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The Severi

Elagabalus

The boy, now fifteen, is known to history after the name of the god he worshipped: Elagabalus (El-Gabal). His was a bizarre reign, filled with colorful but ultimately rather meaningless events. He was very much under the influence of his mother at first, who encouraged him to regard and present himself as a divine manifestation.

When Elagabalus arrived in Rome he insisted on performing the rites of his religion, to the scandal of the city. He also replaced many Roman officials with Syrians, some of whom the senators claimed were mere low-lifes.

Elagabalus also scandalized Rome with his blatant sexual behavior. While homosexuality was not condemned by the Romans, they regarded all sex as a private matter. Elagabalus painted his eyes and rouged his cheeks, openly referred to this or that lover as his husband, and allegedly even stood in doorways, shaking the curtains as a harlot would. This sort of behavior was not likely to win the loyalty of the troops.

His mother was concerned to make her son respectable and legitimate, and so arranged for him to marry respectable, legitimate Roman women. He was married to five in the course of three years. The second of them was a Vestal Virgin.

However dismaying his sexual behavior, it was the emperor's religious behavior that was the most appalling to Romans. Sex, after all, scarcely affected the fortunes of the State, but religion did. He gave the goddess Minerva as wife to El-Gabal. He performed rituals at which he danced while Syrian women sang and played music, and forced Roman senators to witness the spectacle. He built a massive temple to El-Gabal on the Palatine Hill and placed therein a black meteorite that was a sacred stone. He made his god the centerpiece of Roman festivals.

By 222 Rome had had enough. The Praetorian Guard murdered him and his mother, along with a number of their Syrian appointees. The bodies of the boy and the mother were dragged through the streets and thrown into the Tiber.