The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus by John Hay

Author:John Hay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pronoun

CHAPTER VII.SUPPLEMENTARY MATTER CONCERNING THE YEARS 22 1-222

Antonine’s Government from 221 to 222 a.d.

The events of the years 221 and until March 222 are mainly a record of internecine fights and struggles ; the Emperor was trying to retain his position in the state, the women leaving no stone unturned to possess themselves of power in Alexander’s name. We have traced the events which led to the adoption of Alexander, and noticed the small amount of power which his position as heir to the Empire actually put into the hands of Maesa and Mamaea. We have seen further how the repudiation of the adoption by Antonine lessened even this modicum of power, and how the successful attempt to make Alexander Consul gained for their puppet the official position from which the terms of his adoption had excluded him. Once that position was secured, we have watched the successful plot against the Emperor’s life, which placed Maesa and Mamaea in actual command of the state under the merely nominal headship of Alexander. It only remains for us to follow the governmental acts of these last months of Antonine’s life, as far as the authorities will allow.

The first recorded action after the adoption of Alexander was one of religion. The ostensible object of the ceremony on 10th July, or rather earlier, had been to free the chief priest of Elagabal from his secular duties, in order that he might further the worship of the Great God. To this end, Antonine instituted a magnificent religious procession through the city, taking his God from the temple on the Palatine to that in the suburbs. Herodian, with his usual inaccuracy, announces that this ceremony took place each year at midsummer. Now, the temple on the Palatine was not finished by midsummer of the year 220, judging from the coins which celebrate the expansion of the cult, and that near the Porta Praenestina was even later in its completion. The inference is, therefore, that the procession could not possibly have taken place in the year 220 at midsummer. Further evidence is, however, forthcoming; Cohen mentions certain Roman coins struck in honour of the procession ; they show the God on a car, and date from the latter part of the year 221, by which time the suburban temple was finished and the procession certainly took place.

Before midsummer in the year 222, according to .Dion, Antonine was dead. He did not therefore conduct the Elagabal procession, and as the authors inform us that Alexander sent the God back to Emesa with considerable expedition, after reconsecrating the temple to Jupiter, it is very unlikely that Alexander continued the public parade of an unpopular worship, even though the God was still in Rome at the time mentioned.

Despite Herodian’s statement that Alexander, as well as Antonine, was a priest of the Sun, it is fairly-certain that the former was never actually associated with his cousin in that priesthood, and was not in the least likely to begin the worship after Antonine’s death.

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