THE AMAZING EMPEROR
HELIOGABALUS
[Illustration]
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
THE
AMAZING EMPEROR
HELIOGABALUS
BY
J. STUART HAY
ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE, OXFORD
WITH INTRODUCTION BY
PROFESSOR J. B. BURY, LITT.D.
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1911
PREFACE
The life of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, generally known to the
world as Heliogabalus, is as yet shrouded in impenetrable mystery. The
picture we have of the reign is that of an imperial orgy—sacrilegious,
necromantic, and obscene. The boy Emperor, who reigned from his
fourteenth to his eighteenth year, is depicted amongst that crowd
of tyrants who held the throne of Imperial Rome, by the help of the
praetorian army, as one of the most tyrannical, certainly as the most
debased.
Few people have made any study of the documents which relate to this
particular period, and fewer still have taken the trouble to inquire
whether the accounts of the Scriptores are trustworthy or consonant with
the known facts.
To this present time no account of the life of this Emperor has been
published. Histories of the decline and fall of Imperial Rome there are
in plenty; other reigns have been examined in detail; German critics have
sifted the trustworthiness of the documents, few in number and all late
in date, which refer to other reigns; so far nothing has been done on
the life of Elagabalus.
The present writer started this study with the view that the Syrian
boy-Emperor was, in all probability, what his biographers have painted
him, and what all other writers have accepted as being a substantially
correct account of the absence of mind, will, policy, and authority
which he was supposed to have betrayed, along with other even more
reprehensible characteristics.
The first reason to doubt this estimate came from the continually
recurring mention of a perpetual struggle between the Emperor and his
female relatives; a fight in which the boy was always worsting able and
resolute women, carrying his point with consummate tact and ability,
while allowing the women a certain show of dignity and position, where it
in no way diminished the imperial authority or his own prerogative.
This circumstance alone was scarcely consonant with Lampridius’ account
of a mere youthful debauchee, who had neither inclination nor will for
anything, save a low desire to wallow in vice and unspeakable horrors as
the be-all and end-all of his existence.
On further inquiry, another circumstance obtruded itself, namely, that
the boy had a vast religious scheme or policy, which he was bent on
imposing on his subjects in Rome, and indeed throughout the world. This
policy was the unification of churches in one great monotheistic ideal.
Religion may be neurotic in itself, but the scheme of Elagabalus was
not essentially so. Certainly the course of action by which he purposed
to effect his ideal was not that of a mere sensualist. It showed
understanding, persistency, and dogged determination; it was not popular,
because in the general incredulity, the earlier deities had lost even the
immortality of mummies.
Yet another reason which forced one to disagree with the usual summary of
the character under discussion was that, despite (1) the awful accounts
of the imperial orgies; (2) the accusations brought against the cruelty
and incompetency of the government; (3) the announcement that all good
men were exterminated in the general lust for destruction of such
worthies; (4) the account of the class and calibre of the men employed
in all state offices; (despite all this) the authors inform us that the
state did not suffer from the effects of the reign. This was obviously
an impossibility at the outset, and the terminological inexactitude
became even more apparent when all the known good men were mentioned as
peaceably holding office, not only during the reign in question, but in
that of Elagabalus’ successor; either they had been resurrected or had
never been exterminated.
Again, the account given of the military policy is not that which would
be the work of a weakling. The fiscal policy may have been unchanged,
but the edict which enforced the payment of Vectigalia in gold, showed a
considerable amount of sense, in demanding the payment of taxes in the
one coin whose standard had been maintained when all others had been
debased by preceding Emperors, and no one had been worse than the great
financier Septimius Severus in this debasing of the currency.
In legal matters alone we are told that the period was sterile, because
only five decrees of the reign are recorded by the editors of the
_Prosopographia_. This may be true, but it is quite possible, in fact
more than probable, that in later redactions much of the work which
Papinian, Paul, Ulpian, and other such produced during this reign has
been embodied in later decrees or codifications, and one can scarcely
imagine that these men were entirely sterile for four years in the zenith
of their authority.
Again, it is most noticeable that in the mass of abuse and obvious animus
which the “life” exhibits, there is not one definite act of cruelty
reported; no wanton murder is cited; no hint given that the people were
discontented with the appointments made, or that they suffered from any
of the misrule which had been so prevalent for years past. On the other
hand, we are told that the people considered Elagabalus a worthy Emperor,
despite all that could be said to his discredit.
Chiefly it was this too obvious animus, shown on each page of the
documents, which led the writer to examine the opinions of German
and Italian critics on the measure of credibility which could safely
be attached to the Scriptores Historiae Augustae. It was an agreeable
surprise to find that their estimates of the Scriptores ranged from
those of men who stigmatised the whole collection as an impudent and
unenlightened forgery to men who, like Mommsen, contended that, though
originally the lives might have had some real historical value, they had
been so edited and enlarged as to lack the essential weight of historical
evidence, and contained, as they stood, but a modicum of consecutive and
unvarnished fact.
Authorities being so far in accord, the present writer set to work to
sift the accounts which were obviously quite unnaturally biased, and to
separate what was merely stupidly contradictory from what was mutually
exclusive.
This method has been applied merely to the first seventeen sections of
Lampridius’ work, the portion which professes to contain a more or less
historical account of the events from Elagabalus’ entry into Rome to his
disappearance into the main drain of the city.
In the latter portion of the life there is a wealth of biographical
detail, which, in plain English, means an account _in extenso_ of what
has been already described too luridly in the foregoing sections. It is
written in Latin, and has never been translated into English, to the
writer’s knowledge, nor has he any intention of undertaking the work
at this present or any other time, as he has no desire to land himself,
with the printers and publishers, in the dock at the Old Bailey, in an
unenviable, if not an invidious and notorious position.
Those, however, who are capable of reading the Latin tongue, and
therefore inured against further corruption, will find an excellent
edition published in Paris by M. Panckoucke in 1847. The last three
chapters in the present volume are an attempt to bring together all the
material capable of publication in these seventeen sections, and take the
form of three essays on the main figures of the Emperor’s psychological
imagination. They are in no way an endeavour to expurgate the sections
referred to, as any such attempt would leave one with the numerals as
headings and the word “Finis” half-way down a sheet of notepaper. It is
better for the sapient to read the chapters for themselves, and so all
men will be satisfied.
It has also been impossible, on the same grounds, to criticise
the statements here made; the greater part are, like those in the
biographical portion, frankly impossible, when not mutually exclusive. It
is needless to say that the author accepts the whole with all the Attic
salt at his disposal.
Another anomaly that may strike the reader is the fact that various names
are used to designate the Emperor. Tristran remarks that “they are as
many as the hydra has heads.” The present idea is to use the titles
which the boy bore at the different stages of his life, rather than apply
to him on all occasions the nickname which was attached to him after his
death.
In the earlier part of the work I have referred to the youth as Varius
and Bassianus, the two names which appear most frequently, in reference
to his reputed fathers, but have neglected Avitus, by which title he is
occasionally known, in reference to his grandfather, as also that of
Lupus, which is sometimes found in Dion, because, as Dr. Wotton remarks,
there is no means of finding out whether he was so called (if ever he was
given the name at all) on account of some ancestry, by reason of a false
reading, or on account of some other matter now long laid to rest.
