ELAGABALUS 218AD Amphipolis Macedonia Tyche Authentic Ancient Roman Coin i55758

Item: i55758

 Authentic Ancient

Coin of:

Elagabalus
–
Roman Emperor
: 218-222 A.D. –

Bronze 22mm (6.05 grams) of

Amphipolis in

Macedonia
Reference: Varbanov 3293; SNG ANS 201-2
AV K M AVP ANTΩNINOC C, Laureate, draped and
cuirassed bust right.
ΑΜΦΙΠΟΛΙΤΩΝ, City-goddess (Tyche) seated
left, holding (sacrificing from) patera
over fiery altar; fish below.

You are bidding on the exact

Guarantee of Authenticity.

Tyche (Greek for luck; the Roman equivalent was
Fortuna
) was the presiding
tutelary deity
that governed the fortune and
prosperity of a city, its destiny. Increasingly during the Hellenistic period,
cities had their own specific iconic version of Tyche, wearing a
mural crown
(a crown like the walls of the
city).

The
Greek historian Polybius
believed that when no cause can be
discovered to events such as floods, droughts, frosts or even in politics, then
the cause of these events may be fairly attributed to Tyche.

Stylianos Spyridakis  concisely expressed Tyche’s appeal in a
Hellenistic world of arbitrary violence and unmeaning reverses: “In the
turbulent years of the
Epigoni of Alexander
, an awareness of the
instability of human affairs led people to believe that Tyche, the blind
mistress of Fortune, governed mankind with an inconstancy which explained the
vicissitudes of the time.”

In literature, she might be given various genealogies, as a daughter of
Hermes
and
Aphrodite
, or considered as one of the
Oceanids
, daughters of
Oceanus
and
Tethys
, or of

Zeus. She was connected with
Nemesis
and
Agathos Daimon
(“good spirit”).

She was uniquely venerated at
Itanos
in Crete, as Tyche Protogeneia,
linked with the Athenian
Protogeneia
(“firstborn”), daughter of
Erechtheus
, whose self-sacrifice saved the
city.

She had temples at
Caesarea Maritima
,
Antioch
,
Alexandria
and
Constantinople
. In
Alexandria
the Tychaeon, the temple of
Tyche, was described by
Libanius
as one of the most magnificent of the
entire Hellenistic world.

Tyche appears on many
coins
of the Hellenistic period in the three
centuries before the Christian era, especially from cities in the Aegean.
Unpredictable turns of fortune drive the complicated plotlines of
Hellenistic romances
, such as
Leucippe and Clitophon
or
Daphnis and Chloe
. She experienced a
resurgence in another era of uneasy change, the final days of publicly
sanctioned
Paganism
, between the late-fourth-century
emperors
Julian
and
Theodosius I
who definitively closed the
temples. The effectiveness of her capricious power even achieved respectability
in philosophical circles during that generation, though among poets it was a
commonplace to revile her for a fickle harlot.

In medieval art
, she was depicted as carrying a
cornucopia
, an
emblematic
ship’s rudder, and the
wheel of fortune
, or she may stand on the
wheel, presiding over the entire circle of fate.

The constellation of
Virgo
is sometimes identified as the heavenly
figure of Tyche, as well as other goddesses such as
Demeter
and
Astraea
.

Amphipolis was an
ancient

Greek

city
in the region once inhabited by the
Edoni
people in the present-day
periphery
of
Central Macedonia
. It was built on a raised
plateau overlooking the east bank of the
river

Strymon
where it emerged from Lake Cercinitis,
about 3 m. from the
Aegean Sea
. Founded in 437 BC, the city was
finally abandoned in the 8th century AD. The present municipality Amfipoli,
named after the ancient city, occupies the site. Currently, it is a municipality
in the
Serres Prefecture
,
Central Macedonia
with a population of 3,623
(2001 census).

 Origins

Archaeology
has uncovered remains at the site
dating to approximately 3000 BC. Due to the strategic location of the site it
was fortified from very early.
Xerxes I

of Persia
passed during his invasion of Greece
of 480 BC and buried alive nine young men and nine maidens as a sacrifice to the
river god. Near the later site of Amphipolis
Alexander I

of Macedon
defeated the remains of Xerxes’ army
in 479 BC.

Throughout the 5th century BC,
Athens
sought to consolidate its control over
Thrace, which was strategically important because of its primary materials (the
gold and silver of the
Pangaion hills
and the dense forests essential
for naval construction), and the sea routes vital for Athens’ supply of grain
from Scythia
. After a first unsuccessful attempt at
colonisation in 497 BC by the
Miletian

Tyrant

Histiaeus
, the Athenians founded a first colony
at Ennea-Hodoi (‘Nine Ways’) in 465, but these first ten thousand colonists were
massacred by the
Thracians
. A second attempt took place in 437
BC on the same site under the guidance of
Hagnon
, son of
Nicias
.

The new settlement took the name of Amphipolis (literally, “around the
city”), a name which is the subject of much debates about
lexicography
.
Thucydides
claims the name comes from the fact
that the Strymon flows “around the city” on two sides; however a note in the

Suda (also given in the lexicon of
Photius
) offers a different explanation
apparently given by
Marsyas
, son of
Periander
: that a large proportion of the
population lived “around the city”. However, a more probable explanation is the
one given by
Julius Pollux
: that the name indicates the
vicinity of an isthmus
. Furthermore, the
Etymologicum Genuinum
gives the following
definition: a city of the Athenians or of Thrace, which was once called Nine
Routes, (so named) because it is encircled and surrounded by the Strymon river.
This description corresponds to the actual site of the city (see adjacent map),
and to the description of Thucydides.

Amphipolis subsequently became the main power base of the Athenians in Thrace
and, consequently, a target of choice for their
Spartans
adversaries. The Athenian population
remained very much in the minority within the city. An Athenian rescue
expedition led by strategist (and later historian) Thucydides had to settle for
securing Eion
and could not retake Amphipolis, a failure
for which Thucydides was sentenced to exile. A new Athenian force under the
command of Cleon
failed once more in 422 BC during a
battle
at which both
Cleon
and
Brasidas
lost their lives. Brasidas survived
long enough to hear of the defeat of the Athenians and was buried at Amphipolis
with impressive pomp. From then on he was regarded as the founder of the city
and honoured with yearly games and sacrifices. The city itself kept its
independence until the reign of the king
Philip II
despite several other Athenian
attacks, notably because of the government of
Callistratus

of Aphidnae
.

 Conquest
by the Romans

In 357 BC, Philip removed the block which Amphipolis presented on the road to
Macedonian control over Thrace by conquering the town, which Athens had tried in
vain to recover during the previous years. According the historian
Theopompus
, this conquest came to be the object
of a secret accord between
Athens
and Philip II, who would return the city
in exchange for the fortified town of
Pydna
, but the Macedonian king betrayed the
accord, refusing to cede Amphipolis and laying siege to Pydna.

After the conquest by Philip II, the city was not immediately incorporated
into the kingdom, and for some time preserved its institutions and a certain
degree of autonomy. The border of Macedonia was not moved further east; however,
Philip sent a number of Macedonians governors to Amphipolis, and in many
respects the city was effectively ‘Macedonianized’. Nomenclature, the calendar
and the currency (the
gold stater
, installed by Philip to capitalise
on the gold reserves of the Pangaion hills, replaced the Amphipolitan
drachma
) were all replaced by Macedonian
equivalents. In the reign of
Alexander
, Amphipolis was an important naval
base, and the birthplace of three of the most famous Macedonian
Admirals
:
Nearchus
, Androsthenes^[6]
and
Laomedon
whose burial place is most likely
marked by the famous lion of Amphipolis.

Amphipolis became one of the main stops on the Macedonian royal road (as
testified by a border stone found between
Philippos
and Amphipolis giving the distance to
the latter), and later on the ‘Via
Egnatia’, the principal
Roman Road
which crossed the southern Balkans.
Apart from the ramparts of the low town (see photograph), the gymnasium and a
set well-preserved frescoes from a wealthy villa are the only artifacts from
this period that remain visible. Though little is known of the layout of the
town, modern knowledge of its institutions is in considerably better shape
thanks to a rich epigraphic documentation, including a military ordinance of
Philip V
and an
ephebarchic
law from the gymnasium. After the
final victory of
Rome
over Macedonia in a
battle
in 168 BC, Amphipolis became the capital
one of the four mini-republics, or ‘merides’, which were created by the Romans
out of the kingdom of the
Antigonids
which
succeeded
Alexander’s Empire in Macedon. These
‘merides’ were gradually incorporated into the Roman client state, and later
province, of Thracia
.

 Revival
in Late Antiquity

During the period of
Late Antiquity
, Amphipolis benefited from the
increasing economic prosperity of Macedonia, as is evidenced by the large number
of Christian Churches
that were built.
Significantly however, these churches were built within a restricted area of the
town, sheltered by the walls of the
acropolis
. This has been taken as evidence that
the large fortified perimeter of the ancient town was no longer defendable, and
that the population of the city had considerably diminished.

Nevertheless, the number, size and quality of the churches constructed
between the fifth and sixth centuries are impressive. Four
basilicas
adorned with rich
mosaic
floors and elaborate architectural
sculptures (such as the ram-headed
column
capitals – see picture) have been
excavated, as well as a church with a hexagonal central plan which evokes that
of the
basilica
of
St. Vitalis
in
Ravenna
. It is difficult to find reasons for
such municipal extravagance in such a small town. One possible explanation
provided by the historian
André Boulanger
is that an increasing
‘willingness’ on the part of the wealthy upper classes in the late Roman period
to spend money on local
gentrification
projects (which he terms ‘’évergétisme’’,
from the Greek verb εύεργετέω,(meaning ‘I do good’) was exploited by the local
church to its advantage, which led to a mass gentrification of the urban centre
and of the agricultural riches of the city’s territory. Amphipolis was also a
diocese
under the
suffragan
of
Thessaloniki
– the Bishop of Amphipolis is
first mentioned in 533 AD.

