2023-05-28 22:42:25
Sextus Varius Avitus Basianobetter known in the classical world as Heliogabalus After having declared himself high priest of the deity El-Gabal, he is still considered one of the worst emperors of Rome. That’s right. After seating his real ones in the easy chair of the ‘eternal urbs’ in 218, he did everything and more to earn the hatred of his subjects: he established a new religion by force, granted full powers to his lovers, deprived the military of their salaries most popular of the Roman legions… He became an annoying guy where there were any, which is saying a lot within the Roman Empire, wow.
Perhaps for this reason it is not strange that, almost four years later, in 222, his most loyal soldiers, the Praetorian Guard, murdered him and humiliated and humiliated his corpse by throwing it into the city’s sewers. Quite an affront to the time that was burned into the different chronicles of classical authors. Although, as is often the case with so many shady episodes of the Roma imperialeach one of them offers a different vision of this curious and controversial emperor.
Although what Heliogábalo is most remembered for is not for the many murders he perpetrated, which is also, but because the classical historian Cassius Dio He defines him in his writings as a boy who dreamed of becoming a woman and who offered unparalleled riches to the doctor who turned his sexual organs into females: «He worked with wool, sometimes he wore a net for his hair and painted his eyes, smearing them with lead white and ink moth. On one occasion, she shaved off her beard and held a festival to commemorate the event; but afterward he kept his hair shaved off, to look more like a woman.” Eccentric, indeed, although he had little to do with the hatred that he aroused in Rome.
tense succession
The unpopularity finished with the boy; that, and his wild antics. “Heliogabalus and his family died for the same reason that Nero or Caracalla did: they became dangerous for the Senate, for the richest gentlemen and for their closest environment,” he explains to ABC Federico Romero Diaz. The historian; co-author and coordinator of the work ‘Ab urbe condita’; President of Disseminators of History and co-founder of Día de la Romanidad is in favor of the fact that, “when a person was as unstable” as this young man was, “his relatives and collaborators were the first to suffer from it.” Therefore, they began to consider the alternatives that existed to shelve it. And, in this case, he opted to find a successor for him.
The classic essayist narrates Herodian in ‘History of the Roman Empire after Marcus Aurelius’ which was in June 221 when the strings of the puppet began to jingle. That year, his grandmother Maesa convinced the young man that he should take her cousin into her womb, Alexander Severus, of only 13 springs. This is how Cassius Dio narrated this fact in the ‘Roman History’: «He took his cousin before the Senate and formally adopted him as his son; and he congratulated himself on suddenly becoming the father of such an older son, although he himself was no older than the other ».
That was the first step to replace him, and Heliogábalo ended up envisioning this macabre game. As if that were not enough, his successor soon gained popularity among the Roman legions and senators; bad news for his stepfather. As recorded by Herodian, in the end the prince repented and wanted to take away the title that he had granted him. The boy did not mess around. To begin with, he erased all his inscriptions from the statues; a crazy ‘damnatio memoriae’ in his lifetime. And then he figured out how to remove him from the power equation. “This shows that it was very unstable. Although it is partly normal. He was a kid and they gave him absolute power. It is difficult to be complete when you have not developed even on a psychological level. You lack solid pillars to establish your behavior, “says Romero.
Anger, a bad adviser, dominated him. Dio Casio narrates that Heliogábalo, already in the shadow of his cousin, made the mistake of ordering his murder. What he did not count on is that his Praetorian Guard was going to refuse to raise the gladius against that boy. «He Later he again hatched a conspiracy against Alejandro, and when the Praetorians rioted and protested against it, he went with him to the camp. It was the second worst decision he made that day. Arriving at the site, his own men took him into custody and informed him that he was to be executed. “He tried to run away, and would have succeeded hiding in a chest, had he not been discovered,” stressed the classical author.
The sewers of Rome
His fate was sealed. Although there are a thousand and one versions about how he left this world. Herodian limits himself to pointing out that “he was assassinated at the age of eighteen” by the Praetorian Guard and that “his mother, who clung tightly to him, also perished.” he was the March 13, 222, bad luck day The same source argues that “their heads were cut off and their bodies, after being stripped, were first dragged throughout the city and, later, the mother’s was thrown from one place to another while hers was thrown into the river.” Of all the theories that exist, Romero bets on this one.
The ‘Historia Augusta’, a compilation of the lives of the emperors, is much more tabloid. He explains that “finally, the situation became untenable” and that the soldiers murdered Heliogabalus in the city’s sewers. He further adds that he was so hated that the Praetorians were not satisfied with killing him: “They humiliated his corpse, dragging him and throwing him into the Tiber with a weight so that he would not float.” His mother was next. Apparently, because she “had enjoyed power and important privileges such as participating in the meetings of the Senate and, in a certain way, had pulled the strings of the government due to Heliogábalo’s youth.”
Painting by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema: “The Roses of Heliogabalu”
How valid is this latest version? Romero is clear: «The ‘August History’ is the least reliable. In any case, it doesn’t matter if they dumped him in the latrine, killed him there, or dumped him in the Tiber. The key, what we must keep, is that he was given a humiliating death and that his memory was not respected. The same thing that happened to so many other hated emperors like him. Although he emphasizes that it is impossible to know for sure because we were not there, a maxim that he repeats in all the interviews, he states that “the most likely thing is that they would throw his body into the river” because it was a recurring practice in the chronicles.
What is usually ignored is that, after killing Heliogábalo, the Praetorian Guard perpetrated a bloodbath. Cassius Dio explains it in his writings: «With him perished, among others, hierocles and the prefects; also Aurelius Eubuluswhich was natural The emes, and he had gone so far in his lust and debauchery that even before this his delivery had been demanded by the mob. He had been in charge of the treasury and there was nothing that he did not confiscate. Thus, he was then torn to pieces by the mob and the soldiers; and Fulvio, the prefect of the City, perished at the same time with him.’ In any case, none suffered the humiliation with which the body of the young emperor said goodbye to the world.
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