest: a gifted statesman, avid traveller, architect of both progressive laws and public works, patron of the arts, and tireless unifier of diverse peoples. Hadrian delighted in sparring with the most learned philosophers and worked hard to foster a culture of enlightenment among his competent civil service. Does this sound like the kind of man who would fall truly, madly, deeply – and religiously – in love with a stupid whore?

Personally, I highly doubt it. As Emperor, Hadrian would have had access to an unrestricted pool of willing and available partners to indulge his sexual proclivities. Antinous obviously stood above and apart from this pool. This suggests to me that he must have possessed a searing intelligence far beyond his years, with an intensity that probably both amazed and frightened the people around him. What other kind of person would be worthy of Hadrian’s fanatical devotion?

As I started to conceive of this project, it became clear to me that the complexity and depth of the relationship between Hadrian and Antinous was immense, and thus presented an irresistible creative challenge. I began to envision a literary universe whose scope and breadth could match in both form and content the magnitude of my subjects’ love for one another. The result, which opens its doors today, is called The Sacred Antinous, and it’s an “anti-bible”. This, however, is not so much a negation of the Christian bible as it is a proper name in itself: The Antinous Bible. In other words, every component of the story is crafted in such a way that it becomes a stand-alone piece of the puzzle: there are gospels, oratories, psalms, and epistles – many of which have been designed so that they can be publicly performed on stage. And of course, there are lots more pieces planned: an ongoing work that will no doubt take me many years to fully realize.

Why, one might reasonably ask, am I working so hard on the web when indeed I have a respectable career bubbling in film and TV-land? The answer, quite simply, is that writing for the screen can be extremely frustrating. Projects that are written in screenplay format simply take forever to reach their audience. What’s more, the range of stories that can be told for the screen is extremely narrow in terms of the kind of content permissible and, more significantly, the simplified language that is used to tell it. Not to mention the constant imposition of executives, producers, directors, actors, and editors, all of whom have a need (and a right) to tinker endlessly with the original script. In short, screenwriting is a terrible trade for any writer who strives to maintain a complete and unadulterated control over his literary creations.

That’s why I’ve begun to spend more and more time on the Internet, where I’ve been able create according to my whim, free from the constraints of the market or its interests. In fact, I’ve very deliberately crafted my web-based projects (Sir Richard Wadd and The Sacred Antinous) in such a way as to be wholly unattractive to the film and television industry: they are written in a highly complex and rarefied language that works best on the page or the stage; they are targeted to an intelligent, thoughtful, and patient audience; and – most significantly – they are dangerous.

Sir Richard Wadd is dangerous because it contains pornographic content (fully licensed and completely legal, by the way). The Sacred Antinous is dangerous because it depicts as its main character a young man who, by modern standards, would be considered a tad too young to be doing what he did – much less enjoying it. Being, thus, dangerous, these projects shout out to the film and TV world, “Leave us alone!” and hence become a way for me to construct a highly fortified wall of creativity around the core of my impulse to write. Feeling secure and content in my ability to express what I want to, it becomes far easier for me to devote the necessary amount of time to various other projects that seek to build my career in film & television.

Both The Sacred Antinous and Sir Richard Wadd have been conceived as lifelong literary projects. They are modular, meaning that they will grow and evolve in stages, according to a non-binding schedule that is entirely my own. Additionally, I am committed to keeping both sites entirely free, and will thus not charge a membership fee to access their content. (This, alas, necessitates the presence of revenue-generating ads, but I work hard to keep them tasteful, useful, and relevant).

Even if the content of my sites is not quite your cup of tea – a fact I can certainly appreciate and understand – I nevertheless hope you’ll take a moment to look around and see the kind of creative work I’m doing online. Admittedly, in both Sir Richard and Antinous there is an element of “alter ego” – characters who I have begun to think of as the little devil and the little angel who float above my shoulders, flanking my ears, and informing my sense of integrity as I plow ahead with film & TV projects that are, more often than not, a tad demoralizing. In spite of this, I like to think that the Shawn Postoff who stands between them is always and completely his own.

It is he who is continuously grateful for your support, and wishes you all the best…

The Sacred Antinous

Sir Richard Wadd