Who Was the Strangest Roman Emperor?

A number of ancient Roman emperors have acquired reputations for being very strange. In particular, emperors such as Caligula, Nero, and Domitian are well-known for their alleged bizarre antics. It is unclear, however, to what extent these reputations for bizarreness are warranted, since many of the most famous stories concerning these emperors are apocryphal. (For instance, Nero definitely never played the fiddle while Rome burned and Caligula definitely never made his horse a senator.)

I think it is generally agreed, though, that the strangest Roman emperor—at least in terms of how he is portrayed in our extant sources—was Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, known to later generations as Elagabalus. Elagabalus had a brief, but notoriously bizarre reign, which lasted from 16 May 218 AD until 11 March 222 AD. According to historical sources, Elagabalus was highly eccentric and his reign was ridden with scandal.

The young emperor, his god, and his wives

Elagabalus ascended to the throne when he was very young—only around fourteen years old. He was Syrian and a fanatical devotee of the Syrian sun god Elagabal, by whose name he himself posthumously became known. Elagabalus tried to install Elagabal as the highest deity in the Roman pantheon, higher than even Iupiter himself. He proclaimed Elagabal Deus Sol Invictus (i.e. “God the Unconquered Sun”). Needless to say, this was not an especially popular motion.

Even if we set aside the more salacious rumors surrounding him, Elagabalus’s personal relationships certainly provoked enormous political controversy as well. We know that Elagabalus had five wives over the course of his very short lifetime. One of them, Iulia Aquilia Severa, was a Vestal Virgin. Another of them, Annia Aurelia Faustina, was the widow of a man whom he had executed.

Unfortunately, Elagabalus is a difficult emperor to create an accurate portrait of because all of our extant sources are heavily biased against him and full of salacious rumors. Although there are some basic facts about his life that are basically universally agreed to be true, many of the things that ancient writers tell us about him are probably nothing more than salacious rumors. Take all of the following with a grain of salt.

ABOVE: Roman silver denarius bearing the name and face of Elagabalus

Some rumors from the Historia Augusta

The Historia Augusta, an often-unreliable collection of biographies of Roman emperors probably composed in around the fourth century AD, reports the following things about Elagabalus:

• Supposedly, when he was proclaimed consul, instead of throwing silver and gold coins, candies, or small animals to the crowds, he threw cattle, camels, donkeys, deer, and other large livestock because he said it was the “imperial thing to do.”

• Supposedly, he once rode in a chariot pulled by four elephants on the Vatican Hill and destroyed many tombs that were in his way.

• Supposedly, he sometimes had his chariot pulled by unusual animals, such as dogs, lions, stags, tigers, and even reportedly naked women.

• Supposedly, he held strange dinners in which he would only invite men who all shared one unusual trait, such as men who were all bald, men who were all one-eyed, men who were all deaf, men who were all plagued with gout, men who were all black, men who were all abnormally tall, or men who were all abnormally fat.

• Supposedly, when having dinners with his friends, instead of giving his guests real cushions to recline on, he would sometimes give them cushions filled with air that would deflate when they sat on them so that they would be left lying under the table.

• Supposedly, he would sometimes have his guests served food made of wax, stone, wood, ivory, or other inedible materials, while he himself was given real food.

• Supposedly, he would sometimes get his friends drunk and then lock them in rooms with lions, leopards, or bears that had somehow been made harmless. (By what means this was accomplished is never explained.) Some of them supposedly died of fright because of this.

Again, we do not know if the accounts of these eccentricities from the Historia Augusta are accurate. The Historia Augusta is often inaccurate and there is a high probability that most of these stories are simply made up.

ABOVE: Photograph of an edition of the Historia Augusta from 1698

Stories of his alleged sexual proclivities

Even more unusual than the stories of Elagabalus’s alleged eccentricities are the stories of his alleged sexual proclivities:

• According to the Greek historian Kassios Dion (lived c. 155 – c. 235 AD), Elagabalus’s only sexual relationship that lasted for more than a brief span of time was with his chariot-driver, a blond-haired, male Greek slave from Karia by the name of Hierokles. Supposedly, Elagabalus referred to Hierokles as his “husband” and to himself as Hierokles’s “mistress.”

