The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus

by John Stuart Hay

On the face of things, this was a most irrational proceeding. If the Praetorians wanted to save Alexander and suspected that foul play was about to be perpetrated in the palace, surely they would have gone to their posts as usual, and then used their official position to rescue the boy, instead of shutting themselves up in their camp, and leaving him to his fate quite unprotected. This apparently did not occur, either to the soldiers or Herodian, who announces that when the guards refused to come to the palace, Antonine (instead of finishing the work and showing the dead body in the temples) was simply penetrated with the usual fear—always imputed and never lived up to, unfortunately for Herodian. In order to demonstrate to the soldiers just how frightened he was, the Emperor did the one thing that no terrified person could possibly have done, he set out in a litter for the camp—utterly unprotected, of course, because he had no guards. The litter is fully described, namely, the state litter, sparkling with gold and precious stones. With Antonine went Alexander, presumably, as the story develops, in order to foster the hatred which the soldiers felt towards the Emperor, and raise to a frenzy the love they bore Alexander. It was as usual a journey in which the Emperor courted death; in fact, the number of times that Antonine imperilled his precious life is simply astounding to any one who studies these delightful romances. But to proceed. When the litter arrived, the gates of the camp were opened, and the Consuls were conducted to the chapel, which occupied a central position in the enclosure. This leads one to suppose, considering also the magnificence of the carriage, that the visit was one of an official nature, in which the two Consuls were bound to go together. The chapel also was an ominous place, as it was here that Caracalla had played the farce of regretting his part in, if not of exculpating himself from, the murder of his brother Geta. Of course, things happened just as was expected; the visit did foster loyalty to Alexander, who was received as a deliverer with acclamation, and raised to fever pitch all the evil passions against Antonine, who was received with perfect coldness. Despite this inauspicious reception, the Emperor elected to stay the night in the camp chapel, the better to meditate on his wrongs, which was obviously an unlikely proceeding on the part of the young Sybarite.

Next morning he held a court-martial to try the soldiers who had made themselves conspicuous by the warmth of their reception of Alexander. Herodian and the Emperor seem to have quite forgotten that the guards were mutinying, as we hear no more of that story, though obviously they ought to have been tried for that offence first. At any rate, Antonine, still penetrated with terror, condemned these men to death as seditious persons. The soldiers, transported with rage at his treatment of their companions, and filled with hatred of the Emperor, conceived the notion of succouring their imprisoned brethren by upsetting the dishonoured Emperor. Time and pretext were admirable; they killed Antonine and with him Soaemias, who was present, both as his mother and as Empress; they then included in the massacre all those of the cortège who were in the camp, and known to be Antonine’s ministers or accomplices in his crimes. They then gave the bodies to the mob, to be dragged about the streets of Rome, finally throwing that of the Emperor into the Tiber from the Aemilian Bridge. All this was presumably done under the eyes of, and with the consent of Eutychianus, the Emperor’s friend and chief minister, who was, it will be remembered, in command of the Praetorians at the time.

A careful comparison of these three stories reveals the fact that none of the eye-witnesses saw the same things, and none ascribe the deed to the same motive. All agree, however, in shifting the responsibility from the shoulders of the former conspirators on to those of the Praetorians. No one except Dion Cassius mentions either Maesa or Mamaea, and he merely says that Mamaea and Soaemias both urged murder each of her sister’s son. No mention is made of Antonine’s supposed plot against his cousin; in fact, all reference to plots against Alexander, Maesa, and Mamaea is here carefully eliminated, surely with an object; since it has been the great reason given heretofore for the Emperor’s unpopularity, and precarious position. But let us attempt to reconstruct the events of this memorable day. From Herodian we learn that the state litter was used; that in it travelled the two Consuls, accompanied by at least the Empress mother; Fulvius Diogenianus, the Praefect of Rome; Aurelius Eubulus, who, as chancellor of the exchequer, had made himself extremely unpopular by robbing hen-roosts (Dion), and was in consequence torn to pieces by the mob; Hierocles, the Emperor’s friend and husband (who had recently been designated Caesar, presumably as a sort of set-off to Alexander), and two out of the three Praetorian praefects.

Dion and Lampridius both suggest that the Emperor tried to escape. Herodian, with the fullest account, makes no mention of this fact; neither Lampridius nor Dion agree, however, as to the mode of Antonine’s proposed escape. The incident of the latrinae, mentioned by Lampridius, suggests a murder similar in circumstance to that of Caracalla. What would have been easier than for one of Mamaea’s party to seize the boy, alone and unprotected in the latrinae? The Emperor once gone, the obvious thing would be for the conspirators to remove as quickly as possible all those persons who might make things difficult for his successor. Of these, Soaemias would certainly be the most troublesome. Hot and passionate, devoted to her son and to his memory, if she had lived, Rome would have resounded with the noise of the crime. It was obviously necessary to close her mouth with expedition. Why Eutychianus did not suffer the same fate is quite incomprehensible. The only theory that has been suggested is that neither Maesa nor Mamaea felt themselves capable of undertaking the whole administration alone; they felt that they must have at least one man who knew the ropes at their back.

To account for the treatment of Antonine’s body at the hands of the mob is certainly difficult. We know that he had done nothing which could have rendered him obnoxious to the populace. To ascribe it to intolerance of his psychopathic condition shows, not only ignorance of Roman susceptibilities, but also a foolish ante-dating of popular prejudice. We certainly have no record of this Emperor’s sepulchre; and to dismiss as mere fable the one point on which the authors all agree is equally impossible. The probable solution lies in the fact that Mamaea’s money, which had caused the murder, invented this scheme for disgracing her nephew’s memory, and thus averted trouble from herself. It would raise a popular tumult, or at any rate a disgust for the idol of the masses, if they could have Antonine’s body dragged through the city publicly, as the perpetrator of unmentionable crimes, concerning which the populace knew nothing. Suffice it to say that it did the work. Antonine had the stigma of all crimes imputed to his memory; and Alexander the good arose superior to all human frailties. Then and not till then, Rome began to be shocked. Men whose fortunes Antonine had made by his liberality, the Senate, whom he had snubbed so unmercifully, the army to whose donatives he had not attended properly, all these found it advisable to adopt the views of the new administration; their education in ingratitude was complete. Instead of the generous, fearless, affectionate boy whom the populace had known, there emerged the sceptred butcher ill with satyriasis; the taciturn tyrant, hideous and debauched, the unclean priest, devising in the crypts of a palace infamies so monstrous that to describe them new words had to be coined. It was Mamaea’s work, and for 1800 years no one has had the audacity to look below the surface and unmask the deception.

CHAPTER VII
SUPPLEMENTARY MATTER CONCERNING THE YEARS 221-222

Antonine’s Government from 221 to 222 A.D.

The events of the years 221 and until March 222 are mainly a record of internecine fights and struggles; the Emperor was trying to retain his position in the state, the women leaving no stone unturned to possess themselves of power in Alexander’s name. We have traced the events which led to the adoption of Alexander, and noticed the small amount of power which his position as heir to the Empire actually put into the hands of Maesa and Mamaea. We have seen further how the repudiation of the adoption by Antonine lessened even this modicum of power, and how the successful attempt to make Alexander Consul gained for their puppet the official position from which the terms of his adoption had excluded him. Once that position was secured, we have watched the successful plot against the Emperor’s life, which placed Maesa and Mamaea in actual command of the state under the merely nominal headship of Alexander. It only remains for us to follow the governmental acts of these last months of Antonine’s life, as far as the authorities will allow.