 From
the reduction of the urban area to the disappearance of the city

The
Slavic invasions
of the late 6th century
gradually encroached on the back-country Amphipolitan lifestyle and led to the
decline of the town, during which period its inhabitants retreated to the area
around the acropolis. The ramparts were maintained to a certain extent, thanks
to materials plundered from the monuments of the lower city, and the large
unused cisterns of the upper city were occupied by small houses and the
workshops of artisans. Around the middle of the 7th century AD, a further
reduction of the inhabited area of the city was followed by an increase in the
fortification of the town, with the construction of a new rampart with
pentagonal towers cutting through the middle of the remaining monuments. The
acropolis, the Roman baths
, and especially the Episcopal
basilica were crossed by this wall.

The city was probably abandoned in the eighth century, as the last bishop was
attested in 787. Its inhabitants probably moved to the neighbouring site of
ancient Eion
, port of Amphipolis, which had been
rebuilt and refortified in the
Byzantine period
under the name “Chrysopolis”.
This small port continued to enjoy some prosperity, before being abandoned
during the
Ottoman period
. The last recorded sign of
activity in the region of Amphipolis was the construction of a fortified tower
to the north in 1367 by
Grand Primicier
Jean and the
Stratopedarque
Alexis to protect the land that
they had given to the monastery of Pantokrator on
Mount Athos
.

 Archaeology

The site was rediscovered and described by many travellers and archaeologists
during the 19th century, including E. Cousinéry (1831) (engraver), L. Heuzey
(1861), and P. Perdrizet (1894–1899). In 1934, M. Feyel, of the
École française d’Athènes
, led an
epigraphical mission
to the site and uncovered
the remains of a funeral lion (a reconstruction was given in the, a publication
of the EfA which is available on line). However, excavations did not truly begin
until after the Second World War. The
Greek Archaeological Society
under D. Lazaridis
excavated in 1972 and 1985, uncovering a necropolis, the rampart of the old town
(see photograph), the basilicas, and the acropolis.

 Amphipolitans

• Demetrius of Amphipolis
  , student of Plato’s
• Zoilus
  (400 BC-320 BC), grammarian, cynic
  philosopher
• Pamphilus (painter)
  , head of
  Sicyonian
  school and teacher of
  Apelles
• Aetion
  , sculptor
• Philippus of Amphipolis
  , historian
• Nearchus
  , admiral
• Erigyius
  , general
• Damasias
   ^{[disambiguation
  needed]} of Amphipolis 320 BC
  Stadion
  Olympics
• Hermagoras of Amphipolis
  (c. 225 BC), stoic
  philosopher ,follower of
  Persaeus
• Xena
  , the Warrior Princess of Amphipolis.

Elagabalus –

Emperor: 218-222 A.D.

Son
of

Julia Soaemias | Husband of

Julia Paula,

Aquilia Severa and

Annia Faustina | Grandson of

Julia Maesa | Nephew of

Julia Mamaea | Cousin of

Severus Alexander | Second-cousin of

Geta and

Caracalla (Supposedly a natural son of Caracalla) | Great-nephew of

Septimius Severus and

Julia Domna |

Elagabalus (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, ca. 203 – 11 March
222), also known as Heliogabalus, was
Roman Emperor
from 218 to 222. A member of the
Severan Dynasty
, he was
Syrian
on his mother’s side, the son of
Julia Soaemias
and
Sextus Varius Marcellus
. In his early youth he
served as a priest of the god
Elagabal
(in Latin, Elagabalus) in the
hometown of his mother’s family,
Emesa
. As a private citizen, he was probably
named Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus. Upon becoming emperor he took the name
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus. He was called Elagabalus only after his
death.

In 217, the emperor
Caracalla
was
assassinated
and replaced by his
Praetorian prefect
, Marcus Opellius
Macrinus
. Caracalla’s maternal aunt,
Julia Maesa
, successfully instigated a revolt
among the
Third Legion
to have her eldest grandson (and
Caracalla’s cousin), Elagabalus, declared emperor in his place. Macrinus was
defeated on 8 June 218, at the
Battle of Antioch
. Elagabalus, barely fourteen
years old, became emperor, initiating a reign remembered mainly for
sexual scandal
and religious controversy.

