“The life of Elagabalus, I should never have put into writing – hoping that nobody should know that he was emperor of Rome.”
The Augustan History
So starts Elagabalus’ imperial biographer, Aelius Lampridius, and his scathing review only goes downhill from there. As emperor, Elagabalus defiled a Vestal Virgin, transformed the Roman Forum into an open-air brothel, and mandated the worship of a conical black stone in the imperial capital.
He trashed the traditions of conservative Roman politics by introducing a flamboyant Greek-style monarchy; he promoted slaves and eunuchs at the expense of senators and aristocrats; and he held drinking bouts that would put a modern booze cruise in Ibiza to shame.
Going by our sources, Elagabalus’ three-year reign was an absolute nightmare for the elite, and (presumably) highly entertaining for the common citizen. He was, by ancient standards, one of Rome’s worst-ever emperors; at least that’s what ancient authors tell us.
But the truth, as always, is a little more complex.
Elagabalus’ Early Life
Elagabalus was born Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus sometime in 204 CE in the Syrian city of Homs.
A minor member of the Severan imperial family, he served as high priest to the sun-god Elah-Gabal—hence the nickname by which we know him – Elagabalus. He was a handsome young man, and his good looks apparently drew crowds of Roman legionaries, who would come to see him bedecked in fine silk robes and effeminate jewellery.
When the emperor Caracalla was assassinated while urinating by the Syrian roadside in 217 CE, the young Bassianus found himself at the centre of a succession crisis. As the first cousin once removed of the late emperor, his claim to the throne was tenuous at best; but his ruthlessly ambitious grandmother, Julia Maesa, seeded a rumour that he was Caracalla’s bastard son.
Remarkably, the rumour worked.
Convinced by his resemblance to the late Caracalla, the army swore allegiance to the young Bassianus and marched to meet the usurper Macrinus in battle at Antioch, in modern-day Turkey. Macrinus was captured and summarily executed, and in the Spring of 218 CE, the 14-year-old Elagabalus was proclaimed emperor.
And everybody lived happily ever after… 🙄
The Boy Becomes Emperor
As was tradition in ancient Rome, Bassianus adopted as his imperial name an amalgamation of the best emperors that went before him. Without waiting for the senatorial approval, he proclaimed himself Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus—the same royal name as his predecessor, Caracalla. But while Bassianus’ name embodied the best of Rome’s imperial legacy, his character embodied the worst.
What happens when a 14-year-old boy becomes the world’s most powerful man?
Just to recap: within the space of a few months, a teenage priest from Syria found himself propelled onto the throne of the world’s largest empire. He was given the Roman treasury as his personal bank account and the Praetorian Guard as his personal bodyguard.
We know that his relationship with his mother, Julia Soaemias, and his grandmother, Julia Maesa, was good at first and that they exercised influence over him by joining him in the Senate—something that was sickening to traditional Roman conservatism. But as the story of the emperor Nero’s matricide perfectly illustrates, an emperor’s mother could challenge her boy’s behaviour, but she could not check it.
Rome under Elagabalus
From what we can glean, Elagabalus was excessively generous, exceedingly horny, and had what can only be described as a warped sense of humour. Here are some of his best (or worst) bits:
Elagabalus enforced the worship of a rock
Elagabalus’ first act upon arriving in Rome was not to attend the Senate or see to matters of state, but to construct a temple on the Palatine Hill in which to install his god. His god took the form of a black conical meteorite from the ancient city of Emesa (modern-day Homs) which was then duly placed in the temple, which Christians, Jews, and Samaritans were compelled to worship alongside their gods.
Every summer solstice, the emperor arranged for a procession for the divine rock which must have seemed completely insane to even the most open-minded onlooker. As the contemporary historian Herodian described it:
A six-horse chariot carried the divinity, the horses huge and flawlessly white, with expensive gold fittings and rich ornaments. No one held the reins, and no one rode in the chariot; the vehicle was escorted as if the god himself were the charioteer. Elagabalus ran backward in front of the chariot, facing the god and holding the horses’ reins. He made the whole journey in this reverse fashion, looking up into the face of his god.
Herodian, Roman History
And that’s not all. During religious ceremonies, the emperor made Rome’s senators watch he as danced around the rock’s altar to a cacophony of drums and symbols.
All perfectly normal behaviour, for a perfectly normal emperor.
Elagabalus’ sex life makes Berlusconi seem tame
Elagabalus was said to have never slept with the same woman twice.
His limitless libido extended to charioteers, whose speed and physical prowess he particularly admired. To put this into context, a Roman emperor sleeping with a charioteer would have been more scandalous than King Charles of England bedding Caitlyn Jenner and establishing her as consort in Buckingham Palace.
Elagabalus’ biographer tells us that the emperor procured men for political office based solely on the size of their penises. And he made use of more than just their counsel, availing himself of more anal sex than you’d believe a teenager could fit into just three years on the throne.
He put on some extraordinary spectacles
Both the emperor’s biographer and Cassius Dio tell us that Elagabalus hosted spectacular naval battles (naumachiae), fought not on fresh water, but on Falernian red wine in imitation of the wine-dark sea described in Homer’s Odyssey.
These didn’t take place in the Colosseum, although Colosseum’s underground hypogeum may well have been equipped to accommodate naval battles, but in the naumachiae beneath today’s square of San Cosimato in Trastevere.
In two other bizarre spectacles, the emperor raced a chariot drawn by four elephants up the Vatican Hill, destroying a number of tombs in the process (much of this area was a necropolis during antiquity) and hosted a private race in the Circus Maximus in which the chariots were not drawn by horses, but by camels.
