I got up late - it was already daylight - with my tiredness soothed away by the softness of the bed, and listened to the men who had been keeping guard outside my room all night talking about my case. `Is that wretched ass still tossing around in a crazed state, do we think?' Surely not! The sickness must have reached a crisis and have worn itself out by now. They decided to stop guessing and have a look, peered through a crack and saw me standing at my ease, quite calm and healthy. Then they opened the door to make more certain that I was, indeed, by now a gentle beast. One of them (clearly sent by the gods to help me!) said to the rest that one way of testing my sanity would be to give me a bowl of fresh water to drink, and if I drank it fearlessly and of my own accord, as usual, they would know that I was cured and well again. On the other hand, if I were to shudder and shy away from the sight of or contact with the water, then they would be sure that the terrible disease of rabies was still holding on. This was the normal text-book procedure for finding out.
It was reckoned to be a good idea, so they brought a vast bowl of beautifully clear water from a handy fountain and gave it to me, somewhat hesitantly. Without the slightest delay I went up to them, bobbed down (because I was really thirsty), shoved my entire head into the bowl and gulped that quite literally life-saving water. After that I let them pat me and play with my ears and pull on my rope and do any other test they liked, until - against their presumption that I was mad - I had made clear that I was perfectly tame.
In this way I had escaped two dangers, and the next day I was loaded up with all their religious clobber and led off on my way again with castanets and cymbals - the old travelling religious circus again. Having stopped at a good few isolated houses or small estates, we stopped in some village or other, built (so the inhabitants told us) in the dilapidated remains of what was once a fine, rich city, and got lodgings at the first tavern we came to. Here we got to hear a most entertaining tale about some poor chap and his wife's adultery, which I should like you to hear as well.
The man in question was really poor and struggling, and just kept his head above water with cheap-rate joinery jobs. His darling wife was as badly-off as he was financially, but was well-known for her rampant libido. One day, when he had gone out early to work on a job, his wife's rather bold lover came secretly into the house. While the pair were engaged in a spot of horizontal jogging, the husband - who neither knew nor even suspected that anything was up - came home unexpectedly. Finding the doors locked and barred, he praised his wife's virtue, knocked, and at the same time announced his presence by whistling. The woman was both clever and used to misbehaviour, so she disentangled herself from the man and hid him in a huge wine-vat in the corner of the room, halfcovered in grime, but empty. When she unbarred the door and her husband came in, she really let him have it.
`What the hell do you think you're doing, idling about with your hands in your pockets and not thinking about how we are going to manage and not doing any work to make sure we can eat! And all the time I'm stuck here day and night wearing my fingers to the bone spinning wool just so we can keep the little lamp lit over the front door of our little house. That Daphne next door, now, she's a lot luckier than I am, spending her mornings drinking and nibbling and playing about with her lovers!'
Her husband was very put out. 'What do you mean?' he said, 'Our boss has had to appear in court, and has given us the day off, but I've still sorted out today's dinner for us. You see that great wine-vat? - it's always empty and it doesn't do anything except get in our way here. So I've sold it to somebody for five denarii, and he's coming round to pay me and pick up his purchase. While we are waiting why don't you give me a hand and help me get it ready to hand over to the man who's buying it?'
But the crafty woman was quite up to this one, gave a derisive laugh, and said, 'what a great husband, what a splendid salesman this one is! I'm only a woman, but even staying indoors I've already sold it for seven denarii, and he accepted less!'
Highly pleased at the increase in the price, the husband said, `so who is it that's paid so much?'
'Idiot!' she replied, 'he's just climbed into the thing to check how solid it is.'
The lover didn't fail to follow the woman's lead. He quickly got out of the vat and said, `tell you what, lady - see this vat of yours? It's pretty old, and there are cracks all over it.' And then, keeping up the pretence, he turned to the husband and said, `come on, mate, whoever you are, nip off and get me a lamp so I can scrape off the dirt inside this to see if it's still usable! Money doesn't grow on trees, you know.'
But without hesitation or suspicion our quick-witted husband lit the lamp and said, 'just stand aside and take it easy, old chap, while I get it into shape for you to see.' And with that he stripped off, took the lamp into the vat and began to scrape away the filth from the old rotten inside walls.
Then the good-looking lover up-ended the workman's wife over the curve of the vat and did indeed take it (and her) easily. Meanwhile, she stuck her head over the top of the vat and mocked her husband like a really crafty whore, indicating the parts that needed a good seeing-to - here, and here, and there, and then another one - until both jobs were well and truly done. Then the seven denarii changed hands, but the unfortunate workman still had to heave the vat onto his back and cart it across to the lover's house.
After our most pure priests had stayed there for a few days, and had got what they could in the way of public money and stuffed their pockets with the profit of prophe- Gies, they thought of a new ploy. They worked out a single all-purpose prophecy, and that way they tricked all the people who came to ask about different things. It was this:
That way, when someone questioned them when they were planning a marriage, say, they would assure them that this was a favourable utterance - the business about yoking was clearly conjugal, and the seedlings were the children that would come from it. If the questioner was wanting to buy property, then of course `yoked oxen,' and `long furrows' as well as fertile growth was prophesied. If someone was worried and wanted divine auguries before setting out on a journey, then the yoked oxen became the most dependable of beasts, while the bit about fertile seedlings promised a profitable outcome. If someone was going into battle or was setting off to chase bandits, and didn't know whether or not it would be worth it, then the good old prophecy presaged a victory: the necks of the enemy would come under the yoke, and the captives would yield rich and fertile booty.
In this way, with crafty soothsaying they got together no little amount of money. But they got fed up with all the questions and answers, and again set off on the road. This journey was far worse than any of the night-time ones, and why? because the road was rutted and the holes filled with stagnant water, and it was slippery with muddy slime in other places. My legs hurt from all that knocking into things and constant slipping, and I was tired out and hardly able to walk when we made it to a level road. But here we were suddenly overtaken by a group of armed horsemen, who reined in their mounts from their mad gallop and went viciously for Philebus and his companions, grabbing them by the throats, beating them, and calling them sacrilegious scum. Then they put manacles on the lot of them and kept on demanding that they should hand over at once the golden chalice, give up their principal piece of criminally-acquired loot, stolen from the shrine of the Mother Goddess when they were conducting a service behind closed doors; and then - as if they thought they could get away scot-free after such a crime - they had left town in the morning before it was properly light! One of the riders then put his hand over my back, felt around in the shrine of the goddess that I was carrying, and produced for everyone to see the golden chalice itself. Even in the face of such criminal sacrilege, these wretches were not afraid, but pretended to laugh it off, and said, "what rotten luck! It's always the innocent who get into situations like this! Because of one little cup, which the Mother Goddess gave her Syrian sister as a thanks-offering, ministers of religion are arrested and find themselves threatened just like common criminals." '
They went on babbling things like this, but all in vain, because the villagers took them back and put them in jail in chains. They returned the chalice and the goddess that I had been carrying to the temple with all reverence, and on the next day took me out and put me up for sale again, when I was bought for seven sesterces more than Philebus had paid, by a miller from the next town, who loaded me up with the grain he had also just bought, and led me off to his mill up a steep path with lots of sharp stones and tangled roots.
The Augustan History
Life of Heliogabalus
(ruled AD 218-222)
The Augustan History is a series of imperial biographies which cover the period AD 117-284. It was ostensibly written by six authors in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries and at intervals is addressed to the emperors Diocletian and Constantine. However, it is generally believed that this is a facade, and that it is truly the work of a single author probably written in the late 4th century. The book contains many fictions, but these are generally easier to disentangle than the fictions surrounding the work itself.
No study of Roman decadence could be complete without reference to the emperor Heliogabalus, surely the most bizarre of them all. His true name was Varius Avitus Bassianus Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, but history has known him as Elagabalus, or in the Greek, Heliogabalus, this being the name of the sun god in whose temple at Emesa (modem Horns) in Syria he served in the hereditary position of high priest. His grandmother Maesa was sister to the wife of the emperor Septimius Severus, who founded the Severan dynasty and finally dragged Rome from the mire into which it had sunk following the death of Commodus. When Severus died he was succeeded by his two sons, Caracalla and Geta. After a period of intense rivalry and animosity between the two brothers, Caracalla murdered Geta and ruled despotically until finally assassinated through a plot by Macrinus, his Praetorian commander, who then succeeded him as emperor.
Macrinus made a grave mistake, however, in allowing Caracalla's Syrian relatives to return to their ancestral temple at Emesa, where they were quick to take advantage of the soldiers' fond memories of Caracalla - who had always been generous to his troops at the expense of other sections of the Roman populace - and at their growing disaffection towards Macrinus. The fourteen year old Heliogabalus was presented by night in the camp of the 3rd legion, who were easily won over by his beauty and resemblance to Caracalla whose bastard he was claimed to be, as well as by the gifts and promises of his wealthy grandmother. Heliogabalus was quickly proclaimed emperor by the rebellious troops. Macrinus sent his soldiers against the insurgents, but only found that more of them were coerced into desertion. Eventually the rebel army engaged the loyal troops of Macrinus outside Antioch. During a desperate battle Macrinus' nerve seems to have failed, and he fled, soon to be hunted down and dispatched.
So began the scandalous four year reign of the exotic and epicene boy emperor named Heliogabalus after his god - the author of this biography, Lampridius, refers to both emperor and god by the same name. The image of the god, a black stone, was carried from his temple in Emesa to Rome, that his priest, the emperor, might promote his outlandish worship in the capital.
AELIUS LAMPRIDIUS
Antoninus Heliogabalus
I would have refrained from committing to paper the life of Antoninus Heliogabalus (also known as Varius), thus preventing anyone from finding out that he had ruled Rome, had it not been for the fact that the same imperial office had been held before him by the likes of Caligula, Nero and Vitellius. However, the earth brings forth poisons as well as grain and other useful things, and gives us serpents as well as domestic beasts. Bearing this in mind, the discerning reader can find a balance to these monstrous tyrants by reading about Augustus, Trajan, Vespasian, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Titus and Marcus Aurelius. That way, the reader will see that Rome really is capable of showing judgement, because all of the latter not only ruled for a long time, but also died of natural causes. The others, however, were killed and their bodies dragged through the streets, and were even known to be tyrants - nobody even cares now to mention their names.
After the emperor Macrinus and his son, Diadumenian (who shared with him the imperial throne, and who had taken the name Antoninus as well) had both been killed, Varius Heliogabalus was made emperor for the sole reason that he was supposed to be the son of Caracalla. However, he was really the priest of Elah-Gabal (or Jove, or the Sun-God), and he had simply assumed the Antonine name, either to establish a family connection, or because he knew that the name was so popular with the masses that because of it they even loved Caracalla, who had killed his own brother. Our man was originally called Varius, and was known later as Heliogabalus, from his priesthood of the god Elah-Gabal. He brought the god with him from Syria, and built a temple to him in Rome in a place which had originally had a shrine to the god of the OtherWorld. Once he assumed imperial power he was known as Antoninus, the last of the Antonine emperors.
He was so much under the control of his mother, Julia Soaemias, that he carried out no official business without her agreement, even though she had the mores of a streetwalker and went in for all kinds of licentious behaviour while at court - her sexual relationship with Caracalla was so well-known that it was generally reckoned that this Varius, or Heliogabalus, actually was his son. But some people even went as far as to say that the name Varius was given to him by his classmates at school, because he seemed to have been conceived from the seed of various different men, which is what you would expect with a whore. After his putative father, Caracalla, had been killed in the Macrinus coup, he took refuge in the temple of the god Elah-Gabal, taking sanctuary there so that he would not be killed by Macrinus, who, together with his wanton and cruel son, was wielding power in a most savage fashion. But that's enough about what he was called, even though he defiled the much venerated name of the Antonines - a name which you, most revered Constantine, hold so dear that you have placed Marcus Aurelius and Antoninus Pius in gold amongst the Constantii and the Claudians, as if they had been your own ancestors, taking on the virtues of men of old which are appropriate to your own way of life, and which you find pleasing and worthy of love.
To come back to Varius Antoninus Heliogabalus: once he had gained the purple, he sent envoys to Rome, where all the different ranks and classes were enthusiastic - the whole populace, in fact, in whom a great longing for him was kindled simply by the Antonine name, not just as a title (as had been the case with Diadumenian), but because the family line seemed to be restored when he signed himself as the son of Antoninus Bassianus Caracalla. He enjoyed the prestige, too, which is given to a new ruler who comes after a tyrant has been removed, but this only lasts when the new ruler really is of the best character, and many a third-rate ruler has lost it.
Anyway, when the words sent by Heliogabalus were read out in the Senate, right away good wishes were offered `for Antoninus,' while Macrinus and his son were cursed, and this Antoninus was declared emperor because everyone wanted him and believed in him. This is what happens with the prayers of people eager to believe something that they want to be the truth.
However, once he had entered the city he ignored everything that was going on in the rest of the empire, and established the religion of Elah-Gabal, building a temple for him on the Palatine, right next to the imperial palace, and wanting to move the emblem of the Mother Goddess, the Vestal fire, the image of Pallas, the sacred shields, and all the other things revered by the Romans, into that temple. He wanted to do this so that no other god but Elah-Gabal should be worshipped in Rome. He also said that the rites of the Jews, the Samaritans and the Christians should be transferred there too, so that the priesthood of Elah-Gabal could control the mysteries of all other cults.
Then, at the first meeting of the Senate, he commanded that his mother should be invited to attend. When she arrived she was given a seat with the consuls, and was present at a drafting, that is, she was a witness the formulation of a senatorial edict. This was the only emperor under
whom a woman entered the Senate like a man, as if she were an actual senator.
He also established on the Quirinal a senatorial annexe or `Senate for women.' In former times a congregation of married ladies had met there, albeit on special festivals, or whenever some married lady was being awarded the insignia of a `consular marraige,' which is what emperors did in the old days for their female relatives, especially those whose husbands were not actually of the nobility, so that they did not therefore lose their rank. But Julia Soaemias saw to it that the Senate now enacted ridiculous decrees, passing laws concerning married women - how they could dress when they went out, who should give precedence to whom, who could come forward and kiss whom, who could ride in a carriage, on a palfrey, on a pack-horse, or on an ass, who could use a carriage drawn by oxen or by mules, who could be carried in a litter (and whether it could be made of leather or bone, or have ivory or gold decoration), and who would be allowed to have gold or jewels on her shoes.
The Dedalus Book of Roman Decadence: Emperors of Debauchery Page 13