The first recorded action after the adoption of Alexander was one of religion. The ostensible object of the ceremony on 10th July, or rather earlier, had been to free the chief priest of Elagabal from his secular duties, in order that he might further the worship of the Great God. To this end, Antonine instituted a magnificent religious procession through the city, taking his God from the temple on the Palatine to that in the suburbs. Herodian, with his usual inaccuracy, announces that this ceremony took place each year at midsummer. Now, the temple on the Palatine was not finished by midsummer of the year 220, judging from the coins which celebrate the expansion of the cult, and that near the Porta Praenestina was even later in its completion. The inference is, therefore, that the procession could not possibly have taken place in the year 220 at midsummer. Further evidence is, however, forthcoming; Cohen mentions certain Roman coins struck in honour of the procession; they show the God on a car, and date from the latter part of the year 221, by which time the suburban temple was finished and the procession certainly took place.
Jovi Ultiori. The Eliogabalium as reconsecrated to Jupiter, A.D. 224. (From a woodcut.)
Coin struck to commemorate the Procession of Elagabal, A.D. 221 (British Museum).
Coin of A.D. 221 representing the Eliogabalium. (From a photogravure.)
Before midsummer in the year 222, according to Dion, Antonine was dead. He did not therefore conduct the Elagabal procession, and as the authors inform us that Alexander sent the God back to Emesa with considerable expedition, after reconsecrating the temple to Jupiter, it is very unlikely that Alexander continued the public parade of an unpopular worship, even though the God was still in Rome at the time mentioned.
Despite Herodian’s statement that Alexander, as well as Antonine, was a priest of the Sun, it is fairly certain that the former was never actually associated with his cousin in that priesthood, and was not in the least likely to begin the worship after Antonine’s death. The obvious inference is that, as usual, Herodian was speaking without his book; each year meant that there was one procession, and one only, namely at midsummer in the year 221.