Emperor Elagabalus

He was the last of the Antonines, a man so detestable for his life, his character, and his utter depravity that the senate expunged from records even his name.--Historia Augusta, Life of Elagabalus XVIII

“He would wear a tunic made wholly of cloth of gold, or one made of purple, or a Persian one studded with jewels, and at such times he would say that he felt oppressed by the weight of his pleasures. He even wore jewels on his shoes, sometimes engraved ones--a practice which aroused the derision of all, as if, forsooth, the engraving of famous artists could be seen on jewels attached to his feet. He wished to wear also a jeweled diadem in order that his beauty might be increased and his face look more like a woman’s; and in his own house he did wear one.--Historia Augusta Life of Elagabalus XXIII

If Commodus and Caracalla were remembered as monsters and tyrants, the man who succeeded Macrinus was truly extraordinary. The bizarre behavior of the Syrian emperor Elagabalus shocked Roman opinion, not least through his bisexual antics and exotic religious practices. The story of his reign is portrayed in lurid colors by ancient historians, who were in turns perplexed and horrified. It was one thing to have an emperor of provincial origin who had risen through the ranks of a military career, as had Pertinax and Septimius Severus; quite another for the Roman world to be ruled by the hereditary priest of an Oriental sun god, a Syrian boy only 14 years old.

Elagabalus was born Varius Avitus Bassianus, the grandson of Julia Maesa, younger sister of the empress Julia Domna. He belonged to the same Emesene family, and was hereditary high pries of the god Elagabal. His father, Sextus Verius Marcellus, another Syrian, had risen to the rank of senator under Caracalla; but his mother put it about that his real father was Caracalla, whose memory the army still held dear. In truth, he was only Caracalla’s nephew.

The scheme to make Avitus emperor sprang from Gannys, his mother’s lover. It was Gannys who conducted the two under cover of darkness to the camp of the Third Legion “Gallica” and had him acclaimed emperor by the troops on the morning of 16 May 218 CE. Avitus took the title of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. But it was Elagabalus, the name of his god, that he came to be known.

The rebels overthrew the troops loyal to Macrinus, the reigning emperor, with surprising ease. Their victory outside Antioch on 8 June 218 led to the immediate recognition of Elagabalus as emperor at Rome and throughout the empire.

The new emperor did not immediately hurry to Rome, but spent some months in the east, first at Antioch, then later at Nicomedia in Asia Minor. One of his actions at Nicomedia was to execute Gannys, the very man who had helped him to power. The reason we are given is that Gannys was forcing him to live ‘temperately and prudently’. It is much more likely that his mother’s lover was growing too powerful, treating Elagabalus as a mere cipher for his own commands. The emperor had at one stage intended to give Gannys the title of Caesar, and allow him to marry his mother. But it was not so much the emperor who benefited from the he demise of Gannys; real power now lay with his mother, Julia Soaemis, and his grandmother, the redoubtable Julia Maesa.

The imperial cortege set off for Rome from Nicomedia in the spring of 219. Apart from the imperial family, it included one other notable component: an inanimate one at that--the famous black stone, cult symbol of the god Elagabalus, brought from the temple at Emesa in Syria, described by Herodian as being ‘rounded at the base and coming to a point on the top’. Herodian continues, ‘This stone is worshipped as though it were sent from heaven; on it there are some small projecting pieces and marking that are pointed out, which the people would like to believe are a rough picture of the sun, because this is how they see them’. The emperor wished to take his god with him to Rome. When installed on the Palatine Hill where a great new temple was built to hold it, the so-called Elagaballium. The Elagaballium, later rededicated to Jupiter Ultor (the Avenger), was an enormous colonnaded structure, some 230 X 130 ft, within a rectangular porticoed enclosure. The massive temple platform is still a prominent feature of the north-east corner of the Palatine. The second temple built to the god may have been were the church of Santa Croce in Jerusalem now stands.

Elagabalus was deeply devoted to the god whose high-priest he was. Every day at dawn he used to sacrifice large numbers of cattle and sheep at the altars of this temple. The senators and equestrians stood around in attendance, while ‘the entrails of the sacrificial victims and spicers were carried in golden bowls, not on the heads of household servants or lower-class people, but by military prefects and important officials wearing long tunics in the Phoenician style down to their feet, with long sleeves and a single strip in the middle. They also wore linen shoes of the kind used by local oracle priests in Phoenicia’ (Herodian V.5).

’I will not describe the barbaric chants which Sardanapalus, together with his mother and grandmother, chanted to Elagabalus, or the secret sacrifices that he offered to him, slaying boys and using charms, in fact actually shutting up alive in the god’s temple a lion, monkey and a snake, and throwing in among them human genitals, and practicing other unholy rites, when he invariably wore innumerable amulets (Cassius Dio).

This in itself cause quite a stir at Rome; but that was nothing compared with the opposition aroused by his interference with Rome’s traditional gods. His great religious initiative, aimed at making Elagabalus the chief and only god, came to head in year 220. The eastern god was to take precedence ‘even before Jupiter himself;, the ruler of the Roman pantheon. He was also to have a wife. First choice was Pallas, the sacred statue (reputedly from Troy) kept hidden in the Temple of Vesta in the Forum, and tended by the Vestal Virgins. As part of this scheme the emperor himself, high-priest of Elagabalus, married one of the Vestals. The plan drew such scandalized opposition, however, that it had to be abandoned, and the place of Pallas as a consort of the god Elagabalus was taken by Urania, the moon goddess, also known as Caelestis.

A huge, eastern-style temple of the sun was built on the edge of Rome. Each year at midsummer, t he black stone of Elagabalus was brought here form the temple on the Palatine in a grand procession. The stone itself was carried in a chariot drawn by six white horses, the emperor running backwards infront of the chariot, so not to turn his back on the god.

His aim was to establish a kind of monotheism, wherein the sun-god Elagabalus was the principal deity, and others gods merely its slaves or attendants. As part of this policy of religious syncretism he tried to remove the sacred symbols of several religion to the temple of Elagabalus. Christians and Jews, too, were obliged to worship at this shrine. On the same principle, that all religions are subordinate tot he worship of the sun-god, the emperor participated in the rituals of several different religions. According to the Life of Elagabalus, ‘He kept about him every kind of magician and had them perform daily sacrifices...he would examine the children’s vitals and torture the victims after the manner of his own native rights.’

Along side his religious mania, the young emperor also indulged in extravagant sexual practices:

He had the whole of his body depilated, deeming it the chief enjoyment of life to appear fit and worthy to arouse the lusts of the greatest number....And even at Rome he did nothing but send out agents to search for those who had particularly large organs and ring them to the palace in order the he might enjoy their vigor.--Life of Elagabalus V;VIII

He had planned, indeed, to cut off his genitals altogether, but that desire was prompted by his effeminacy; the circumcision which he actually carried out was a part of the priestly requirements of Elagabalus, and he accordingly mutilated many of his companions in like manner.--Cassius Dio LXXX.11

He married at least three wives. Soon after his arrival in 219 Elagabalus married Julia Cornelia Paula, a lady of distinguished family who took the imperial title Augusta. By the end of 220 he had divorced her and married Julia Aquilia Severa, a Vestal Virgin. Elagabalus defended his marriage on the grounds that he was high priest, and she high priestess, of their respective deities, and god-like children might be expected to spring from their union. Within a year Aqulia Severa in turn had been deserted and he then married Annia Faustina, a descendant of Marcus Aurelius and widow of a man the emperor recently put to death. The marriage took place in July 221 but he soon tired of his new wife and set her, too, aside. He then claimed his only true love was the Julia Aquilia Servea. All these ladies bore the title of Augusta but power remained in the emperors mother and grandmother. In the space of three years he married three, some say five. In addition to his official wives, Elagabalus ‘had intercourse with even more without any legal sanction.’

But it was not his relations with women which so shocked Roman opinion, as his liaisons with men. Homosexuality was not respectable in third-century Rome; and still less so in the bizarre form practiced by Elagabalus. For he was not only bisexual but also a transvestite. ‘He would go to the taverns by night, wearing a wig, and their play the trade of a female huckster. He frequented the notorious brothels, drove out the prostitutes, and played the prostitute himself’.

”The husband of this “woman” was Hierocles, a Carian slave, once the favorite of Gordius, from whom he had learned to drive a chariot....Certain other men, too, were frequently honored by the emperor and became powerful, some because they had joined in his uprising and others because they committed adultery with him. For he wished to have the reputation of committing adultery, so that in this respect, too, he might imitate the most lewd women; and he would often allow himself to be caught in the very act, in consequence of which he used to be violently upbraided by his “husband” and beaten, so that he had black eyes.”--Cassius Dio LXXX.15

The scandalous reports go still further: not only did Elagabalus act and dress like a woman; the wished to be physically transformed into one. ‘He asked the physician to contrive a woman’s vagina in his body by means of an incision, promising them large sums for doing so.’ Another story tells of his delight in a man with peculiarly large private parts, who was however spared the emperor’s further attentions when he failed to perform in bed.

Elagabalus was also criticized for his appointment of men of humble origin to important positions of state. A notable example was Publius Valerius Comazon, appointed commander of the praetorian guard in 218, who family may have been professional dancers or actors. Cush appointments nonetheless provided rich ammunition for critic and scandal-mongers, who made out that cooks, barbers and charioteers were governing the empire. In fact, they were men on whom the emperor and his family could rely; but they did little to strengthen the respectability of the regime.

All this was too much for the soldiery. There were a serious of rebellions and uprising throughout the reign.. As early as 218 the Third stationed in Syria, decided they had had enough of their erstwhile protege and tried to make Verus, their commander, emperor. The move failed, as did subsequent attempts by the Fourth Legion, by the fleet, and by a shadowy pretender called Seleucus.

By the summer of 221, however, even Elagabalus close family and supporters were dismayed by his behavior. In an effort to rescue the regime they persuaded him to adopt his cousin Bassianus Alexianus, and boy of 13 as Caesar, son, and heir. The adoption took place on 26 June. Alexianus, later to become emperor as Alexander Severus, was popular with the praetorian guard. He and Elagabalus became rivals for power, each backed by an ambitions mother: Elagabalus by Julia Soaemias, and Alexander by his mother Julia Mamaea and grandmother Julia Maesa.

Late in 221, Elagabalus tried to have his cousin murdered. No-one would carry out the order, but Elagabalus did not give up his designs on Alexander's life. On 11 March 222, during a visit to the praetorian camp, the emperor became outraged at the open support for Alexander, and his own unpopularity. He ordered immediate arrest and punishment of the offenders, but the soldiers had had enough. They killed Elagabalus in the latrine where he had taken refuge. His mother perished with him. Their bodies were beheaded and dragged naked around the streets of Rome, until at last the emperor’s corpse was thrown into the Tiber, the traditional punishment for convicted criminals. So perished Elagabalus, after a reign of less than four years.

Works Cited: Scarre, Chris. Chrononicle of the Roman Emperors. Pages 148--152 New York, NY: Thames and Hudson Inc., 1995.