• According to the Historia Augusta, in addition to Hierokles, Elagabalus also married a male Greek athlete named Zotikos from the city of Smyrna in Asia Minor. Supposedly, their wedding was a public ceremony held in Rome. Kassios Dion mentions Zotikos as one of Elagabalus’s sexual interests, but, unlike the Historia Augusta, does not state that Elagabalus married him.

• According to Kassios Dion, Elagabalus plucked his body hair, wore makeup and a wig to make himself look like a woman, and would regularly prostitute himself in brothels, taverns, and even a room that he set aside in the imperial palace. Supposedly, he had agents who were commanded to pay for his services as a prostitute and he would boast to the other prostitutes that he had more lovers than them and that he brought in more money.

• According to Kassios Dion, when Zotikos called him “my lord,” Elagabalus retorted, “Call me not ‘Lord,’ for I am a Lady.”

• According to Kassios Dion, Elagabalus offered to pay an enormous sum of money to a physician who could give him female genitalia.

Many people today have described Elagabalus as a male-to-female transsexual, but I am not so sure this description is accurate, since I think that there is a reasonably high likelihood that the stories about him prostituting himself, adopting a traditionally feminine appearance, insisting on being called a woman, and offering to pay for a physician to give him a vagina were invented by his enemies in an attempt at posthumous character assassination.

As I mention in this article I wrote in February 2019 in which I debunk the idea that orgies were common in ancient Rome, it was very common for ancient Roman historians to make up stories about the alleged sexual depravities of emperors they didn’t like. Many of the stories that are told about Elagabalus are clearly cribbed from earlier stories about other imperial figures.

Notably, just like Elagabalus, the emperor Caligula is claimed to have converted a portion of the imperial palace into a brothel and, just like Elagabalus, the empress Messalina is claimed to have competed with prostitutes to see who could have the most lovers. When Kassios Dion claims that Elagabalus did these things, it’s because these are things that are traditionally said about “bad emperors.”

Although Elagabalus is the only emperor who is specifically claimed to have offered to pay any physician who could give him a vagina, it was extremely common for ancient Roman writers to portray emperors they didn’t like as effeminate. For instance, the emperor Nero is claimed to have taken the role of a bride in a marriage to a freedman named Pythagoras and the emperor Commodus is claimed to have adopted the title Effeminatus, meaning “the Effeminate One.”

These stories are only told about emperors who are portrayed in the sources as evil and tyrannical. It is entirely possible that all the stories about Elagabalus adopting feminine dress, demanding to be called a woman, and offering to pay for a physician to give him a vagina were completely made up by people who hated him and wanted to portray him as depraved and evil. Since all of our surviving sources were written by people who hated Elagabalus, it’s impossible for us to know the truth.

ABOVE: The Roses of Heliogabalus, painted in 1888 by the English Academic painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

His death

Ultimately, Elagabalus was murdered in his mother’s arms by members of the Praetorian guard on 11 March 222 AD. He was only around eighteen years old at the time. He and his mother’s heads were both chopped off. Their headless corpses were then stripped naked and dragged all throughout the city of Rome. Finally, after much degradation, his mutilated corpse was thrown into the river Tiber.

Elagabalus was succeeded by his cousin Severus Alexander, a boy of only around fourteen years old. Severus Alexander ruled for thirteen years until he was assassinated on around 19 March 235 AD. Severus Alexander’s assassination is traditionally seen by historians as the beginning of the Crisis of the Third Century, a period lasting roughly half a century during which the Roman Empire was plagued by severe political instability, civil wars, invasions, and various economic and social crises.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of an ancient Roman marble bust of Severus Alexander, Elagabalus’s cousin and successor, who ascended to the throne in 222 AD at the age of around fourteen years old