Imperial insanity
The Mad Emperor: Heliogabalus and the Decadence of Rome
by Harry Sidebottom
Oneworld, 352 pages, £20
The mad emperor? Aren’t there several to choose from? This one, Heliogabalus (today more commonly known as, Elagabalus), was Roman emperor from AD 218 to 222, almost two centuries after that most famous of “mad” emperors, Caligula. Roman sources depict Heliogabalus as a perverted religious fanatic, obsessed with the solar cult of a god of the same name in his home at Emesa, Syria, where he served as high priest.
Heliogabalus was the patsy for his domineering grandmother Julia Maesa, sister of the deceased dowager empress Julia Domna, wife of Septimius Severus (ruled 193–211). By 217, Domna’s vicious son Caracalla had been assassinated and the praetorian prefect Macrinus had become emperor. Maesa saw her preening teenage grandson and his widowed mother Soaemias as the perfect tools for claiming the restoration of the Severan dynasty by toppling the low-born Macrinus.
The mayhem of Heliogabalus’s reign has never made it into modern popular culture. But perhaps now, the 1,800th anniversary of his murder, is his time. Drawing extensively on the principal ancient sources Cassius Dio and Herodian, plus many others, Harry Sidebottom skilfully juggles what to believe and what not to believe. However, the absence of proper references means the book is not as useful or enduring as it might have been.
The racy story is told with the vivid phrasing and descriptive powers of an accomplished novelist. Thus Julia Maesa has “large protruding eyes, sunken cheeks, a great humped beak of a nose, a strong, jutting chin” – the face of a woman happy to sacrifice her grandchildren for her ambition.
This account of Heliogabalus and his eccentricities (he reportedly sent agents to find men with large genitalia), which led to his assassination in 222, is supported by a rich back story and a fascinating discussion of his legacy. With countless names and technical terms, it’s an intense but wellillustrated and absorbing read.