All the ancient authors describe her sensuous robes that she wore while performing priestly duties.
What makes Elagabalus rise to fame and power unusual was that the soldiers who had a chance to see her were entranced by her beauty as she danced ceremonies to El Gabal. She claimed that Elagabalus, the young child-priest, was the illegitimate son of Caracalla and this claim cemented that young person’s rise to the throne. Enter Julia Mamaea, the sister-in-law of Septimius Severus. The atmosphere all over Rome became very tense. His attempted fiscal reforms angered the soldiers who, after overthrowing Caracalla, now missed that Emperor’s generous ways. Marcrinus’ welcome was quickly worn out when he attempted to reform the pay of the Roman legions to assist the solvency of the Empire. The emergence of the military as the only legitimate source of power and the weakening of Roman tradition both became especially present in the Severan era and help us understand the context of Elagabalus’ brief reign. Caracalla was killed by his soldiers in a plot, and the usurper Marcrinus (of commoner descent) took the throne for a brief period.
While this act seems appealing to modern sensibilities, it seems to have simply been a brazen ploy to increase tax revenues. This act helped further weaken the Roman tradition by weakening cultural and social distinctions.
#NERO S REAL NAME FREE#
His most famous legal act was the widening of Roman citizenship to include virtually all free inhabitants of the Empire. Caracalla continued the militaristic dictatorship of Septimius Severus but was known for more erratic behavior. The cleverly ruthless Caracalla killed the equally ruthless but clumsier Geta. Severus’ son, Caracalla was a ruthless tyrant, succeeding his father along with his brother Geta. While Severus restored order to Rome, his stern and highly militaristic dictatorship undermined traditional Roman institutions (such as the Senate). Septimius Severus was a Roman general of North African origin who wrested the supreme power after the period of chaos that ensued from Commodus’ death (the son of one of the last of the “Five Good Emperors,” Marcus Aurelius). Elaborate ceremonies would mark this stone’s entry and brief residence in Rome. In a different approach to the Greeks and Romans who erected statues of their deities in their temples, El Gabal was worshiped in the form of a meteoric black stone. Related to the family of Septimius Severus, Elagabalus was born into the highest level of privilege in Ancient Rome.Įlagabalus was inducted to the hereditary priesthood of the solar deity El Gabal, who was worshipped in her native city as the supreme deity. Well known through the ages, Elagabalus lived a very short but tumultuous life. BackgroundĮlagabalus was born in the year 203 AD, and her brief reign occurred in the years 218-222 at the end of which she was killed. Telling aspects such as the story related by Dio Cassius that Elagabalus offered half the empire to the surgeon that would correct her genitalia seem to go far beyond merely scandalizing an effeminate monarch and more towards showing the desperation a transgender person might well feel in an age long before any methods were found to modify her body according to her desires. The three extant sources from antiquity, while they do contradict each other, still broadly concur that the sovereign did have very strong manifestations of cross-gender behavior.
I have decided to use female pronouns because, based on the evidence, this choice is just as valid as male pronouns. The emperor is best known under this title (which is grammatically masculine) and she was assigned male at birth. Name and Pronounsįirst a note on name and pronouns: Historical sources uniformly refer to Elagabalus with male pronouns. I will also show how examining her life and career can teach us much about the intersections of cultural conflict in ancient times and the lavish amount of attention transgender phenomenon have received since at least as long as history was recorded. In this biography I will briefly narrate her life and evaluate what her contemporaries found so shocking about her. Her reported atrocities and crimes however almost entirely fall under the categories of upsetting the gender, cultural and religious norms of Roman society. Like the three emperors mentioned above, Elagabalus has consistently been ranked among the worst and most depraved holders of the Imperial honor. Elagabalus’ name is not quite as notorious as that of Nero and Caligula, or even Commodus, recently featured as the villain in Russell Crowe’s Gladiator.