After the Proclamation, I have preferred to call the Emperor by his
official name, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, or Antonine for short, as
this is the only manner in which the coins, inscriptions, and documents
describe him. After his death, it seems allowable to give him the
nickname which his relations and later biographers have applied to
him, namely, the latinised form of the name of his God. I have nowhere
adopted the later Greek spelling or adaptation, Heliogabalus, either
when referring to the God of the Emesans or to the Emperor himself. The
only form in which the name occurs in inscriptions is in describing
the Emperor as “Priest of Elagabal” or the Sun. Lampridius certainly
Hellenised its form a century later, on what grounds is by no means
clear, when one realises that neither the boy nor his God had any
trace of Greek blood, tradition, or philosophy about them, and that
the identification of a particular Syrian monotheism with Mithraism
or general Sun worship is not universally admitted as a necessary
consequence, either in the case of Elagabal, Jehovah, or indeed in that
of any of the other “El” claimants to exclusiveness, though the balance
of probability may lie on the side of the identification. It is further
unnecessary to drag in the Hellenised form of the Emperor’s name in
order to pander to a popular and erroneous conception of the reign,
which conception this book is designed to combat and generally offend.
Heliogabalus is nevertheless the sole title by which this Emperor is
known to the world at large, in consequence of which I have allowed the
name to stand on the title-page, chiefly in order that Mrs. Grundy’s
prurient mind may know, before she buys or borrows this volume, that it
is the record of a life at which she may expect to be shocked, though she
will in all probability find herself yawning before the middle of the
introductory chapter.
As I understand the reign, the main object on the part of the boy’s
murderers in nicknaming him Elagabalus after his death, was to throw
discredit on his memory by depriving him of the venerated title Antonine,
and substituting therefor the name of a Syrian monotheistic deity, who
by his exclusiveness was an offence and a byword in the eyes of the
virile, pantheistic philosophy which then held sway.
A word must also be said as to the attitude in leaving untouched much
of the scandal attaching to this Emperor’s name. I have only been able
to deal with the public side of his character, as there are no coins or
inscriptions which refer to his private life, and have in consequence
been forced to quote what the tradition, gained from his traducers’
writings, states was his unfortunate abnormality.
These traditions may be true wholly or in part, they certainly could only
be disproved by the actual persons implicated, who have written neither
for nor against the Emperor’s psychological condition. The traditions,
however, as far as they treat of the public position and reputation of
the Emperor, have been shown to be grossly unfair where they are not
horribly untruthful, and may be—in all probability are—of an equal value,
when they discuss private practices about which no one can have had any
particular knowledge except his actual accomplices. Suffice it to say,
that any stick is good enough to beat a dog with once he is incapable of
defending himself, and in this case it has been laid about Antonine’s
shoulders with almost diabolical ingenuity.
I much regret that I have been unable to find any portraits of the
Emperor for whose authenticity Bernouilli will vouch. Alone of the whole
family there remain authentic busts of Julia Mamaea and Julia Paula,
neither of whom are important enough to be included, since we are unable
to give a portrait of Elagabalus himself. I have therefore confined
myself to the use of coins, whose veracity is undoubted, hoping that the
reader will supply from his imagination that charm and beauty which the
biographers have been unwillingly forced to allow both to the Emperor and
his mother.
In the preparation of this work I have had much valuable and kindly
assistance, for which I desire to acknowledge my deep indebtedness here.
First, to Professor Bury of Cambridge, for his unwearying and sage
advice on my whole manuscript; also to Dr. Bussell, Vice-Principal of
Brasenose College, Oxford, for his interest and kindly corrections; to
the authorities in the Bodleian Library; to the assistants in the British
Museum, especially to Mr. Philip Wilson and Mr. A. J. Ellis for their
continued help in my work there, and to Mr. Allen for the time and care
he has spent in helping me find the coins that explain the text.
I have also to acknowledge with sincere thanks the permission of Mr. E.
E. Saltus of Harvard University to quote his vivid and beautiful studies
on the Roman Empire and her Customs. I am deeply indebted to Mr. Walter
Pater, Mr. J. A. Symonds, and Mr. Saltus for many a _tournure de phrase_
and picturesque rendering of Tacitus, Suetonius, Lampridius, and the
rest. I also desire to thank Dr. Counsell of New College, Oxford, and Dr.
Bailey of the Warneford Asylum, not only for their help in correcting my
proofs, but also for their assistance in the preparation of my chapter on
Psychology.
To all these gentlemen I owe a great debt, which, I hope, the general
public will repay by an appreciation of their work. We have endeavoured
to right a wrong; if our efforts are in any way successful, the reader
will acknowledge that this _mauvais quart d’heure_, which has been
stigmatised as full of impossible situations and intolerable surprises,
is in reality a very human life which, like our own, has its exquisite
moments of which we would as soon deprive ourselves as Elagabalus.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION xxiii
PART I
CHAPTER I
General sketch of conditions, 1. The Augustan Histories and their
writers, 2. Lampridius, author of the Life of Elagabalus, 4. First
attempts at criticism, 4. Modern criticism, 4. Latin sources: Marius
Maximus, 5. Greek sources: Dion Cassius, Xiphilinus, 7. Herodian,
8. General attack on the authenticity of the “Lives,” 9. Mommsen’s
opinion, 10. Peter, Richter, Dessau, Seeck, Klebs, Kornemann, 11-15.
Italian opinion, 15. General opinion of the biographies, 16. Reasons
for the tainted sources, 18. Church historians, 19. Jurisprudence,
21. Numismatists, 21. Object of this work, 23.
CHAPTER II
Emesa, 24. High-Priest Kings, 25. Septimius Severus, 27. Julius
Bassianus, 27. Julia Domna’s marriage, 28. Caracalla’s birth, 29.
Septimius Severus, Emperor, 30. Julia’s court, 31. Maesa comes
to Rome with her family, 31. Marriage of Soaemias, 34. Birth
of Elagabalus, 35. Paternity of Elagabalus, 35. Birthplace of
Elagabalus, 36. Julia Mamaea, her marriage, and her connection with
Caracalla, 38. Macrinus Praetorian Praefect, 41. His plot against
Caracalla, 42. Election of Macrinus, 43. Julia’s position, 43. Her
work to recover the empire, 43. Banishment and death, 44.
CHAPTER III
Maesa’s return to Emesa, 46. Macrinus’ weakness and tyranny, 47. The
legion at Emesa, 48. Bassianus High-Priest, 49. Worship of Elagabal,
50. Bassianus’ religious outlook, 51. Eutychianus and Gannys corrupt
the soldiers, 53. Date of the proclamation of Elagabalus, 55.
Macrinus astonished, 56. The Empire in favour of Bassianus, Julian’s
expedition, 59. Deserters to Bassianus, 61. Macrinus at Apamea,
and Diadumenianus’ elevation, 63. Macrinus retires to Antioch, 66.
Bassianus wins allegiance of soldiers at Apamea, 67. Dion on the
dates of proclamation and battle, 67. Arval Brothers’ meeting, 68.
Wirth, 69. Battle of Immae, 69. Antonine at Antioch, 71. Macrinus’
escape, 72. Capture and death, 74. Character of Macrinus, 75.
CHAPTER IV
Antonine’s refusal to allow the sack of Antioch, 77. Chief minister,
78. Antonine’s temperament, 79. Acts of the new Government, 81.
Amnesty, 83. Position of the Senate, 84. Delight of Rome, 86.
