The Roman historian Cassius Dio (155-229) sat down and thought about it. Of course, the details of this emperor’s life were too disgusting for words, but he owed it to his readers to meticulously chronicle them all. This biography was supposed to be a warning: this is not how a Roman ruler should behave!
Dio described how the emperor was once presented with a young athlete whose “private parts were much larger” than those of other men. The athlete greeted the emperor, who turned, bowed, gave him a longing look and said: “Do not call me Lord, for I am a Lady.”
Further on, Dio noted that this abomination had asked his doctor if he would like to make an incision in his body that could serve as a vagina. The historian Herodian (170-240) managed to add that the emperor’s face was “more elaborately painted than that of a modest woman” and that he “danced in luxurious dresses and was effeminately adorned with gold chains.”
The man who thus shamelessly sinned against Roman mores was born in 204, probably in Emesa in modern-day Syria. His name was Varius Avitus Bassianus. His grandmother Julia Maesa was the sister-in-law of the emperor Septimius Severus, his mother Julia Soaemias the niece of his successor emperor Caracalla.
When he was murdered in 217, the new ruler Macrinus exiled the entire clan to Syria. There the family had held the position of priest of the sun god El Gebal for generations, which gave them a lot of prestige.
The two Julias immediately began to conspire against Macrinus. Mother claimed that Varius Avitus was actually a child of Caracalla, while grandmother threw money around to get the legions on their side. That worked: a high-ranking soldier proclaimed the fourteen-year-old boy emperor. He took the names Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the same as Caracalla. Macrinus’ troops were defeated in a battle at Antioch and the fallen emperor was executed. The Senate resigned with the arrival of a new ruler.
They soon regretted this, because the young priest of El Gebal turned out to be coloring outside the lines not only in sexual matters. He put his god – which he renamed Sol Invictus (the Undefeated Sun) – at the top of the Roman pantheon, above Jupiter. This new supreme god was worshiped in the form of a black stone and driven through the city on a gilded carriage. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the emperor married a Vestal Virgin, a priestess who not was allowed to get married.
When he subsequently awarded high posts to charioteers, actors and slaves, the Imperial Guard had seen enough. They killed their boss and his mother and dumped their bodies in the sewer. The love for his god posthumously earned Varius the nickname Elagabalus (the first source in which he was called that dates from the fourth century). As such, he went down in history as the worst Roman emperor ever.
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