The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus

by John Stuart Hay

A considerable amount of disaffection can be traced to the foolish neglect which the Emperor showed towards his troops. He was their nominee; to them he owed his throne. He had promised them the money, privileges, and affection which had been his father’s special care. Once in sure possession of the Empire, this policy was changed. The first congiary in 218 was undoubtedly accompanied by a donative of satisfying amplitude. At the second (on the occasion of his first marriage) we are told that the Emperor gave more to the humblest citizen of Rome, more to the wives of the Senators, than he bestowed on the men who had placed him on the throne a year previously. There is no record of any other liberality until the early part of the year 221, on the occasion of the dual marriage, his own with Aquilia Severa and that of his God with Vesta, the Madonna of Old Rome. On this occasion no mention is made of any money distributed to the military forces. The same may be said for the fourth liberality, given in July 221, to celebrate the adoption of Alexander.

These official liberalities were by no means the only distributions by which Antonine endeared himself to the civilian populace. On the occasion of his taking the Consulate, he went out of his way to bestow magnificent gifts on the populace. After the great summer procession in 221 he distributed a vast number of costly presents amongst the crowd. He instituted two lotteries, one for the comedians, one for the citizens. He gave to his friends and to the poor more than they could carry away, but on all of these occasions we are expressly told that he limited his generosity to the civil population.

Obviously Antonine was tired of the army. And, being Emperor, he decided to give to whomsoever he pleased, to neglect whom he would. It was not immoral, at least in our judgment, it was stupid, which is far worse, and, as every one has discovered for himself, stupidity brings greater penalties than immorality.

Of the fourth and fifth congiaries, concerning which Mediobarbus speaks, we can say nothing, as in the opinion of competent numismatists (Cohen and Eckhel) they do not belong to this reign at all; there certainly are coins bearing the inscription “Marcus Aurelius Antoninus,” and on the obverse “Liberalitas V. VI.”; but science and discrimination now assign these to the reign of Caracalla, not to that of the Emperor under discussion.

There is certainly one point of view from which this neglect of the soldiers appeared immoral, namely, the military. Promises had been made and, as is usual with promises, they had been broken. Mamaea took advantage of this circumstance, and small wonder if, her secret, though regular, distributions aiding, the lords of Rome felt that their position was ignominious when they saw others, actors, sycophants, loafers, procurers, strumpets, and the like, receiving what they felt was theirs by right; small wonder if they listened to and profited by her promises of the substantial gratitude which would follow the substitution of Alexander for the ungrateful civilian who now held the purse-strings.

It must be confessed that Mamaea’s money and promises were of little effect while Antonine lived. The Emperor was certainly well served. Each plot was easily frustrated; never would sufficient men turn out in rebellion. When he died, those whom she had paid most liberally convinced the rest of their proper attitude, and the first liberality of Alexander’s reign was a sufficient pourboire to close most mouths. Those who created disturbances followed their master to the grave, or rather the cloaca.

The exact time of Antonine’s murder is, as we have said, most uncertain. Dion ascribes to him a tenure of power lasting 3 years 9 months and 4 days from the day of the battle in which he gained supreme command—8th June 218. This fixes the day of his death as 11th March 222. It is a statement with which the editors of the Prosopographia, Groebe, Salzer, and Rubensohn, all agree. The Liber generationis[59] gives 6 years 8 months and 28 days, and is supported by the Chronicle of 354, which gives equally explicitly 6 years 8 months and 18 days. The discrepancy is at first sight most disconcerting, especially as the two latter statements are both—at least nominally—official. The coins limit the reign to four years at the outside, in consequence of which some explanation has to be found for the extraordinary addition of three years in both the Chronicle and the Liber generationis. Mommsen has suggested that a deflection of the two first strokes of III in the number of the years has created the error in both these documents. Later writers have accounted for the difference between Dion’s VIIII months and the VIII of the Latin sources, as due to the omission of one stroke in the latter, the confusion in the number of days by the fact that an X has been omitted in the Chronicle. Mommsen’s emendation seems perfectly plausible, but the absurd quibbles used to bring into agreement what was in all probability for some time a moot point can be passed over without much mention.

Rubensohn has a much more reasonable conclusion, namely, that the times given in the Chronicle and Liber generationis refer not to the date of the battle at all, but to the date of the proclamation or to the date of Julianus’ defeat, some time during the early days of May 218. Lampridius, of course, chips in with another discordant note, namely, that “A.D. pridie nonas Martias” the Senate received their new Emperor Alexander with acclamations, but for present purposes he may be left out of count, as we have no confirmation of this very late statement. Eutropius’ statement of 2 years and 8 months refers only to the residence in Rome, and Victor’s 30 months is utterly out of the question, as is also Lampridius’ statement that this monster occupied the throne for nearly three years. Still more disconcerting than the wild statements of the biographers is the fact that right up to 8th December 222 certain rescripts are dated with the names of both Antonine and Alexander, “Conss.”; two only, one in March and one in October, appear with Alexander as sole Consul, and this inscription occurs on a rescript dated “III non. Febr.,” when, if any other evidence is to be accepted, Antonine was still alive. It was on this count that Stobbe based his assertion that Antonine was killed, or at least put out of the government, as early as 5th or 6th January, and that Mamaea used her new power as soon as ever Alexander was officially recognised as Consul. It is certainly a theory for which something may be said, but would entirely dispose of the circumstantial accounts which the historians have left of the boy’s murder. If this supposition is true, then Mamaea possessed herself of the Emperor’s person by means of a riot in the camp, immediately after Alexander became Consul, deprived him of his friends and support, and thus gradually accustomed the populace to his absence, before she killed him. This would certainly account for the placidity with which Rome received news of his death at some later period, but would not account for the discrepancy of the coins and rescripts, the first of which make Alexander sole Emperor by the early summer, the second, which call Antonine Consul, presume that he was still alive as late as December in the same year (222).

From a numismatic point of view there have been further difficulties raised as to the length of the reign, on account of Antonine having reached his fourth Consulate and fifth tribunician year, but these have been raised by persons who have neglected Eckhel and have not always verified their references. The regular coins tell us that Antonine had reached his fourth Consulate and fifth year of tribunician power when he died. Certain writers, notably Valsecchius and Pagi, have postulated that the Emperors always renewed the tribunician powers on the anniversary of their succession, others, such as Stobbe, that the date of the tribunician power would always be put on each coin when that of the Consulship was given. Neither of these contentions can be admitted for an instant, as Eckhel has proved most conclusively, and as can be further demonstrated from the very coins these writers cite as proofs of their several contentions. Valsecchius’ theory was that Antonine thought he began to reign on the murder of his father Caracalla, and dated his tribunician year in consequence from 8th April 217. This would make him in his second tribunician year by 8th June 218, and the coins should appear as “T.P. II Cos.” Unfortunately for the theory, there is not a single example of this aberration, as Turre pointed out some centuries ago. Pagi, on the other hand, thought that Antonine dated his reign from 16th March 218, and renewed his tribunician powers every year on that date; he accepted Dion’s date, 11th March, for Antonine’s decease, and, in consequence, postulated that coins struck with the legend “T PV Cos IIII” were struck in anticipation of the event of 16th March 222. Against this Eckhel urges that the whole theory is utterly unnecessary, because it throws all the rest of the coins out of date in order to make a setting for nine, which are in reality perfectly regular.