Dismissal of troops, 87. Treasonable attempts and pretenders, 88.
Elagabal to accompany the Emperor, 91. Journey to Nicomedia, 92.
Winter in Asia Minor, 93. Illness of the Emperor, 94. Xiphilinus on
Antonine’s religion, 95. Monotheistic or Mithraic not polytheistic,
96. Death of Gannys, 101. Antonine’s character, 102. His popularity
and his taxation, 104.
CHAPTER V
Date of arrival in Rome discussed, 107. The entry into the city
according to Herodian, 110. First marriage, 111. The temples, 112.
The scheme for the unifying of religions, 114. The worship, 115. The
Eastern cults, 115. Date of scheme discussed, 118. Reasons for its
failure, 118. Women in the Senate, 119. Senaculum, 121. Lampridius on
the Emperor’s popularity, 124. Charges against the Administration,
125. Divorce of Julia Paula, 126. Pastimes, 127. Summary, 128.
Elagabal’s alliance with Vesta, Antonine’s with Aquilia Severa, 129.
Pomponius Bassus’ plot, 131. Antonine divorces Elagabal from Minerva,
himself from Aquilia Severa, 132. Sends for Tanit from Carthage, 133.
Marries Annia Faustina, 134. Alliance of Maesa and Mamaea, 135.
CHAPTER VI
Lampridius on Alexander, 137. Seius Carus’ plot, 139. Military
expenditure, 140. Maesa’s plan for the adoption of Alexander,
141. The Emperor’s reasons for concurrence, 142. Name Alexander
accounted for, 144. Date of adoption discussed, 145. Position after
adoption, 146. Alexander’s titles, 147. Antonine’s endeavours, 148.
Antonine’s resolve to divorce Annia Faustina and disown Alexander,
150. Accusations against the Government, 151. Antonine’s attempt to
assassinate Alexander discussed, 152. Antonine goes to Praetorian
camp, 154. Camp conference, 155. Hatred of Maesa and Mamaea testified
against Antonine, 157. Mamaea’s precautions, 158. Antonine’s
preparations for suicide, 160. Alexander designated Consul, 160. The
Emperor’s refusal and reasons for his compliance, 161. Lampridius on
Julius Sabinus, 163. Ulpian and Silvinus, 164. Reasons for the murder
and the various accounts, 165. Criticism on the above, 170. The
treatment of Elagabalus’ body, 171.
CHAPTER VII
The Emperor set free to further his cult, 173. The procession, 174.
Mismanagement and appointments, 178. Freedmen, 180. Return of
Aquilia Severa, 183. Desire for military glory, 184. The names of
the Emperor, 185. Activity in building, 186. Military disaffection,
its causes and result, 188. Date of Elagabalus’ murder and length
of reign discussed, 191. Date for renewal of tribunician power
discussed, 194. Elagabalus’ interest in public affairs, 198. The
treatment of inscriptions, 198. Outlook of the Roman world, 200.
CHAPTER VIII
Roman views on matrimony, 203. Elagabalus’ marriage with Julia Paula,
205. Position of Julius Paulus, 206. Serviez, etc., on Julia Paula,
207. Dates of this marriage and divorce, 208. Elagabalus’ marriage
with Aquilia Severa, 211. Vestals discussed, 211. Roman religion,
212. Elagabalus’ lack of prejudice, 214. His explanation to the
Senate, 215. Family of Aquilia Severa, 215. Probable dates of
marriage and divorce, 216-18. Maesa’s desire for an alliance with
the nobility, 218. Annia Faustina chosen, her family discussed, 222.
Her age and her divorce, 223. Further marriages discussed, 224.
Elagabalus’ return to Aquilia, 225.
PART II
CHAPTER IX
Lampridius’ Life of Elagabalus impossible, 227. Elagabalus a
psycho-sexual hermaphrodite, not wicked, 229. The condition quite
usual then as now, 229. Virtue a virile quality, not a neurotic
negation, 229. The Phallus natural and omnipresent typifies joy and
fruitfulness, 230. Elagabalus has strong homosexual nymphomania and
every inducement to gratify his feminine instinct, 231. His nature
incredibly open and affectionate, 232. Maesa an aggravating factor,
234. Modern authorities on similarly inverted cases to-day, 234.
Biblical parallels, Greek instances, modern religious tendencies,
234. Normal intolerance largely hypocritical, 235. The usual
instincts of such natures, 235. Elagabalus’ love of flowers, feasts,
and teasing, 236. His marriages psychologically considered, 238.
His castration and desire for an operation which might produce the
female organs discussed, 238. Elagabalus’ marriage with Hierocles,
239. Hierocles and Zoticus discussed, 239. Comparison with Messalina,
240. Spintries, 240. Elagabalus’ love of colour, 241. His frankness,
241. Greek love opposed to effeminacy, 242. Gulick on the psychology,
on Christianity, 242. Effeminacy, not homosexuality, disgusts Roman
world and gives reason for Elagabalus’ downfall, 244.
CHAPTER X
Description of Nero’s golden house, 245. Elagabalus compared with
Nero, 246. Pastimes, prodigalities, and dress, 246. Extravagances of
ritual, 250. Congiaries and games, 251. Table appointments and food,
252. Maecenas’ feast, 254. Perfumes, 256. Fish, 258. The spectacles
described, 260. Gladiators discussed, 262. Elagabalus’ skill as a
sportsman, 263. The lotteries, 264. Elagabalus’ devices for suicide,
265. The psychology of extravagance, 266.
CHAPTER XI
Elagabalus’ piety, 267. Constantine the opponent of other monotheisms,
268. Theories of religion, 269. Civilised religion becomes
philosophical, 269. Rome both atheist and credulous, 270. Civic
religion leaves the forces of sex and superstition out of count, 270.
Gods always necessary to the superstitious, the more mystical the
more attractive, 271. Semitic rituals attract the mob, 273. Elagabal
exclusive and absorbs other cults, 273. Elagabalus’ scheme Erastian,
compared with Tudor conception, 273. Elagabalus will not persecute,
276. Religion and castration, 276. Elagabalus no idolator, 277. His
mistake in trying to amalgamate the hated Judaism with Roman deities,
277. Marriages of Elagabal, 278. Human sacrifices discussed, 280. The
column for the meteorite, 281. Contest between religion and dogma,
282. The numbers of the mob prevail against the rationalists, 284.
Rome bored with all Gods, hence Elagabalus’ failure, 285.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 289
INDEX 299
LIST OF COINS
FACING PAGE
Coin of Antoninus Pius, struck at Emesa (British Museum) 26
Coin of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla) (British Museum) 26
Medal of Julia Domna Pia, Empress (British Museum) 40
Coin of Julia Maesa Augusta (British Museum) 40
Coin of Julia Soaemias Augusta (British Museum) 40
Coin of Julia Mamaea Augusta (British Museum) 40
Coin of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla) (British Museum) 60
Coin of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Elagabalus) (British Museum) 60
Coin of Macrinus recording Victoria Parthica, A.D. 218. (From a
woodcut) 60
Coin of Diadumenianus as Emperor, A.D. 218 (British Museum) 60
Coin of A.D. 219 commemorating the arrival of Elagabalus in Rome
(British Museum) 110
Liberalitas II. Coin struck in A.D. 219 for the Emperor’s marriage
with Julia Cornelia Paula. (From the collection of Sir James S.
