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Elagabalus, the transgender empress

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (born Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus, c. 204 – 11/12 March 222), better known by her nicknames Elagabalus (/ˌɛləˈɡæbələs/, EL-ə-GAB-ə-ləs) and Heliogabalus (/ˌhiːliə-, -lioʊ-/ HEE-lee-ə-, -⁠lee-oh-[3]), was Roman empress from 218 to 222, while she was still a teenager. Her short reign was notorious for sex scandals and religious controversy. A close relative to the Severan dynasty, she came from a prominent Arab family in Emesa (Homs), Syria, where since her early youth she served as head priest of the sun god Elagabal. After the death of her cousin, the emperor Caracalla, Elagabalus was raised to the principate at 14 years of age in an army revolt instigated by her grandmother Julia Maesa against Caracalla's short-lived successor, Macrinus. She only posthumously became known by the Latinised name of her god.[a]

Later historians suggest Elagabalus showed a disregard for Roman religious traditions and sexual taboos. She replaced the traditional head of the Roman pantheon, Jupiter, with the deity Elagabal, of whom she had been high priest. She forced leading members of Rome's government to participate in religious rites celebrating this deity, presiding over them in person. She married four women, including a Vestal Virgin, in addition to lavishing favours on male courtiers thought to have been her lovers.[5][6] She was also reported to have prostituted herself.[7] Her behavior estranged the Praetorian Guard, the Senate and the common people alike. Amidst growing opposition, at just 18 years of age she was assassinated and replaced by her cousin Severus Alexander in March 222. The assassination plot against Elagabalus was devised by Julia Maesa and carried out by disaffected members of the Praetorian Guard.

Elagabalus developed a reputation among her contemporaries for extreme eccentricity, decadence, zealotry and sexual promiscuity. This tradition has persisted; among writers of the early modern age she endured one of the worst reputations among Roman emperors. Edward Gibbon, notably, wrote that Elagabalus "abandoned himself to the grossest pleasures with ungoverned fury".[8] According to Barthold Georg Niebuhr, "the name Elagabalus is branded in history above all others" because of her "unspeakably disgusting life".[9] An example of a modern historian's assessment is Adrian Goldsworthy's: "Elagabalus was not a tyrant, but she was an incompetent, probably the least able emperor Rome had ever had."[10] Despite near-universal condemnation of her reign, some scholars write warmly about her religious innovations, including the 6th-century Byzantine chronicler John Malalas, as well as Warwick Ball, a modern historian who described her as "a tragic enigma lost behind centuries of prejudice".[11]

Elagabalus was born in 203 or 204,[b] to Sextus Varius Marcellus and Julia Soaemias Bassiana,[14] who had probably married around the year 200 (and no later than 204).[15][16] Elagabalus's full birth name was probably (Sextus) Varius Avitus Bassianus,[c] the last name being apparently a cognomen of the Emesene dynasty.[17] Marcellus was an equestrian, later elevated to a senatorial position.[14][18][15] Julia Soaemias was a cousin of the emperor Caracalla, and there were rumors (which Soaemias later publicly supported) that Elagabalus was Caracalla's child.[18][19]

Marcellus's tombstone attests that Elagabalus had at least one brother,[20][21] about whom nothing is known.[16] Elagabalus's grandmother, Julia Maesa, was the widow of the consul Julius Avitus Alexianus, the sister of Julia Domna, and the sister-in-law of the emperor Septimius Severus.[14][15] Other relatives included Elagabalus's aunt Julia Avita Mamaea and uncle Marcus Julius Gessius Marcianus and their son Severus Alexander.[14]

Elagabalus's family held hereditary rights to the priesthood of the sun god Elagabal, of whom Elagabalus was the high priest at Emesa (modern Homs) in Roman Syria as part of the Arab Emesene dynasty.[22] The deity's Latin name, "Elagabalus", is a Latinized version of the Arabic إِلٰهُ الْجَبَلِ Ilāh al-Jabal, from ilāh ("god") and jabal ("mountain"), meaning "God of the Mountain",[23] the Emesene manifestation of Ba'al.[24]

Initially venerated at Emesa, the deity's cult spread to other parts of the Roman Empire in the second century; a dedication has been found as far away as Woerden (in the Netherlands), near the Roman limes.[25] The god was later imported to Rome and assimilated with the sun god known as Sol Indiges in the era of the Roman Republic and as Sol Invictus during the late third century.[26] In Greek, the sun god is Helios, hence Elagabal was later known as "Heliogabalus", a hybrid of "Helios" and "Elagabalus".[27]

