Elagabalus, Queen of Rome

In 217AD the notoriously cruel and rapacious Emperor Caracalla was murdered by a a bodyguard whilst urinating at a roadside. He was succeeded as Emperor by the Prefect of the Praetorian Guard, Marcus Opellius Macrinus, who was almost certainly in on the assassination plot. Aware that he had no rightful claim to the throne, Macrinus sent into exile the remaining members of the Imperial Family, to avoid any plots against him or attempts at vengeance on their part. He did not succeed. Julia Maesa, the murdered Emperor Caracalla’s maiden aunt, immediately set about using her immense wealth to bribe the Legions into supporting the claim to the throne of her grandson, Elagabalus. Conspiring with her grandson’s tutor, the eunuch Gannys, they together persuaded the commander of the Third Legion, Publius Valerius Comazon, to openly declare for her grandson. The conspiracy soon grew and troops sent by Macrinus to crush the rebellion simply changed sides. A furious Macrinus now led his armies East in person. But his troops could not be relied upon attracted as they were by the great wealth on offer for their support. In the ensuing Battle of Antioch, Macrinus was defeated and killed. The outcome was particularly satisfying for Julia Maesa, who hated Macrinus for having previously executed her sister. The day following the death of Macrinus, 9 June, 218AD, Elagabalus was declared Emperor. He was just fourteen.

Elagabalus, whose real name was Varius Ativus Bassianus, though Phoenician by birth and raised in the Syrian city of Emesa, was a scion of the Severan clan. He was also the hereditary High Priest of the religion of the Sun God El-Gabal (Baal) from whom he took the name Elagabalus. From the outset his reign as Emperor was mired in controversy. He imposed his new religion on the people of Rome, renaming it Deus Sol Invictus. The supreme God Jupiter was replaced and every summer the new God was celebrated in a festival during which Elagabalus handed out free food to the people of the city. The people loved him for it but the establishment never forgave him. He only reinforced their resentment when he removed all Rome’s holy relics from their shrines and housed them instead in the newly created Elagabalium where the Black Stone of El-Gabal was so positioned that only the one religion could be worshipped.

Soon after arriving in Rome he outraged society by marrying the Vestal Virgin Aquilia Severa. This broke all taboos and Roman law. A Vestal Virgin was expected to remain so all her life. If she broke her vows and had sex then the punishment was that she should be buried alive. Any man who besmirched a Vestal Virgin was to be executed. Elagabalus was in fact to be married five times, but he had no sexual interest in women. The great love of his life was the blond charioteer and slave, Hierocles, whom he liked to refer to as his husband; and he delighted in being called, “the mistress, the wife, the Queen of Hierocles”. He made no attempt to hide his sexuality and as his behaviour became increasingly outrageous so did the offence it caused. In a great public ceremony he married a male athlete named Zoticus. He would become angry when accused of wearing too much make-up. The historian Cassius Dio (a contemporary) wrote of him: