History As Carnival, or Method and Madness in The Vita Heliogabali

History as Carnival, or Method and Madness in the Vita Heliogabali
Author(s): Gottfried Mader

Source: Classical Antiquity , Vol. 24, No. 1 (April 2005), pp. 131-172
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/ca.2005.24.1.131
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access
to Classical Antiquity
This content downloaded from

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GOTTFRIED MADER
History as Carnival, or
Method and Madness in the
Vita Heliogabali
A rogue scholar saw the fun to be got from erudition. His achievement
stands out when once the belief is discarded that the HA is nothing
more than incompetent and dishonest biography.
Ronald Syme.1
The Vita Heliogabali in the Historia Augusta consists of a political-biographical first section
(1.4–18.3), generally considered to be historically useful, followed by a fantastic catalogue
of the emperor’s legendary excesses (18.4–33.8), generally dismissed as pure fiction. While
most of these eccentricities are probably inventions of the “rogue scholar,” it is argued that
the grand recital of imperial antics, more than just a detachable appendix, serves a demonstrable
ideological purpose and is informed by a unifying rationale, which in turn helps explain the
“Lampridian” Elagabalus as historiographical construct. Within the sequence of Antonine
biographies Elagabalus, ultimus Antoninorum, marks the climax in a progressive tendency
towards tyranny and is accordingly styled as transcendental despot; multiple topoi from the
literary tradition provide the generic coordinates for this larger-than-life portrait. Food and sex
in particular, both typical elements in this context, are inflated in Heliog. into major thematic
systems to signal the emperor’s tyrant status, to bring out his distinctive attention to aesthetics,
and to enhance the Life’s literary cohesion.
I. SCHOLARS AND SCANDAL
The Vita Heliogabali is a notoriously uneven biography, a heady concoction

of history and mythistoria.2 The first part of the Life (1.4–18.3), relating the
I thank the journal’s editors and anonymous readers for acute comments which have helped clarify
and hone a number of points in the argument.
1. Syme 1971: 263.
2. At the risk of inconsistency the emperor is here referred to as Elagabalus, his god as Elagabal,
and his life in the HA as the Heliogabalus. The Latin text used is Turcan 1993; English translations
are adapted from Birley 1976.
Classical Antiquity. Vol. 24, Issue 1, pp. 131–172. ISSN 0278-6656(p); 1067-8344 (e).
Copyright © 2005 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct
all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of
California Press’s Rights and Permissions website at www.ucpress.edu/journals/rights.htm.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
132   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
emperor’s political career, does indeed include some salacious items that look
too good to be true, but has on the whole been shown to be historically accurate,
its excellence even “beyond all dispute or cavil”3 —this in marked contrast to
the dazzling cadenza on Elagabalus’ lifestyle which takes up the remainder
of the biography (18.4–33.8) and which by general consent is a rag-bag of
fiction and fantasy, product of a fertile imagination, “the Historia Augusta’s own
confection.”4 Syme characterized the Life as “a farrago of cheap pornography”
and a “scandalous” biography,5 but that verdict is arguably better reserved for
the “pornographic” strands in its first part, and then especially for the spectacular
display of imperial luxuria in the second half. This grand smorgasbord (18.4–
33.8) has aptly been described as “a long series of scholastic jokes, grammarian’s
fantasies and a rich harvest for culinary lexicographers. There may (who can prove
or disprove?) be some genuine items deriving from Marius Maximus. But the bulk
of this long section reflects the HA’s own age and interests.”6 The caesura at 18.4
is unmistakable. At that point, we read, the biography “descends into fiction”;
“ the first part of this Life is relatively factual. Then, duty done, and the amazing
emperor duly flung into the Tiber, [the writer] settles down to amuse himself
[18.4] . . . Some mildly obscene items do slip in, to be sure, but for the most
part it is innocent fantasy: the excesses of the most extravagant and exquisite
hedonist the world has ever seen.”7 Given the perceptible fracture at 18.4, it is
legitimate to reconsider the role of the elaborate farrago within the biography,
and more particularly the author’s8 intention in departing from his more usual
format and making the Heliog. end on this extraordinary flourish. For even by
the standards of the HA, this grand recital of imperial antics will raise eyebrows9
3. See Barnes 1972: 53–74 (quotation from 55), and 1978: 56–57.
4. Barnes 1978: 28. Notwithstanding, literal-minded commentators—with more trust than
humor—have taken the outrageous second section at face value and sought to find therein arcane
historical allusions and snippets of Roman (Un)sittengeschichte: see Barnes 1972: 53–54 for some
such endeavors. The rogue scholar, I suspect, would have been much amused. As Syme 1971: 14–15
remarks of his general practice, “he reduces taste and learning to absurdity. He knows what he is
doing. And, though he may not have set out to deceive all his readers, he succeeded in the end where
he might least have expected: he has been able to take in heavy cohorts of sober scholars.”
5. Syme 1971: 2 and 118 respectively (while acknowledging however that it has its useful
moments). Cf. Hay 1911: 228, “[Lampridius’] record has defeated its own end. He has come down
to posterity as the biographer whose contradictory collection of scandalous enumerations becomes
monotonous rather than amusing as he gets deeper into the mire.”
6. Barnes 1972: 72. On the culinary lexicography, see Alföldi-Rosenbaum 1972.
7. Birley 1976: 14 and 20 respectively. Similarly 304: “what follows [18.4 ff.] may be
regarded as pure fiction.” In the same vein Chastagnol 1994: 499, “L’exagération et l’imagination
prennent alors le dessus avec une multiplication des allusions littéraires accrochées aux divagations
de l’imposteur . . . Enfin, il faut tenir compte du tempérament de plus en plus inventif, espiègle et
pervers du redacteur, qui s’en est donné à coeur joie, notamment dans la seconde moitié de la Vie.”
8. Following the communis opinio I take the HA as the work of a single hand (or at least of
a team of like-minded rogues): in the inimitable phrase of Syme 1971: 281, “Six fools or three,
what does it matter?” The name “Lampridius” is used here simply for convenience.
9. So already Lécrivain 1904: 207: “Il n’y a pas dans l’Histoire Auguste d’aussi forte
accumulation de sottises, de niaiseries, de billevesées.”

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
: History as Carnival 133
—as well as historiographical questions: can the whole excursus be dismissed

as just an overblown hoax, the rogue scholar brazenly displaying his visiting
card, or might the exuberant parade of pseudo-erudition serve some identifiable
purpose in the wider context? In other words, were the meticulously itemized
eccentricities added primarily for their entertainment value, as a hypertrophic but
detachable literary farce, or might they yield some coherent sense in the larger
design—structural, thematic, ideological—of the Heliog., and beyond that also of
the cycle of Antonine biographies?
One possible perspective on these matters is suggested by a methodological
observation in the preceding Vita Macrini. There the author, criticizing his (bogus)
predecessor Junius Cordus, supplies a criterion that is prima facie relevant also
to the Heliog.: from the indiscriminate mass of mundane detail, he insists,
the biographer should select only what is worth knowing, digna cognitione
(Macr. 1.3)—this in accordance with a well-known historiographical topos.10
Junius Cordus’ alleged practice of amassing all manner of trivia in his obscure
imperial biographies is roundly condemned by our own writer, who in a quasi-
programmatic statement specifies what should, and should not, qualify as digna
memoratu:
For he found little, and that was not worthy of record (indigna memoratu),
declaring that he would pursue all the smallest details (adserens se minima
quaeque persecuturum), as though, in the case of Trajan or Pius or Marcus,
one needed to know how often he went out, when he ate different kinds of
food, when he changed his clothes, and whom he promoted and when.
By writing such things he filled his books with mythical history (libros
mythistoriis repleuit), whereas either none of the trivial details should
be recorded at all, or very few—and only if character can be observed
from them, for character is what really should be known about (si tamen
ex his mores possint animaduerti qui re uera sciendi sunt). . . .
Macr. 1.4–5
It is instructive to consider the Heliog. from this angle. The “pornographic” strands
in the first part and then almost all the material in the second half of that biography
(the “farrago”) coincide closely with the minima quaeque (“smallest details”)
here dismissed as trivial (the emperor’s routine, his food, clothes, the individuals
promoted by him), and certainly the Heliog. shows little evidence of the stringent
economy here required of the historian. To that extent the farrago could indeed
qualify as mythistoria. But when on the other hand the writer programmatically
justifies (selective) inclusion of res uiles (“trivial details”) on the proviso si tamen
ex his mores possint animaduerti (“if character can be observed from them”)—
assigning a traditional priority to mores (cf. Livy Praef . 9; Plut. Alex. 1.2; Dio
10. E.g. Hdt. 1.1; Cic. De Orat. 2.63; Sal. Cat. 4.2; Liv. Praef. 10; Tac. Ag. 1.1; Amm. Marc.
26.1.1; with Herkommer 1968: 155, 167n.2; den Hengst 1981: 44–46.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
134   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
Cass. 66.9.4)—it might be asked whether the colorful items in the farrago section
of Heliog. could also be read as indices or emblems in this sense, seemingly trivial
points nevertheless coordinated within a larger design to make a non-trivial point.
In the Heliog. itself Lampridius feigns reluctance at committing to writing this
outrageous biography and claims to have omitted or toned down some scandalous
items that fail the digna memoratu test (1.1, 18.4, 34.2–3, 35.1). His coy protests
are palpably disingenuous,11 but the posture at least might be construed as a
superficial bow to the principle of selection mentioned above. Correlatively the
material included is justified as illustrating the characteristic extravagance of
Elagabalus: de huius uita multa in litteras missa sunt obscaena, quae quia digna
memoratu non sunt, ea prodenda censui, quae ad luxuriam pertinebant (18.4:
“concerning his life many obscene items have been put in writing, but since they
are not worthy of record I have decided that I should relate the things that are
relevant to his extravagance”). The problem however is that luxuria and obscaena
cannot be disentangled as neatly as this and regularly shade off into each other—
meaning somewhat paradoxically that in this biography the only items worthy of
mention are those which would otherwise be disqualified as unworthy of mention.
Plainly our author wants it both ways, simultaneously disavowing and purveying
obscaena and res uiles under the banner of luxuria, in this way combining the
poses of indignant moralist and racy pornographer. If then the remark from Macr.
highlights rather than explains the anomalous character of the farrago, we need to
find other ways of understanding this distinctive emphasis.
Most generally, the text’s shape, emphasis and disposition imply an overarch-
ing intent or at least a broad bias, for while the HA biographies typically integrate
salacious snippets into the narrative, the Heliog. is unique in appending a gargan-
tuan recital of res uiles after the main or political section of the life. This curious
ponderation leaves the reader with an uncomfortable sense of disequilibrium.
Thematic reduplication provides a hint of what may be going on here. The death
of the emperor is related twice, first at the end of the biography proper where
it is explained politically (16.5–17.7), then again at the climax of the farrago,
viewed now sub specie luxuriae and to make the ironic point that Elagabalus was
thwarted in his wish to play out his ultimate fantasy (33.2–8). More than just a
haphazard repetition, therefore, the second instance has an altogether different
function, articulating now the distinctive aesthetic dimension that informs the
entire farrago. So too, I shall argue, with the other eccentricities throughout this
section, which also serve to index this crucial but misunderstood substratum.
The highly anomalous form of the Heliog. in turn reflects our author’s overall
interpretation of the emperor as something truly out of the ordinary and as a
11. Cf. Baldwin 1987: 179 (on Heliog. 31.7–33.1): “Such catalogues of royal depravity are a
prime feature of the HA which, like a modern tabloid, revels in the vices it purports to deplore.”
The pious disclaimers, as at 18.4, are hilarious “since the rest of the Life is entirely composed of
these items.”

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
culmination of sorts. Traditional form is an adequate frame for traditional notions

of morality (moribus antiquis . . . ); but the converse will also hold, as the life
of the transcendental tyrannus prodigiosus signally demonstrates in construction
as well as content.
More specifically, two diverse but sometimes converging perspectives can
help dispel the confusion and disclose some lines of literary and ideological
cohesion in the kaleidoscopic miscellany. First, the Lampridian Elagabalus as
historiographic construct is demonstrably influenced by the tradition of the literary
tyrant, and that generic affiliation will explain some distinctive emphases. So
for instance the refrain-like preoccupation with food and sex can be related, in
part at least, to the literary model: both are standard tyrant topoi, here inflated
into major thematic systems with clear contextual and ideological functions.
Then there is the question of the monumental luxuria that has long been a
stumbling block in interpretations of the emperor in general and of the Life in
particular. Many of his reported excesses appear somewhat less arbitrary when
viewed from the perspective of the cult he was propagating.12 Our sources for
all their animus offer telling if distorted glimpses into that vital nexus, with
epigraphic and numismatic evidence filling in the background and historical-
religious analogies helping to situate the cult of Emesa in its ancient Semitic
context.13 Lampridius in the farrago section ignores or misconstrues the possible
religious dimensions of the emperor’s exotic practices and offers instead a highly
entertaining “secularized” take on his profligacy, viewing through a refracting
Roman prism various outlandish details that must originally have had some ritual
significance. Thus what has been said of the sexual escapades can be extended
also to a number of the other caprices catalogued in the Life: “Sous forme de
scandale, l’Histoire Auguste relate la vie sexuelle très officielle et les pratiques
religieuses liées à la sexualité, de ce jeune homme. . . . Comme ses pratiques
parurent relever du délire dans les milieux romains traditionnels, elles ne sont pas
considérées comme un témoignage plus général qu’individuel sur les croyances et
les comportements qu’entraı̂nent les rites.”14 Where reported action and (original)
referent are thus dislocated, the result is the kind of situation described by the
maxim “Wer die Musik nicht hört, hält die Tanzenden für wahnsinnig.” But if
Elagabalus’ “madness” as reported in the HA is of this order—an apparently
12. As noted by (e.g.) Cumont 1905: 2222, “Die Orgien, die dem Heliogabal vorgeworfen
werden, die Eunuchen- und Dirnenwirtschaft, die er einführte, sind einfach eine Nachahmung oder
Ausbreitung der Sitten, die in Syrien herrschten.” This line is systematically elaborated by Frey
1989 who well remarks, “Aufgeben müssen wird man . . . das schon von antiken Quellen gezeichnete
Bild eines ‘Sardanapal,’ der, zu jung zur Macht gelangt, ganz in zügelloser Schwelgerei versank.
Sein Lebenslauf war durch seine Religion bestimmt, die man sich wohl in ähnlicher Weise streng
geregelt vorstellen muß . . . ” (70–71).
13. On these aspects, see Réville 1888: 250–51; Cumont 1905; Lambertz 1955; Gross 1959;
Optendrenk 1968; Halsberghe 1972: 45–107; Thompson 1972: 138–78; Rousselle 1983: 160–61;
Pietrzykowski 1986; Frey 1989; Turcan 1978: 1066–69; 1985: 119–66; 1992: 174–80.
14. Rousselle 1983: 160.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
136   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
senseless profligacy resulting from (wilful) decontextualizion of the data—the

distinctive historiographic method of Lampridius consists in recontextualizing
those same actions within a new matrix and thereby reconstituting their meaning
from his own Roman perspective.
The Elagabalus of Dio Cassius and Herodian is a religious fanatic whose con-
spicuous “otherness” is indexed primarily by his offensive alien cult and rituals;
as one commentator has noted, “The incongruity of a circumcised Augustus, who
abstained from the flesh of swine to perform with a ritual purity the obscenities
of a Syrian cult and who paraded in public tricked out in the effeminate finery
prescribed by its ceremonial, offended a public opinion which was not exacting
in morals but expected a traditional decorum from its rulers.”15 Lampridius sets
his accents rather differently. Some of Elagabalus’ rituals are indeed reported as
such in the first part of the Life (3.4–5, 6.5–8.2), but the overwhelming impression
conveyed by the biography as a whole is less of an outlandish religious θαυµαστìν
than of an eccentric extraordinaire, truly “the most extravagant and exquisite he-
donist the world has ever seen” (above, n. 7). Various details that probably had
religious connotations originally are now subsumed in the catalogue of imperial
excesses (nec erat ei ulla uita nisi exquirere nouas uoluptates, 19.6: “life for him
was nothing but a search for new pleasures”) or assimilated to the generic profile
of the tyrannus prodigiosus, in the process refracted almost beyond recognition.
As a preview to the main argument, four examples will briefly illustrate this char-
acteristic tendency to reconfigure the outlandish high priest ρχιερεÔ̋, labeled
“the Assyrian” by Dio, as grand satrap of pleasure.
Commentators agree that Elagabalus’ marriage with the Vestal Aquilia Sev-
era, as reported by Dio and Herodian, has unmistakable religious implications: he
divorces his first wife because of a blemish on her body—which suggests typically
Semitic considerations of ritual purity—then explains that the union of priest and
priestess (himself and the Vestal) is intended to produce godlike offspring—which
suggests in turn that it was conceived as a counterpart to the theogamy of his god
Elagabal with the Carthaginian Dea Caelestis.16 In Lampridius the whole incident
shrinks to a single scandalous sentence, in uirginem Vestalem incestum admisit
(6.5: “he violated the chastity of a Vestal virgin”): clamped onto two preced-
ing references to Elagabalus’ voracious sexual appetites, it is assimilated to the
overarching pattern of erotic escapades and presented as a continuation of those
adventures.17
15. Miller 1939: 55. See esp. Dio Cass. 80.11.1–3 Boissevain; Her. 5.3.4–8; 5.5.3–4, 8–10;
5.6.6–9; 5.7.2. The “barbaric chants” and “unholy rites” in Dio’s description—what Turcan 1985:
124–26 has aptly termed his distinctive “exotisme audiovisuel”—capture a revulsion that must have
been fairly typical.
16. See Dio Cass. 80.9.3–4; Her. 5.6.1–2; with Halsberghe 1972: 89–90; Turcan 1985: 142–50;
Frey 1989: 87–93.
17. Pflaum 1978: 161–63 notes the characteristic simplification and decontextualization. On the
typical associative thought-progression, cf. below, n. 50.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
Elsewhere too, it has long been suspected, the sexual depravity emphasized in
all the sources might be a tendentious distortion of what were originally cultic
practices with religious connotations. Religious-historical analogies suggest that
the cult of Emesa included orgiastic celebrations, sacred prostitution and homo-
sexuality, ritual circumcision and perhaps castration, reflexes of which rites are
preserved in the ancient writers.18 But in Lampridius the libido theme acquires
an autonomous life and structure, with accretions from Suetonius and elsewhere
serving to recodify Elagabalus as transcendental artist-profligate, a Fellini-type
creation quite distinct from anything in the Greek accounts. Correlatively also the
HA makes these sexual excesses the principal reason for political opposition to the
emperor, while Dio and Herodian suggest that discontent was much wider than this
and resulted not least from Heliogabalus’ perceived impieties (παρανοµ µατα)
and offensive religious policies and practices.19
Gold, jewels and exotic garments tricked out with purple and golden threads
are fixed attributes of Elagabalus—but where Herodian describes these in relation
to his priestly functions (5.3.6, 6.8, 8.6), Lampridius cites them instead as emblems
of excessive uoluptas and as indices of the emperor’s dubious sexuality (23.3–5,
26.1, 29.1, 31.8). The outlandish ρχιερεÔ̋ becomes a fastidious luxuriosus.20
Impressive banquets, spectacles and distributions of largesse, according to
Dio and Herodian, marked significant political and religious events: the accession
of the new emperor (Her. 5.5.8), his marriage with Cornelia Paula (Dio Cass.
80.9.1–2 Boissevain), the symbolic hierogamy of his god Elagabal with the Dea
Caelestis (Her. 5.6.5), the annual procession that translated the god to the gardens
of Spes Vetus (Her. 5.6.6, 9–10)—grand displays to court popular favor and
win support for the new religion (Her. 5.5.8 and 5.6.6). Lampridius appears to
have taken his cue from the Greek accounts, but develops the feasting motif in a
different direction. The banquets in the Life retain a political dimension, affirming
the emperor’s solidarity with the lower orders, but for the rest they are shorn
of their ceremonial context and connotations and become instead emblematic
expressions of his gargantuan luxuria and a site for his egregious pranks. A small
detail captures the typical shift in focus and the reductio ad insanitatem. As a
18. See Réville 1888: 250–51; Halsberghe 1972: 82–88; Thompson 1972: 151–54; Rousselle
1983: 157–61; Turcan 1985: 124–41; Frey 1989: 14–44. The sources note with derision (e.g.)
Elagabalus’ circumcision and abstention from pork (Dio Cass. 80.11.1), his prostitution and bisexual
proclivities (80.13.2–3, 14.4) and his imitation of the eunuch-priests (Heliog. 7.1–2).
19. See Dio Cass. 80.9.3–4, 11.1–3; Her. 5.8.1. The canny Julia Maesa, thoroughly Romanized,
correctly gauges the public mood and attempts to curb the emperor’s offensive personal and religious
practices (Dio Cass. 80.15.4; Her. 5.5.5, 7.1). Executions of high-ranking critics (Dio Cass. 80.5.1–3;
Her. 5.6.1) suggest a significant level of disaffection in these circles; conversely Alexander loses
no time in returning to their original temples the statues removed by Elagabalus (Her. 6.1.3) and
in repatriating the offensive cultic stone to Emesa (Dio Cass. 80.21.2). See further Turcan 1985:
124–41, 160–66, 172–79, 248–50; and Frey 1989: 94–106, who maps out the probable correlation
between religious reforms and growing political opposition.
20. Cf. Neri 1999: 218–19.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
138   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
party trick, the HA avers, Elagabalus was in the habit of releasing (tamed) lions,
bears, leopards and panthers among his drunk or unsuspecting guests ad pauorem
ridiculum excitandum (21.1: “to cause panic for a laugh”; cf. 25.1)—probably
an invention of Lampridius suggested by the emperor’s practice of keeping sacred
animals in the precincts of his Heliogabalium.21 Ritual is distorted into pure farce
and caricature.
To traditionally minded Romans the outlandish liturgy and gaudy parapher-
nalia of the priest-emperor as described by Dio and Herodian must have presented
an extraordinary spectacle, “a Syrian carnival in the capital city of Rome,” as one
commentator has put it;22 yet the Greek accounts for all their hostility imply a
coherent inner rationale and describe an intelligible external reaction. Lampridius,
eschewing any attempt to understand Elagabalus on his own terms, offers instead
an entertaining (but internally consistent) layman’s interpretation, deconstructs
the religious fanatic and reconfigures him in Roman categories as a grand amalgam
of tyrannus prodigiosus, luxuriosus extraordinaire and scandalous “Saturnalian”
prankster. What emerges is truly another “other,” a witty reconceptualization of
Dio and Herodian for late Roman consumption and delectation.
In what follows I first consider the Lampridian Elagabalus as generic construct
within the sequence of Antonine biographies and the role of this characterization as
implied authorial comment (II). Then two major thematic systems—the emperor’s
erotic exploits and his culinary habits—are analysed for their literary affiliation
and contextual function (III, IV). These extensive and carefully structured systems
disclose typical features of Lampridius’ style, composition and his conception of
Elagabalus as a unique phenomenon, and repeatedly call attention to an all-
pervasive sense of showmanship. Rich in literary and political associations
and connotations, the sex and eating motifs are stable criteria in Lampridius’
construction of the transcendental pessimus princeps, and situate Elagabalus
firmly in a Roman cultural matrix; in addition, Elagabalus’ pursuit of carnal and
gastronomic pleasures serves throughout as a means of imperial self-fashioning
and self-projection. This in turn leads on to my central question: does this emphasis
have an overarching significance, and are the other apparently heterogeneous
eccentricities informed by a coherent and unifying rationale (V, VI)? Here it is
argued that Lampridius does indeed offer something approaching a methodology
of madness: the text itself provides clues as to how the imperial pranks might
be read, and once the grammar of eccentricity is recognized, individual antics can
be explicated as something other than just random and disconnected absurdities.
21. See Dio Cass. 80.11.3 (lion, monkey, snake); and analogously Lucian Syr. D. 41 (bulls,
horses, eagles, bears and lions, all tamed); with Turcan 1985: 127; Frey 1989: 28–30. The latter
remarks (30n.2) that the reminiscences in Heliog. are “aus dem Zusammenhang gerissen und in
eine groteske Lausbubengeschichte verdreht.” Elsewhere too in the Life the emperor appears to have
shown an interest in exotic creatures: 21.1–2, 23.1, 28.1–3, with Turcan 1985: 178–79.
22. Halsberghe 1972: 85.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
And although this will not fully rehabilitate the “lunatic” emperor, it goes some
way towards vindicating the Life as more than just incompetent biography.
II. DYNASTY AND DESIGN
Whatever the artistic deficiencies of the HA, its author does show a sense
of structure, with the eight principes or pretenders here reckoned as Antonines23
grouped according to a traditional change-and-decline schema. Antoninus Pius
and especially Marcus Aurelius early in the dynasty mark the moral and political
zenith within the group, which then deteriorates precipitously until it reaches its
omega point with Elagabalus, ultimus Antoninorum, homo omnium impurissimus
(“last of the Antonines, impurest of men”) and archetypal despot. The pattern
of progressive degeneration attributed to an unnamed poet is also the schema
followed in the HA:
Indeed, there are verses by some poet in which it is shown that the name of
Antoninus began with Pius and gradually passed down the Antonines until
it reached its final sordid level, considering that Marcus alone appears
to have enhanced that hallowed name by the character of his life, while
Verus seems to have lowered, and Commodus actually to have profaned
the reverence of the sacred name. And then, what can be said of Caracallus
Antoninus, or what of this Diadumenus? Finally, what can be said of
Heliogabalus, the last of the Antonines, who is reported to have lived
in the depths of foulness?
Macr. 7.7–8
Individual members are classed as boni or mali principes according to the tra-
ditional codex of imperial virtues that goes back to Augustus: the bonus princeps
(Pius, Marcus) defers to the mos maiorum and traditional hierarchies, appoints
able men, displays pietas, auctoritas, clementia, moderatio, modestia, and uirtus
militaris; while conversely a malus princeps like Commodus practises libido,
luxuria, impudentia, impudicitia and crudelitas, surrounds himself with evil as-
sociates, and shows contempt for traditional structures and values.24 As successive
23. Macr. 3.3–4 gives the full list: Pius, Marcus, Verus, Commodus, Caracalla, Geta, Diadu-
menus and Elagabalus. From Antoninus Pius to Commodus the principes are Antonines by birth
or adoption, from Caracalla to Heliogabalus by fictive adoption. Verus, co-regent with Marcus
Aurelius, is reckoned in the HA as an Antonine; and Septimius Severus, joining his dynasty to the
Antonines, gives his son Geta the name Antoninus in order not to exclude him from the succession.
See Scheithauer 1987: 65–68.
24. See Wickert 1954: 2119–27, 2231–34; Béranger 1976; Scheithauer 1987: 28–45; Bertrand-
Dagenbach 1990: 154–63; Arand 2002: 39–49. As noted by Scheithauer 1987: 55–56, tyrant topoi and
senatorial perspective frequently coincide: “Weil sich Tyrannentopik und prosenatorische Tendenz
in wesentlichen Punkten decken, kann der Autor der Historia Augusta die topischen Elemente
unverändert übernehmen. Die Übereinstimmungen kommen dadurch zustande, daß die Werke des
Platon und Aristoteles und die Historia Augusta in vornehmen Gesellschaftskreisen entstanden sind

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
140   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
principes abandon the ideals of the founding fathers and degenerate into capri-
cious despots, the emblematic vices become progressively more conspicuous.
From Verus to Commodus to Elagabalus, as Andrea Scheithauer has well demon-
strated, the drift towards despotism is indexed by the elaboration of a number
of strands derived from the traditional repertoire of tyrant topoi (ideological
proximity to Nero and other imperial despots, dependence on corrupt favorites,
extravagance in food and sex); and as these mali principes shed their Roman
identity, they approach the model of oriental despotism, as registered in luxurious
styles of dress, affectation of oriental habits and contempt for the senate and
Roman religious tradition.25 When in the Heliog. all these strands converge in
a grand finale, a spectacular summation conceived as the apex within a clearly
demarcated dynastic sequence, it is precisely as indices of this tendency that a
good number of the more exotic themes and details acquire added significance.
The expositional paragraph of Heliog. programmatically invokes the antithet-
ical typology and profiles Elagabalus generically, alongside kindred predecessors
(Caligulas et Nerones et Vitellios: “types like Caligula, Nero and Vitellius”), as
prodigiosus tyrannus, this in polar opposition to the canonical good emperors
(compensationem sibi lector diligens faciet, cum legerit Augustum, Traianum,
Vespasianum, Hadrianum, Pium, Titum, Marcum contra hos prodigiosos tyran-
nos, 1.2: “the discerning reader may allow himself some compensation to set
against these monstrous tyrants when he reads of Augustus, Trajan, Vespasian,
Hadrian, Pius, Titus and Marcus”). Bracketed with the likes of Caligula et al.,
he is first styled as heir to the tradition of imperial tyranny (like his predecessors
Verus and Commodus)26 and then made to act out this role by self-consciously
emulating his exemplars: cum ipse priuatus diceret se Apicium, imperatorem uero
Neronem, Othonem et Vitellium imitari (18.4: “for he himself as a private citizen
used to say that he was imitating Apicius, but as an emperor, Nero, Otho and
und die Ansichten der Oberschicht widerspiegeln.” The senatorial bias in Heliog. comes out clearly
at 1.3, 13.3, 17.7.
25. Scheithauer 1987: 59–64. Her argument in essence: “Einige Laster sind bei Verus
ansatzweise vorhanden, bei Commodus bereits weiter entwickelt und bei Elagabal schließlich voll
ausgeprägt, so daß sich innerhalb dieser drei Biographien eine aufsteigende Linie ergibt, die in
Elagabal gipfelt und von keinem späteren Kaiser mehr überboten wird” (59). For the typical tyrant
motifs, see esp. Pl. Resp. 8.562a-9.580c, Grg. 524e-525a; Arist. Pol. 5.1311a-1315b; Xen. Hier.;
with Opelt 1965: 129–31, 154–59, 174–77; Berve 1967: I.190–206, 343–60, 476–509; Dunkle 1967:
151–71; 1971: 12–20; Alföldi 1977: 9–25; Lanza 1977; Tabacco 1985.
26. Cf. Verus 4.6, fertur . . . in tantum uitiorum Gaianorum et Neronianorum ac Vitellianorum
fuisse aemulum (“he is said . . . to have been so much a rival of the vices of Gaius, Nero and Vitellius”);
10.8, aleae cupidissimus, uitae semper luxuriosae atque in pluribus Nero praeter crudelitatem et
ludibria (“he was very keen on gambling, and his way of life was always extravagant; in many
respects he was a Nero, except for the cruelty and the acting”); Marcus 28.10, fertur filium mori
uoluisse, cum eum talem uideret futurum, qualis exstitit post eius mortem, ne, ut ipse dicebat, similis
Neroni, Caligulae et Domitiano esset (“he is reported to have wanted his son to die when he saw
that he would be what he became after his own death, so that, as he himself said, he might not be like
Nero, Caligula and Domitian”); Comm. 19.2, saeuior Domitiano, impurior Nerone (“more savage
than Domitian, fouler than Nero”).

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
Vitellius”; cf. 20.5, 24.4, 31.5, 33.1). Where the bonus princeps looks typically
to shining exemplars in a dignified certamen uirtutis,27 Elagabalus vies with his
own chosen models in a symmetrical certamen prauitatis. The broad ideological
orientation indicated in this way is then further nuanced in the farrago section with
an overwhelming mass of colorful specifics, specialia pro generali to reinforce
the generic affiliations and to mark Elagabalus as the spectacular climax within
the sequence of mali principes.
Generic profiling of this kind is apt to assimilate the individual to the type,
producing a highly stylized “identikit” portrait with transparent literary affinities
and clear ideological bias, but of questionable historical reliability. Suetonius
in particular, much admired by our author, has left a ubiquitous imprint on
the collection. Not surprisingly Caligula, Nero, Vitellius and Domitian are the
principes most frequently evoked in Heliog.: the emperor’s sartorial and sexual
practices, his gluttony and exotic menus, dinner pranks and after-dinner escapades
are all redolent of Suetonius, as Chastagnol has demonstrated in his catalogue
of parallels.28 And these generic contours are self-reflexively reinforced by
Elagabalus’ own references to his imperial exemplars. Individuality or originality
in the case of the archetypal tyrannus prodigiosus is accordingly less a matter of
kind than of degree, as indeed the Lampridian Elagabalus makes clear more than
once. In two passages enumerating the emperor’s exemplars reference is made not
just to emulation but to surpassing his antecedents (cenas uero et Vitellii et Apicii
uicit, 24.4: “he surpassed even the banquets of Vitellius and Apicius”; libidinum
genera quaedam inuenit, ut spinthrias ueterum imperatorum uinceret, et omnis
apparatus Tiberii et Caligulae et Neronis norat, 33.1: “he invented certain kinds of
lust, surpassing the perverts used by the emperors of old, and was well acquainted
with all the arrangements of Tiberius and Caligula and Nero”)—casually telling
observations that capture a distinctive emphasis: Elagabalus as hyperbole, not
just as continuation of an ideological trajectory but as its spectacular climax and
summation. So too the characteristic primus, solus and numquam iterauit motifs
(e.g. primus Romanorum holoserica ueste usus fertur, 26.1: “he is said to have
been the first of the Romans to have worn clothing entirely of silk”) driving
home the point that Elagabalus takes imperial luxuria to new and unprecedented
heights (or depths).29 In this way the Lampridian construct—for all its literary
27. Thus Heliog. 2.4: sanctum illud Antoninorum nomen . . . quod tu, Constantine sacratissime,
ita ueneraris, ut Marcum et Pium inter Constantios Claudiosque, uelut maiores tuos, aureos
formaueris adoptans uirtutes ueterum tuis moribus congruentes et tibi amicas caras (“that hallowed
name of the Antonines which you, most sacred Constantine, so revere that you have made Marcus
and Pius golden examples for yourself, together with the Constantii and Claudii, as though they were
your own ancestors, adopting the virtues of the men of old which accord with your character and
are pleasing and dear to you”).
28. Chastagnol 1972.
29. Solus: 4.2, 17.6; primus: 19.1, 19.3 (bis), 19.4, 19.6 (bis), 22.3, 25.3, 26.1, 29.5; nec
ante eum (uel sim.): 12.3, 19.5, 33.6; numquam iterauit (uel sim.): 19.9, 24.2, 32.1. Formulaic
primus omnium and solus omnium typically designate outstanding uirtutes (or conversely signal

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
142   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
baggage—retains a certain individual eccentricity that is crucial to the author’s

conception of ultimus Antoninorum.
If literary and generic coloring enhances the climactic progression from Verus
and Commodus to ultimus Antoninorum, it also produces an effective termi-
nal synkrisis between the archetypal tyrant and his shining successor Alexander
Severus: in either case form follows function. The binary opposition, prefigured
at Heliog. 13–14, is then fully developed in the Alex. through multiple thematic
responsions. Alexander on assuming the purple systematically undoes his pre-
decessor’s mischief and emerges as ideal counterpart to the depraved tyrannus.
This contrapuntal stylization reinforces the moral and political contrast, serves
as final verdict on Elagabalus and marks a definitive caesura after the tyrant’s
reign.30
III. SEX AND THE CITY
Classical despots are typically given to a life of luxuria—πολαυστικÀ̋

ζÀντε̋ (“living a life of pleasure”), as Aristotle says (Pol. 1312b)—with their
sexual tastes and practices serving as one significant index of the βÐο̋ τυραννικì̋
(“tyrannical lifestyle”): thus the Caesars of Suetonius, Roman heirs to this
illustrious tradition, thus also the mali principes of the HA.31 The prominence
of this theme in both parts of the Heliog., as well as its role within the change-and-
decline schema, call for comment. Among the Antonines the incipient tendency
to sexual excesses is noted first with reference to Verus, whose taste for la
dolce vita comes out during a Syrian sojourn (Verus 4.4) and then again on his
uitia) by reference to the traditional codex of communal values: see Alföldy 1980: 22–38, esp.
25–29. Lampridius then applies the formula to characterize Elagabalus as luxuriosus par excellence
and conscious subverter of traditional norms—possibly taking his cue from Dio Cass. 80.3.3, â̋
δà δ τλλα πντα καÈ αÊσχρουργìτατα καÈ παρανοµ¸τατα καÈ µιαιφον¸τατα âξοκεÐλα̋, ¹στε τ
µèν τινα αÎτÀν µηδ' ρχν π¸ποτ' âν τ¨ù ÃΡ¸µηù γενìµενα ±̋ καÈ πτρια κµσαι. . . . (“but on
the other hand he drifted into the most shameful, lawless and cruel practices, with the result that some
of them, never before known in Rome, came to have the authority of tradition. . . .”). Analogously
also Elagabalus’ conception of exemplarity (32.3) mirrors, and exactly inverts, the schema of the
bonus princeps (e.g. Claud. 2.3).
30. See Hartke 1951: 204–206; Pflaum 1978: 163–66; Bertrand-Dagenbach 1990: 94–96, 101–
102. Pflaum aptly uses the term “diptych” and notes “la tendance sous-jacente qui consiste à rehausser
le prestige de Sévère Alexandre en comparant son activité bienfaisante et utile à l’État, à celle de son
prédécesseur, scandaleuse, sinon pernicieuse pour Rome” (164). And again: “On observe ainsi un
schéma qui n’introduit aucune décision prise par Sévère Alexandre sans mentionner qu’elle abolit ou
réforme une mesure contraire inaugurée par Élagabale” (ibid.). So for instance Alexander purifies the
nomen Antoninorum defiled by Elagabalus (Alex. 6–10), removes from office the disreputable judges
promoted by his predecessor (15.1), forbids oriental-style adoration (18.3), curtails the influence
of eunuchs (23.5–8, 34.3), rounds up prostitutes and deports catamites (34.4) and reintroduces
separate-sex bathing (24.2).
31. On the tyrant’s typical lust and sexual licence, see (e.g.) Hdt. 3.80.5; Xen. Hier. 1.26–38;
Plat. Resp. 9.573a-d, Grg. 525a; Livy 1.57.10, 1.58.2 (Tarquinius Superbus), 3.44.2, 3.48.1 (Appius
Claudius), 24.5.3–6 (Hieronymus); Tac. Ann. 6.6.9; and for imperial examples Dunkle 1967: 161–63,
168–69; 1971: 7–19; Demandt 1997: 81–96.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
return to Rome, where he is cast as Caligula or Nero rediuiuus on his nocturnal

escapades (Verus 4.6 ≈ Suet. Cal. 11, Nero 26, 27); incest with his mother-in-law
is rumored (10.1). Commodus, altogether more savage and despotic, practises
lust on a correspondingly grander scale, with his true nature early revealed:
nam a prima statim pueritia turpis, improbus, crudelis, libidinosus, ore quoque
pollutus et constupratus fuit (Comm. 1.7: “for straight from his earliest boyhood
he was base, shameless, cruel, lecherous, defiled of mouth too and debauched”).32
Specifics follow: he sets up a brothel (Comm. 2.8), appears in public with his
debaucher (3.6), surrounds himself with 300 concubines and as many young men
(5.3–4),33 practises voyeurism and submits to passive homosexuality (5.10–11),
names minions after the genitalia and has a special favorite whose assets (pene
prominente ultra modum animalium, 10.8–9: “with penis projecting further than
that of animals”) earn him both a priesthood and the sobriquet Onos or “Donkey.”
With Elagabalus, finally, this climactic curve reaches its spectacular apex—not
just that he outdoes Commodus, but in the sense that libido now becomes the
unifying motif of his reign (eum fructum uitae praecipuum existimans, si dignus
atque aptus libidine plurimorum uideretur, 5.5: “considering it the principal
enjoyment of life to appear worthy and suited for the lust of the greatest number”)
and is interwoven with significant subsidiary strands, which in turn produces
tight thematic cohesion and suggests also an absurd internal logic to the despot’s
apparently illogical antics.
From its first appearance the libido motif is tied by Lampridius to the political
fortunes of Elagabalus, and this interplay runs refrain-like through the Life.
Both Dio and Herodian, well into their respective narratives, touch on military
disapproval at the emperor’s habits (Dio Cass. 80.15.4–16.1, 17.1, 19.2–3; Her.
5.7.1, 8.1). Lampridius takes up this conjunction but gives greater emphasis to the
causal connection between imperial depravity and military disaffection: so much
is clear from the disposition of the paired motifs. The soldiers realize right away
(statim) that they have backed the wrong candidate, a recognition duly motivated
by reference to the offensive practices:
Ergo cum hibernasset Nicomediae atque omnia sordide ageret inireturque
a uiris et subigeret, statim milites facti sui paenituit, quod in Macrinum
32. Beyond these typical attributes, he is marked as tyrant by another small but telling detail:
adurens comam et barbam timore tonsoris (Comm. 17.3: “singeing hair and beard because he feared
the barber”) ≈ Cic. Tusc. 5.58, quin etiam, ne tonsori collum committeret, tondere filias suas
docuit [Dionysius] . . . et tamen ab his ipsis, cum iam essent adultae, ferrum remouit instituitque ut
candentibus iuglandium putaminibus barbam sibi et capillum adurerent (“indeed, to avoid entrusting
his neck to the barber, [Dionysius] taught his daughters to shave him. . . . Even so, when they were
now older, he took the metal razor away from them and arranged for them to singe his hair and
beard with red-hot walnut shells”).
33. Merten 1983: 95–96 notes that the number of 300 women here suggests a link with the
Persian king, prototype of the tyrant in Roman literature (cf. Ath. 12.514b, φυλσσουσÐ τε αÎτäν
καÈ τριακìσιαι γυναØκε̋ . . . ).

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
144   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
conspirauerant, ut hunc principem facerent. . . . Quis enim ferre posset

principem per cuncta caua corporis libidinem recipientem, cum ne beluam
quidem talem quisquam ferat?34
5.1–2
When therefore he had wintered at Nicomedia and was behaving in a
depraved manner in every way, engaging in active and passive sex, the
soldiers at once regretted conspiring against Macrinus to make this man
princeps. . . . For who could endure an emperor who was the recipient of
lust in every orifice of his body, when no one would tolerate even a beast
of this sort?
Incipit comoedia: as overture to the reign this comment signals a crucial political
relationship whose deterioration is wittily mapped out. Growing impatient with
the dissolute emperor (10.1), the troops look to the chaste Alexander; they call on
Elagabalus to dismiss his sleazy cronies (15.1–4 ≈ Dio Cass. 80.19.2–3); and in
the ensuing coup the imperial perverts duly share the fate of their master: primum
conscii <libidinum eius occisi sunt uario> genere mortis, cum alios uitalibus
exemptis necarent, alios ab ima parte perfoderent, ut mors esset uitae consentiens.
Post hoc in eum impetus factus est atque in latrina, ad quam confugerat, occisus
(16.5–17.1: “first his associates <in lewdness were killed in various> ways—
some they slaughtered by tearing out their vitals, others they pierced up the
anus, so that their death matched their life. After this an attack was made on
him, and he was killed in a latrine where he had taken refuge”). Against Dio’s
unspectacular καÈ αÎτÀú λλοι τε καÈ å ÃΙεροκλ¨̋ οÑ τε êπαρχοι συναπ¸λοντο
καÈ ΑÎρ λιο̋ ΕÖβουλο̋ . . . τìτε δ' οÞν Íπì τε τοÜ δ µου καÈ τÀν στρατιωτÀν
διεσπσθη (80.21.1: “with him perished, among others, Hierocles and the prefects
and Aurelius Eubulus. . . . So now he was torn to pieces by the populace and
the soldiers”) and Herodian’s equally neutral τäν µàν ΑντωνØνον
Ç αÎτìν τε γρ
καÈ τν µητèρα . . . ναιροÜσι, τοÔ̋ τε περÈ αÎτäν πντα̋ (5.8.8: “they killed
Antoninus himself and his mother . . . and all his retinue”), the less than orthodox
method of killing here shows that Lampridius has styled the minions’ death
to conform symmetrically (and theatrically) with their depraved lives.35 This
34. Emphasis on Elagabalus’ passive homosexuality (5.1–5, 10.5, 11.7; cf. Dio Cass. 80.13)
plays on Roman prejudices, on which see Kay 1985: 127; Williams 1999: 172–81, 203–205. For the
toto corpore slur, cf. Sen. NQ 1.16.5 (the notorious Hostius Quadra), spectabat illam libidinem oris
sui; spectabat admissos sibi pariter in omnia uiros; nonnumquam inter marem et feminam distributus
et toto corpore patientiae expositus spectabat nefanda (“he used to watch the obscene lusting of his
own mouth; he used to watch men admitted all alike to his person for all the doings; sometimes
shared between a man and a wonan, and with his whole body spread in position for submitting to
them, he used to watch the unmentionable acts”); HA, Comm. 5.11, nec inruentium in se iuuenum
carebat infamia, omni parte corporis atque ore in sexum utrumque pollutus (“he was not free from
the disgrace of submitting sexually to young men, being defiled in every part of his body, even his
mouth, with both sexes”).
35. The topical congruence of life and manner of death also at 1.3, . . . quod illi et diu imperarunt
et exitu naturali functi sunt, hi uero interfecti, tracti, tyranni etiam appellati, quorum nec nomina

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
concluding accent on the libido motif, harking back to the expositional section
(5.1–2 -.16.5–17.1), reaffirms the link between imperial debauchery and military
opposition and leaves the reader with a sense, far more pronounced than in either
Dio or Herodian, that sexual excesses are the prime reason for the political demise
of Elagabalus and his associates.
If perversity is made the main cause of the princeps’ downfall, it is also
a significant unifying theme in his brief rule. The tyrant’s associates are typi-
cally lowlife characters, toadies and self-serving sycophants.36 Elagabalus too
surrounds himself with homines perditi (“depraved characters”) from stage and
circus, and affronts traditional sensibilities by promoting lowly minions to po-
sitions of high authority—showing particular favor to his partners in vice (6.2–5,
11.1, 12.1–2, 20.3). Imperial politics, that is, becomes an extension of the tyrant’s
sexual preferences. Herodian notes the general tendency,37 but Dio in particular
fires our author’s imagination with his account of the princeps’ affair with Zoticus
(80.16.1–6). Elagabalus, we read there, employs talent-scouts to seek out perverts
for his pleasure (Dio Cass. 80.13.4). The handsome Zoticus, πολÌ δà δ πντα̋
τÀú τÀν αÊδοÐων µεγèθει ÍπεραÐρων (80.16.2: “far surpassing all in the size of his
genitals”), is spotted by them, the fact reported to the princeps. The well-endowed
youth is rushed off to Rome like a foreign dignitary and appointed imperial cu-
bicularius (“valet-de-chambre”). In the bath Elagabalus duly verifies the scouts’
reports and all looks promising until the soap opera is prematurely terminated
by the intrigues of a jealous rival Hierocles. Lampridius offers both less and
more. Zoticus appears at Heliog. 10.2–5 as a corrupt favorite and as the princeps’
“husband” (no reference however to his signal attributes), but Dio’s distinctive
libet dicere (“ . . . the latter [= the good emperors] ruled for a long time and died natural deaths, while
the former [= the bad rulers] were put to death, dragged along, even called usurpers, and no one is
willing to mention their names”); and again (now from Elagabalus’ own perspective) at 33.6, fecerat
et altissimum turrem substratis aureis gemmatisque ante se tabulis, ex qua se praecipitaret, dicens
etiam mortem suam pretiosam esse debere et ad speciem luxuriae, ut diceretur nemo sic perisse
(“he had also constructed a very high tower with gilded and jewelled boards spread underneath in
front of him, so that he could fling himself down from it, saying that even his death ought to be
costly and of an extravagant pattern, so that it might be said that no one else had ever perished in
this way”). The principle of a symmetrical Òσα πρä̋ Òσα is explicitly articulated in the long senatorial
malediction at the death of Commodus: sic fecit, sic patiatur (Comm. 19.2: “as he did to others,
let it be done to him”). On this moralizing “Strafkausalität von schlechtem Leben und schlechtem
Tod” as historiographical topos, see Scheid 1984; Staesche 1998: 96–116; Arand 1999; Timonen
2000: 141–210; Arand 2002: 52–55, 104–107, 122–28, 154–57, 230–32.
36. E.g. Pl. Resp. 567b-568a, 575d; Arist. Pol. 1313b-1314a; Xen. Hier. 1.14–15, 5.1–2; Dem.
2.18–19; Tac. Hist. 2.71.1, 2.87.2, 2.94.3; HA, Hadr. 21.2, Pius 6.4, Verus 8.10–11, 9.3–6, Comm.
4.8, 5.1–3, 6.1–13.
37. Her. 5.5.6, οÎδà γρ προσÐετο εÊ µ τοÌ̋ åµοιοτρìπου̋ τε καÈ κìλακα̋ αÍτοÜ τÀν
µαρτηµτων (“he admitted to his presence none except men of similar habits and those who flattered
his faults”); and 5.7.6–7, a list of high positions assigned to lowly individuals culminating in the
statement τοØ̋ δà δοÔλοι̋ αÍτοÜ £ πελευθèροι̋, ±̋ êτυχεν éκαστο̋ âπ' αÊσχρÀú τινÈ εÎδοκιµ σα̋,
τ̋ Íπατικ̋ τÀν âθνÀν âξουσÐα̋ âνεχεÐρισε (“his slaves and freedmen, who perhaps excelled in
some disgusting activity, he appointed as governors of consular provinces”).

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
146   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
nexus libido– genitals– bathing evidently made a special impression on our au-
thor, prompting him to inflate the particular incident into a general obsession and
shape it into an overarching theme. Early in the biography, in a section detailing
Elagabalus’ sexual preferences—and before Zoticus is even mentioned—we read
Romae denique nihil egit aliud, nisi ut emissarios haberet qui ei bene uasatos
perquirerent eosque ad aulam perducerent, ut eorum condicionibus frui posset
(5.3: “in fact at Rome he did nothing else but keep agents to search out for him
men with large genitals, and bring them to court, so that he could enjoy their
special endowments”).38
To this end too baths are opened up to the public, not as a gesture of imperial
magnanimity but to cater to the princeps’ idiosyncratic tastes: lauacrum publicum
in aedibus aulicis fecit, simul et Plautiani populo exhibuit, ut ex eo condiciones
bene uasatorum hominum colligeret. Idque diligenter curatum est, ut ex tota
penitus urbe atque ex nauticis onobeli quaererentur: sic eos appellabant, qui
uiriliores uidebantur (8.6–7: “he made a public bath in the palace and at the
same time made the baths of Plautianus available to the people, so as to recruit
in this way the services of well-hung men. Careful attention was given to seeking
out from the recesses of the whole city, and from among the sailors, onobeli,
which is what they called those who looked extra virile”). Where Dio ties the
τÀν αÊδοÐων (“genital size”) motif to the person of Zoticus, Lampridius detaches
this aspect from Dio’s very precise account of the Zoticus- Elagabalus- Hierocles
love-triangle and generalizes it into a habitual pattern39 —the first of several such
sweeping gestures to bring out the princeps’ transcendental extravagance and
single-minded pursuit of pleasure. Generic onobeli40 (“hung like a donkey”) to
38. Note how nihil egit aliud, nisi ut . . . (“he did nothing else but . . . ”) is an intensification as
against Dio Cass. 80.13.4, διερευνητ̋ συχνοÌ̋ εÚχε, δι' Áν âπολυπραγµìνει τοÌ̋ µλιστα αÎτäν
ρèσαι τ¨ù καθαρσÐαø δυναµèνου̋ (“he had numerous agents through whom he sought out those who
could best please him by their depravity”): in Heliog. lust becomes the emperor’s single-minded
and overarching pursuit. And the imperial emissarii seek out not sundry practitioners of καθαρσÐα
but specifically the bene uasatos (“ well-endowed individuals”). These emisarii reappear at 6.1 as
libidinum ministros (“agents of his lusts”), influential henchmen trafficking in et honores et dignitates
et potestates (“honors and ranks and powers”).
39. Note also how the rivalry between Hierocles and Zoticus, which in Dio knits the two
episodes tightly together (80.15–16), is nowhere mentioned in Heliog.—where they appear as just two
unconnected amatory encounters. On Lampridius’ tendency to simplify Dio’s specifics and abstract
them from their original context, see Pflaum 1978: 161–63; and Merten 1983: 9–10 on the typical
exaggeration in this episode (“eine seiner bekannten Übertreibungen”). The thematic configuration
here may also owe something to the popular theme of the baths as a locus for homosexual encounters,
as (e.g.) Sen. NQ 1.16.3; Petron. 92.7–11; Mart. 1.23, 1.96.10–13, 9.33, 11.63; Juv. 6.374–76; with
Citroni 1975: 81.
40. Onobeli, Lipsius’ conjecture from the MS reading monobelis, is accepted by Ernout 1949:
114n.1: the term, compounded from îνο̋ and βèλο̋, is there glossed as mentula asini praeditus;
cf. Adams 1982: 21. If the bene uasati are recruited especially ex nauticis this is probably because
the sailors, noted for their lewdness (Hor. Epod. 17.20, Carm. 3.6.30–32; Prop. 4.5.49–50), would
have provided a good supply of candidates. On well-endowed men as sought-after lovers, see (e.g.)
Sen. NQ 1.16.3; Mart. 1.22; Petron. 92.9–10; with Adams 1982: 78; Williams 1999: 86–91.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
designate the sought-after types recalls the sobriquet of Commodus’ paramour

(Comm. 10.9) but suggests also a progression since then—for what was there
reported as a single, isolated instance is now formalized and institutionalized, as it
were. Indeed, the bene uasati (“well-hung men”) appear even to have constituted
something like a lobby (9.3)41 —hardly remarkable, given the emperor’s habit
of promoting individuals for their natural assets: ad honores reliquos promouit
commendatos sibi pudibilium inormitate membrorum (12.2: “to the other offices he
appointed men whose enormous private parts recommended them to him”).42 The
bene uasati make a final appearance in the farrago section, tacked on with sundry
perverts as a rather unlikely explanation for Elagabalus’ extravagant transport
arrangements:
Iter priuatus numquam minus sexaginta uehiculis fecit. . . . Imperator uero
etiam sescenta uehicula dicitur duxisse, adserens decem milibus camelo-
rum Persarum regem iter facere et Neronem quingentis carrucis iter inisse.
Causa uehiculorum erat lenonum, lenarum, meretricum, exoletorum, sub-
actorum etiam bene uasatorum multitudo.
31.4–6
As a private citizen he never made a journey with less than sixty
carriages. . . . But as emperor he would take as many as six hundred car-
riages, declaring that the king of the Persians travelled with ten thousand
camels and that Nero had set off on a journey with five hundred four-
wheelers. The reason for the carriages was the vast number of pimps,
bawds, prostitutes, catamites and perverts with large genitals too.
Bracketed with the king of Persia and Nero, Elagabalus is marked as archetypal
tyrannus; his motley entourage reinforces that image—via the libido topos—while
their sheer number suggests a lust and extravagance beyond even the proverbial
Persicos apparatus (“Persian extravagance”). Here as elsewhere the individual
details are both emblems of the βÐο̋ τυραννικì̋ and are styled to add nuance
to that profile.
Other variants of the libido motif work in the same way by evoking relevant
associations. Of the lustful Domitian, Suetonius reports eratque fama, quasi con-
cubinas ipse deuelleret nataretque inter uulgatissimas meretrices (Dom. 22: “it
was reported that he depilated his concubines with his own hand and swam with
41. Section 9.3 well illustrates the workings of “size counts” politics, suggesting (absurdly but
consistently) political rivalry between the influential bene uasati and their lesser-endowed opponents:
prodebatur autem per eos maxime, qui dolebant sibi homines ad exercendas libidines bene uasatos
et maioris peculii opponi. Unde etiam de nece eius cogitari coepit (“the story was revealed in
particular by the opponents of those with large members and greater resources for practising lust.
Hence plotting to murder him began”). As at 5.1–2, politics is predicated on sex.
42. Perhaps Lampridius was familiar with the roughly analogous rationale at Juv. 1.40–41,
unciolam Proculeius habet, sed Gillio deuncem,/ partes quisque suas ad mensuram inguinis heres
(“Proculeius gets a twelfth share in the estate, but Gillio eleven-twelfths, each according to the size
of his genitals”).

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
148   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
the most common prostitutes”). Elagabalus refines this rudimentary amusement

into high cosmetic art in a passage that reads like a fantasia on a theme of Sueto-
nius, prompting the reasonable suspicion that the rogue scholar was humorously
“improving” on his source: in balneis semper43 cum mulieribus fuit ita, ut eas ipse
psilotro curaret, ipse quoque barbam psilotro accurans, quodque pudendum dictu
sit, eodem quo mulieres accurabantur et eadem hora; rasit et uirilia subactoribus
suis ad nouaclum manu sua qua postea barbam fecit (31.7: “at the baths he was
always with women, to the extent of even treating them with depilatory ointment.
He himself applied the ointment to his beard as well and, a shameful thing to say, in
the same place where the women were being treated and at the same hour. He also
shaved the groins of his minions, using the razor with his own hand, and afterwards
shaved his beard with it”). But whether fact or fiction, the description is certainly
apposite—for evocations of Domitian again situate our princeps within the tra-
dition of canonical tyrants, theatrical application of ointment and razor first to his
associates and then to his own beard pointedly affirms solidarity with the subac-
tores et al. (cf. 26.3–5, 27.7, 31.6), and finally the studied amplification as against
Suetonius evinces the same spirit of aemulatio noted elsewhere (24.4, 33.1).
For Elagabalus’ histrionic imitatio, the dense vignette 32.8–33.1 is of some
interest. First the performer who challenges even the versatile Nero in his artistic
accomplishments (ipse cantauit, saltauit, ad tibia dixit: “he himself sang, danced,
performed on the pipes”),44 then the prankster who prowls through Rome’s sleazy
districts disguised in a muleteer’s hood, in evident imitation of Caligula and
Nero.45 Taking his cue from the lupinaria and adulteria (“brothels”) of Tacitus
and Suetonius,46 Lampridius makes these the telos of Elagabalus’ grand foray:
43. Note the expansive semper (“always”) as against Suetonius’ more cautions eratque fama
(“it was reported that”): again the isolated exotic instance is generalized into habitual practice.
Outlandish practices with similar hyperbolical numquam or semper also at 24.3, idem numquam
minus centum sestertiis cenauit (“he never dined for less than a hundred thousand sesterces”); 27.1,
quadrigas circensium in tricliniis et in porticibus sibi semper exhibuit pransitans et cenitans (“he
always produced four-horse chariots from the circus in his banqueting-rooms and porticoes while
lunching or dining”); 30.6, Sybariticum missum semper exhibuit ex oleo et garo (“he always served a
course of Sybariticum made of oil and fish-sauce”); 31.4, iter priuatus numquam minus sexaginta
uehiculis fecit (“as a private citizen he never made a journey with less than sixty carriages”). To
the prodigiosus the most bizarre excesses are perfectly normal (cf. Suet. Nero 31.2).
44. Reminiscences of Elagabalus’ ritual Emesene music and dance (Dio Cass. 80.11.3, 14.3;
Her. 5.3.8, 5.5.4, 5.5.9, 5.6.10) coalesce with the imitatio Neronis motif (cf. Tac. Ann. 14.14.1;
Suet. Nero 20–21, 22.3–24.1) to produce a grand if hybrid hyperbole. From the context it is clear that
these musical activities are reckoned as a vice: see further Scheithauer 1998: 298–302.
45. Tac. Ann. 13.25.1, Nero itinera urbis et lupinaria et deuerticula ueste seruili in dissimu-
lationem sui compositu pererrabat . . . (“Nero, disguised as a slave so as not to be recognized, would
wander through the streets of Rome, to brothels and taverns . . . ”); Suet. Cal. 11.1, ganeas atque
adulteria capillamento celatus et ueste longa noctibus obiret (“disguised in a wig and a long robe, he
would visit the taverns and brothels under cover of darkness”); Nero 26.1, post crepusculum statim
adrepto pilleo uel galero popinas inibat circumque uicos uagabatur ludibundus (“when night fell he
would snatch a cap or a wig and visit the taverns, or prowl about the streets in search of mischief”).
Cf. HA, Verus 4.6, Comm. 3.7.
46. Perhaps also from Dio’s remark that Elagabalus used to go out at night wearing a wig to play
the prostitute (80.13.2).

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
Fertur et una die ad omnes circi et theatri et amphitheatri et omnium

urbis locorum meretrices tectus cucullione mulionico, ne agnosceretur,
ingressus, cum tamen omnibus meretricibus sine effectu libidinis aureos
donaret addens: “Nemo sciat, Antoninus haec donat.” Libidinum genera
quaedam inuenit, ut spinthrias ueterum imperatorum uinceret, et omnis
apparatus Tiberii et Caligulae et Neronis norat.
32.9–33.1
He is also reported to have gone in one day to all the prostitutes of the
circus, the theatre, the amphitheatre and all the public places of the city,
covered up with a muleteer’s hood so that he would not be recognized.
But, without satisfying his lusts, he gave all the prostitutes gold pieces,
adding the words, “Don’t tell anyone, but Antoninus is giving you this.”
He invented certain kinds of lust, surpassing the perverts used by the
emperors of old, and was well acquainted with all the arrangements of
Tiberius and Caligula and Nero.
There is a sense of studied extravagance and theatricality here, conveyed stylisti-

cally through the itemized localities, the refrain-like omnes–omnium–omnibus,
and especially the pointed juxtaposition una die ad omnes . . . meretrices (“one
day . . . all the prostitutes”): as at the peripatetic dinner party (30.4–6: see below),
one man’s uoluptas is suggestively made to engulf the whole city.47 When the
princeps pays the prostitutes without satisfying his lust, it becomes clear that
the whole transaction is conceived as a grand exercise in symbolics—a tribute
to uoluptas and to his imperial role-models, a characteristic display of prodigality
and potentiality more important than gratification itself: in a word, the projection
of an image.48 And here as elsewhere in the Life image-consciousness is expressed
through the characteristic aesthetic of inversion: the princeps violates a Vestal but
refuses to touch the common meretrices, as analogously he pays a king’s ransom
for a famous prostitute only to keep her intactam uelut uirginem (31.1: “untouched
like a virgin”; cf. 25.5). As Seneca, anticipating modern theories of conspicuous
consumption, once remarks of like-minded individuals, nolunt solita peccare,
quibus peccandi praemium infamia est (Ep. 122.18: “those who regard notoriety
as the reward for misbehavior decline the common forms of misbehavior”). The
same histrionic attention to “face” will inform a number of other absurdities in
the Heliog. Elagabalus in his parting comment recalls the furtive anonymity of
Caligula and Nero on their nocturnal escapades (nemo sciat—tectus cucullione
mulionico, ne agnosceretur: “don’t tell anyone—covered up with a muleteer’s
hood so that he would not be recognized”), but in the same breath also reveals his
47. Numerical juxtpositions of the type unus—omnis (uel sim.) typically bring out a paradoxical
point or hyperbole, as (e.g.) Prop. 1.13.25, 4.2.1, 4.2.48, 4.6.67–68; Sen. Oed. 936–38; Luc.
6.191–92.
48. Shape and emphasis suggest that this showy superare in aemulando is indeed the primary
focus of the vignette, rather than an allusion to the emperor’s alleged sexual impotence—on which
see Dio Cass. 80.9.1; [Aur. Vict.] Epitome 23.3 (naturae defectu); with Gibbon 1896: 146 (“ . . .
the impotence of his passions”); Turcan 1985: 216–18.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
150   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
true identity (Antoninus haec donat: “Antoninus is giving you this”). For a despot
not given to discretion in matters sexual, any hint of reticence will be conspicuous
because it is so out of character—and so utterly unnecessary. This is not a princeps
prowling for carnal pleasure but Elagabalus as actor in his own production, as
Nero redux, art for art’s sake on a grand scale and a self-conscious tribute to his
role-models. The whole charade is a signifier of aesthetic performance. Finally
the concluding comment (libidinum genera quaedam inuenit: “he invented cer-
tain kinds of lust”) discloses the assumptions that inform the preceding escapade:
Elagabalus’ actions, in relation to his generic forebears, are stylized as a conscious
certamen libidinis.
Analogously also in a carefully staged appearance before his favored con-
stituency: dalmaticatus in publico post cenam saepe uisus est, Gurgitem Fabium
et Scipionem se appellans, quod cum ea ueste esset, cum qua Fabius et Cornelius a
parentibus ad corrigendos mores adulescentes in publicum essent producti (26.2:
“often he was seen in public after dinner wearing a Dalmatian tunic, calling him-
self Gurges Fabius or Scipio, because he was wearing the same clothes in which
Fabius and Cornelius were brought out in public in their youth by their parents, to
improve their manners”). First the distinctive Dalmatian tunic to emblematize the
wearer’s effeminacy, then in an exquisite travesty of the mos maiorum two (fictive)
paradigms of wayward youths whose moral improvement is mockingly replayed
by the effete voluptuary49 —who proceeds in the next paragraph to lecture his
disciples on the pleasures of the flesh (26.3–5).50 Here the parody takes a different
turn, with the imperial ars amatoria cast as a military contio. First he addresses
the assembled prostitutes, then the pimps, catamites and sundry profligates:
Omnes de circo, de theatro, de stadio et omnibus locis et balneis meretri-

ces collegit in aedes publicas et apud eas contionem habuit quasi mil-
itarem, dicens eas commilitones, disputauitque de generibus schematum
et uoluptatum. Adhibuit in tali contione postea lenones, exoletos undique
collectos et luxuriosissimos puerulos et iuuenes. Et cum ad meretrices
muliebri ornatu processisset papilla eiecta, <ad> exoletos habitu puero-
rum, qui prostituuntur, post contionem pronuntiauit his quasi militibus
ternos aureos donatiuum. . . .
26.3–5
49. On the Dalmatian tunic and its associations, see Kolb 1976: 156–57, 163, 166; on Fabius
Gurges, Münzer 1909: 1798: “Ganz späte Erfindung ist die Anekdote von den sittenlosen Jünglingen
Fabius Gurges und Cornelius Scipio, Hist. Aug. Heliog. 26,2 (ausgemalt nach Val. Max. III
5,2? . . . ).”
50. Note the associative progression from 26.2 to 26.3–5: ad corrigendos mores in the first
paragraph provides the cue and thematic connection to the “instruction” proffered in the second
(disputauitque de generibus schematum et uoluptatum). Similarly at 32.2, naues onustas mersit in
portum. . . . Onus uentris auro excepit, in myrrinis et onychis minxit (“he sank fully laden ships in the
harbor. . . . He emptied the load of his bowels in a golden vessel and pissed in vessels of murra or
onyx”). Hartke 1951: 298–99 notes the technique.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
He assembled into a public building all the prostitutes from the circus,
the theatre, the stadium and all public places, including the baths, and
delivered a sort of military speech to them, calling them his fellow
soldiers, and lectured them on types of posture and pleasures. Afterwards
he invited to a similar gathering pimps, catamites, collected from all
sides, and the most profligate little boys and youths. And while he had
appeared in front of the prostitutes in women’s dress, with protruding
breast, he met the catamites in the costume of boys that are prostituted.
After the speech he announced a donative, as if they were soldiers, three
gold pieces for each . . .
A disquisition on sex rather than sex itself: as in the vignette discussed above
(32.9), there is the same sense of theatricality, the same primacy of aesthetics
over the mere satisfaction of desire. And with an unfailing sense of indecorous
decorum the praeceptor libidinis (“instructor in lust”), easily switching gender
roles, appears before each audience suitably attired. A grand Saturnalian-type
farce, to be sure, but at the same time another choreographed exercise in symbolics,
self-definition and counter-aesthetics: traditional norms are invoked only to be
subverted and displaced by uoluptas as the new guiding principle. However
outrageous or implausible in isolation, the extravaganza with its provocative
dissonance between form and content makes good sense within the calculus of
parody and inversion that informs the whole Life.
Taken together these passages reveal a coherent rhetorical and ideological
design, and anticipate some defining contours in the Life. Form is throughout
correlative to function. As literary construct the Lampridian Elagabalus is an
exercise in amplificatio, a topos run amok: a traditional nucleus with accretions
from Suetonius and Dio, hyperinflated to bizarre dimensions but demonstrably
regulated by its own illogical logic. Sexual preferences play out in court politics,
and together recoil on the emperor to seal his fate. Absurd as some of the details
appear in isolation (e.g. the pervasive bene uasati motif), they are nevertheless
coordinated in a pattern that gives cohesion to the whole biography. Elagabalus’
affinity for whores, pimps and homosexuals (26.3–5, 27.7, 31.6–7), perhaps a
distant reflection and distortion of his native Emesene rituals, coalesces with
a standard motif of Roman invective—as at Cic. Mil. 55, ille qui semper
secum scorta, semper exoletos, semper lupas duceret (“he who always took with
him whores, homosexuals and street-walkers”)—and reinforces the impression
that he is conceived as emblem and hyperbole. Consistent emphasis on the
bizarre and the extravagant marks him as a clear political type, a larger-than-life
tyrannus, symmetrical inversion of the bonus princeps, who refines the vices of his
predecessors and takes them to unsurpassed heights. The net effect is a dazzling
sense of climax and finality at the end of the dynasty: ultimus Antoninorum,
grand satrap of pleasure, the cross-dressing, gender-bending, convention-defying
showman who turns the principate onto its head and into an amusement park, an
endless skein of absurdity in which symbolics overtake reality. In this vertiginous

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
152   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
entertainment zone only the studied and self-reflexive performative aspects of his
antics—perhaps another grotesque caricature of his original liturgical “shows”—
give pause for thought and indicate that the grand extravaganza is in fact informed
by a conscious rationale and sense of aesthetics.
IV. AT THE TYRANT’S TABLE
Gastronomy and banqueting form a second major theme that contours and
nuances the emerging portrait. For the sake of clarity I consider first some formal
aspects of Elagabalus’ banquets before turning to the exotic menus themselves.
The Roman dinner and banquet, cena and conuiuium, whether private or public,
are symbolic as much as alimentary affairs, carefully constructed spectacles of
social and political self-presentation, visible displays of solidarity, inclusiveness
or hierarchy. Most signally in the case of the princeps at the top of the social
pyramid, dinner parties serve to exhibit and celebrate the emperor’s virtues and
the benefits of imperial rule, to validate the hierarchic structure of society and the
status of the elite with whom he dines, at other times to transcend difference and
integrate the social orders.51 Extravagance in promoting these ends was expected
of the princeps and fully legitimate: what drew criticism was rather the subversion
of this function, the use of the conuiuium not to affirm social and political ranks
but to confound them—as at the notorious banquet of Tigellinus (Tac. Ann. 15.37;
Dio Cass. 62.15.1–6), characterized by riotous depravity and systematic inversion
of the social order. Here “ hierarchy is not upheld, but subverted, as noblemen
become pimps to the prostitution of their wives, and gladiators and slaves feast
and act like their masters. All takes place under the gaze of, and with the tacit
approval of Nero and Tigellinus. . . .”52 These models are useful points of reference
in understanding Elagabalus’ banquets.
Feasts in the Heliog. together with the distribution of food and apophoreta
(“banquet-presents”) are also carefully orchestrated spectacles of political and
aesthetic self-definition. Elagabalus’ contempt for senate and senators (6.2, 16.1,
20.1) is duly replicated at his table. On the two occasions when summi uiri
(“leading men”) or the like are mentioned as guests at imperial dinners, they are
present only to be ridiculed—compelled first to provide entertainment by driving
51. E.g. Suet. Aug. 74, conuiuebatur assidue nec umquam nisi recta, non sine magno ordinum
hominumque dilectu (“he gave dinner parties constantly and always formally, with great regard for
the rank and personality of his guests”); Cal. 17.2, Claud. 32, Dom. 4.5; Stat. Silu. 1.6.28–50;
4.2.14–17 and 32–35; Plin. Pan. 49.4–8; Dio Cass. 54.30.5, 55.2.4, 55.8.2, 59.7.1, 59.11.3; HA,
Hadr. 9.7, Pius 11.4–7. See in general Turcan 1987: 237–54; Edwards 1993: 202–204; Bradley
1998: 50; Stein-Hölkeskamp 2002a; and on the political dimensions of imperial banquets, D’Arms
1984: 338–48, and 1990; Gowers 1993: 25–27, 212–13; Goddard 1994: 69–72; Roller 2001: 129–73;
Stein-Hölkeskamp 2002b: 17–26; Donahue 2003: 434–37.
52. See Goddard 1994: 75–76 (quotation from 76); Stein-Hölkeskamp 2002b: 21–22. The
carefully orchestrated extravaganza probably served to advertise Nero’s attachment to the commons.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
chariots (27.1),53 then symbolically served with hay in humorous contempt of

their dignitas (28.5).54 In either case traditional hierarchies are confounded. More
regularly the imperial repasts are shared with a less illustrious company— uiliores
amici (“lower ranking friends”), perverts, parasites and sundry oddities—and
although these characters too are the butt of the princeps’ antics, it is abundantly
clear that the conuiuia serve also to advertise and reinforce his solidarity with the
commoners. He drinks with the uulgus (21.6), distributes extravagant apophoreta
and sortes (“lucky chances”) at his banquets and then also at the games (21.7–22.3;
cf. also 28.6, 29.4), all of which boosts his popularity: quae populus tam libenter
accepit, ut eum postea imperare gratularentur (22.4: “the people responded to
this with such pleasure that they afterwards rejoiced that he was emperor”; also
Her. 5.5.8, 5.6.6). Where snobbish and status-conscious hosts signalled social
distance by excluding amici minores (“lesser friends”) from “prestige” food and
drink (Plin. Ep. 2.6.1–2; Juv. 5.24–48; Mart. 3.60), Elagabalus by a symmetrical
logic ostentatiously serves country folk with an exotic fare of murenas’ and pikes’
milk (23.8). On another occasion and in what is probably another grand gesture of
solidarity with the uulgus at large, he throws from the window the same amount of
food that is served to his friends within (27.6), thereby symbolically extending
his largesse beyond the confines of the triclinium. And from banqueting it is a
short step to food distribution: iusserat et canonem p. R. unius anni meretricibus,
lenonibus, exoletis intramuranis dari, extramuranis alio promisso (27.7: “he had
also commanded that a supply of grain equal to a year’s tribute to the Roman
people should be given to prostitutes, pimps and catamites within the walls,
having promised another supply to those outside”). Again the extravagant bounty
proclaims ties of solidarity and cohesion—not with the elite or even the populace
at large, but (on the Tigellinus principle) with the constituency especially favored
by the princeps (cf. 26.3–5, 31.6–7, 32.9): pimps, prostitutes and others are in
effect singled out as a distinct ordo with special status. The nobles’ loss is the
commoners’ gain. The semiotics of conuiuium as outlined above allow us to parse
Elagabalus’ banquets and distributions of food or apophoreta as operatic displays
of liberalitas and solidarity with the lower orders, and as a systematic inversion of
traditional hierarchies.
But more than just political performances, the banquets are also studied acts
of self-expression, luminous moments coordinated in the larger calculus of plea-
53. Compare the roughly analogous insults to senatorial dignity at Suet. Cal. 26.2 and Nero
12.1.
54. Illud sane mirum uidetur, quod dicitur ab eo factum, ut de croco sigma strauerit, cum
summos uiros rogasset ad prandium, pro eorum dignitate se dicens fenum exhibere (28.5: “one thing
he is said to have done certainly seems strange. He strewed a semi-circular couch with saffron when
he had invited the leading men to dinner, saying that he was serving them hay of a kind that fitted
their rank”). He scatters costly saffron, only to turn the extravagant gesture into an insult: the ironic
pro eorum dignitate (“in accordance with their rank”) here needs to be read beside 6.2, in senatum
legit sine discrimine aetatis, census, generis (“he enrolled men in the Senate without regard for age,
property-qualification or family”).

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
154   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
sure. Voluptas is diversified, integrated, intensified: sexual acts are embossed on

silver cooking vessels (19.3), exoleti (“catamites”) beside the princeps on the
dinner-couch add to the gastronomic delights (12.4), above all Elagabalus’ cele-
brated dinner pranks capture the pervasive spirit of lusus and studied theatricality
(21.1, 21.5, 25.1–3, 25.9, 27.4, 29.6–7). Plainly one who exhibits this level of
aesthetic consciousness at conuiuium and triclinium cannot be grouped among
the undifferentiated γαστèρε̋ οÚον: the Sun King’s spectacular dinners rise far
above quotidian alimentary routines. Guests are selected on aesthetic criteria and
to raise a laugh: habuit et hanc consuetudinem, ut octo caluos rogaret ad cenam et
item octo luscos et item octo podagrosos, octo surdos, octo nigros, octo longos
et octo pingues, cum capi non possent uno sigmate, ut de his omnibus risus citaret
(29.3: “he also had the custom of inviting eight bald men to dinner, or again, eight
one-eyed men or eight men with gout, eight deaf men, eight dark men, eight tall
men or eight fat men—in the latter case, because they could not all be seated
on one semicircular couch, it was to provoke laughter at all of them”).55 Self-
reflexive emphasis on the prodigious waste and expense involved (24.3–4, 29.9)
points to the symbolic and aesthetic role of the banquets—grand celebrations of
conspicuous consumption to flaunt the imperial image. The politics of prodigality
is well captured in a hyperbolic promise— fertur et promisisse foenicem conuiuis
uel pro eo libras auri mille, ut imperatorie eos dimitteret (23.6: “he is even said to
have promised his guests a phoenix or, in place of this, a thousand pounds of
gold, so that he might give them an imperial send-off”)—a spectacular gesture
to impress upon the guests the liberalitas of their host. This studied attention to
image runs refrain-like through the biography.
An impeccable sense of noblesse oblige coalesces with creative genius and
finds expression in something approaching a methodology of hedonism. Elaborate
dinners are meticulously choreographed to allow time between courses for bathing
and sexual activity: exhibuit aliquando et tale conuiuium, ut haberet uiginti et duo
fercula ingentium epularum,56 sed per singula lavarent57 et mulieribus uterentur
55. Eight oddities plus the princeps bring the total to nine, the full complement at the triclinium.
The exclusive menagerie also hints at the emperor’s taste for the freakish, a predilection shared by
some predecessors, e.g. Plin. Nat. 7.16.75, 11.109.262; Suet. Dom. 4.2; HA, Comm. 9.6, 10.6–11.2.
Elagabalus’ impressive menagerie of freaks and midgets is duly disposed of by his successor (Alex.
34.2–4). Garland 1995: 45 speculates that “many emperors particularly favoured the company of the
deformed, whose abnormal physiological condition was analogous to their own constitutional, social
and amoral uniqueness,” and that “monsters and emperors . . . gravitated inevitably towards each
other” (49); cf. also Plass 1995: 156.
56. For perspective, compare Suet. Aug. 74, cenam ternis ferculis aut cum abundantissime senis
praebebat, ut non nimio sumptu, ita summa comitate (“he would serve a dinner of three courses or of
six when he was most lavish, without needless extravagance but with a most cheerful atmosphere”);
and Juvenal’s protests at the seven-course dinners of his own day (1.94–95).
57. Bathing normally preceded dinner (Plin. Ep. 3.1.8, 9.36.3). For bathing during protracted
dinner parties, cf. Suet. Nero 27, epulas a medio die ad mediam noctem protrahebat, refotus
saepius calidis piscinis ac tempore aestiuo niuatis (“he prolonged his feasts from noon till midnight,
refreshing himself intermittently in a warm bath or, if it was summer, in snow-cooled water”).

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
et ipse et amici cum iure iurando quod efficerent uoluptatem (30.3: “sometimes,
too, he gave such a great banquet that he had twenty-two courses of enormous
dishes, but between each both he himself and his friends would bathe and have
sex with women, taking an oath that they were deriving pleasure from it”). This
is pleasure as process and performance: not just a haphazard free-for-all but
the self-conscious and ritualized enactment of a higher ideal (cum iure iurando
. . . , “taking an oath . . . ”), conceptually akin to the calculus and aesthetics of
orgy.58 On another occasion the company moves systematically from house to
house for each course, again with sex and bathing interspersed per singula fercula
(“between individual courses”) to demarcate the discrete phases in a process that
lasts all day and takes them all round Rome:
Celebrauit item tale conuiuium, ut apud amicos singulos singuli missus
appararentur et, cum alter maneret in Capitolio, alter in Palatio, alter
super aggerem, alter in Caelio, alter trans Tiberim et ut quisque mansisset,
tamen per ordinem in eorum domibus singula fercula ederentur ireturque
ad omnium domos. Sic unum conuiuium uix toto die finitum est, cum et
lauarent per singula fercula et mulieribus uterentur. Sybariticum missum
semper exhibuit ex oleo et garo, quem quo anno Sybaritae reppererunt
et perierunt.
30.4–6
Again, he once gave a banquet where one course each was served at
the house of each friend, and although one lived on the Capitol, one
on the Palatine, one beyond the Rampart, one on the Caelian and one
across the Tiber, yet the individual courses were eaten in order in their
houses where each lived, and they went to the homes of all of them. Thus
a single banquet was scarcely finished in a whole day, since they also
bathed between individual courses and had sex with women. He always
served a course of Sybariticum, made of oil and fish-sauce, which the
Sybarites invented in the year in which they perished.
First, the topographical markers (cum alter maneret in Capitolio, alter in Palatio
. . . ) together evoke the circuit of the entire City, suggesting that the peripatetic
dinner party could be read symbolically as claiming the whole metropolis as
playground for the princeps’ voracious hedonism. But centrifugal anarchy is
balanced by centripetal order, with repeated singulus (“individual”) and the
phrase per ordinem (“in order”) imposing a conscious structure on the company’s
gargantuan appetites. And the capping remark on Sybariticum, complete with
allusion to its proverbial inventors, is another aesthetic contrivance to suggest the
self-conscious commitment by its latter-day user to the same tradition of pleasure.
This is the connoisseur who makes a statement by insisting on the distinctive
Elagabalus appears to take his cue from Nero, but systematically integrates the bathing ritual into the
proceedings.
58. On these dimensions, see (e.g.) Toepfer 1991: 9–20, 144–59.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
156   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
brand-name. Again not just intemperate uoluptas, but uoluptas conceived as high
art: the aestheticization of pleasure, the ceremonial as important as the substance,
the bestowal of significance on the seemingly trivial by the exquisitely formalized
manner in which it is enacted.59 In this way Elagabalus artifex with an unerring
if eccentric sense of decorum symbolically constructs an alternative universe, a
cosmology of pleasure regulated by its own internal logic: nec erat ei ulla uita
nisi exquirere nouas uoluptates (19.6: “indeed, for him life was nothing but a
search for new pleasures”).
Food and feasting as a further index of the βÐο̋ τυραννικì̋60 again mark
Elagabalus as generic despot, with the imperial menus themselves receiving as
much attention as the format of the banquets. But in addition his outlandish
cuisine, surpassing in range and enormity anything served by his predecessors,
brings out his uniqueness and again conveys a sense of monumental waste and
decadence at the end of the dynasty. Elagabalus gives new meaning to Feuerbach’s
axiom “Der Mensch ist, was er ißt,” with eating habits so exotic that they make
the Siculae dapes (“Sicilian feasts”) of the fabled tyrants (let alone the fare of
his Roman predecessors) look like standardized fast food.61 The topical scheme
within which bonus and malus princeps are stylized respectively as frugal and
glutton62 is here stretched to its limits and beyond—the Sun King’s specialities
include pheasant meat, mullets’ beard, camels’ heels, cocks’ combs and tongues
of peacocks and nightingales (19.4–6, 20.5–7, 27.2–3, 32.4)—all of which makes
both the mind and the stomach turn.
Numbers, patterns and sequences impose a symbolic order of sorts on these
wild excesses. Summer banquets in a spectrum of appropriate colors (19.2),
dinners conceived around exotic culinary themes, or patterned numerically (20.6–
7, 21.3, 27.2, 29.3, 32.4), sequences of apophoreta and sortes based on analogous
schemes (21.7–22.3)—all this, as Lampridius wryly notes, is truly remarkable,
quod praecipue stupendum est (20.7). But not devoid of a discernible rationale. A
thematic menu made up of flamingo and thrush brains, parrot heads, partridge
eggs, pheasants and peacocks (20.6) looks like a fantastic extension of a harmless
and convivial alphabet game that Geta liked to play:63
59. Cf. Neri 1999: 232, who aptly remarks, “La luxuria che viene attributa ad Elagabalo a
partire da Heliog. 18,4 è dunque una luxuria ‘alta’. . . . Ad essa, in altri luoghi della stessa Historia
Augusta, si contrappone una luxuria più volgare, meno raffinatezza e più intemperanza. . . .”
60. Cf. Pl. Resp. 404d, 573a; Arist. Pol. 1314b; Xen. Hier. 1.17–23; Cic. Tusc. 5.62; Hor.
Carm. 3.1.18; Sen. Thy. 460–62, Helv. 10.5.
61. On imperial culinary culture, see Turcan 1987: 255–65; Edwards 1993: 186–95; Gowers
1993: 18–24, 211–19; Demandt 1997: 40–60; Staesche 1998: 75–85; Dalby 2000; Stein-Hölkeskamp
2002a, 2002b; and next note.
62. Exemplary frugality: Suet. Aug. 76–77; Plin. Pan. 49.5–8; HA, Hadr. 10.2, Pius 7.5, Pesc.
10.3–11.1. Gluttony: Suet. Cal. 37.1, Claud. 33.1, Nero 27.2, Vitell. 13; HA, Verus 5.1–5, Comm.
11.4–5, Clod. Alb. 11.2–4, Carac. 9.3, Macr. 13.4, Gall. 16.
63. Cf. Gowers 1993: 9–10, esp. 10n.32.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
Habebat etiam istam consuetudinem, ut conuiuia et maxime prandia per

singulas litteras iuberet scientibus seruis, uelut in quo erat anser, apruna,
anas, item pullus, perdix, pauus, porcellus, piscis, perna et quae in eam
litteram genera edulium caderent, et item fasianus, farrata, ficus et talia.
Quare comis etiam habebatur in adulescentia.
Geta 5.7–8
He also had the custom of ordering banquets, and especially dinners,
according to single letters, with the help of knowledgeable slaves: for
instance at one there was goose, gammon, gadwall, or again, pullet,
partridge, peacock, pork, poisson, pig’s trotters and other kinds of food
beginning with this letter; or again, pheasant, farina, fig, and so on. For
this reason he was regarded as a good companion even in his youth.
Typologically Elagabalus’ carefully structured extravaganzas belong to the same

order of ideas and are informed by the same spirit of lusus, only on a vastly more
prodigal scale. And these ingenious culinary excesses are themselves subsumed
in the larger scheme of festive revelry that spans the whole Life: tamed beasts let
loose to terrify unsuspecting guests (21.1, 25.1), unfortunate parasites suffocating
beneath masses of flowers (21.5), inflatable cushions to unseat friends at dinner
(25.2), fake or imitation food served to parasites (25.9, 27.4–5) and fake salaries
(26.7), party games to test the culinary inventiveness of guests (29.6–7), ridiculous
pranks played on friends (32.5–6) and slaves alike (26.6)—all this to raise a laugh
(ad pauorem ridiculum excitandum, 21.1; ut de his omnibus risus citaret, 29.3),
with Elagabalus’ own guffaws rising audibly above the rest (ridebat autem sic
nonnumquam, ut publice in theatro solus audiretur, 32.7: “sometimes he laughed
so much that he alone could be heard in public at the theatre”). Truly a “great joker,
a whimsical and high-humored lad, a lover of laughter,”64 whose antics go down
well with the people (22.4). This is revelry writ large, a carefully orchestrated
orgy of festive abandon with distinctive carnivalesque tinge.
The carnivalesque association is in fact hinted at on two separate occasions.
The first comes in the form of a joke tacked on to a description of the emperor’s
attentions to his lover: Hieroclen uero sic amauit, ut eidem inguina oscularetur,
quod dictu etiam inuerecundum est, Floralia sacra se adserens celebrare (6.5:
“indeed he loved Hierocles so much that he used to kiss his genitals, which is
indecent even to mention, claiming that he was celebrating the festival of Flora”).
Highbrow scholarship has posited a link between Floralia sacra and the name
Flora, according to a late source a nomen sacrum for Rome, and interpreted
the remark as wilful desecration by the princeps of ancient Roman religious
traditions;65 but given the rather lowbrow context—Elagabalus performing fellatio
on his lover Hierocles—a less arcane exegesis might be ventured. Whatever else
64. Bishop 1928: 6.

65. Hartke 1951: 303–304; Optendrenk 1968: 25–29.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
158   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
Lampridius might be alluding to,66 the flippant afterthought indicates at least an

awareness of the connection between this sort of lewdness and the spirit of the
Floralia, a festival in honor of the Italian flower goddess typically celebrated
cum omni lascivia (“with every form of licentiousness”).67 Elagabalus, that is,
jokingly invokes the same festive licence to explain his outrageous behavior.
The second example is more elaborate: here the uindemia or vintage-festival
is made the setting for salacious licence by the emperor (11.1–6)—a passage
of some importance since it brings out a conceptual link that is occasionally
touched on but never explicitly articulated. Commentators have rightly noted the
“Saturnalian” character of a number of Elagabalus’ antics (fake food, extravagant
eating and drinking, lucky dips of egregiously unequal presents),68 but have not
taken this notion to its logical conclusion. In the uindemia section, I suggest, which
might serve as emblem or metonymy for the pervasive spirit of carnival, that link
is unmistakably confirmed. As a Bacchic celebration the vintage-festival is an
appropriately unruly affair that includes singing, dancing and crude jokes.69 This
is not only the backdrop to Elagabalus’ irreverent mirth, but the nature of the joke
itself— iuuenes played off against senes with humorous disregard for traditional
notions of hierarchy and propriety—has strong overtones of carnivalesque status-
reversal:
Fecit libertos praesides, legatos, consules, duces omnesque dignitates
polluit ignobilitate hominum perditorum.70 Cum ad uindemias uocasset
amicos nobiles et ad corbes sedisset, grauissimum quemque percontari
coepit, an promptus esset in uenerem, erubescentibusque senibus ex-
clamabat: “Erubuit, salua res est,” silentium ac ruborem pro consensu
ducens. Addidit praeterea ipse, quae faceret, sine ullius pudoris uela-
mento. Postquam senes uidit erubescere ac tacere, uel quia aetas uel
66. See Turcan 1993: 170–71 for a possible jibe at the Christians.
67. See Ov. Fast. 4.946, 5.331–54; Val. Max. 2.10.8; Sen. Ep. 97.8; Mart. Praef . 1; 1.35.8–11;
Lactantius Inst. 1.20.10, celebrantur ergo illi ludi . . . cum omni lasciuia.
68. Gowers 1993: 27, 117; Herzog 1989: 140–43. In addition several commentators intuitively
use the metaphor of carnival (in a non-“technical” sense) to describe Elagabalus’ reign: Halsberghe
1972: 85, “a Syrian carnival in the capital city of Rome”; Turcan 1985: 141, “les libéralités et la
liberté de cet empereur qui mène sa liturgie comme un carnaval”; 174, “[les] affranchis du palais
impérial pour qui le règne d’Héliogabale est une ère de Saturnales”; id. 1993: 62, “le flot bourbeux
des anecdotes illustrant les Saturnales du prince de la débauche.”
69. See Tac. Ann. 11.31.2–3; Plin. Ep. 9.20.2; Optendrenk 1968: 71–73.
70. The juxtaposition offers a useful insight into the function of the “Saturnalian” elements:
first literal disregard for the traditional rules of advancement up the corporate ladder, then contempt
for the dignitas of august and high-born senes symbolically replayed and transfigured as a self-
conscious farce, i.e. the Lampridian Elagabalus appropriates the syntax of carnival as a medium
of self-expression and to symbolize his distinctive imperial style. At the end of the excursus
Lampridius returns again to the literal confusion of hierarchies: ad praefecturam praetorii saltatorem,
qui histrionicam Romae fecerat, adsciuit, praefectum uigilum Cordium aurigam fecit, praefectum
annonae Claudium tonsorem (12.1: “to the prefecture of the guard he appointed a dancer who had
performed as an actor in Rome; he made the charioteer Cordius prefect of the watch, and Claudius
the barber he appointed as prefect of the corn-supply”).

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
quia dignitas talia refutabat, contulit se ad iuuenes et ab his coepit omnia

exquirere. A quibus cum audiret aetati congrua, gaudere coepit, uere
liberam uindemiam esse, quam sic celebraret.
11.1–5
He appointed freedmen as governors, legates, consuls and generals, and
defiled every office with low-born profligates. When he had summoned
nobles from his entourage to the vintage-festival and had taken his seat by
the grape baskets, he began to interrogate all the most serious-minded as to
whether they were capable of sex, and when the old men began blushing,
he would cry out, “He’s blushing, things are all right!”—regarding the
silence as a confession. Furthermore he added details about what he used
to do himself, without any cloak of modesty. When he saw that the old
men were blushing and silent, because either their age or their rank was
restraining them in such matters, he turned to the young men and began
to inquire of them about everything. When he heard from them things
that accorded with their age, he began to joke, saying that it was truly
a bacchanalian vintage-festival that he was celebrating in this manner.
Elagabalus by deliberately embarrassing the senes in this way humorously con-

founds accepted hierarchies, and to that extent the particular instance can be
related to the wider pattern of parody and reversal. The proximity of his playful
subversiveness to the spirit of carnival comes out again in the remark immediately
following the quoted text, ferunt multi ab ipso primum repertum, ut in uindemi-
arum festiuo multa in dominos iocularia et audientibus dominis dicerentur, quae
ipse composuerat et Graeca maxime. Horum pleraque Marius Maximus dicit in
uita ipsius Heliogabali (11.6: “many record that it was he who first hit upon
the practice at the vintage-festivals of telling numerous jokes—which he himself
had composed, mainly in Greek—against masters, even in their presence. Marius
Maximus quotes a number of them in his Life of Heliogabalus”). Licence of this
kind against authority figures is an emblematic feature of Saturnalian revelry;71
its reappearance here, in the context of another rowdy celebration, unmistakably
signals the prevailing mood of festive νοµÐα. Whether the princeps really was
πρÀτο̋ εÍρετ ̋ of this genre of jokes at the uindemia or whether this is just
another variation of the recurrent primus motif is of little consequence: what is
noteworthy is rather the typology of carnival, the assimilation and extension of
a “Saturnalian” logic first into a cognate zone of festive activity, and then its
elevation as guiding principle of the whole reign. Finally, the uindemia segment
has an emblematic quality and was plainly intended as a programmatic statement:
71. On Saturnalian role-reversal and status-inversion, see esp. Döpp 1993; Versnel 1993: 146–
50, 157–63; and 1998. For the typology of the carnivalesque mundus inuersus, Bakhtin 1984a and
1984b: 122–25 remain fundamental (“what is suspended first of all is hierarchical structure and all
the forms of terror, reverence, piety, and etiquette connected with it—that is, everything resulting
from socio-hierarchical inequality or any other form of inequality among people . . . ”: 1984b: 123).
Further Babcock 1978: 13–36; Caputi 1978: 35–39; Paul 1994: 71–76.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
160   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
in a prank that sets princeps against senes seueriores, the traditional authority
figures, “Saturnalian” reversal is not carnival for its own sake but articulates the
princeps’ undisguised contempt for conventional hierarchies and practices, and
points to a radically alternative model.
V. HOMO LUDENS, PARADIS ARTIFICIEL
The philosopher Seneca once remarks that pleasure-loving Romans of his day
have blurred the distinction between Saturnalian revelry and the normal times of
business, and aptly quotes the line olim mensem Decembrem fuisse, nunc annum
(Ep. 18.1: “once December was a month; now it is a year”). So too for Elagabalus
(or rather the Lampridian construct) carnival is not just an interlude of sanctioned
licence between stable periods of normalcy, but a permanent condition, the new
norm—made possible in the first place by the unlimited powers available to
the princeps and then serving consciously to advertise and enact this imperial
status, a grand exercise in symbolics and self-definition.72 Carnival and the
carnivalesque provide a conceptual frame that gives consistent meaning to the
“lunatic” emperor’s more vertiginous and logic-defying exploits. What emerges
from this “unitarian” reading is a more nuanced picture than that conveyed in the
popular secondary accounts, where the emperor’s antics are often simply related
(or embellished), leaving the reader with an overwhelming impression that the
imperial follies are devoid of all rhyme or reason.73
The calculus of carnival may be shown to operate at various gradus insaniae,
simplest of which is the symbolic subversion of accepted codes and hierarchies,
as at the uindemia. Irreverent and carefully staged mockery of the senes is there a
medium of imperial self-fashioning and self-presentation, with the “Saturnalian”
emperor programmatically parting company from the practices of his “good”
predecessors. Nor of course is this serio-comic subversion regulated by the festive
calendar. And while philosophers, grauissimi uiri and respectable elders become
the butt of embarrassing jibes (10.6–7, 11.2–6), disreputable greybeards and
look-alike philosophers curry favor with their Lord of Misrule (11.7), thereby
72. The whole elite complaint about the Principate is of course that it inverts traditional
hierarchies: the mob that makes up the army ultimately determines the leadership of Rome, with the
concomitant demise of senatorial prerogative. It does not follow, however, that every bad emperor
(or rhetorical tyrant) is necessarily “Saturnalian”: in my argument that designation is reserved for
the emperor who is represented as systematically and deliberately appropriating and exploiting the
syntax of carnival to articulate contempt for traditional scruples and to consciously advertise his own
unique power and position. Within this definition, Lampridius’ Elagabalus is himself quite unique in
ingeniously extending the scheme of reversal to unheard-of limits.
73. As (e.g.) Hay 1911: 245–66; Villeneuve 1984: 99–112; Brauer 1995: 128–33. Hay 1911:
266 concedes that “the psychology of extravagance has not yet been examined, so we are still
free to condemn what we do not fully understand.” The best observations to date on Elagabalus’
eccentricities are in Turcan 1985: 169–97, who relates them to the construction of an alternative
imperial image (“une autre façon d’être empereur”).

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
completing the absurd inversion. Norms are confounded and redrawn according
to the logic of carnival, as when Elagabalus’ lecture to pimps and prostitutes takes
the format of a military contio (26.3–5).
This systematic confounding of normal categories and practices is a theme that
runs through a number of the emperor’s eccentricities, culinary and otherwise—a
progressive extension of the carnivalesque logic, we might say. Miscere (“to
mix, confound”) is throughout a significant notion. Wine is flavored with exotic
additives to take luxuria to new heights (19.3–5); peas mixed with gold pieces,
lentils with onyx, beans with amber, rice with pearls (21.3); fish and mushrooms
sprinkled with pearls instead of pepper (21.4); jewels mingled with apples and
flowers (27.6); dogs fed on goose liver (21.1), horses on Apamean grapes, lions
on parrots and pheasants (21.2; cf. Verus 6.4);74 Jewish dietary codes inverted
in malicious humor (28.4);75 vessels of gold, murra or onyx serving as chamber
pots for His Highness (32.2; cf. Petron. 27.3; Mart. 1.37.1)—all studied caprices
that consciously dislocate quotidian notions of normalcy. And consistently with
this festive reversal, the distinction between acting and reality collapses: in
stage performances of adultery Elagabalus insists on a live show (25.4), while
conversely in an elaborate charade he visits real prostitutes and pays them real
money, but declines real sex (32.9, cf. 31.1). Finally the spirit of carnival is
taken to its bizarre limits in a series of actions that are best construed as symbolic
inversions of the ordo naturalis itself:
Marinae aquae colymbos exhibuit, in mediterraneis locis maxime, eos-
demque singulis amicis natantibus dimisit et iterum cum piscibus im-
pleuit. Montem niuium in uirdiario domus aestate fecit aduectis niuibus.
Ad mare piscem numquam comedit, in longissimis a mari locis om-
nia marina semper exhibuit. Murenarum lactibus et luporum in locis
mediterraneis rusticos pauit.
23.7–8
He provided swimming pools with sea-water, especially in inland places,
and handed them over to individual friends who swam in them; on another
occasion he filled them with fish. He made a mountain of snow in the
pleasure garden of his house in summer, having had snow transported
there. At the seaside he never ate fish, but in places very far from the
sea he always served seafood. He fed the country people in inland regions
with murenas’ and pikes’ milk.
74. The primacy of aesthetics and symbolic action is well captured in the wry comment of Hay
1911: 259 on this last absurdity: “an unnecessary and unpleasant waste when one knows how much
these beasts would have preferred a more ordinary fare.”
75. Struthocamelos exhibuit in cenis aliquotiens, dicens praeceptum Iudaeis, ut ederent (28.4:
“sometimes he served ostriches at banquets, saying that the Jews had been commanded to eat them”).
Ostriches are classified in Jewish law as unclean (Lev. 11.6; Deut. 14.15), which must have been
known to an emperor of Semitic origin. See Optendrenk 1968: 73–75. Turcan 1993: 220 aptly terms
this “une plaisanterie par antiphrase que goûte évidemment comme tel le public averti de l’ HA.”

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
162   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
Why be normal? Pools of sea-water at great distance from the sea, snow in summer
(cf. Suet. Nero 27.2), fish fastidiously eschewed at the coast but seafood always de
rigueur in inland regions, with the rarest titbits tossed to humble peasants—in all
these bizarre reversals the Saturnalian aesthetic, the spirit of consciously doing
things the wrong way round, intersects with the disposition of the luxuriosus
who ostentatiously embraces what is normally designated as unnatural. In short,
the ordo naturalis is dislocated and displaced by a counter-cosmos of prodigal
carnivalesque fantasy in which even the customary temporal rhythm is inverted:
transegit et dierum actus noctibus et nocturnos diebus, aestimans hoc inter
instrumenta luxuriae, ita ut sero de somno surgeret et salutari inciperet, mane
autem dormire inceptaret (28.6: “he performed the business of the day at night
and that of the night in the day, reckoning it one of the signs of luxury to rise
from sleep and begin to hold his morning receptions late, but to start sleeping
in the morning”).
Perplexing as these extravaganzas might appear to the innocent eye—Edward
Gibbon’s indignant protests are a classic case in point—they do evince a dis-
cernible logic. When Gibbon objects that the “rational” voluptuary will not con-
sciously defy the dictates of nature in this way, he makes an important point
exactly by missing the point: the genteel Englishman is offended at the apparent
lack of order and restraint that is itself the signature of an alternative universe
of choreographed, carnivalesque revelry.76 Elagabalus’ principate is not of this
world and will not yield to its mundane norms; pursuit of pleasure and intrin-
sic diversion will not adequately explain his fantastic exploits (as his visit to
the prostitutes well demonstrates); symbolics have overtaken reality, ritualized
pleasure and carnivalesque anarchy have themselves become the syntax through
which Elagabalus constructs, articulates and projects his public image and his
new world order. The illogical logic that caused Gibbon such bewilderment can
be parsed (at least in part) by reference to Seneca Ep. 122, a text devoted to com-
parable quirks and which offers an abridged grammar of eccentricity. A species
of cranks termed antipodes there perfect a lifestyle that systematically inverts
the ordo naturalis: the normal functions of day and night are interchanged, dress
codes and sex roles reversed, out-of-season flowers in high demand, gardens
76. Gibbon 1896: 146 (emphasis mine), “A rational voluptuary adheres with invariable respect
to the temperate dictates of nature, and improves the gratifications of sense by social intercourse,
endearing connexions, and the soft colouring of taste and imagination. But Elagabalus . . . abandoned
himself to the grossest pleasures with ungoverned fury and soon found disgust and satiety in the
midst of his enjoyments. The inflammatory powers of art were summoned to his aid. . . . A capricious
prodigality supplied the want of taste and elegance. . . . To confound the order of seasons and
climates, to sport with the passions and prejudices of his subjects, and to subvert every law of
nature and decency, were in the number of his most delicious amusements.” Alas, poor Gibbon: the
mundus inuersus of Elagabalus artifex is not an English tea party. The Sun King’s extravaganzas are
informed by the same paradoxical aesthetic that Stein-Hölkeskamp 2002b: 7 notes at Trimalchio’s
dinner party: “Die Umkehr des Üblichen wird das Übliche, die Andersartigkeit wird Standard, die
Gegensätzlichkeit zum eigentlich Gegegebenen wird zum Prinzip.”

155.2ff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff on Thu, 01 Jan 1976 12:34:56 UTC
planted on rooftops, banquets protracted until dawn.77 Seneca’s treatment of these

types—ideological precursors of the Elagabalan why-be-normal philosophy—is
helpful to the extent that it suggests how such behavior might be read, and here
at least two points are relevant. The aesthetic of reversal (debitum ordinem de-
serere, gaudere peruersis), the construction of counter-culture in symmetrical
opposition to the normal scheme of things, serves as a means of self-fashioning
and self-presentation,78 with the exhibitionism in turn producing the desired visi-
bility (esse in sermonibus).79 A highly contrived ordo artificiosus displaces and
contrapuntally inverts the ordo debitus.
An analogous rationale informs a number of Elagabalus’ more outrageous
arabesques. Quod licet Joui, non licet boui: for the princeps histrionic stunts,
prodigal consumption and a parody of euergetism emblazon abroad his larger-
than-life status, with meticulous attention to staging and the “big screen” effect.
Glitzy, sleazy Elagabalus is the archetypal aesthete and performer with a flawless
sense of spectacle and inverted decorum: gluttony studiously dramatized to call
attention to itself (24.3–4, 29.9), luxuria flaunted in affected self-parody (23.3,
26.1), auto-exemplarity and the will to perpetuate prodigality (28.6, 31.3, 32.2),
visits to Rome’s red-light district in imitation of his models Caligula and Nero
(32.9), even his death planned in advance as the final reel in his own sensational
blockbuster (33.2–6)—all this, as one commentator aptly notes, is “une fa on
de s’affirmer impérialement.”80 Typically it is the sweeping gesture that best
77. See too the diatribe against luxuria at Sen. Thy. 455–67, culminating in the emblematic
inversion of day and night (as also Cic. Fin. 2.23; Hor. S. 1.3.17–18; Tac. Ann. 16.18). On out-of-
season flowers as a mark of exaggerated luxuria, cf. Hor. Carm. 1.38.3–4 (with the commentators);
HA, Verus 5.3.
78. Sen. Ep. 122.5–9, omnia uitia contra naturam pugnant, omnia debitum ordinem deserunt.
Hoc est luxuriae propositum, gaudere peruersis nec tantum discedere a recto, sed quam longissime
abire, deinde etiam e contrario stare . . . . Post prandium aut cenam bibere uulgare est; hoc patres
familiae rustici faciunt et uerae uoluptatis ignari. . . . Non oportet id facere, quod populus. Res
sordida est trita ac uulgari uia uiuere. Dies publicus relinquatur . . . (“all vices rebel against nature,
they all abandon the appointed order. It is the motto of luxury to delight in what is unusual, and
not only to depart from what is right, but to leave it as far behind as possible, and finally even to
take a stand diametrically opposed to it. . . . To drink after lunch or dinner is common; this is what
rustic worthies do, who are no connoisseurs of true pleasure. . . . One should not follow the rest of
mankind. It is shoddy to live in the conventional and common way. Let the mundane sort of day
be abandoned . . . ”). Further Stein-Hölkeskamp 2002b: 14–17.
79. Sen. Ep. 122.14, causa autem est ita uiuendi quibusdam, non quia aliquid existiment noctem
ipsam habere iucundius, sed quia nihil iuuat solitum. . . . Praeterea luxuriosi uitam suam esse in
sermonibus, dum uiuunt, uolunt; nam si tacetur, perdere se putant operam. Itaque male habent,
quotiens faciunt quod excidat fama (“the reason why some men live like this is not because they
think that night itself has greater attractions, but because that which is normal holds no pleasure. . . .
Furthermore, devotees of luxury want to be talked about their whole life; for if nothing is said about
it, they think they are wasting their time. And so they are uncomfortable whenever any of their
actions escape notoriety”). Similarly Mart. 12.41, non est, Tucca, satis quod es gulosus:/ et dici
cupis et cupis uideri (“it is not enough, Tucca, that you are a glutton: you want to be talked about and
want to be seen”).
80. Turcan 1985: 180.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
164   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
captures the underlying aesthetic, the will to self-dramatization, the politics of

spectacle. On assuming the consulship he tosses the people not the customary
tokens, the prosaic coins and cakes (as at Suet. Cal. 37.2), but unleashes a whole
menagerie of cattle, camels, asses and stags, imperatorium id esse dictitans (8.3:
“declaring that this was an imperial thing to do”)—by the exotic prodigality
advertising his conception of what it means to be emperor.81 Reversal of the ordo
naturalis is pure gesture, serving only to emblematize his image as voluptuary
extraordinaire: transegit et dierum actus noctibus et nocturnos diebus, aestimans
hoc inter instrumenta luxuriae . . . (28.6: “he performed the business of the day at
night, and that of the night in the day, reckoning this one of the signs of luxury . . . ;”
cf. Sen. Ep. 122.2, 14). So too the report that he had baths constructed, used them
once and then had them immediately demolished, ne ex usu balneas haberet (30.7:
“so that he might not derive any practical use from them”)—an incident that nicely
captures the primacy of posture over functionality. Egregious as the story might
seem—even Lampridius will not vouch for it—it fits well into the scheme of grand
symbolic action: monumental waste and wanton destruction having utility only
as exponents of the attitude symbolized. To the same end Elagabalus tears up
expensive clothes (32.1) and, more spectacularly, sinks fully laden ships in the
harbor, this time as a sign of imperial magnanimity (magnanimitatis hoc esse
dicens, 32.2: “declaring that this denoted greatness of soul”)—a further case of
pure symbolism to exalt the image. The gesture is all that counts, as when he pays
a fortune for an exquisite prostitute and then refuses to touch her (31.1).82 An
aesthete to the end, he plans even for his eventual suicide in a manner consonant
with his exotic life, dicens etiam mortem suam pretiosam esse debere et ad speciem
luxuriae, ut diceretur nemo sic perisse (33.6: “saying that even his death ought to
be costly and of an extravagant pattern, so that it might be said that no one else had
ever perished in this manner”; and above, n. 35). Sadly for the glitzy showman,
life for once overtakes art and instead of expiring in a noose of woven silk, on
a golden sword, by poison concealed in sapphires or emeralds, or by leaping
81. Hay 1911: 251 again (unwittingly) hits the nail on the head (the priority of symbolics over
functionality): “ . . . hoping, as he remarked, that all men would remember that these were the gifts
of the Emperor; as though any were likely to forget when they found themselves saddled with a
dromedary, and expected to conduct it safely to their own back-yard through the crowded lanes of
the city.”
82. Prodigality to express imperial power and glory also at Suet. Cal. 37.1, aut frugi hominem
esse oportere dictitans aut Caesarem (“declaring that a man ought either to be frugal or a Caesar”);
Nero 30.1, diuitiarum et pecuniae fructum non alium putabat quam profusionem, sordidos ac
deparcos esse quibus impensarum ratio constaret, praelautos uereque magnificos qui abuterentur ac
perderent (“he believed that the only enjoyment of wealth and money was in squandering; that those
who could account for every penny they spent were stingy and miserly, but those who recklessly
threw about their money were true gentlemen”). Caligula then consciously aims at performing
the impossible to flaunt his boundless power: see Suet. Cal. 37.2–3, with Braudy 1986: 143–45
and Edwards 1993: 143–48. Cognate rituals of prodigality as symbolic statements assembled by
Friedländer 1901: 147–49.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
down from a specially constructed tower83 onto bejewelled and gilded boards,
he is unceremoniously thrust into Rome’s sewers and thence into the Tiber. All
these exploits have a common tendency: ever mindful of his public image, the
artifex-jester is consciously playing to an audience (like Seneca’s antipodes),
with each outrageous performance reinforcing the impression that he occupies
a realm above and beyond the mundane solitum, the constraints of normal human
experience. This is the triumph of carnival, politics as pure exhibitionism, the
perfection of the “celluloid” princeps.
VI. HISTORY, MYTHISTORIA AND THE ‘‘CELLULOID’’ PRINCEPS
In drawing together the strands of the argument, we do well to recall an earlier

caveat: “there may . . . be some genuine items deriving from Marius Maximus.
But the bulk of this long section [the farrago] reflects the HA’s own age and
interests” (above, n. 6)—interests that come down decidedly on the side of the
human and the quirkish rather than the cultic and the religious. This deluge
of exotica distinguishes the Heliog. fundamentally from the narratives of Dio
and Herodian, and any assessment of the Life needs to take full account of
the dizzying recital. One has a sense that commentators, like the unfortunate
parasites smothered beneath Elagabalus’ flowers, have also been overwhelmed
by the massed details—but closer inspection discloses clear lines of literary and
ideological cohesion.
At the end of the dynasty comes the archetypal tyrannus, his broad contours
prefigured by the literary tradition. But if the external lineaments of tyranny are
plainly topical, a significant achievement of our author was to give them also
an internal cohesion within the scheme of carnivalesque reversal and spectacular
showmanship. Elagabalus’ religious innovations, central in Dio and Herodian,
are not indeed ignored in the Life, but are largely peripheral to Lampridius’
conception of the emperor as anomaly incarnate and virtuoso practitioner of a
riotous νω κτω: here a patterned “Saturnalian” chaos replaces outlandish ritual
as the principal medium through which the strange “otherness” of Elagabalus is
articulated—a novel spin fully in keeping with the rogue scholar’s temperament.
His Elagabalus is still the transcendental tyrant with transparent literary pedigree,
but now there is also an unmistakable tinge of the Roman luxuriosus whose
excesses moralists liked to castigate. The oriental religious fanatic of Dio and
Herodian is largely reconfigured in Roman categories.
83. The planned death-leap from the tower appears to have ritual associations, as noted by
Lassère 1975 and Turcan 1985: 182–83. Towers feature elsewhere with religious connotations: the
emperor plans a tall column to display the black stone from Emesa (Heliog. 24.7); at the end of
the annual procession he throws the waiting crowds gifts and living animals from lofty towers (Her.
5.6.9–10); and Lucian Syr. D. 58 reports analogous living sacrifices flung from the towers of the
goddess’ temple at Hierapolis. All this suggests that Elagabalus’ suicide may have been conceived as
a final human self-sacrifice to his god.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
166   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
As the biography of an eccentric emperor slides into a riotous celebration of

eccentricity itself, the boundary between facta and ficta, history and mythistoria,
the actual and the plausible is progressively blurred. Some of the exotic accretions
appear to have been inspired by original cultic features, but are now distorted into
grotesque caricatures. Fantasy has overtaken historicity in this grand “Saturna-
lian” construct, uires adquirit eundo, the rogue scholar’s chief concern is now
to make the fact(oid)s fit his theory (as it were) and to produce a spectacular
flourish at the end of the dynasty. This is no mean literary accomplishment—a
larger-than-life portrait, more “ celluloid” than flesh-and-blood (yet evincing a
consistent internal logic), beyond the normal range of experience and from that
quotidian perspective nothing short of a τèρα̋. Lampridius in fact calls unwitting
attention to his creative historiography more than once by casting doubt on some
of the more egregious items reported:84 this is the illusion of disbelief to affirm
credibility, a variation of the topos by which the liar deliberately feigns uncertainty
in one case in order to pass off other fabrications as fact.85
Related formal features tend in the same direction. The synthetic portrait of
the carnivalesque princeps is conveyed through a correspondingly mannered style
of composition, and to that extent too the medium implies a clear message. The
rogue scholar who during the course of the HA “warmed to his task”86 in the
Heliog. shows unmistakable signs of creative overheating. Preponderance of the
formulaic and schematic at every level of composition—from micro-enumeration
to the overarching change-and-decline arc that spans the whole dynasty—strongly
reinforces the impression of Lampridius’ Elagabalus as a “big-screen” projection,
a grand caricature and personified hyperbole rather than a historically accurate
representation (even if there is a historical or ritual nucleus to some of the
reported excesses). (1) The smallest structural unit that captures the tendency
to exponential exaggeration is the simple catalogue-type enumeration itemizing
aspects of extravagant luxuria or typical imperial behavior: specific instances to
illustrate a general notion, specialia pro generali, creating a lively impression
of variety and totality, and displaying also the rogue scholar’s considerable
erudition.87 But this cannot all be taken at face value, as we are reminded
84. Apart from distancing fertur (23.1, 23.2, 23.6, 26.1, 31.1, 32.9), dicitur (30.7) and negatur
(32.1), note also quod praecipue stupendum est (20.7: “this is exeptionally remarkable”), illud sane
mirum uidetur (28.5: “that certainly seems strange”), sed et haec <et> nonnulla fidem transeuntia
credo esse ficta ab his qui . . . (30.8: “however, both these matters <and> some others that pass belief
were, I think, invented by those who . . . ”).
85. See Weinrich 2000: 70–78.
86. Thus Matthews 1996: 713; cf. Syme 1971: 283: “the writer gains as he goes on, in skill
and also in humour.”
87. E.g. 19.2, deinde aestiua conuiuia coloribus exhibuit, ut hodie prasinum, uitreum alia
die, uenetum et deinceps exhiberet, semper uarie per dies omnes aestiuos (“then he gave summer
banquets in various colors, one day a green one, glass-colored on another day, on another day a
blue one and so on, always a different one on all the days of summer”)—where generic coloribus
is further specified by various shades, with the enumeration then returning to the idea of variety

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
by a telling inconcinnity in a catalogue of meat dishes served on successive

days (32.4): pheasant, chicken, fish, and ostrich are plausible enough, but then
Lampridius includes also a reference to pork, which the Syrian would not have
touched (Dio Cass. 80.11.1; Her. 5.6.9). Literary effect has overtaken factual
precision.88 (2) The taste for totality and expansiveness comes out also in a group
of vignettes illustrating various memorable excesses and proclivities: Elagabalus
seeks out well-endowed men ex tota penitus urbe (8.6–7), purchases harlots
from all the procurers (25.5), orders all men with hernias in the city to be
put on display at his baths (25.6), assembles all the prostitutes from every
part of the city for a disquisition on sex (26.3–4), has a peripatetic dinner
party that encompasses the whole of Rome (30.4–5), in a single day visits all
the prostitutes in all the red light districts (32.9). Totus, omnis and cunctus,
the typical quasi-superlatives in these vignettes, amplify the man into a sort of
silver-screen icon. Compare also the hyperbolical use of semper and numquam,
which reduce the wildly outrageous to the merely routine (above, n. 43). (3)
Next, the chronique scandaleuse parades somewhat incongruously as moralizing
historiography with its typical emphasis on exemplarity, edification, overblown
black-and-white characterization:89 good rulers and bad, personified vice against
personified virtue (1.2, 13.2–5), the execrable tyrant raging against any hint of
goodness (8.4, 13.2, 16.4) and predestined to meet a typical fate (1.3, 17.7), the
death of the impurissimi matching their life in perfect symmetry (16.5, 17.2–
6), history itself working according to a process that restores moral equilibrium
(14.1).90 All this again tends to enhance the type at the expense of the individual.
(semper uarie); analogously 19.7, omni florum genere, liliis, uiolis, hyacinthis et narcissis (“with
every kind of flower—lilies, violets, hyacinths and narcissi”). Cf. also 19.6, 20.5–7, 21.3, 25.9, 26.3,
32.8.
88. The dissonance is noted by Hay 1911: 256 and Turcan 1993: 227.
89. As, emblematically, Livy Praef . 10, hoc illud est praecipue in cognitione rerum salubre
ac frugiferum, omnis te exempli documenta in inlustri posita monumento intueri; inde tibi tuaeque
rei publicae quod imitere capias, inde foedum inceptu foedum exitu quod uites (“what chiefly makes
the study of history wholesome and profitable is this, that you observe models of every kind of
experience set forth as on a conspicuous monument; from these you may choose for yourself and
for your state what to imitate, from these mark for avoidance what is shameful in the undertaking and
shameful in the result”); cf. Tac. Ag. 1.1; Hist. 1.3; with Herkommer 1968: 128–36.
90. Paragraph 14.1 beyond disclosing the moral dynamics also marks a dramatic peripeteia to
underscore the irony that the evil tyrant is hoist with his own petard: sed nihil agunt improbi contra
innocentes. Nam nulla ui quis adduci potuit, ut tantum facinus impleret, cum in ipsum magis conuersa
sint tela, quae parabat aliis, ab hisque interfectus quibus alios adpetebat (“but evil men accomplish
nothing against the innocent. For no power could induce anyone to commit so great a crime, while
the weapons which Elagabalus was making ready against others were turned against himself, and he
was put to death by the forces with which he was attacking others”). Thematic disposition reinforces
the ironic reversal: early in the Life Elagabalus usurps the Antonine name (1.5), at the end the senate
has it formally erased (17.4, 18.1); the prodigiosus whose whole life transgresses the upper limits of
luxuria in death shares the tyrant’s typical fate and perishes sordidissime (17.1–2, 33.7); cf. Scheid
1984. The corpse is weighted and flung into the Tiber ne umquam sepeliri posset (17.2: “so that
it might never be buried”): denial of proper burial to the tyrant (cf. Livy 24.21.3) recalls also the
ritual expulsion and disposal of prodigia such as hermaphrodites and parricides.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
168   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
(4) Lastly there is the overarching dynastic design, the change-and-decline scheme
within which Elagabalus is cast as homo omnium impurissimus and transcendental
despot, heir to the tradition of imperial tyranny and beyond that to the stereotypical
τÔραννοι of classical literature: form is predicated on function. The typical traits
of the literary despot are all present here—cruelty, suspicion, creative excesses
in matters sexual, culinary and sartorial—subsumed in a grandiose hyperbole to
create a suitable sense of contour, climax and closure. The particular is articulated
through the typical and the generic, as in the recurrent primus and solus motifs
(above, n. 29) that call attention to the perverse genius of hedonist– tyrant and
additionally drive home the point that the pessimus princeps at the end of the
dynasty marks a clear caesura in the political and moral tradition embodied in the
likes of Pius and Marcus. Disjunction and discontinuity are further reinforced by
the attention to names and punning on names, a favorite sport of our author.91 The
name validates, authenticates, confers legitimacy—hence the usurper’s alacrity
to appropriate the coveted nomen Antoninorum (Heliog. 1.5, 3.1; cf. Macr.
3.9, 6.6; Diad. 2.2, 6.2). The dynastic gatecrasher who poses as an Antonine
in reality pollutes the consecrated name (2.4), is a mere Varius Heliogabalus
(1.1–6; Alex. 1.1), his outcast status subsequently reaffirmed in the sobriquets
Tiberinus, Tractatitius and Impurus (17.5), where damnatio memoriae coalesces
with æνοµαστÈ κωµωúδεØν.92 So too with “Varius,” the name that sticks and most
effectively punctures his dynastic pretensions.93 This is rather fancifully glossed
by reference to his mother’s loose morals and his own dubious parentage (2.1)94
—a schoolboy etymology, to be sure, but noteworthy to the extent that it again
casts ultimus Antoninorum in the mould of outsider and illegitimate intruder. The
name is a placard to advertise the type. Indeed, given Elagabalus’ endless quest
for uarietas in the pursuit of pleasure, it is tempting to take the loaded name Varius
also as a foretaste of the exotic ποικιλÐα to come in the farrago.95
Finally, given the nature of the whole Heliog., it may be permissible to lower
the register somewhat and offer a few summarizing remarks on the biography in
its own terms. The rogue scholar’s wit, erudition and achievement, generously
91. As (e.g.) at Hadr. 24.3–5, Ael. 2.3–5, Pius 2.3–7, Avid. 1.7, Comm. 17.11, Pesc. 6.5–6,
Clod. Alb. 13.1, Diad. 4.3; with Syme 1971: 1–16; Béranger 1976: 39–41.
92. See Alföldy 1976; Turcan 1985: 242–43 and 1993: 192–93.
93. Just after Elagabalus has Alexander deprived of the title Caesar, his statues smeared with
mud, ut fieri solet de tyrannis (13.7: “as is normally done in the case of tyrants”), and assassins sent
out to dispatch him, he is himself twice referred to as Varius (14.2, 14.5)—a nice irony to bring
out the illegitimate status of the real tyrant.
94. Et aiunt quidam Varii etiam nomen idcirco eodem inditum a condiscipulis, quod uario
semine, de meretrice utpote, conceptus uideretur (2.2: “some say that even the name Varius was
given him by his school-fellows because he appears to have been conceived by the seed of ‘various’
men, as happens with a whore”).
95. Cf. deinde aestiua conuiuia coloribus exhibuit . . . semper uarie per dies omnes aestiuos
(19.2) with Turcan 1993: 195: “Il y a peut-être un jeu de mots sur uarie, Héliogabale s’appelant
Varius (2.1–2).”