Later historians suggest Elagabalus showed a disregard for Roman religious
traditions and sexual taboos. He replaced the traditional head of the
Roman pantheon
,
Jupiter
, with the deity of whom he was high
priest,
Elagabal
. He forced leading members of Rome’s
government to participate in religious rites celebrating this deity, over which
he personally presided. Elagabalus was married as many as five times, lavished
favors on male courtiers popularly thought to have been his lovers, employed a
prototype of
whoopee cushions
at dinner parties, and was
reported to have prostituted himself in the imperial palace. His behavior
estranged the
Praetorian Guard
, the
Senate
, and the common people alike.

Amidst growing opposition, Elagabalus, just 18 years old, was assassinated
and replaced by his cousin
Alexander Severus
on 11 March 222, in a plot
formulated by his grandmother, Julia Maesa, and carried out by disaffected
members of the Praetorian Guard.

Elagabalus developed a reputation among his contemporaries for extreme
eccentricity
,
decadence
and
zealotry
. This tradition has persisted, and in
writers of the early modern age he suffers one of the worst reputations among
Roman emperors.
Edward Gibbon
, for example, wrote that
Elagabalus “abandoned himself to the grossest pleasures and ungoverned fury.”
According to
B.G. Niebuhr
, “The name Elagabalus is branded
in history above all others” because of his “unspeakably disgusting life.”

Family and priesthood

Elagabalus was born around the year 203
to
Sextus Varius Marcellus
and
Julia Soaemias Bassiana
. His father was
initially a member of the
equestrian
class, but was later elevated to the
rank of senator
. His grandmother
Julia Maesa
was the widow of the
Consul
Gaius
Julius Avitus
Alexianus, the sister of
Julia Domna
, and the sister-in-law of the
emperor
Septimius Severus
.

His mother, Julia Soaemias, was a cousin of the Roman emperor
Caracalla
. Other relatives included his aunt
Julia Avita Mamaea
and uncle
Marcus Julius Gessius Marcianus
, and their son
Alexander Severus
. Elagabalus’s family held
hereditary rights to the priesthood of the sun god Elagabal, of whom Elagabalus
was the high priest
at Emesa (modern

Homs) in
Syria
.

The deity
Elagabalus
was initially venerated at Emesa.
This form of the god’s name is a Latinized version of the Syrian Ilāh hag-Gabal,
which derives from
Ilāh
(“god”) and gabal (“mountain”
(compare
Hebrew
:
גבל‎ gəbul and
Arabic
: جبل‎
jabal)), resulting in “the God of the Mountain” the Emesene manifestation
of the deity.
The cult of the deity spread to other parts of the Roman Empire in the 2nd
century; a dedication has been found as far away as
Woerden
(Netherlands).
The god was later imported and assimilated with the Roman sun god known as
Sol Indiges
in
republican
times and as
Sol Invictus
during the 2nd and 3rd centuries
CE. In Greek the sun god is
Helios
, hence “Heliogabalus”, a variant of “Elagabalus”.

Rise to power

When the emperor
Macrinus
came to power, Elagabalus’ mother
suppressed the threat against his reign by the family of his assassinated
predecessor, Caracalla, by exiling them—Julia Maesa, her two daughters, and her
eldest grandson Elagabalus—to their estate at Emesa in
Syria
. Almost upon arrival in Syria she began a
plot, with her advisor and Elagabalus’ tutor Gannys, to overthrow Macrinus and
elevate the fourteen-year-old Elagabalus to the imperial throne.

His mother publicly declared that he was the illegitimate son of Caracalla,
therefore due the loyalties of Roman soldiers and senators who had sworn
allegiance to Caracalla. After Julia Maesa displayed her wealth to the
Third Legion
at
Raphana
they swore allegiance to Elagabalus. At
sunrise on 16 May 218,
Publius Valerius Comazon Eutychianus
, commander
of the legion, declared him emperor. To strengthen his legitimacy through
further propaganda, Elagabalus assumed Caracalla’s names, Marcus Aurelius
Antoninus.

In response Macrinus dispatched his
Praetorian prefect
Ulpius Julianus to the
region with a contingent of troops he considered strong enough to crush the
rebellion
. However, this force soon joined the
faction of Elagabalus when, during the battle, they turned on their own
commanders. The officers were killed and Julianus’ head was sent back to the
emperor.

Macrinus now sent letters to the
Senate
denouncing Elagabalus as the False
Antoninus and claiming he was insane. Both
consuls
and other high-ranking members of
Rome’s leadership condemned Elagabalus, and the Senate subsequently declared war
on both Elagabalus and Julia Maesa.

Macrinus and his son, weakened by the desertion of the
Second Legion
due to bribes and promises
circulated by Julia Maesa, were defeated on 8 June 218 at the
Battle of Antioch
by troops commanded by
Gannys. Macrinus fled toward
Italy
, disguised as a courier, but was later
intercepted near
Chalcedon
and executed in
Cappadocia
. His son
Diadumenianus
, sent for safety to the
Parthian
court, was captured at
Zeugma
and also put to death.

