[4] The first meeting of Antinous and Hadrian has incited many theories; there are many rumors and assumptions about the many ways their paths may have crossed before records show them being together.

[3] It centered around Alexandria and Asia Minor, but there are traces of Antinous' veneration or influence, even in places like the coast of North Africa.

[7] There were at least thirteen cities that honored Antinous on mainland Greece, and over in the Peloponnese, there were groups of worship scattered throughout this region.

[7] In Asia Minor, there were around 27 known cities that have evidence of honoring the god Antinous, places such as Smyrna, Nikomedia, and Taros.

[7] This sculpture can be identified as Antinous from the striated eyebrows, full pouting lips, somber expression, and the head's twist down and to the right (reminiscent of that of the Lemnian Athena), whilst its smooth skin and elaborate, center-parted hair mirror those of Hellenistic images of Dionysus (his Roman equivalent being Bacchus) and Apollo.

[3] The Mondragone head formed part of a colossal acrolithic cult statue for the worship of Antinous as a god.

Acrolithic statues were made using a technique in which artists used a combination of wood and some type of stone to construct their sculptures.

[12] Thirty-one holes in three different sizes have been drilled for the attachment of a garland of some type (possibly made of ivy or vine leaves) in metal.

[3] The Egyptianizing type is visually obvious in iconography as influenced or made in Egypt; the Antinous at Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli is an example of this particular style.

Vout argues that without those iconographical borrowings, the cult image of Antinous would consist of just another pretty boy in Imperial Rome.

[2] However, these dates have been argued against on the basis that the Antinous head was recorded as being seen in the gallery decades before in 1687 by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger, a Swedish architect that had visited the villa.

[2] Sometime after this, a brown layer of wax was added to give an opaque finish, along with plaster around the base of the neck to make the statue look more complete – these were both removed in recent cleaning.