Hay, K.C.M.G.) 110
Coin struck in A.D. 219 concerning the grain supply (British
Museum) 110
Coin struck in A.D. 219 to commemorate the Emperor’s recovery
(British Museum) 110
Thyatira Coin of Elagabalus (British Museum) 142
Coin struck to commemorate Alexianus’ adoption, A.D. 221
(British Museum) 142
Coin struck to commemorate Alexander as Pont. Max., A.D. 221
(British Museum) 142
Jovi Ultiori. The Eliogabalium as reconsecrated to Jupiter,
A.D. 224. (From a woodcut) 174
Coin struck to commemorate the Procession of Elagabal, A.D. 221
(British Museum) 174
Coin of A.D. 221 representing the Eliogabalium. (From a
photogravure) 174
Coin of A.D. 220, misread by Cohen as T.P. III Cos. IIII
(British Museum) 196
Coin of A.D. 221, misread by Cohen as T.P. IIII Cos. IIII
(British Museum) 196
Coin of A.D. 222 (British Museum) 196
Coin of Julia Cornelia Paula Augusta (British Museum) 216
Coin of Julia Cornelia Paula Augusta, A.D. 220-21 (British Museum) 216
Coin of Julia Aquilia Severa Augusta, A.D. 220-21 (British Museum) 216
Coin of Annia Faustina Augusta, A.D. 221-22 (British Museum) 216
Coin of Julia Aquilia Severa Augusta, A.D. 221-22 (British Museum) 216
INTRODUCTION
The Emperor who is studied in this volume has commonly been treated
as if his reign had no significance, unless it were to show to what
deep places the Roman Empire had sunk when such a monster of lubricity
could wield the supreme power. If the chronicle of his naughty life has
been exploited to illustrate the legend that the pagan society of the
Empire was desperately wicked and infamously corrupt, he has not been
taken seriously as a ruler. Yet Elagabalus appeared under too ominous a
constellation to justify us in dismissing his brief attempt to govern the
world as unworthy of more than a superficial description and a facile
condemnation. His reign lasted less than four years; but those years fell
in a period which was critical for the future of European civilisation,
and he was brought up in a circle intensely alive to the religious
problems which were then moving the souls of men. Mr. Hay has broken
new ground, and he has done history a service, in making Elagabalus the
subject of a serious and systematic study.
The third century, so obscurely lit by poor and meagre records, saw the
Empire of Rome shaken to its foundations. There was a manifest decline
in its strength and efficiency, marked by the insolent domination of
the common soldier, and luridly illustrated by the statistical facts
that from Septimius Severus to Diocletian the average reign of an
Emperor was about three years and that there were only two or three
sovereigns who were not the victims of a mutiny or a conspiracy. As
one of the efficacious causes of this decline has often been suggested
(most recently by M. Bouché-Leclercq) the detachment of men’s interest
from the public weal by the attraction and influence of individualistic
oriental religions, which did not aim at securing the stability of the
state, like the old religions of Rome and Greece, but undertook to save
the individual and ensure his happiness in a life beyond the tomb. It is
undoubtedly true that in this period religious currents were stirring
society to its depths, and several rival worships were engaged in a
competition of which the issue was decided in the following century. And
if the state was really weakened by a cleavage which had become sensible
between the private spiritual interests of the individual citizen and
the public interests of society, if its cohesion was endangered by
the tendency to place the former interests above the latter, we can
understand the statesmanship of Constantine the Great, who, by closely
connecting the state with one of those individualistic religions,
conciliated and identified the two interests. I do not suggest that
Constantine formulated the problem in the general terms in which we
may formulate it now; he was pushed to his far-reaching decision by a
variety of particular social facts, which involved the general problem,
while they forced upon him a particular solution. But the problem which
he solved had long been there, and a hundred years before Constantine
established Christianity, another Emperor had attempted to solve it. That
Emperor was Elagabalus.
The religious currents of the age of the Severi did not escape the
notice, or fail to engage the interest, of the Court. Julia Domna, Julia
Mamaea, Alexander Severus, were all under the influence of the spirit
of the time. These were the days in which Julia Domna and Philostratus
discovered for the world a new saviour in the person of Apollonius of
Tyana. But the religious zeal of Elagabalus was more passionate than
the intellectual interest of any of his house. He conceived a universal
religion for the Empire, and his abortive attempt to establish it
is examined by Mr. Hay with a full sense of its significance and an
unprejudiced desire to understand it.
With all his unashamed enthusiasm, Elagabalus was not the man to
establish a religion; he had not the qualities of a Constantine or yet of
a Julian; and his enterprise would perhaps have met with little success
even if his authority had not been annulled by his idiosyncrasies. The
Invincible Sun, if he was to be worshipped as a sun of righteousness,
was not happily recommended by the acts of his Invincible Priest. I have
said “idiosyncrasies”; should I not have said “infamies”? But it is
unprofitable as well as unscientific simply to brand Elagabalus as an
abominable wretch. His life is a document in which there is something
demanding to be comprehended. If all men and women are really bisexual,
this Syrian boy was of that abnormal type in which the recessive is
inordinately strong at the expense of the dominant sex; he was a
remarkable example of _psychopathia sexualis_; but in his age there
were no Krafft-Ebings to submit his case to scientific observation.
From this point of view, which Mr. Hay has taken, Elagabalus becomes an
intelligible morbid human being. And the young man, though so highly
abnormal and spoiled by the possession of supreme power before he had
reached maturity, was far from being repulsive. A salient feature of
his character was good nature; he appears to have wished to make every
one happy. His pleasures were not stained by the cruelties of Nero. It
amused him to shock people, but he was always good-humoured. He is said
to have genially inquired of some grave and decorous old gentlemen who
were his guests at a vintage festival, whether they were inclined for
the pleasures of Venus. The anecdote, if not true to fact, seems to be
characteristic. It is told in the _chronique scandaleuse_ of Lampridius,
one of the writers of that Augustan History round which a forest of
critical literature has grown up in recent times. The outcome of all the
criticism is generally to the discredit of these authors, and Mr. Hay has
the merit of having strictly applied this unfavourable result to the Life
of Elagabalus.
But though the religious enterprise of this eccentric Emperor was doomed
to fail, it was not by any means the wild project of a madman, which
those who judge _post eventum_—after the triumph of Christianity—or who,
like Domaszewski, see in it merely _eine Vergöttlichung der Unzucht_,
are apt to take for granted that it was. In those days, it was not in
the least certain, as yet, that Christianity would be chosen and its
rivals left; this religion was not, as its apologists would have us
believe, the only light in a dark world. To a disinterested mind it would
appear that Mithra or Isis might have become the divinity of western
civilisation. They were certainly well in the running. We may guess what
circumstances aided the worship of Christ to rise above competing cults,
but for inquirers, like Mr. Hay and myself, who hold no brief, and do
not accept the easy axiom that what happens is best, it is unproven
that Christianity was decidedly the best alternative. Perhaps it was.
Yet we may suspect that, if the religion which was founded by Paul of
Tarsus had, “by the dispensation of Providence,” disappeared, giving
place to one of those homogeneous oriental faiths which are now dead, we
should be to-day very much where we are. However this may be, it seems
that in the third century the Christians were far from commending their
doctrine to the rest of the world by any signal moral superiority in
their own conduct. The bad opinion which pagans held of their morals in
the time of Tertullian cannot be explained as a mere wilful prejudice,
and Tertullian’s reply that the charge is only true of some but not of
all nor even of the greater number (_Ad nationes_, 5) is a significant
admission that, taking them all round, the Christians were not then
conspicuous as a sect of extraordinary virtue. Moreover, there was
nothing in the ethics of their system which had not been independently
reached by the reason of Greek and Roman teachers, and they are entitled
to boast that the success of their religion depended not on any
superiority in its moral ideals to those of pagan enlightenment, but on
its supernatural foundations.
Slander, with ecclesiastical authority behind it, dies so hard, that
I may take leave to add a remark which to well-informed students of
antiquity is now a platitude. The offensive performances of Elagabalus
prove nothing as to the prevailing morality of his time, just as the
debauches of Nero prove nothing for his. To judge the private morals of
the pagan subjects of the Empire from the descriptions of Suetonius and
Lampridius is even more absurd than it would be to portray the domestic
life of Christian England from the reports of the Divorce Court. The
notion that the poor Greeks and Romans were sunk in wickedness and
vice is a calumnious legend which has been assiduously propagated in
the interest of ecclesiastical history, and is at the present day a
commonplace of pulpit learning. If pagans, in ignorance or malice,
slandered the assemblies and love-feasts of the early Christians, it will
be allowed that Christian divines of later ages have, by their fable of
pagan corruption, wreaked a more than ample revenge.
Among readers of Gibbon, the very name of “Heliogabalus” will always
“force a smile from the young and a blush from the fair.” But it may be
expected that, after Mr. Hay’s investigation, it will be recognised that
this Emperor made, according to his lights, a perfectly sincere attempt
to benefit mankind, which must be judged independently of his own moral
or physiological perversities.
J. B. BURY.
PART I
CHAPTER I
THE CRITICAL LITERATURE CONCERNING THE AUGUSTAN HISTORIES
_The Scope of this Book_
The age of the Antonines is an age little understood amongst the present
generation. The documents relating thereto are few in number, and for
the most part the work of very second-rate scandal-mongers. Like the
Senate of the time, these writers had so far lost their sense of personal
responsibility that they were quite willing to record anything that
their “God and Master” ordered. The pleasures and vices of the age were
lurid and extravagant. The menace of official Christianity, with its
destruction of literature and philosophy, was almost at the gates of
the city. All which facts serve to render this most magnificent period
of Roman history unreal and fantastic to men of our more practical and
rationalistic age.
The reign of Elagabalus is not a record of great deeds. It shows no
advance in science or in military conquest. Save in the realm of
jurisprudence, it is not an age of great men, because these are born in
the struggles of nations. It is not an age of poverty or distress. It is
rather a record of enormous wealth and excessive prodigality, luxury and
aestheticism, carried to their ultimate extreme, and sensuality in all
the refinements of its Eastern habit. Such were the forces that swayed
the minds of these eager, living men, made idle by force of circumstances.
It was a wonderful and a beautiful age, full of colour, full of the joy
of living; and yet, as we look back upon its enervating excitements, who
can wonder at the greatness of the decline which followed the triumph
of so much magnificence? Rome was at the apex of her power; the Empire
was consolidated; the temple of Janus was closed; the Pax Romana reigned
supreme, and with it order and government in the remotest corner of
that vast dominion. What mattered the extravagances of a foolish boy
to the merchants of Lyons or to the traders of Alexandria, so long as
they were undisturbed and taxation was at a minimum? What mattered the
blatant outburst of a Semitic monotheism, when men’s minds—amongst the
superstitious—were already attuned to the kindred mysteries of Mithra and
the spiritual chicanery of Isis? The harm had been done both to reason
and to ancient belief by the secret dissemination of other superstitions,
whose effete neuroticism, whose enervating and softening influences had
done almost more to ruin the glorious fighting strength of the Empire
than all the luxury and effeminacy of the bygone world.
It was a pitiful exhibition, the powers of ignorance and mystery
undermining the strength of knowledge and virility, till the barbarians,
whom the very name of Rome had conquered and held entranced, overthrew a
greatness which, in the age of reason, the world had found irresistible.
It is pitiful, but it is true, and the record of merely a part will be
found in the Augustan Histories.
The difficulties presented to the student of the Scriptores Historiae
Augustae are manifold and ever increasing. Not the least of them lies in
the variation of standard by which this collection has been judged, and
in the diametrically opposing theories which eminent scholars have drawn
from the same passages.
The criticism owes its origin to the confusions which are bound to exist
in any series of lives covering a period of 167 years and purporting to
be the work of several—though none of them contemporary—writers.
The Biographies which have survived are nominally the work of six
authors, to wit, Aelius Spartianus, Julius Capitolinus, Vulcacius
Gallicanus, Aelius Lampridius, Trebellius Pollio, and Flavius Vopiscus.
The author of the Life of Elagabalus in this series is Aelius Lampridius,
of whom personally nothing is known. Peter[1] postulates that he was not
a plebeian, as he wrote at Constantine’s bidding, and presumably, from
the virulence of his attacks, with some ulterior object in view. This was
probably an attack on the Imperial author of that species of Mithraic
worship which Constantine desired to extirpate, as the most formidable
opponent of his own new religion.
Lampridius dedicates his Life of Elagabalus to this Emperor, which
at once shows us that at least 100 years had passed since the events
recorded had taken place, and calls for an inquiry into the sources
of Lampridius’ information. The text as it stands to-day is at times
incomprehensible, largely through the efforts of scholars of the Bonus
Accursius and Casaubon type,[2] while Dodwell in 1677 played his part
in corrupting, according to his lights, what must always have been a
document whose need of further mutilation was highly unnecessary. The
first attempt at modern criticism of the texts began in 1838, when
Becker[3] of Breslau endeavoured to reassign the various lives to their
respective authors, without very much success. In 1842 Dirksen[4] of
Leipzig attempted to ascertain the sources employed by the various
Scriptores, and their use or misuse of the material to their hands. He
founded his criticism mainly on the recorded speeches and messages of the
Emperors, which, unfortunately for the theories then put forward, were
discovered by Czwalina,[5] in 1870, to be largely spurious.
The next work of any importance was done by Richter[6] and Peter,[7]
when the former tried to date the Scriptores themselves from internal
evidence; the latter threw light on the time when the actual lives were
written, and, amongst others, assigns Lampridius’ Life of Elagabalus to a
period in or about the year A.D. 324. In 1865 the same author[8] placed
the study of the Scriptores on a firmer basis altogether, by introducing
the system of textual criticism as applied to the sources, both Latin and
Greek, from which the writers had drawn their facts.
Amongst Latin sources the chief name mentioned was Marius Maximus, of
whose works nothing now remains. He was Consul under Alexander Severus
and a devoted servant to that Emperor, at whose direction he attempted
to complete Suetonius[9] by a popular and scandal-mongering edition
of recent events. Mueller,[10] in 1870, after a careful investigation
of all the references to this author, concluded that his work was the
compilation of a volume styled _De vitis imperatorum_, which contained
the lives of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus, Commodus,
Pertinax, Julianus, Severus, Caracalla, and Elagabalus. That the last
of these lives should have been written by the friend and servant of
Elagabalus’ murderers is in itself unfortunate, as one immediately
suspects that some attempt will be made to justify the crime, or at
any rate that veiled malignancy rather than a true historical portrait
will be the result. It is easily discovered from the shortest perusal
of the wealth of mere abuse which it contains that no veil was
considered either necessary or expedient, and that if Lampridius drew his
information of the Emperor Elagabalus from Maximus, as a sole source,
his work was, historically speaking, as worthless a caricature as that
with which Maximus had bolstered up Alexander’s government. Mueller,
therefore, propounded the theory that though Maximus was the main Latin
source, other authors were used by the Scriptores in a supplemental way.
In this theory he was supported by Ruebel, Dreinhoefer, and Plew,[11] who
cite, amongst other names, that of Aelius Junius Cordus, an author who
is quoted with considerable frequency throughout the lives. This theory
of one main Latin source—Maximus—held ground until quite recently, when
the work of Heer, Schulz, and Kornemann, as we shall see, put a somewhat
different, if less satisfactory, complexion on the matter. It may be
remarked, in passing, that Niehues,[12] in 1885, attributes the earliest
life of Macrinus and his son Diadumenianus—amongst other Emperors whose
period does not concern us in this present inquiry—to Cordus rather than
Maximus, which may account for a certain amount of impartiality about
Macrinus’ life, there being no special end to serve either way.
The Greek sources used by the Scriptores are more easily fixed, for,
though most of the authors have perished, the work of Herodian is
preserved, and the abbreviation of Cassius Dio, which was made by
Xiphilinus of Trebizond for ecclesiastical purposes, is still readable.
It is perhaps necessary to state Haupt’s[13] opinion that the Scriptores
did not actually transcribe the Greek sources, and that these can only
give one a certain idea as to how the writers used their materials.
Unfortunately for the reign in question, neither of these two authors
can be considered as unprejudiced authorities. Indeed, circumstances
have conspired to obscure the history of Elagabalus at every point.
Cassius Dio is by unanimous consent the best historian of the third
century, infinitely superior to Maximus as a man of literary ability
and historical insight; he is not highly exciting, and has an annoying
habit of mistaking sententious platitudes for speculative philosophy.
His impartiality is certainly very questionable, and his obviously
superstitious credulity notable. But these defects are easily overlooked
by the student, because his work does embody a vast store of information
on the workings of the Imperial system. In all probability he was absent
from Rome during the reign of Elagabalus, since he tells us (79-7)
that Macrinus appointed him Curator of Smyrna and Pergamum in the year
218, from which posts he was not removed by Elagabalus.[14] When next
he appears it is as the friend and servant of Maesa, at the beginning
of Alexander’s reign. He was then—successively—twice Consul, Proconsul
of Africa, Governor of Dalmatia and Pannonia Superior, and presumably
died under Alexander at 80 years of age, as we have no work from him
after that date. As servant of the dominant faction, Dio’s history must
have been compiled to support Maesa’s action in causing the murder of
Elagabalus, and to justify the succession of Alexander, when once the
women had cleared the headstrong boy and his mother from their path. Dio
advances his information as that of an eye-witness, and as such it was
presumably derived from the same source as that of Maximus—so much so,
that Giambelli[15] in 1881 tried to prove that Dio’s main source for his
history was Maximus throughout and none other.
The other Greek contemporary is Herodian, the facts of whose life are
by no means certain. Kreutzer[16] thinks that he came to Rome about
the beginning of the third century, and subsequently held some minor
administrative posts in the government. He stands on a different plane
from Dio, as he possessed very small qualifications as a historian. He
narrates, it is true, salient features of court life and current foreign
affairs, though he has small conception of their bearing and less regard
for their chronology. In this matter it is only fair to remember that the
ignorant emendations of Bonus Accursius and a tribe of mediaeval scholars
may account for much that now looks so outrageous.
As regards the sources from which Dio and Herodian took their facts, much
has been written, though the attempts[17] made since 1881 to show that
both used Maximus are at best poor and inconclusive. Mueller[18] in 1870
pointed out with some considerable weight that the similarities which
exist between the parallel accounts found in Herodian and the Scriptores
were probably due to the fact that both had used Maximus. This line
of argument was developed by Giambelli and Plew[19] on the basis of a
supposition that Herodian had been worked over before he was used by the
Scriptores, thus endeavouring to account for the discrepancies between
Herodian and Maximus, and supporting the Maximus-as-root-base theory of
both authors. Boehme[20] in 1882 introduced the name of Dexippus as the
probable intermediate writer, and pointed out that the references made
by certain Scriptores to Herodian, under the name of Arrianus, are hard
to understand if the scriptor had the correct name before him. Certain
passages can however be shown to have been taken direct from Herodian, on
account of which Peter[21] entirely rejected the Dexippus intermediary
theory a few years later. In the main, however, the general authenticity
of the sources, whether Greek or Latin, was accepted up to the year 1889,
though one or two discoveries had been made which weakened their hold and
prepared the way for the general attack.
The first was made by Czwalina[22] of Bonn in 1870, who declared that
the documents and letters in the Life of Avidius Cassius were spurious;
and in 1880 Klebs[23] destroyed the authenticity of those at the end of
Diadumenianus’ Life. Things were more or less quiet until the year 1889,
when Dessau[24] opened his attack on the general authenticity of the
Scriptores’ work, asserting from the strongest internal evidence, such as
their mention of persons and things—in lives dedicated to Constantine as
Emperor—which did not happen till after his death, that the lives were
the work of a forger in the later part of the fourth century; a man who
had been stupid enough to give an appearance of antiquity to his work by
the use of names and dedications borrowed from older sources, but not
smart enough to avoid the inclusion of glaring anachronisms.
Mommsen[25] at once undertook to defend the authenticity of the
collection, asking saliently why a forger of Theodosius’ time should
undertake to praise the extinct dynasty founded by Constantius. The very
patchwork, he says, is enough to prove the collection no forgery. Again,
the use of pre-Diocletian geographical names, such as those given to
the legions, all date from a period prior to Diocletian. Mommsen then
proceeds to his criticism, in the course of which he divides the lives
into primary and secondary, which to his mind solved the problem, and
on this basis he drew entirely different conclusions from the facts
which Dessau had adduced as proofs of forgery. The progress of Mommsen’s
study forced him to admit what he had so entirely repudiated at first,
that the lives do contain hints of a later period, all of which, he
asserts, can be accounted for by the manner in which the collection took
form. Mommsen’s opinion, as finally stated, was that about A.D. 330 an
editor collected the available material and then filled in the gaps with
his own work. Again, at a later time a reviser retouched this whole
collection and added the evidence of the latest period, which has caused
all the trouble. By him also the work resembling Eutropius and Victor
was inserted. It is not the clearest of statements, and had to be so
modified, as it proceeded, that it certainly has not the weight attaching
to it that others of Mommsen’s works carry.