Herodian writes that when the emperor Macrinus came to power, he suppressed the threat to his reign from the family of his assassinated predecessor, Caracalla, by exiling them—Julia Maesa, her two daughters, and her eldest grandson Elagabalus—to their estate at Emesa in Syria.[28] Almost upon arrival in Syria, Maesa began a plot with her advisor and Elagabalus's tutor, Gannys, to overthrow Macrinus and elevate the fourteen-year-old Elagabalus to the imperial throne.[28]

Maesa spread a rumor, which Soaemias publicly supported, that Elagabalus was the illegitimate child of Caracalla[19][29] and so deserved the loyalty of Roman soldiers and senators who had sworn allegiance to Caracalla.[30] The soldiers of the Third Legion Gallica at Raphana, who had enjoyed greater privileges under Caracalla and resented Macrinus (and may have been impressed or bribed by Maesa's wealth), supported this claim.[18][29][31] At sunrise on 16 May 218,[32] Elagabalus was declared empress by Publius Valerius Comazon, commander of the legion.[33] To strengthen her legitimacy, Elagabalus adopted the same name Caracalla bore as emperor, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.[34][35] Cassius Dio states that some officers tried to keep the soldiers loyal to Macrinus, but they were unsuccessful.[18]

Praetorian prefect Ulpius Julianus responded by attacking the Third Legion, most likely on Macrinus's orders (though one account says he acted on his own before Macrinus knew of the rebellion).[36] Herodian suggests Macrinus underestimated the threat, considering the rebellion inconsequential.[37] During the fighting, Julianus's soldiers killed their officers and joined Elagabalus's forces.[34]

Macrinus asked the Roman Senate to denounce Elagabalus as "the False Antoninus", and they complied,[38] declaring war on Elagabalus and her family.[31] Macrinus made his son Diadumenian co-emperor, and attempted to secure the loyalty of the Second Legion with large cash payments.[39][40] During a banquet to celebrate this at Apamea, however, a messenger presented Macrinus with the severed head of his defeated prefect Julianus.[39][40][41] Macrinus therefore retreated to Antioch, after which the Second Legion shifted its loyalties to Elagabalus.[39][40]

Elagabalus's legionaries, commanded by Gannys, defeated Macrinus and Diadumenian and their Praetorian Guard at the Battle of Antioch on 8 June 218, prevailing when Macrinus's troops broke ranks after he fled the battlefield.[42] Macrinus made for Italy, but was intercepted near Chalcedon and executed in Cappadocia, while Diadumenian was captured at Zeugma and executed.[39]

That month, Elagabalus wrote to the Senate, assuming the imperial titles without waiting for senatorial approval,[43] which violated tradition but was a common practice among third-century emperors/empresses.[44] Letters of reconciliation were dispatched to Rome extending amnesty to the Senate and recognizing its laws, while also condemning the administration of Macrinus and his son.[45]

The senators responded by acknowledging Elagabalus as emperor and accepting her claim to be the daughter of Caracalla.[44] Elagabalus was made consul for the year 218 in the middle of June.[46] Caracalla and Julia Domna were both deified by the Senate, both Julia Maesa and Julia Soaemias were elevated to the rank of Augustae,[47] and the memory of Macrinus was expunged by the Senate.[44] (Elagabalus's imperial artifacts assert that she succeeded Caracalla directly.)[48] Comazon was appointed commander of the Praetorian Guard.[49][50] Elagabalus was named Pater Patriae by the Senate before 13 July 218.[46] On 14 July, Elagabalus was inducted into the colleges of all the Roman priesthoods, including the College of Pontiffs, of which she was named pontifex maximus.[46]

Next, according to Herodian, Elagabalus and her entourage spent the winter of 218–219 in Bithynia at Nicomedia, and then traveled through Thrace and Moesia to Italy in the first half of 219,[51] the year of Elagabalus's second consulship.[46] Herodian says that Elagabalus had a painting of herself sent ahead to Rome to be hung over a statue of the goddess Victoria in the Senate House so people would not be surprised by her Eastern garb, but it is unclear if such a painting actually existed, and Dio does not mention it.[54][55] If the painting was indeed hung over Victoria, it put senators in the position of seeming to make offerings to Elagabalus when they made offerings to Victoria.[53]

