Elagabalus: Encyclopedia II - Elagabalus - Imperial power

Elagabalus - Imperial power

Elagabalus and his entourage spent the winter of 218 in Bithynia at Nicomedia. It was at Nicomedia that Elagabalus' religious beliefs first manifested as a problem. The local Roman citizens were disturbed by his practices and Gannys was killed while trying to suppress the ensuing riots. 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.

Elagabalus was delayed in Asia Minor while brief revolts by the Legio III Gallica, under the leadership of the senator Verus, and the IV Scythica, under command of Gellius Maximus, were crushed. When the entourage reached Rome in the Fall of 219, Comazon and other allies of Julia Maesa and Elagabalus were given powerful and lucrative positions, much to the outrage of many senators who did not consider them to be respectable. Comazon would serve as the city prefect of Rome three times and as consul twice. An official whose name solely survives as ...atus was moved though various positions including Suffect consul. Elagabalus tried to have his presumed lover Hierocles declared Caesar, while another alleged lover, Zoticus, was appointed to the non-administrative but influential position of Cubicularius. His offer of amnesty for the Roman leadership 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. While Julia Maesa tried to position herself as the power behind the throne and subsequently the most powerful woman in the world, Elagabalus would prove to be highly independent, set in his ways, and impossible to control.

Elagabalus - Religious controversy

Since the reign of Septimius Severus sun worship had increased throughout the Empire. Elagabalus saw this as an opportunity to set up his god, El-Gabal, as the chief deity of the Roman Pantheon. El-Gabal, renamed Deus Sol Invictus or God the Invincible Sun, was placed over even Jupiter. As a sign of the union between the two religions, Elagabalus gave either Astarte, Minerva, Urania, or some combination of the three, to El-Gabal as a wife. Moreover, he himself married the Vestal Virgin Aquilia Severa, provoking great outrage; he said he would have "god-like children" from the marriage. A temple to house El-Gabal, a black conical meteorite, was built in Rome on the east face of the Palatine Hill and its foundations remain today. To become the high priest of El-Gabal, Elagabalus had himself circumcised. Herodian writes that Elagabalus forced senators to watch while he danced around the altar of El-Gabal to the sound of drums and cymbals and that each summer solstice became a great festival to El-Gabal popular with the masses because of its widely distributed food. During this festival, Elagabalus placed El-Gabal:

Elagabalus - Sex/gender controversy

Elagabalus' sexual orientation and gender identity are the source of much controversy and 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 Aquilia Severa, and another was Annia Faustina from the house of Marcus Aurelius. He later returned to Severa but according to a contemporary senator and historian, 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. Dio also wrote that Elagabalus used to:

Herodian comments that Elagabalus hampered his natural good looks by wearing too much make up. Elagabalus has also often been characterized by modern writers as transgender, most likely transsexual.

He is described as having been "delighted to be called the mistress, the wife, the Queen of Hierocles" and is said to have offered half the Roman Empire to the physician who could equip him with female genitalia.¹

Elagabalus - Fall from power

Elagabalus' eccentricities, especially his habit of forcing others to participate in his religious practices, weighed heavily on Julia Maesa's mind and she decided he and his mother, Julia Soaemias, who had encouraged his religious practices, had to be replaced. She turned to her other daughter Julia Avita Mamaea and her son, the thirteen year old Severus Alexander, as alternatives. Maesa and Mamaea convinced Elagabalus to appoint Alexander as his heir. When he changed his mind later and ordered Alexander executed, Maesa and Mamaea bribed the Praetorian Guard before his orders could be carried out. Elagabalus and Julia Soaemias were murdered (according to the Historia Augusta, in the Emperor's latrine) on March 11, 222; their bodies were dragged through the streets of Rome and the Cloaca Maxima, and ultimately thrown into the Tiber.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Imperial power", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki