And I'm Alisha. I welcome to lovestruck daily where we bring a love story to your ears every day.
So did you know that there was a Roman emperor who was extremely outlay gay? And not only that know that he felt so head over heels in love that he named a star in the Zodiac after his love? Shall we embark on this Starfield journey together? I mean, after that intro, of course. I'm in love with that I'm in love with you, Alicia, would you like some historical love today?
I mean, I always love a little bit of historical love. It's lovely
to know that there were really deep abiding and truly passionate love stories in every human era. It's like one thing that humans are really good at.
Makes me feel better. Yeah. And I do. I do think that we have the tendency to think like, oh, we just invented sex. We just invented law. Obviously, new wouldn't be here. If that was the case
there. No, there has always been kinky business. Mm hmm. Now, before we get started with our historical love story, I think we need to revisit our New York Times getting to know your quiz to deepen our relationship, right?
Of course. So this is the 36 questions to fall in love. For those of you who have not been listening every day, which I don't know why you wouldn't. But we have been doing like a question a week just so that we can get to know each other and you can get to know us. This is a I highly recommend this quiz for anybody to do with their friends or partners. I think it reveals something every time.
Yes. So I I must ask before making a telephone call. Do you ever rehearse what you're going to say? No. I asked. I asked my teenagers this question at one point says looking at the quiz because you told me about it. And I was telling Adam about it. And for those who are who are not aware I have two teenagers. I have two boys. They are 16 and 14. They know everything. And I was telling him about this quiz. He's like, Oh, well, the quizzes. My other son comes in what's the quiz? And like one of them is before making a telephone call? Do you ever rehearse what you're going to say? And there's this long pause, and they're like, why would we make a telephone call?
I do feel like there's going to be a generational split on this question. Like with like, who makes a telephone call as like the number one way for
adulthood? My dudes. I mean, I do you rehearse before you make a telephone call with anybody do you rehearse? It depends on the level of anxiety and the number of things that I need to remember this phone call. Like with doctor's offices, I take notes on what I want, or what I'm trying to accomplish, especially if it's complicated. And if I'm really really making phone calls, like I am chasing down a story, or I'm trying to find out a piece of information and I know only one of 10 people in this office has that information of I need to get to that person I will write down specifically what I'm looking for. Because I know my brain at a certain point, my brain will be like, Look, I give up. I'm sorry, no thoughts are happening right now. Here's a picture of a rabbit by like, that's all you get. What about you? Do you I rehearse
everything? And I think the reason for this is because I think better in writing than I do verbally or it feels like I do. It actually, like I feel a little bit bad for Kai sometimes because he before he calls like someone if it's important, I'll be like, Okay, make sure you ask about this, this and this and this and this, and just be like blah, blah, blah. And he seems cool with that. So I think I think it works for us, but I imagine the wrong person it might drive a little I see
absolutely nothing wrong with rehearsing or prepping if it's a difficult conversation. Speaking of knowing or not knowing what to say, sometimes you come up with wonderful ways to proclaim your love for someone and that's what we have in our story today. So this is the story of a man I am sure you have heard of named Publius, alias Triana. Hadrianic is better known as Hadrian. And you know about Hadrian. Hadrian. I do know he had a wall as another wall, but his is the Hadrian wall, so he is considered one of the five good Roman emperors. He came to power in 117 ad, and Rome was at the height of its power in expansion. And literally within hours of his coronation, he withdrew troops from Mesopotamia and strengthen the rest of the Empire's boundaries. He was also very publicly gay at a time when that wasn't necessarily as common or certainly not recorded in history as much as Hadrian because Hadrian wanted you to know who he was in love with. To start with, you know, Hadrian from his wall built a wall still standing in England. He married VBS Sabina. For political reasons, but everyone knew that it wasn't a love match. They never consummated the marriage or had any children. It was mostly for political alignment. And in 123 ad, Emperor Hadrian traveled to Turkey and he fell in love with a young athlete named Antinous. Now there was a substantial age difference. Hadrian paid for Antinous, his education, and then a few years later they became lovers. Some historians will say that Hadrian was obsessed with Antinous, they would go hunting together and Hadrian wrote poems about him. They also traveled together, to North Africa, to Asia Minor to Greece and Egypt. And if you think about travel back in the three digit numbers of the year, that was a long trip was very slow, very long and slow trip, no tick tock, no YouTube, no cars. Most likely, there are plenty of Emperor's who had lovers alongside a nominal female spouse. But Hadrian made his love for Antinous deeply public and extremely official, and this is one thing that sets him apart historically. At one point, Hadrian saved Antinous his life in an attack by a lion. They were very dramatic in their relationship. Then, sadly, while sailing down the Nile in 130, Antinous mysteriously died by drowning, and some people believe that that was a politically motivated death. Hadrian proclaimed in his grief, that a new star in the Zodiac be named for Antinous, then well, this gets a little dicey. There was a cult as there, there is, I mean, if you're gonna go so far as to name a star in the Zodiac, this is only a half step to the left, and then a jump to the right. A cult was formed in his honor, basically, to worship Antinous his death. And it remained active long after Hadrian died. And he named an Egyptian city in his honor. Antonopoulos What do you think are important ways of making your relationship public and official like you got engaged, and bless you held back from announcing on social media that you've gotten engaged, so we could talk about it first. Thank you, I'm so honored. But you, you have stages of making your relationship public and official. And that's true whether you're just a random person or you're a celebrity, you know, you have your official pap walk or your official appearance together or someone takes your picture going out to dinner. What are you think are some of the ways that people make a relationship official? And is that important? Because I would like to say Anthony Edwards and Mayor Willingham got married and like, didn't even tell anybody like, yeah, we're too old for a wedding. We just got married. Oh, that sounds like a dream, right? Like that. What about you? What do you think, is making a relationship official?
