Both Rowan and Bittarello view Elagabalic religious construction and representation as a miscalculated response to Elagabalus’ legitimacy deficit; Rowan posits Elagabalus as trying to build a model of imperium centered upon the approval of the god Elagabal,49 while Bittarello sees an emperor attempting to portray himself as “superhuman”50 and thus worthy of the throne due to his personal qualities. Both versions of this argument are obviously plausible, although perhaps ascribing remarkable foresight to a teenage boy with sincerely fanatical religious beliefs and his somewhat provincial family. I would argue, instead, that these religious demonstrations reflect not a fully-formed ideology of power, but instead an innovative form of juxtaposition with Caracalla, Elagabalus’ imagined father and predecessor. Caracalla stands somewhat alone among the four Severans in his public representation, and in the lack of regularity or institutional mediation as components of that representation; while Caracalla was ultimately responsible for one of the most
48 Varner 2004: 190.
49 Rowan 2013: 218. 50 Bittarello 2011: 109.
consequential legal developments of the Severan era,51 Dio contrasts Caracalla’s idiosyncratic interest in military and religious affairs with a corresponding boredom with lawgiving or administration.52
Instead, Caracalla seems to have been particularly aggressive in presenting himself as militarily capable53 and as divinely sanctioned. Coinage from Caracalla’s reign is remarkably dense with religious imagery, and became more so after the end of his co-rule with Septimius Severus.54 This progression suggests that the increasing invocation of religious themes was not only a conscious choice, but an idiosyncratic one; Caracalla religiosity arose not just from a Severan political apparatus writ large, but came from—and was linked to—the man himself. This aspect of Caracalla’s self-presentation is largely elided by the historians, but would have presumably been well-known in the Emesa of 218, where Elagabalus (or more likely, his family and eventual advisors) plotted the coup that placed him on the throne. The connection between Elagabalus and Caracalla was largely developed during a military coup, and given Elagabalus’ youth (he was fourteen when he took power), this connection was almost certainly developed by older, more politically minded relatives; given the importance of the military to seizing and maintaining power in Severan Rome, this element of Elagabalus’ presentation is explained, even by those who emphasize Elagabalus’ idiosyncrasy, as a concession to the power politics of the early third century.55 The emperor’s frequent invocations of Emesene religious imagery and gods,
51 I refer of course to the CA, which granted citizenship to nearly all free residents of the Roman empire and on which see supra Ch. II, notes 52-101.
52 See supra Ch. II, notes 9-15; Dio Cass. 78.4.1.2, 78.17.3-4, SHA Car. 4.1. 53 Dio Cass. 78.3.1-2, Hdn. 4.7.3-7, SHA Car. 6.1-5.
54 A hoard analysis by Rowan shows that Caracallan coinage became noticeably more religious after 211, when Septimius Severus died and, presumably, when Caracalla—and briefly Geta— gained control of the imperial mints. The proportion of divine images on Caracallan reverses nearly doubles after 211, going from 30% to 59%. Rowan 2013: 111-12, figs. 37-38.
on the other hand, are taken as either reflecting a sincere religious mania56 or as failed attempts at a novel theory of imperial legitimacy focused on the specific relationship between emperor and Elagabal.57 According to these understandings of Elagabalus’ imperial behavior and presentation, Elagabalus essentially pursued two strategies—one bog standard, one utterly bizarre.
Upon closer inspection, however, Elagabalus’ reliance on Emesene religious imagery and practices may simply reflect an attempt to imitate his Severan predecessor. Caracallan representation not only made heavy use of religious imagery and iconography, but focused on specific deities with whom Caracalla was portrayed as having a personal connection, most notably the Ptolemaic deity Serapis.58 Serapis was by no means unheard of in Roman iconography at this time, but only rarely features on pre-Caracallan coinage.59 If this representational program constituted the “traditions” with which Elagabalus might have sought to align himself, then the unusual religious content of Elagabalic communications seems less like an aberration, and more in keeping with the aggressive presentation of dynastic continuity that marks Severan imperial representation more broadly. Septimian and Caracallan imperial messaging relied on family connections both real and imagined. Caracalla, however, also emphasized piety and religious protection instead of administrative work; Elagabalic state communications may have simply employed a more assertive version of the same strategy and thus tried to highlight Elagabalus’ similarities with his imagined father. Like Caracalla, Elagabalus’ religious display centers on a
56 Ibid. 245-46, Frey 1989: 70-71. 57 Rowan 2013: 218.
58 See Dio Cass. 77.23.2-3, in which Caracalla links Sarapis with the murder of Geta; Lichtenberger 2011: 120-21, Manders 2012: 235-40.
59 Serapis is attested on the coins of Domitian, Hadrian, and Commodus prior to Caracalla. See, for example, Mattingly-Syndenham RIC Dom. 812, Had. 318, 877, Comm. 246; Manders 2012: 235.
god with whom he was idiosyncratically connected.60 That said, Elagabalus’ presentational strategy seems to have failed; while Elagabalus’ death cannot be simply ascribed to revulsion at the introduction of Elagabal into Rome, the senate condemned Elagabal and Elagabalus simultaneously, suggesting that the god had in fact become distasteful.61 Ironically, however, Elagabalus’ flashier practices may have masked a relatively conventional administration, with few serious failures of governance or administrative idiosyncrasies.