During the year 1890 two works appeared, the first by Seeck,[26] who
attempted to assist Dessau, the other by Klebs,[27] who had accepted a
modified Mommsen estimate of the authenticity of the Scriptores. Seeck
began by pointing out that a work which was first heard of in the latter
part of the fourth[28] century was not likely to arouse sufficient
interest to induce any one to revise it during the earlier part of
that century. He attacked the work attributed to Vopiscus, Pollio, and
Spartianus in particular, pointing out, in the case of Vopiscus, that had
he written under Constantine he would not have put him second in the
dedication,[29] or, if Pollio had written in the third century, when the
title Mater Castrorum was commonly given to the Empresses, he would never
have spoken of it as a speciality in Victoria’s case.[30] If Spartian
wrote under Diocletian, it is obvious that he must have had a prevision
of that Emperor’s sudden change of plan as to the succession. Klebs[31]
in the same year further modified Mommsen’s position, and explained
the similarities to Victor and Eutropius as due to the use of the same
sources by these authors and by the Scriptores, and rejected the idea of
a revision by a late hand on the ground that no one would be so foolish
as to imitate the style of the original writers for the sake of inserting
nonsense; certainly not the most convincing of the arguments which might
have been used by a man who presumably had at least heard the history of
the Gospel additions. A later article (1892)[32] was more conclusive,
as here he attempted to prove that no one forger could have adopted the
variety of attitude towards both the Senate and Christianity which we
find expressed in the various sections of the “lives,” while the presence
of geographical names and official titles, lost before the beginning of
the fourth century, point to earlier authenticity, not later forgery.
Woelfflin[33] in 1891 supported Mommsen on textual grounds. He traces
the differences of style to the fact that certain authors had used
Suetonius, others Maximus, while others again had trusted to their own
retentive memories, not altogether a safe historical criterion. He states
that the traces of similarity running through the works are due certainly
to a reviser, but that the reviser was Vopiscus,[34] which either puts
Vopiscus at a much later date than had ever been done before, or resigns
the idea of a late reviser in the Mommsen sense.
Dessau[35] in 1892 replied with a scathing attack on this same Vopiscus,
from the point of view of his age and the impossibility of his having
seen and heard all he claims to have done. Seeck[36] in 1894 published a
second article supporting Dessau with six points culled from titles and
names not known till after the reputed dates of the Scriptores. He now
considers that plurality of authors, or forgers, as the case may be, is
certain, and that they wrote, or forged, as Diocletian and Constantine
gave command, using for their work many sources, including the Imperial
Chronicle. But it is an inconclusive article.
In 1899 an American, Dr. Drake[37] of Michigan, published some studies
in detail on the life of Caracalla, which tended to establish the
genuineness of certain portions which had been thought spurious. Heer[38]
of Leipzig followed in 1901 with a critical survey of the life of
Commodus, dividing it into two parts, the first chronological, the second
biographical, and came to the conclusion that, though the chronological
part was trustworthy, the biography was derived from very poor sources,
and was only in part contemporaneous. Schulz[39] in 1903 applied the same
methods to the lives from Commodus to Caracalla, in 1904 to the life
of Hadrian,[40] and in 1907 to the lives of the house of Antonine,[41]
unfortunately leaving out Elagabalus.
Kornemann[42] in 1905 attempted to bring together the materials of the
lives from Hadrian to Alexander Severus, much on the lines of Schulz’s
work. He points out that the characteristic note was to be found in
the author’s interest in the affairs of state, as opposed to those of
war, and how Alexander Severus has been raised to his pinnacle of smug
propriety on account of supposititious favours to the senatorial body,
while extreme animus is betrayed towards the warlike Emperors or those
who, like the paternal despots of the Antonine House, trusted in the
army and only used the “slaves in togas” for ratifying any decree that
they might think necessary, a mode of procedure in government to which
that body had long been slavishly subservient. Kornemann goes on to
suggest that this fondness for Alexander presupposes the writer’s work
having been published during that Caesar’s reign, especially as no
trace is found of his work later. Kornemann then invents a new name for
our old friend Marius Maximus, and calls him, with some further show of
scholarship, one Lollius Urbicus,[43] a theory which still only interests
Kornemann. Heer[44] in 1901 had given him a certain support, however,
in refusing to believe that any one could have credited Maximus with
any part in the chronological side of the lives, and Schulz in his Life
of Hadrian adopted the same view, assigning the references to Maximus
to a later hand. It was Peter[45] who, in 1905, asked pertinently why
Maximus should be ousted from the authorship of the chronological source
in favour of an _unknown_ contemporary, though he admitted, with some
freedom, that many of the citations from Maximus stood in passages of
questionable value, or seem to have been thrust into the text.
In 1899 Tropea[46] of Padua published a treatise on the general
literature of the S.H.A., in which he shows that the aim of the
collection was political, and in the interest of the reigning house; in
consequence of which he postulates that it is either falsified in fact,
or wholly fabricated in the sense that Czwalina had already suggested.
Tropea was followed by his pupil Pasciucco,[47] who examined the life
of Elagabalus in detail in 1905. The result of this examination was
to show that Lampridius had not only failed to examine his sources of
information, but had exhibited a singular lack of order and proportion
in his imaginations. Pasciucco concluded with the illuminating remark
that Lampridius’ sources are either fabulous or of little value, and
answer only to the political complexion which that writer had adopted.
In 1904 Lécrivain[48] published an admirable conservative presentation of
the available material, which, with Schulz’s work on the Imperial House
of Antonine in 1907, leaves the textual criticism of the sources in a
sufficiently nebulous condition to please the majority, at any rate for
the time being.
In the light of the foregoing criticism and the almost universal
conclusion, drawn by both parties, as to the obvious want of impartiality
not only amongst the sources but also in the lives themselves, the
scope of this work will limit itself to a psychological criticism of
the life of Elagabalus, as contained in the Augustan Histories. These
documents, as will be remembered from the foregoing summary, are a
collection of heterogeneous and unenlightened compositions, to which
Lampridius, by no means the ablest contributor, has added the life of the
Syrian boy-emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Lampridius exhibits to a
striking degree the want of method and order, the vain repetitions and
frequent contradictions, the lack of historical insight and love of petty
detail which characterise the whole collection. This he shows to such a
degree that it would be as obviously unfair to regard his biographical
compilation on Elagabalus as historical fact, as the more than
questionable “Tendenzschriften,” which were his sources of information;
the perusal of which must have left the compiler with a distorted view
of events, even had he started with a fair and unprejudiced mind.
This certainly was not Lampridius’ outlook, as is evinced by the
obvious animus against his subject portrayed on every page both in his
unsupported accusations and in his puerile fault-finding.
In all probability this series of lives was never intended to be more
than a succession of scandal-loving biographies, designed to take the
place of the improper little novels which used to be imported from
Greece, but whose supply was falling short with the decadence of Greek
literature.
In the result, the biographies of the Augustae Historiae Scriptores are
for the most part an inartistic farrago of unordered trivialities, which
modern criticism has shown to be late in date, and with little or no
individual significance. Their whole value depends on their source, or
sources, and these have been proved, at least biographically speaking,
to have been only too often untrustworthy. The Life of Elagabalus, as
caricatured by the particular Scriptor, or forger, is not even an attempt
to portray historical events in either their chronological or natural
order; it makes no mention of the origin of the Emperor, his claims
to the throne, his fight with Macrinus, nor yet of the facts of his
subsequent government. It is merely one vast stream of personal abuse
and ordures, directed against the memory of the great exponent of that
monotheism which was the chief danger to Constantine’s theories in a
similar direction; while Lampridius’ sources are vitiated by the fact
that they are Imperial attempts to blacken the memory of a murdered
Emperor, whose popularity with the masses made his murderer’s position
insecure on the throne of the world.