Elagabalus declared the date of the victory at Antioch to be the beginning of
his reign and assumed the imperial titles without prior senatorial approval,
which violated tradition but was a common practice among 3rd-century emperors
nonetheless. Letters of reconciliation were dispatched to

Rome extending
amnesty
to the Senate and recognizing the laws,
while also condemning the administration of Macrinus and his son.

The senators responded by acknowledging Elagabalus as emperor and accepting
his claim to be the son of Caracalla. Caracalla and Julia Domna were both
deified
by the Senate, both Julia Maesa and
Julia Soaemias were elevated to the rank of
Augustae
,
and the memory of both Macrinus and Diadumenianus was condemned by the Senate.
The former commander of the Third Legion, Comazon, was appointed commander of
the Praetorian Guard.

Emperor
(218–222)

Elagabalus and his entourage spent the winter of 218 in
Bithynia
at
Nicomedia
, where the emperor’s religious
beliefs first presented themselves as a problem. The contemporary historian
Cassius Dio
suggests that Gannys was in fact
killed by the new emperor because he was forcing Elagabalus to live “temperately
and prudently.” To help Romans adjust to the idea of having an oriental priest
as emperor, Julia Maesa had a painting of Elagabalus in priestly robes sent to
Rome and hung over a statue of the goddess
Victoria
in the
Senate House
. This placed senators in the
awkward position of having to make offerings to Elagabalus whenever they made
offerings to Victoria.

The legions were dismayed by his behaviour and quickly came to regret having
supported his accession. While Elagabalus was still on his way to Rome, brief
revolts broke out by the
Fourth Legion
at the instigation of
Gellius Maximus
, and by the Third Legion, which
itself had been responsible for the elevation of Elagabalus to the throne, under
the command of Senator
Verus
. The rebellion was quickly put down, and
the Third Legion disbanded.

When the entourage reached Rome in the autumn of 219, Comazon and other
allies of Julia Maesa and Elagabalus were given powerful and lucrative
positions, to the outrage of many senators who did not consider them worthy of
such privileges. After his tenure as
Praetorian prefect
, Comazon would serve as the
city prefect of Rome three times, and as
consul
twice. Elagabalus soon devalued the
Roman currency
. He decreased the silver purity
of the denarius
from 58% to 46.5% — the actual
silver weight dropping from 1.82 grams to 1.41 grams. He also demonetized the
antoninianus
during this period in Rome.

Elagabalus tried to have his presumed lover, the charioteer
Hierocles
, declared
Caesar
, while another alleged lover, the
athlete Aurelius Zoticus, was appointed to the non-administrative but
influential position of Master of the Chamber, or
Cubicularius
.
His offer of amnesty for the Roman upper class was largely honored, though the
jurist

Ulpian
was exiled.

The relationships between Julia Maesa, Julia Soaemias, and Elagabalus were
strong at first. His mother and grandmother became the first women to be allowed
into the Senate, and both received senatorial titles: Soaemias the established
title of Clarissima, and Maesa the more unorthodox Mater Castrorum et
Senatus (“Mother of the army camp and of the Senate”).
While Julia Maesa tried to position herself as the power behind the throne and
thus the most powerful woman in the world, Elagabalus would prove to be highly
independent, set in his ways, and impossible to control.

Religious controversy

Since the reign of
Septimius Severus
,
sun worship
had increased throughout the
Empire. Elagabalus saw this as an opportunity to install Elagabal as the chief
deity of the
Roman pantheon
. The god was renamed
Deus Sol Invictus
, meaning God the
Undefeated Sun, and honored above
Jupiter
.

As a token of respect for Roman religion, however, Elagabalus joined either
Astarte
,
Minerva
,
Urania
, or some combination of the three to
Elagabal as wife. Before constructing a temple in dedication to Elagabal,
Elagabalus placed the meteorite of Elagabal next to the throne of Jupiter at the
temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.

He caused further discontent when he himself married the
Vestal Virgin

Aquilia Severa
, claiming the marriage would
produce “godlike children”. This was a flagrant breach of Roman law and
tradition, which held that any Vestal found to have engaged in sexual
intercourse was to be
buried alive
.

A lavish temple called the
Elagabalium
was built on the east face of the
Palatine Hill
to house Elagabal, who was
represented by a black conical
meteorite
from Emesa.
Herodian
wrote “this stone is worshipped as
though it were sent from heaven; on it there are some small projecting pieces
and markings 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”.

In order to become the high priest of his new religion, Elagabalus had
himself circumcised.
He forced senators to watch while he danced around the altar of Deus Sol
Invictus to the accompaniment of drums and cymbals.
Each summer solstice
he held a festival dedicated to the
god, which became popular with the masses because of the free food distributed
on such occasions.
During this festival, Elagabalus placed the Emesa stone on a
chariot
adorned with gold and jewels, which he
paraded through the city:

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.

