Elagabalus - The "Femboy" Emperor #24 Roman History Documentary Series

Elagabalus was one of the most intriguing and unusual characters ever to occupy the imperial throne. He is not as well known as Caligula or Nero, but his reputation for luxury and licentiousness is just as extreme. He was the transgender boy emperor. Elagabalus' formal name as emperor was Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, reinforcing his spurious claim to be directly related to Caracalla and Marcus Aurelius. The young man from Emesa is generally known by a Latinized form of the name of his patron deity, Elagabalus, and that's how I will refer to him in this video. Caracalla was slain by soldiers who were instigated by one of his Praetorian prefects, Macrinus, on the 8th of April, 217. Caracalla had no male heir, so the succession to the imperial throne was up in the air, but a few days after the assassination, Macrinus was proclaimed emperor. However, his reign proved to be largely ineffective due to his uneasy relationship with the army, who had been fiercely loyal to the Severan dynasty. Macrinus ended the conflict against the Parthian Empire that Caracalla had started with unfavorable terms for Rome, partly due to the pressure of the soldiers, and partly due to his lack of military experience to carry out an effective campaign against the Parthians. The priest emperor, Julia Mesa, the sister of Julia Domna, who was the mother of Caracalla, told the soldiers that Caracalla had slept with her daughters, and that one of her sons, Elagabalus, was actually Caracalla's bastard son. A rumor spread that the old lady was willing to distribute her immense wealth to the soldiers if they restored her family to power, and on the 16th of May, 218, the soldiers of Legio III Gallica proclaimed the 14-year-old boy emperor of Rome. According to Cassius Dio, it was Elagabalus's protector, Grammi, who was a sort of foster father figure who instigated the revolt. Either way, it seems like the revolt was supported by some local elites of Emesa and the aforementioned soldiers. Elagabalus's forces defeated Macrinus outside Antioch in Syria. The battle was evenly matched until Macrinus lost his nerve and fled the field. He got as far as Asia Minor before a centurion, who had been sent in pursuit, caught up with him and cut off his head, making Elagabalus the youngest sole emperor of Rome up until this point. He was only 14 years old at the time. Both of our main sources, Herodian and Cassius Dio, mentioned the story that Elagabalus was Caracalla's bastard son, which is almost certainly not true, but that story was of prime importance for his legitimization. Before his ascension to the throne, his primary occupation had been the performance of his duties as a high priest of an Emesian cult of the god Elagabal, who was worshipped in the form of an unfigured rock, not the strongest claims to the imperial throne. While Roman religious practice often accepted new gods, a great deal of the ancient testimony about his reign concerns the exoticness of the cult and the strangeness of his own behavior. It is said that he sent a huge picture painted of himself in his finery to Rome in advance of his arrival, to not shock the people of Rome upon his entrance into the city. Herodian writes, Julia Mesa was greatly disturbed and tried again and again to persuade the youth to wear Roman dress when he entered the city to visit the senate. She was afraid that his appearance, obviously foreign and wholly barbaric, would offend those who saw him. They were not used to such garb and considered his ornaments suitable only for women. In Rome, he conducted rites to Elagabal each day, sacrificing a hecatomb to the clashing of cymbals and drums. He and his female attendants wore a Phoenician dress and he required high-ranking political and military officials to dress likewise and to carry the entrails of their victims in golden bowls. This, naturally, caused the resentful senate to disdain their new ruler. Elagabalus was sure that the senate would come to love the new sun god, but it never occurred to him that they would despise him for forcing a local Syrian cult on them. To mitigate his conduct, his mother arranged a marriage to a high-ranking Roman woman. However, she was set aside so that Elagabalus might force a marriage with a Vestal Virgin, once again spitting in the face of Roman tradition. He married five times during his four-year reign, twice to the same woman. In 220, Elagabalus was consuled together with a freedman and a former mime, Valerius Commazon. The same freedman would come to hold a lot of imperial authority while Elagabalus engaged in his cult and banquets. Cassius Dio, who was a contemporary of Elagabalus, records that Elagabalus' mother was concerned that her son's exotic dress might have been seen as effeminate by some quarters of society and especially the soldiers, and his mother wisely understood that he could not afford to lose the support of the armies. Cassius Dio reports that his choice of clothes was no accident, but in part due to Elagabalus' desire not to be a man at all. Dio goes on and claims that Elagabalus sought to go beyond the circumcision required by his cult and to castrate himself, if only to find a doctor who could create for him a female organ, and among the catalogue of his marriages is the claim that he also married in the role of wife, not that of the husband. A new Caesar. By 221, we are told his grandmother and mother had lost all ability to restrain him. The best they could do was to persuade him to make his younger cousin his partner on the imperial throne. The son of Julia Memea was therefore adopted under the name Marcus Aurelius Alexander in late June 221. Although Elagabalus was just a few years older than his cousin, the Senate ratified the adoption, fully aware of the ridiculousness of it all. Elagabalus designated himself and his cousin joint ordinary consuls for 222 and gave him the title of Caesar, but relations between them seem to have been strained, and various units of soldiery are described as anxious that the cousins should get along, recalling no doubt the murder of Gaeta by Caracalla a decade earlier. Herodian reports that the Praetorians were annoyed when they saw the Emperor, his face painted more elaborately than that of any modest woman, dancing in luxurious robes and effeminately adorned with gold necklaces. They were more favorably disposed toward Alexander, for they expected great things of a lad so properly and modestly reared. They kept continual watch upon the youth when they saw that Elagabalus was plotting against him. His mother, Memea, did not allow her son to touch any food or drink sent by the Emperor, nor did Alexander use the cupbearers or cooks employed in the palace, or those who happened to be in their mutual service. Only those chosen by his mother, those who seemed most trustworthy, were allowed to handle Alexander's food. As the relationship between Augustus and Caesar began to unravel, our sources include details of two plots by Elagabalus to liquidate his younger cousin. One day, March 11, 222, when Alexander was not seen in public for some time, the Praetorian guard rioted, fearing that Elagabalus had done some harm to his cousin. Elagabalus went to the Praetorian camp to calm the situation, but he was violently detained until his mother, Julia Soamius, appeared with Alexander. Their arrival triggered a release of pent-up passion, and in the ensuing fury, Elagabalus, his mother, the prefect of the guard, and several other officials, were slaughtered, and the Emperor's body was mutilated, before being thrown in the Tiber. Alexander, barely a teenager, was declared sole Emperor, taking the name Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander. Elagabalus' memory was systematically erased from the public record, and several images, including an over-life-sized statue of him as Hercules, now in Naples, were re-carved with the face of Alexander. Final Thoughts The figure of Elagabalus has long blurred fact with fiction. The many layers of images around the historical core, which already started to form in antiquity, have obscured our vision of Where does historical reality end and imagination begin? One thing seems to be clear, however. He intended to implement a distinctly foreign god at the head of the Roman pantheon. In many other fields, other than religion, his reign was characterized by continuity rather than change. The Empire was still in the age of relative peace and stability, which would start to crumble under Severus Alexander with the first attacks of the Persians. It also testifies to the ongoing competence of Rome's administrative apparatus, which was still functioning despite the rather incompetent rulers who had occupied the throne in recent years. We should be careful, therefore, not to exaggerate the exceptional status of the years 218-22 within the larger scope of Roman imperial history. Thanks for watching the video. Remember to like and subscribe, it really helps the channel grow and reach more people. The next video in this series will be on Severus Alexander.