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
acknowledged elsewhere in the HA, have been rather neglected in this Life—
unjustifiably, as I have argued, for here if anywhere he has truly surpassed himself.
Three irreverent conclusions might be ventured. First, the elder Pliny’s dictum
on mediocre literature will hold good for the Heliog. in general and for its farrago
section in particular: dicere etiam solebat nullum esse librum tam malum ut non
aliqua parte prodesset (Ep. 3.5.10: “he used to say that no book was so bad
that some good could not be got out of it”). There is much that is useful in the
farrago—not indeed as hard historical truth in the Rankean sense, but as plausible
fiction or symbolic truth, no less valuable to the literary or cultural historian. For
as Syme has well remarked, “That edification should blend with entertainment
is no surprise. The novel bears witness, in any age. It often conveys a coherent
body of doctrine about state and society, the opinions being those of the superior
type of plain man. . . .”96 The grotesque miscellany is perhaps best characterized as
an exercise in σπουδαιογèλοιον, a continuation or refraction of history through
the medium of vaudeville and revealing “a humourist of no mean order.”97 A
connoisseur of eccentricity has well remarked—this the second conclusion—that
“the critical study of dead jokes is a solemn business, out of which our only
profit is a knowledge of the ancestry of ideas.”98 A review of the Sun King’s
antics discloses just such a genealogy of ideas, and it is not the least of the rogue
scholar’s achievements that isolated eccentricities are coordinated as a coherent
system with its own internal logic: once the conceptual grammar is understood,
many of the individual pranks can be parsed as something other than just irrational
aberrations. Everything hangs together. And last but by no means least, the Heliog.
demonstrates resoundingly that the rogue scholar’s erudite humor is not only (or
not always) a simple laughing matter.
Department of Classics, University of South Africa, Pretoria

madergj@unisa.ac.za
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adams, J. N. 1982. The Latin Sexual Vocabulary. London.
Alföldi, A. 1977. Die monarchische Repräsentation im römischen Kaiserreich. Darm-
stadt.
Alföldi-Rosenbaum, E. 1972. “Apicius, De re coquinaria and the Vita Heliogabali.”
Bonner Historia-Augusta-Colloquium 1970, 5–18. Bonn.
Alföldy, G. 1976. “Zwei Schimpfnamen des Kaisers Elagabal: Tiberinus und Tractati-
tius.” Bonner Historia-Augusta-Colloquium 1972/1974, 11–21. Bonn.
. 1980. Die Rolle des Einzelnen in der Gesellschaft des römischen Kaiserreiches.
Heidelberg.
96. Syme 1971: 284; cf. Bowersock 1994: esp. chap. 1.

97. Syme 1971: 262.
98. Bishop 1928: 29.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
170   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
Arand, T. 1999. Das unverdiente Ende. Berlin.

. 2002. Das schmähliche Ende. Frankfurt.
Babcock, B. A., ed. 1978. The Reversible World. Ithaca and London.
Bakhtin, M. 1984a. Rabelais and His World. Trans. H. Iswolsky. Bloomington.
. 1984b. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Trans. C. Emerson. Minneapolis.
Baldwin, B. 1987. An Anthology of Later Latin Literature. Amsterdam.
Barnes, T. D. 1972. “Ultimus Antoninorum.” Bonner Historia-Augusta-Colloquium
1970, 53–74. Bonn.
. 1978. The Sources of the Historia Augusta. Brussels.
Béranger, J. 1976. “L’idéologie impériale dans l’Histoire Auguste.” Bonner Historia-
Augusta-Colloquium 1972/1974, 29–53. Bonn.
Bertrand-Dagenbach, C. 1990. Alexandre Sévère et l’Histoire Auguste. Brussels.
Berve, H. 1967. Die Tyrannis bei den Griechen. Darmstadt.
Birley, A., trans. 1976. Lives of the Later Caesars. Harmondsworth.
Bishop, M. 1928. A Gallery of Eccentrics. New York.
Bowersock, G. W. 1994. Fiction as History. Berkeley.
Bradley, K. 1998. “The Roman Family at Dinner.” In I. Nielsen and H. S. Nielsen, eds.,
Meals in a Social Context, 36–55. Aarhus.
Braudy, L. 1986. The Frenzy of Renown. Repr. 1997. New York.
Brauer, G. C. 1995. The Decadent Emperors: Power and Depravity in Third-Century
Rome. New York.
Caputi, A. 1978. Buffo. Detroit.
Chastagnol, A. 1972. “L’Histoire Auguste et les ‘Douze Césars’ de Suétone.” Bonner
Historia-Augusta-Colloquium 1970, 109–23. Bonn.
, trans. 1994. Historia Augusta. Paris.
Citroni, M., ed. 1975. M. Valerius Martialis, Epigrammaton Liber Primus. Florence.
Cumont, F. 1905. “Elagabalus.” RE 5: 2219–22.
Dalby, A. 2000. Empire of Pleasures. London and New York.
D’Arms, J. H. 1984. “Control, Companionship, and Clientela: Some Social Functions
of the Roman Communal Meal.” EMC 28: 327–48.
. 1990. “The Roman Convivium and the Idea of Equality.” In O. Murray, ed.,
Sympotica, 308–20. Oxford.
Demandt, A. 1997. Das Privatleben der römischen Kaiser. 2nd ed. Munich.
den Hengst, D. 1981. The Prefaces in the Historia Augusta. Amsterdam.
Donahue, J. F. 2003. “Toward a Typology of Roman Public Feasting.” AJP 124: 423–41.
Döpp, S. 1993. “Saturnalien und lateinische Literatur.” In id., ed., Karnavaleske
Phänomene in antiken und nachantiken Kulturen und Literaturen, 145–77. Trier.
Dunkle, J. R. 1967. “The Greek Tyrant and Roman Political Invective of the Late
Republic.” TAPA 98: 151–71.
. 1971. “The Rhetorical Tyrant in Roman Historiography.” CW 65: 12–20.
Edwards, C. 1993. The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome. Cambridge.
Ernout, A. 1949. “ Condicio et Conditio.” RPh 23: 107–19.
Frey, M. 1989. Untersuchungen zur Religion und zur Religionspolitik des Kaisers El-
egabal. Stuttgart.
Friedländer, L. 1901. Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms. 7th ed. Vol. 2.
Leipzig.
Garland, R. 1995. The Eye of the Beholder. London.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
Gibbon, E. 1896. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. J. B. Bury. Vol. 1.
London.
Goddard, J. 1994. “The Tyrant at Table.” In J. Elsner and J. Masters, eds., Reflections
of Nero, 67–82. London.
Gowers, E. 1993. The Loaded Table. Representations of Food in Roman Literature.
Oxford.
Gross, K. 1959. “Elagabal.” RAC 4: 987–1000.
Halsberghe, G. H. 1972. The Cult of Sol Invictus. Leiden.
Hartke, W. 1951. Römische Kinderkaiser. Berlin.
Hay, J. S. 1911. The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus. Repr. Rome, 1972. London.
Herkommer, E. 1968. Die Topoi in den Proömien der römischen Geschichtswerke. Diss.
Tübingen.
Herzog, R. 1989. “Fest, Terror und Tod in Petrons Satyrica.” In W. Haug and R. Warning,
eds., Das Fest, 120–50. Munich.
Kay, N. M., ed. 1985. Martial Book XI. London.
Kolb, F. 1976. “Kleidungsstücke in der Historia Augusta: Textkonjekturen und -
emendationen zu AS 33,4. 41,1. A 45,5, mit einem Exkurs über die dalmatica.”
Bonner Historia-Augusta-Colloquium 1972/1974, 153–71. Bonn.
Lambertz, M. 1955. “Varius Avitus.” RE 8.A.1: 391–404.
Lanza, D. 1977. Il tiranno e il suo pubblico. Turin.
Lassère, J. M. 1975. “La tour d’Elagabal.” REA 77: 131–36.
Lécrivain, C. 1904. Études sur l’Histoire Auguste. Paris.
Matthews, J. F. 1996. “Historia Augusta.” OCD (3rd ed.), 713–14.
Merten, E. W. 1983. Bäder und Badegepflogenheiten in der Darstellung der Historia
Augusta. Bonn.
Miller, S. N. 1939. “The Army and the Imperial House.” CAH 12: 1–56.
Münzer, F. 1909. “Fabius (112): Q. Fabius Maximus Gurges.” RE 6.2: 1798–1800.
Neri, V. 1999. “Considerazioni sul tema della luxuria nell’ Historia Augusta.” Historiae
Augustae Colloquium Genevense, 217–40. Bari.
Opelt, I. 1965. Die lateinischen Schimpfwörter und verwandte sprachliche Erscheinun-
gen. Heidelberg.
Optendrenk, T. 1968. Die Religionspolitik des Kaisers Elagabal im Spiegel der Historia
Augusta. Diss. Bonn.
Paul, W. 1994. Laughing, Screaming: Modern Hollywood Horror and Comedy. New
York.
Pflaum, H.-G. 1978. “Les amours des empereurs dans l’Histoire Auguste.” Bonner
Historia-Augusta-Colloquium 1975/1976, 157–66. Bonn.
Pietrzykowski, M. 1986. “Die Religionspolitik des Kaisers Elagabal.” ANRW 2.16.3:
1806–25.
Plass, P. 1995. The Game of Death in Ancient Rome. Madison.
Réville, J. 1888. Die Religion zu Rom unter den Severern. Trans. G. Krüger. Leipzig.
Roller, M. B. 2001. Constructing Autocracy. Princeton.
Rousselle, A. 1983. Porneia. De la maı̂trise du corps à la privation sensorielle, IIe-IVe
siècles de l’ère chrétienne. Paris.
Scheid, J. 1984. “La mort du tyran. Chronique de quelques morts programmées.” Du
châtiment dans la cité. Supplices corporels et peine de mort dans le monde antique,
177–90. Rome.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC
172   Volume 24 / No. 1 / April 2005
Scheithauer, A. 1987. Kaiserbild und literarisches Programm. Untersuchungen zur

Tendenz der Historia Augusta. Frankfurt.
. 1998. “Kaiser und Musik in der Historia Augusta.” Historia Augusta Collo-
quium Argentoratense, 297–311. Bari.
Staesche, M. 1998. Das Privatleben der römischen Kaiser in der Spätantike. Bern.
Stein-Hölkeskamp, E. 2002a . “Culinarische Codes: Das ideale Bankett bei Plinius d.
Jüngeren und seinen Zeitgenossen.” Klio 84: 465–90.
. 2002b. “Tödliches Tafeln. Convivia in neronischer Zeit.” In L. Castagna and
G. Vogt-Spira, eds., Pervertere: Ästhetik der Verkehrung, 3–28. Leipzig
Syme, R. 1971. Emperors and Biography. Oxford.
Tabacco, R. 1985. “Il tiranno nelle declamazioni di scuola in lingua latina.” MAT 9:
1–141.
Thompson, G. R. 1972. Elagabalus: Priest-Emperor of Rome. Diss. Kansas.
Timonen, A. 2000. Cruelty and Death. Turku.
Toepfer, K. 1991. Theatre, Aristocracy, and Pornocracy: The Orgy Calculus. New York.
Turcan, R. 1978. “Le culte impérial au IIIe siècle.” ANRW 2.16.2: 996–1084.
. 1985. Héliogabale et le sacre du soleil. Paris (repr. 1997).
. 1987. Vivre à la cour des Césars. Paris.
. 1992. Les cultes orientaux dans le monde romain. Paris.
, ed. and trans. 1993. Histoire Auguste, Tome III,1: Vies de Macrin, Diadumé-
nien, Héliogabale. Paris.
Versnel, H. S. 1993. Transition and Reversal in Myth and Ritual. Leiden.
. 1998. “Komödie, Utopie und verkehrte Welt.” In G. Binder and B. Effe, eds.,
Das antike Theater. Aspekte seiner Geschichte, Rezeption und Aktualität, 93–114.
Trier.
Villeneuve, R. 1984. Le divin Héliogabale. Paris.
Weinrich, H. 2000. Linguistik der Lüge. 6th ed. Munich.
Wickert, L. 1954. “Princeps.” RE 22.2: 1998–2296.
Williams, C. A. 1999. Roman Homosexuality. Oxford.

155.210.237.31 on Fri, 28 Jun 2019 17:52:16 UTC

History As Carnival, or Method and Madness in The Vita Heliogabali

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

History As Carnival, or Method and Madness in The Vita Heliogabali

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

History as Carnival, or Method and Madness in the Vita Heliogabali

Author(s): Gottfried Mader

This content downloaded from

I. SCHOLARS AND SCANDAL

The Vita Heliogabali is a notoriously uneven biography, a heady concoction

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

—as well as historiographical questions: can the whole excursus be dismissed

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

culmination of sorts. Traditional form is an adequate frame for traditional notions

This content downloaded from

senseless profligacy resulting from (wilful) decontextualizion of the data—the

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

II. DYNASTY AND DESIGN

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

baggage—retains a certain individual eccentricity that is crucial to the author’s

III. SEX AND THE CITY

Classical despots are typically given to a life of luxuria—πολαυστικÀ̋

This content downloaded from

return to Rome, where he is cast as Caligula or Nero rediuiuus on his nocturnal

This content downloaded from

conspirauerant, ut hunc principem facerent. . . . Quis enim ferre posset

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

designate the sought-after types recalls the sobriquet of Commodus’ paramour

This content downloaded from

the most common prostitutes”). Elagabalus refines this rudimentary amusement

This content downloaded from

Fertur et una die ad omnes circi et theatri et amphitheatri et omnium

There is a sense of studied extravagance and theatricality here, conveyed stylisti-

This content downloaded from

Omnes de circo, de theatro, de stadio et omnibus locis et balneis meretri-

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

IV. AT THE TYRANT’S TABLE

This content downloaded from

chariots (27.1),53 then symbolically served with hay in humorous contempt of

This content downloaded from

sure. Voluptas is diversified, integrated, intensified: sexual acts are embossed on

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

Habebat etiam istam consuetudinem, ut conuiuia et maxime prandia per

Typologically Elagabalus’ carefully structured extravaganzas belong to the same

64. Bishop 1928: 6.

This content downloaded from

Lampridius might be alluding to,66 the flippant afterthought indicates at least an

This content downloaded from

quia dignitas talia refutabat, contulit se ad iuuenes et ab his coepit omnia

Elagabalus by deliberately embarrassing the senes in this way humorously con-

This content downloaded from

V. HOMO LUDENS, PARADIS ARTIFICIEL

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

planted on rooftops, banquets protracted until dawn.77 Seneca’s treatment of these

This content downloaded from

Classical despots are typically given to a life of luxuria—πολαυστικÀ̋