He introduced a totally bizarre gift-giving lottery
Elagabalus introduced the practice of giving ‘chances’—random objects in excessive quantities—which remained in fashion for hundreds of years. At his banquets, he would inscribe the gifts his guests were to receive on the spoons they ate with. Some would read ‘ten camels’, ‘ten pounds of gold’ or ‘ten ostriches’; those less lucky would come away with ‘ten pounds of lead’, ‘ten hen eggs’ or—my personal favourite—’ten flies’.
Nor was it only at his banquets that he would give away gifts. The emperor would donate dormice, bears and even lettuces at the gladiatorial games he hosted. Our sources don’t specify whether the animals were alive when they were awarded as gifts, though if the bear was still breathing you’d be praying you got a lettuce.
As well as this, Elagabalus would create chaos among crowds by throwing pieces of gold and silver into the crowd, he would allegedly throw fattened cattle, camels, livestock, and even slaves.
Elagabalus was famous for throwing rose-petal orgies
Elagabalus can be credited with inventing the Roman equivalent of a foam party. But this wasn’t the kind of petal party you wanted to attend; several revellers were apparently smothered beneath them as they found themselves unable to crawl out.
He had a (undeserved?) reputation for cruelty
Elagabalus’ biographer tells us that he engaged in a particularly cruel form of human sacrifice. Apparently he would comb the country for beautiful young aristocratic men whose parents were still alive (because he considered the sorrow of both parents greater than that of one). These young men he would personally torture and disembowel, examining their vitals in the presence of magicians.
Grim stuff, you’ll agree. But the truth of this claim is highly unlikely as no other sources mention human sacrifice. (And you’d think it would be something they’d mention if their emperor was into gutting boys)
His dress sense was absolutely wild
Much noise was made about how extravagantly Elagabalus dressed, and if even a fraction of it is true he must have looked ridiculous—or fabulous, depending on your fashion sense.
He wore tunics made entirely from gold or purple gold, gem-studded Persian dress, and a jewel-studded diadem and shoes. He would often appear in public dressed in the traditional robes of a Syrian priest (hardly surprising, given that this was his occupation before he was emperor); and he is frequently described as wearing makeup and cross-dressing.
Could Elagabalus have been transgender?
Interestingly, the historian Cassius Dio tells us that Elagabalus offered doctors vast sums of money to create him a vagina by means of incision. True, this could just be slander meant to tarnish Elagabalus’ reputation, but it could also reflect a reality regarding his liminal approach to gender.
Elagabalus’ Inglorious End
You know you’ve gone too far when even your grandmother wants you dead. But this was precisely the situation in which Elagabalus found himself in June, 221 CE.
Julia Maesa convinced the emperor to adopt his cousin, 12-year-old Severus Alexander, whom she wished to replace him. Alexander didn’t have to do much to overtake Elagabalus in popularity; so hated was Elagabalus among the Senate and the soldiery that they’d have backed a donkey in a toga rather than suffer another moment under his rule.
Fearful that his cousin would attempt to overthrow him, Elagabalus moved to have him killed. But not before contingency planning for his own assassination in almost comical micro-detail.
Elagabalus entwined a scarlet and purple silk noose to hang himself with (if he had the time) and kept golden swords lying around the palace in case the situation called for a quick death. He prepared poisons mixed with precious stones in case he fancied a drink before he died and even constructed a tower of gilded and jewelled boards in case he fancied throwing himself to his death.
In the end, it was all for nothing. Elagabalus was slaughtered by his soldiers as he hid in the toilets. His corpse was dragged through the streets of Rome, and thrown into the River Tiber, washing up in Rome’s sewer, the Cloaca Maxima. One of the most inglorious Roman emperor deaths for one of Rome’s most hated emperors.
So what was the truth about Elagabalus?
In trying to get to the truth of Elagabalus’ reign, we face two major problems.
The first is that Elagabalus was subjected to what we call damnatio memoriae, the damnation of memory—a practice whereby dead, disgraced Roman emperors had their statues pulled down, coins defaced, and inscriptions erased. Any accounts from his reign that portrayed Elagabalus in a good light may well have been lost during the frenzied censorship that followed his fall from power.
The second problem is that we only have three surviving accounts of his reign, only one of which is trustworthy.
- Our first author, Cassius Dio, served in Severus Alexander’s government, and so it was in his best interest to condemn the character of his predecessor. He spent most of Elagabalus’ reign outside Rome and so had to get his information from second-hand accounts. This might explain his frequent exaggerations and errors, especially regarding political appointments and their relevant experience.
- Our second source is a series of biographies known as the Augustan History. We don’t know who wrote it (maybe a guy called Aelius Lampridius) and it’s so full of factual errors and blatant slander that it often makes the Daily Mail seem like proper journalism.
- Our most reliable information, which checks out with evidence we glean from coins and inscriptions, comes from the author, Herodian. A contemporary of the emperor, Herodian had less skin in the game than Cassius Dio as he didn’t serve in Elagabalus’ successor’s government. He criticises Elagabalus’ religious excesses, unusual dress sense and sexual incontinence, but not with the same venom as the other sources.
A close reading of his reign gives us a clue as to why he was so hated. Multiple sources reveal his contempt for the Senate; one saying he often called them ‘slaves in togas.’ As it was the senators who wrote the history, their humiliation would go some way into explaining the vitriol with which they documented his reign.
If his gift-giving contains even a grain of truth, Elagabalus was clearly a populist, desperate to ingratiate himself with the people, probably in the knowledge that the soldiers and the senate would stab him in the back given half the chance.
