THE AMAZING EMPEROR
HELIOGABALUS
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THE
AMAZING EMPEROR
HELIOGABALUS
BY
J. STUART HAY
ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE, OXFORD
WITH INTRODUCTION BY
Professor J. B. BURY, Litt.D.
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1911
The life of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus,generally known to the world as Heliogabalus,is as yet shrouded in impenetrable mystery.The picture we have of the reign is that of an imperialorgy—sacrilegious, necromantic, and obscene.The boy Emperor, who reigned from his fourteenth tohis eighteenth year, is depicted amongst that crowdof tyrants who held the throne of Imperial Rome,by the help of the praetorian army, as one of the mosttyrannical, certainly as the most debased.
Few people have made any study of the documentswhich relate to this particular period, andfewer still have taken the trouble to inquire whetherthe accounts of the Scriptores are trustworthy orconsonant with the known facts.
To this present time no account of the life of thisEmperor has been published. Histories of thedecline and fall of Imperial Rome there are inplenty; other reigns have been examined in detail;German critics have sifted the trustworthiness of thedocuments, few in number and all late in date, which[vi]refer to other reigns; so far nothing has been doneon the life of Elagabalus.
The present writer started this study with theview that the Syrian boy-Emperor was, in allprobability, what his biographers have painted him,and what all other writers have accepted as being asubstantially correct account of the absence of mind,will, policy, and authority which he was supposed tohave betrayed, along with other even more reprehensiblecharacteristics.
The first reason to doubt this estimate camefrom the continually recurring mention of a perpetualstruggle between the Emperor and his femalerelatives; a fight in which the boy was always worstingable and resolute women, carrying his pointwith consummate tact and ability, while allowing thewomen a certain show of dignity and position, whereit in no way diminished the imperial authority orhis own prerogative.
This circumstance alone was scarcely consonantwith Lampridius’ account of a mere youthfuldebauchee, who had neither inclination nor will foranything, save a low desire to wallow in vice andunspeakable horrors as the