I think in the age of social media, a lot of it is like the soft launch versus the hard launch. Do you know about this? Yes, tell
me everything.
So so the soft lunch is kind of like, Oh, you just maybe sneak their hand into a photo with you. Or, like, you know, you have like two coffee cups together on a Sunday morning. And you know, you post a picture of it. It's not so much like announcing, I'm with this person. It's just saying like, I'm with somebody and it's kind of like a teaser. So I think I did that like a couple times before we went official official, I think I posted like a photo of the two of us like hiking together or something like that. And like the one of the few occasions I went hiking. And then I think there was a photo of him at my birthday. But I think I didn't, I don't think I referred to him as like my boyfriend or anything until we were like eight or nine months in and I was like, this is gonna last a while because I think it's really awkward when you have any sort of social media following and you make something official and then the next week you're broken up, it's just like, oh, people get I think, you know, I don't know if invested is the right word, but I think they get happy for you and then they get sad for you and I hate it when people are sad for me. So I was like, I'm gonna keep this pretty secret and he's the first one I've ever been kind of official with like done a hard launch on so you
haven't built a wall or named a constellation or started a cult yet.
Night? Yeah, I feel like that's coming.
Now if you are going to make a constellation for your, for your fiance for chi, if you are going to make a constellation for him. What would it be? I have to think about this for Adam.
Oh, I know what mine would be. Alright. Tell me yours. It would be like I get to design it right? Yes, absolutely. So it would be like a game remote.
Oh, adorable. Which one though? Xbox PlayStation?
I think we he likes his ps4 a lot. We Sarah plays a we we have our way we use it all the time. Do you really? Like that's in the graveyard?
Yeah, well, I mean, I will tell you, there are certain Mario carts that are really awesome on the Wii U and we still played together. I think for Adam, I would design I would design is going to sound so silly a constellation of time like a clock, because not only does he always know what time it is, but he always needs a schedule. He always needs to know the schedule and what the agenda is and what time it is. And he keeps me on schedule, because I will get deep into something. I don't even know what year day it is. I generally don't on a given minute. I don't know what date is right now. I think it's March maybe anyway, what is March anymore? We're just in the, you know, 600 March now. Yeah, it doesn't matter. But he always knows what time it is. And he always knows what it is. And schedules are very comforting to him. So if I was going to make a constellation in tribute to Adam, it would be a clock, or some way of keeping time.
Well, yours is definitely less data than mine. Because I feel like in 2000 years, people would be like, What is this thing?
I don't know. I think video game controllers are going to be just a universal
I think we're gonna control video games, their brains, but that's just me.
Oh, so like the VR headset will go into at some point. Oh, wow. Like it'll be
like a chip in your brain and you'll just like bought like Blink.
I do have a very cute modern day postscript. Hadrian and Antinous were symbolically reunited two millennia later in the British Museum, when curators made the decision to stand their statues right next to each other. So you can go and visit them, if you wish. Oh. So Alicia, before we send people out into their days, what is your love to go for this episode?
I think for me, it is. If we're talking about making things official and making things public, it should be on your own timeline. And when you feel is right, yeah, but if you feel that's right, go for it.
You know if you know, you know, if you want to start a cult, it's on your timeline.
I mean, I think that's a little bit of a different conversation. Yeah. I think he should. He should. He should listen to your gut in all things. Yeah. And we would love to find out about the status of
your relationship if you'd like to tell us Yes. And what would the constellation of your love be?
Oh, we'd love that. Send an email to lovestruck daily at frolic dot media. If you have a love story to share, or any questions or thoughts, please follow us on Instagram and Twitter at lovestruck daily for extra content. And please to support us please please please leave a review, subscribe and spread the word about our show.
Our researcher is Jesse Epstein. Our editor is Jen Jacobs. We are produced by Abigail steckler and little Scorpion studios and Gillian Davis with executive producer frolic media. This is an I Heart Radio Podcast.
We wish you a very happily ever after in the stars