The most sacred relics from the Roman religion were transferred from their
respective shrines to the Elagabalium, including the emblem of the
Great Mother
, the fire of
Vesta
, the
Shields
of the
Salii
and the
Palladium
, so that no other god could be
worshipped except in company with Elagabal.

Sex/gender
controversy

Roman denarius depicting
Aquilia Severa
, the second wife of
Elagabalus. The marriage caused a public outrage because Aquilia was
a
Vestal Virgin
, sworn by Roman law
to celibacy
for 30 years.

Elagabalus’
sexual orientation
and
gender identity
are the subject of much debate.
Elagabalus married and divorced five women, three of whom are known. His first
wife was
Julia Cornelia Paula
; the second was the
Vestal Virgin

Julia Aquilia Severa
.

Within a year, he abandoned her and married
Annia Aurelia Faustina
, a descendant of
Marcus Aurelius
and the widow of a man recently
executed by Elagabalus. He had returned to his second wife Severa by the end of
the year. According to Cassius Dio, his most stable relationship seems to have
been with his chariot
driver, a blond slave from
Caria
named
Hierocles
, whom he referred to as his husband.

The Augustan History claims that he also married a man named Zoticus,
an athlete from Smyrna, in a public ceremony at Rome. Cassius Dio reported that
Elagabalus would paint his eyes,
epilate
his hair and wear wigs before
prostituting
himself in taverns, brothels, and
even in the imperial palace:

Finally, he set aside a room in the palace and there committed his
indecencies, always standing nude at the door of the room, as the
harlots do, and shaking the curtain which hung from gold rings, while in
a soft and melting voice he solicited the passers-by. There were, of
course, men who had been specially instructed to play their part. For,
as in other matters, so in this business, too, he had numerous agents
who sought out those who could best please him by their foulness. He
would collect money from his patrons and give himself airs over his
gains; he would also dispute with his associates in this shameful
occupation, claiming that he had more lovers than they and took in more
money.

Herodian commented that Elagabalus enhanced his natural good looks by the
regular application of cosmetics. He was described as having been “delighted to
be called the mistress, the wife, the queen of Hierocles” and was reported to
have offered vast sums of money to any physician who could equip him with female
genitalia. Elagabalus has been characterized by some modern writers as
transgender
, perhaps
transsexual
.

Fall from power

By 221 Elagabalus’ eccentricities, particularly his relationship with
Hierocles, increasingly provoked the soldiers of the
Praetorian Guard
. When Elagabalus’ grandmother
Julia Maesa perceived that popular support for the emperor was waning, she
decided that he and his mother, who had encouraged his religious practices, had
to be replaced.
As alternatives, she turned to her other daughter,
Julia Avita Mamaea
, and her daughter’s son, the
thirteen-year-old
Severus Alexander
.

Prevailing on Elagabalus, she arranged that he appoint his cousin Alexander
as his heir and be given the title of Caesar. Alexander shared the
consulship with the emperor that year. However, Elagabalus reconsidered this
arrangement when he began to suspect that the Praetorian Guard preferred his
cousin above himself.

Following the failure of various attempts on Alexander’s life, Elagabalus
stripped his cousin of his titles, revoked his consulship, and circulated the
news that Alexander was near death, in order to see how the Praetorians would
react. A riot ensued, and the guard demanded to see Elagabalus and Alexander in
the
Praetorian camp
.

Assassination

The emperor complied and on 11 March 222 he publicly presented his cousin
along with his own mother, Julia Soaemias. On their arrival the soldiers started
cheering Alexander while ignoring Elagabalus, who ordered the summary arrest and
execution of anyone who had taken part in this display of insubordination. In
response, members of the
Praetorian Guard
attacked Elagabalus and his
mother:

So he made an attempt to flee, and would have got away somewhere by
being placed in a chest, had he not been discovered and slain, at the
age of 18. His mother, who embraced him and clung tightly to him,
perished with him; their heads were cut off and their bodies, after
being stripped naked, were first dragged all over the city, then the
mother’s body was cast aside somewhere or other while his was thrown
into the [Tiber].

Following his assassination, many associates of Elagabalus were killed or
deposed, including Hierocles and Comazon.
His religious edicts were reversed and the stone of Elagabal was sent back to
Emesa
. Women were again barred from attending
meetings of the Senate.
The practice of
damnatio memoriae
—erasing from the public
record a disgraced personage formerly of note—was systematically applied in his
case.

Sources

Augustan History

The source of many of these stories of Elagabalus’s depravity is the
Augustan History
(Historia Augusta),
which includes controversial claims. The Historia Augusta was most likely
written toward the end of the 4th century during the reign of emperor
Theodosius I
. The life of Elagabalus as
described in the Augustan History is of uncertain historical merit.
Sections 13 to 17, relating to the fall of Elagabalus, are less controversial
among historians.