It may not be altogether fair to charge the young Alexander personally
with the murder of Elagabalus, and even if one does, it is only right
to remember that he claimed a certain justification for the deed.[49]
Alexander affirmed that he had himself been in danger of death at
his cousin’s hand on more than one occasion. Undoubtedly, the true
instigators of the murder were Mamaea, Alexander’s mother, and Maesa,
the common grandmother of the cousins. Both of these women saw power and
authority passing from their hands, and could ill brook a second place
in the direction of the government. By their machinations, bribery,
and corruption, they had endeavoured already three times to suborn the
Praetorian Guard. But the effort had failed. Sufficient men had always
been wanting for the project, and only an unlucky chance threw the
Emperor into the hands of those few on the day of his death. Alexander’s
complicity in this crime might have been overlooked, on account of his
youth, had not his strenuous efforts to justify the deed called attention
to his attitude, not of regret, but of exultation in the crime. This
attitude is most clearly seen in the scandalous literary productions
which alone disgrace the name of Elagabalus, all issued from the pens
of Cassius Dio, Herodian, and Maximus,—or Lollius Urbicus,—all three
servants and bedesmen of Alexander and his female relatives.
Surely if it had been possible to give proof of cruelty, tyranny,
bloodthirstiness, deceit, or guile, the record of these deeds would have
filled the pages of the paid traducers; but contemporaries, who loved
Elagabalus too well for his generosity, charm, and beauty, would know
better. The only course open to the writers, therefore, was to attack
personal habits of which the outside world knew little and cared less,
because they were habits that affected no one save the boy’s familiars,
who were perfectly free to depart if they objected to his manners or
conversation.
As regards the later compilers of Imperial histories, mention must be
made of Zosimus and Zonaras, the twelfth-century editors of Cassius Dio,
who, however, add little to our knowledge. They are of a certain value
because they omit many of the scandals before produced, while the same
may be said for Aurelius Victor and the _Breviarium_ of Eutropius.
The Church historians make little mention of the period; they were
undisturbed by persecutions, and had no emperor or praefect to abuse.
They were, in fact, so busy inventing the difficulty of the diphthong
and developing Pauline theories on the doctrine and position of Christ,
that they had but little time for the real facts of life and progress
around them. Origen is a slight exception, but then his pride had been
flattered by a summons to Court, where, Eusebius tells us, he discussed
astronomical theology with the now visionary Julia Mamaea—who seems to
have aped her aunt, Julia Pia, in these matters. Origen’s pride was
further flattered by the dignity of a Praetorian escort on the journey
to Antioch—he does not mention the return voyage—which was certainly a
most astonishing honour, for which one would like to have other than
sacerdotal confirmation.
Further literary authorities, such as Sextus Rufus, Orosius, John of
Antioch, and Jordanis, though inferior in weight, have obviously got
some of their information from sources other than those open to the
Scriptores, and their statements may be accepted with reserve, unless
they can be shown to be irrational and contrary to known facts.
When all is gathered in, the sum total of the recorded history, as
Mr. Cotter Morison[50] says, is meagre to a degree. The investigation
of the various isolated records in the light of what is known of the
movements and tendencies of the age—combined with the psychology of
the boy’s character—is and must be the key to much that at first sight
seems contradictory and obscure in the scandals reported—none of which,
as Niebuhr has said, are capable of historical treatment with anything
like an assurance of accuracy. In this part of the biography Lampridius
himself is of considerable use. In the course of his vituperation he
is continually letting fall allusions and observations revealing a
character, instincts, and religion which he is quite incapable of
comprehending, and can only malign with a vitriolic vehemence worthy of a
better cause. His very vehemence is fortunate, since it has left the way
open for psychology and science to proclaim the abuse, what we now know
it to be, both malicious and untruthful.
The evidences from the jurisprudence of the reign are certainly
unsatisfactory. Later codifications have left us with but few dated laws
of a reign that stands in the golden age of Roman jurisprudence. Ulpian,
Papinian, and Paul were not men to allow a break in the order of legal
succession, and though Ulpian was presumably banished in connection with
Alexander, it was not until within a few months of Elagabalus’ death.
Sufficient remains to show us that the Empire suffered no break in the
perfect autonomy of jurisprudence, justice, and government, throughout a
period which Forquet de Dorne[51] has dignified under the pseudonym of
the reign of military anarchy.
Cohen and Eckhel are of great importance in fixing, as nearly as
possible, the chronology of the period, by their records of the medals
and coins of the reign. The same may be said of the inscriptions which
have escaped the vandalism of the Emperor’s enemies. Duruy, in his great
history, is unwilling to give the medals much biographical weight,
comparing them to the governmental journals of all times, which give
only the account of events as seen through official spectacles, and on
which as little reliance can be placed as on the published bulletins
of victories: witness the Parthian medal of Macrinus, the record of a
great victory for the Roman troops over Artabanus; the real fact being
a colossal defeat followed by a peace, the latter purchased in a manner
disgraceful to both the people and the arms of Rome.
Inscriptions are unfortunately few and far between, owing to the fury
with which Alexander and his relatives pursued Elagabalus’ memory.
Undoubtedly it was no new thing to call upon the Senate to execrate the
memory of a murdered rival. It was, in fact, one of that body’s most
important functions during the period under discussion. Rarely has the
work been done so thoroughly and effectively, which says something for
the zeal of Alexander and the money he spent in extirpating all reference
to the memory of Elagabalus.
The works of Valsecchius[52] and Turre,[53] amongst seventeenth-century
scholars, are illuminating on the subject of the length of Elagabalus’
reign. Tristran’s[54] attitude shows the slavishness of tradition;
certain of Saumaise’s[55] emendations show the same tendency despite
his usual impartiality; in fact, all have accepted the tradition of
wickedness without the least question as to its _fons et origo_. This
work proposes to take the texts as they exist, and endeavour from their
unwitting statements of the boy’s psychology to convict them of untruth.
From their unsupported charges of secret crimes, to show that real
crimes were largely non-existent, and to throw the burden of all the
ordures which have covered this Emperor’s name on to the shoulders of his
relations and murderers, to whom alone it was a vital object to destroy
his fair renown before a world which loved him. That his world did love
him, despite all, there are manifold traces. The prodigal Emperors
always were adored; so were their successors, the wicked popes. Man was
too near to nature to be aware of shame, and infantile enough to like
to be surprised. That was Elagabalus’ scheme; he amused his people and
surprised them at the same time.
The whole spirit of tolerance of the unusual makes it difficult for us
to picture Rome. Modern ink has acquired Nero’s blush; yet, however
sensitive a writer may be, once Roman history is before him although
he may violate it, may even give it a child, he never can make it
immaculate. He may skip, indeed; and it is because he has skipped so
often that you may fancy Augustus was immaculate. The rain of fire which
fell on the cities that mirrored their towers in the Bitter Sea might
just as well have fallen on him, on Virgil, on Caligula, Nero, Otho,
Vitellius, Titus, or Domitian[56] why, then, condemn Elagabalus alone
unheard, save for the fact that his relations hated him, and as far as we
can see, hated him without a cause, or perhaps because he was growing too
strong, and his unfortunate disease gave them their opportunity to gain
that power after which the women were striving like grim death?