On her way to Rome, Elagabalus and her allies executed several prominent supporters of Macrinus, such as Syrian governor Fabius Agrippinus and former Thracian governor C. Claudius Attalus Paterculianus.[56] Arriving at the imperial capital in August or September 219, Elagabalus staged an adventus, a ceremonial entrance to the city.[46] In Rome, her offer of amnesty for the Roman upper class was largely honored, though the jurist Ulpian was exiled.[57] Elagabalus made Comazon praetorian prefect, and later consul (220) and prefect of the city (three times, 220–222), which Dio regarded as a violation of Roman norms.[56] Elagabalus herself held a consulship for the third year in a row in 220.[46] Herodian and the Augustan History say that Elagabalus alienated many by giving powerful positions to other allies.[58] She developed the imperial palace at Horti Spei Veteris with the inclusion of the nearby land inherited from her father Sextus Varius Marcellus. Elagabalus made it her favourite retreat and designed it (as for Nero's Domus Aurea project) as a vast suburban villa divided into various building and landscape nuclei with the Amphitheatrum Castrense which she built and the Circus Varianus hippodrome[59] fired by her unbridled passion for circuses and his habit of driving chariots inside the villa. She raced chariots under the family name of Varius.[60]

Dio states that Elagabalus wanted to marry a charioteer named Hierocles and to declare him caesar,[52] just as (Dio says) she had previously wanted to marry Gannys and name him caesar.[52] The athlete Aurelius Zoticus is said by Dio to have been Elagabalus's lover and cubicularius (a non-administrative role), while the Augustan History says Zoticus was a husband to Elagabalus and held greater political influence.[61]

Elagabalus's relationships to her mother Julia Soaemias and grandmother Julia Maesa were strong at first; they were influential supporters from the beginning, and Macrinus declared war on them as well as Elagabalus.[62] Accordingly, they became the first women allowed into the Senate,[63] and both received senatorial titles: Soaemias the established title of Clarissima, and Maesa the more unorthodox Mater Castrorum et Senatus ("Mother of the army camp and of the Senate").[47] They exercised influence over the young emperor throughout her reign, and are found on many coins and inscriptions, a rare honour for Roman women.[64]

Under Elagabalus, the gradual devaluation of Roman aurei and denarii continued (with the silver purity of the denarius dropping from 58% to 46.5%),[65] though antoniniani had a higher metal content than under Caracalla.[66]

The baetylus of Elgabal back in its home temple at Emesa, on a coin of Uranius Since the reign of Septimius Severus, sun worship had increased throughout the Empire.[67] At the end of 220, Elagabalus instated Elagabal as the chief deity of the Roman pantheon, possibly on the date of the winter solstice.[46] In her official titulature, Elagabalus was then entitled in Latin: sacerdos amplissimus dei invicti Soli Elagabali, pontifex maximus, lit. 'highest priest of the unconquered god, the Sun Elgabal, supreme pontiff'.[46] That a foreign god should be honored above Jupiter, with Elagabalus himself as chief priest, shocked many Romans.[68]

As a token of respect for Roman religion, however, Elagabalus joined either Astarte, Minerva, Urania, or some combination of the three to Elagabal as consort.[69] A union between Elagabal and a traditional goddess would have served to strengthen ties between the new religion and the imperial cult. There may have been an effort to introduce Elagabal, Urania, and Athena as the new Capitoline Triad of Rome—replacing Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva.[70]

He aroused further discontent when he married the Vestal Virgin Aquilia Severa, Vesta's high priestess, claiming the marriage would produce "godlike children".[71] This was a flagrant breach of Roman law and tradition, which held that any Vestal found to have engaged in sexual intercourse was to be buried alive.[72]

A lavish temple called the Elagabalium was built on the east face of the Palatine Hill to house Elagabal,[73] who was represented by a black conical meteorite from Emesa.[45] This was a baetylus. Herodian wrote "this stone is worshipped as though it were sent from heaven; on it there are some small projecting pieces and markings that are pointed out, which the people would like to believe are a rough picture of the sun, because this is how they see them".[74]

Dio writes that in order to increase her piety as high priest of Elagabal atop a new Roman pantheon, Elagabalus had herself circumcised and swore to abstain from swine.[73] She forced senators to watch while she danced circling the altar of Elagabal to the accompaniment of drums and cymbals.[74] Each summer solstice she held a festival dedicated to the god, which became popular with the masses because of the free food distributed on these occasions.[75] During this festival, Elagabalus placed the black stone on a chariot adorned with gold and jewels, which she paraded through the city:[76]

A six horse chariot carried the divinity, the horses huge and flawlessly white, with expensive gold fittings and rich ornaments. No one held the reins, and no one rode in the chariot; the vehicle was escorted as if the god himself were the charioteer. Elagabalus ran backward in front of the chariot, facing the god and holding the horses' reins. She made the whole journey in this reverse fashion, looking up into the face of her god.[77]

The most sacred relics from the Roman religion were transferred from their respective shrines to the Elagabalium, including the emblem of the Great Mother, the fire of Vesta, the Shields of the Salii, and the Palladium, so that no other god could be worshipped except in association with Elagabal.[78] Although her native cult was widely ridiculed by contemporaries, sun-worship was popular among the soldiers and would be promoted by several later emperors.[79]