Cassius Dio

Sources often considered more credible than the Augustan History
include the contemporary historians
Cassius Dio
and Herodian. Cassius Dio lived
from the second half of the 2nd century until sometime after 229. Born into a
patrician
family, he spent the greater part of
his life in public service. He was a senator under emperor
Commodus
and governor of
Smyrna
after the death of
Septimius Severus
. Afterwards he served as
suffect consul around 205, and as proconsul in
Africa
and
Pannonia
.

Alexander Severus held him in high esteem and made him his consul again. His
Roman History spans nearly a
millennium
, from the arrival of
Aeneas
in Italy until the year 229. As a
contemporary of Elagabalus, Cassius Dio’s account of his reign is generally
considered more reliable than the Augustan History, although by his own
admission Dio spent the greater part of the relevant period outside of Rome and
had to rely on second-hand accounts.

Furthermore, the political climate in the aftermath of Elagabalus’ reign, as
well as Dio’s own position within the government of Alexander, likely influenced
the truth of this part of his history for the worse. Dio regularly refers to
Elagabalus as
Sardanapalus
, partly to distinguish him from
his divine namesake,
but chiefly to do his part in maintaining the
damnatio memoriae
enforced after the
emperor’s death and to associate him with another autocrat notorious for a
debauched life.

Herodian

Medal of Elagabalus,
Louvre Museum
.

Another contemporary of Elagabalus was
Herodian
, who was a minor Roman civil servant
who lived from c. 170 until 240. His work, History of the Roman Empire since
Marcus Aurelius, commonly abbreviated as Roman History, is an
eyewitness account of the reign of
Commodus
until the beginning of the reign of
Gordian III
. His work largely overlaps with
Dio’s own Roman History, but both texts seem to be independently
consistent with each other.

Although Herodian is not deemed as reliable as Cassius Dio, his lack of
literary and scholarly pretensions make him less biased than senatorial
historians. Herodian is considered the most important source for the religious
reforms which took place during the reign of Elagabalus, which have been
confirmed by
numismatic

and
archaeological
evidence.

Edward Gibbon and other, later historians

For readers of the modern age,
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

by Edward Gibbon
(1737–94) further cemented the
scandalous reputation of Elagabalus. Gibbon not only accepted and expressed
outrage at the allegations of the ancient historians, but might have added some
details of his own; he is the first historian known to state that Gannys was a
eunuch, for example.
Gibbon wrote:

To confound the order of the season and climate, to sport with the
passions and prejudices of his subjects, and to subvert every law of
nature and decency, were in the number of his most delicious amusements.
A long train of concubines, and a rapid succession of wives, among whom
was a vestal virgin, ravished by force from her sacred asylum, were
insufficient to satisfy the impotence of his passions. The master of the
Roman world affected to copy the manners and dress of the female sex,
preferring the distaff to the sceptre, and dishonored the principal
dignities of the empire by distributing them among his numerous lovers;
one of whom was publicly invested with the title and authority of the
emperor’s, or, as he more properly styled himself, the empress’s
husband. It may seem probable, the vices and follies of Elagabalus have
been adorned by fancy, and blackened by prejudice. Yet, confining
ourselves to the public scenes displayed before the Roman people, and
attested by grave and contemporary historians, their inexpressible
infamy surpasses that of any other age or country.

Two hundred years after the age of Pliny, the use of pure, or even of
mixed silks, was confined to the female sex, till the opulent citizens
of Rome and the provinces were insensibly familiarized with the example
of Elagabalus, the first who, by this effeminate habit, had sullied the
dignity of an emperor and a man.

Some recent historians argue for a more favorable picture of his life and
reign. Martijn Icks in Images of Elagabalus (2008; republished as The
Crimes of Elagabalus in 2012) doubts the reliability of the ancient sources
and argues that it was the emperor’s unorthodox religious policies that
alienated the power elite of Rome, to the point that his grandmother saw fit to
eliminate him and replace him with his cousin. Leonardo de Arrizabalaga y Prado,
in The Emperor Elagabalus: Fact of Fiction? (2008), is also critical of
the ancient historians and speculates that neither religion nor sexuality played
a role in the fall of the young emperor, who was simply the loser in a power
struggle within the imperial family; the loyalty of the Praetorian Guards was up
for sale, and Julia Maesa had the resources to outmaneuver and outbribe her
grandson. According to this version, once Elagabalus, his mother, and his
immediate circle had been murdered, a wholesale propaganda war against his
memory resulted in a vicious caricature which has persisted to the present,
repeated and often embellished by later historians displaying their own
prejudices against effeminacy and other vices which Elagabalus had come to
epitomize.