Roman denarius depicting Aquilia Severa, the second wife of Elagabalus. The marriage caused a public outrage because Aquilia was a Vestal Virgin, sworn by Roman law to celibacy for 30 years. Inscription: iulia aquilia severa aug· The question of Elagabalus's sexual orientation and gender identity is confused, owing to salacious and unreliable sources. Cassius Dio states that Elagabalus was married five times (twice to the same woman).[54] Her first wife was Julia Cornelia Paula, whom she married prior to 29 August 219; between then and 28 August 220, she divorced Paula, took the Vestal Virgin Julia Aquilia Severa as her second wife, divorced her,[54][80] and took a third wife, who Herodian says was Annia Aurelia Faustina, a descendant of Marcus Aurelius and the widow of a man Elagabalus had recently executed, Pomponius Bassus.[54] In the last year of her reign, Elagabalus divorced Annia Faustina and remarried Aquilia Severa.[54]

Dio states that another "husband of this woman [Elagabalus] was Hierocles", an ex-slave and chariot driver from Caria.[6][81] The Augustan History claims that Elagabalus also married a man named Zoticus, an athlete from Smyrna, while Dio says only that Zoticus was her cubicularius.[6][82] Dio says that Elagabalus prostituted herself in taverns and brothels.[7]

Dio says Elagabalus delighted in being called Hierocles's mistress, wife, and queen.[83] The emperor reportedly wore makeup and wigs, preferred to be called a lady and not a lord, and supposedly offered vast sums to any physician who could provide her with a vagina by means of incision.[83][84] Some writers suggest that Elagabalus may have identified as female or been transgender, and may have sought sex reassignment surgery.[85][86][83][87][88] Some historians treat these accounts with caution, as sources for Elagabalus' life were often antagonistic towards her.[89]

In November 2023, the North Hertfordshire Museum in Hitchin, United Kingdom, announced that Elagabalus would be considered as transgender and hence referred to with female pronouns in its exhibits due to claims that the emperor had said "call me not Lord, for I am a Lady". The museum has one Elagabalus coin.[90][91]

Elagabalus stoked the animus of Roman elites and the Praetorian Guard through her perceptibly foreign conduct and her religious provocations.[92] When Elagabalus's grandmother Julia Maesa perceived that popular support for the emperor was waning, she decided that she and her mother, who had encouraged her religious practices, had to be replaced. As alternatives, she turned to her other daughter, Julia Avita Mamaea, and her daughter's son, the fifteen-year-old Severus Alexander.[93]

Prevailing on Elagabalus, she arranged that she appoint her cousin Alexander as her heir and that the boy be given the title of caesar.[93] Alexander was elevated to caesar in June 221, possibly on 26 June.[46] Elagabalus and Alexander were each named consul designatus for the following year, probably on 1 July.[46] Elagabalus took up her fourth consulship for the year of 222.[46] Alexander shared the consulship with the empress that year.[93] However, Elagabalus reconsidered this arrangement when she began to suspect that the Praetorian Guard preferred his cousin to herself.[94]

Elagabalus ordered various attempts on Alexander's life,[95] after failing to obtain approval from the Senate for stripping Alexander of his shared title.[96] According to Dio, Elagabalus invented the rumor that Alexander was near death, in order to see how the Praetorians would react.[97] A riot ensued, and the Guard demanded to see Elagabalus and Alexander in the Praetorian camp.[97]

Statue of Elagabalus as Hercules, re-faced as her successor, Alexander Severus (National Archaeological Museum, Naples) The empress complied and on 11 or 12 March 222[98] she publicly presented her cousin along with her own mother, Julia Soaemias. On their arrival the soldiers started cheering Alexander while ignoring Elagabalus, who ordered the summary arrest and execution of anyone who had taken part in this display of insubordination.[99] In response, members of the Praetorian Guard attacked Elagabalus and her mother:

She made an attempt to flee, and would have got away somewhere by being placed in a chest had she not been discovered and slain, at the age of eighteen. Her mother, who embraced her and clung tightly to her, perished with her; their heads were cut off and their bodies, after being stripped naked, were first dragged all over the city, and then the mother's body was cast aside somewhere or other, while her was thrown into the Tiber.[100]

Following her assassination, many associates of Elagabalus were killed or deposed. Her lover Hierocles was executed.[97] Her religious edicts were reversed and the stone of Elagabal was sent back to Emesa.[101] Women were again barred from attending meetings of the Senate.[102] The practice of damnatio memoriae—erasing from the public record a disgraced personage formerly of note—was systematically applied in her case.[46][103] Several images, including an over-life-size statue of her as Hercules now in Naples, were re-carved with the face of Alexander Severus.[10]