Legacy

 

Elagabalus on a wall painting at castle Forchtenstein

Due to the ancient tradition about him, Elagabalus became something of an
(anti-)hero in the
Decadent movement
of the late 19th century. He
often appears in literature and other creative media as the epitome of a young,
amoral aesthete. His life and character have informed or at least inspired many
famous works of art, by Decadents, even by contemporary artists. The most
notable of these works include:

Poems,
Novels, and Biographies

• Joris-Karl Huysmans
  ‘s’
  À rebours
  (1884), one of the literary
  touchstones of the Decadent movement, describes in chapter 2 the ingenuity
  behind a banquet designed by Des Esseintes, the protagonist, consisting
  solely of black foodstuffs, intended as a kind of perverse memorial to his
  lost virility. The episode is partly inspired by the highly artificial,
  monochromatic feasts that Elagabalus is said to have contrived (Historia
  Augusta, Life of Elagabalus, chapter 18).
• 
  L’Agonie
  (Agony) (1888), the
  best known novel by the French writer
  Jean Lombard
  , featuring Elagabulus as the
  protagonist
• In 1903 Georges Duviquet published what purports to be a faithful
  biography of the emperor: Héliogabale: Raconté par les historians Grecs
  et Latins, [avec] dix-huit gravures d’après les monuments original.
• The previous pair of works inspired the Dutch writer
  Louis Couperus
  to produce his novel
  De Berg van Licht
  (The Mountain of
  Light) (1905), which presents Elagabalus in a sympathetic light.
• 
  Algabal
  (1892–1919), a collection of
  poems by the German poet
  Stefan George
• The Sun God (1904), a novel by the English writer Arthur Westcott
• 
  The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus
  
  (1911), a biography by the Oxford don
  John Stuart Hay
• 
  Héliogabale ou l’Anarchiste couronné
  (Heliogabalus
  or The Anarchist Crowned) (1934) by
  Antonin Artaud
  , combining essay, biography,
  and fiction
• 
  Family Favourites
  (1960), a novel by
  the Anglo-Argentine writer
  Alfred Duggan
  in which Heliogabalus is seen
  through the eyes of a faithful Gaulish bodyguard and depicted as a gentle
  and charming aesthete, personally lovable but lacking political skills.
• 
  Child of the Sun
  (1966), a novel by
  Lance Horner
  and
  Kyle Onstott
  , better known for writing the
  novel that inspired the movie
  Mandingo
  
• Super-Eliogabalo (1969), a novel by the Italian writer
  Alberto Arbasino
• 
  Boy Caesar
  (2004), a novel by the
  English writer
  Jeremy Reed
• 
  Roman Dusk
  (2008), a novel in the
  vampire

  Count Saint-Germain
  series by
  Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Plays

• Zygmunt Krasiński
  . “Irydion”
  (1836), in which Elagabalus is portrayed as a cruel tyrant
• Mencken
  , H.L. and
  Nathan, George Jean
  .
  Heliogabalus A Buffoonery in Three Acts.
  
  New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1920
• de Escobar Fagundes, C.H. Heliogabalo: O Sol é a Pátria. Ed.
  Devir. Rio de Janeiro, 1980
• Gilbert, S.
  Heliogabalus: A Love Story.
  Toronto, Cabaret Theatre Company, 2002
• Ferreyra, Shawn.
  Elagabalus, Emperor of Rome
  , 2008
• Arelis.
  Heliogabalus
  (2008)

Paintings

 

The Roses of Heliogabalus
,
Lawrence Alma-Tadema
, 1888.

• 
  Heliogabalus, High Priest of the Sun
  
  (1866), by the English decadent
  Simeon Solomon
• One of the most notorious incidents laid to his account is immortalized
  in the 19th-century painting
  The Roses of Heliogabalus
  (1888), by
  the Anglo-Dutch academician Sir
  Lawrence Alma-Tadema
  . It shows guests at
  one of his extravagant dinner parties smothered under a mass of “violets and
  other flowers” dropped from above.
• 
  Lui
  (1906), by
  Gustav-Adolf Mossa
• Heliogabalus (1974), by
  Anselm Kiefer
• 
  Antonin Artaud Heliogabalus
  (2010–11),
  by
  Anselm Kiefer

Music

• Eliogabalo
  , an opera by Venetian
  Baroque composer
  Francesco Cavalli
  (1667)
• Heliogabale, an opera by French composer
  Déodat de Séverac
  (1910)
• 
  Heliogabalus Imperator
  (Emperor
  Heliogabalus), an orchestral work by the German composer
  Hans Werner Henze
  (1972)
• 
  Six Litanies for Heliogabalus
  , by the
  composer and saxophonist
  John Zorn
  (2007)

Dance

• Héliogabale, a contemporary dance choreographed by
  Maurice Béjart

Film

• 
  Héliogabale
  , a 1909
  
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