Antoninus Heliogabalus

1. I would never have set down in writing the life of Heliogabalus Antoninus, who was also called Varius, that anyone might know there had been such a Roman emperor, had not the empire already, before him, borne Caligulas and Neros and Vitelliuses of the same sort. But since one and the same earth bears both poisons and grain and other wholesome things, both serpents and tame creatures, the careful reader will strike a balance for himself when he reads of Augustus, Trajan, Vespasian, Hadrian, Pius, Titus, and Marcus as against these monstrous tyrants. At the same time he will understand the judgements of the Romans: that those former emperors ruled long and met a natural death, while these were murdered, dragged through the streets, and even branded tyrants, men whose very names one is loath to utter.

So then, when Macrinus and his son Diadumenus had been killed (the son, who held imperial power on equal terms, had also taken the name Antoninus), the empire was conferred upon Varius Heliogabalus, on the ground that he was said to be the son of Bassianus. He was, however, a priest of Heliogabalus, or of Jupiter, or of the Sun, and had taken to himself the name of Antoninus, either as proof of his lineage or because he had found that name so dear to the nations that even the parricide Bassianus had been loved for the name's sake. At first he was called Varius, and afterwards Heliogabalus from the priesthood of the god Heliogabalus, to whom he built a temple at Rome on the spot where the shrine of Orcus had formerly stood; this god he brought with him from Syria. Finally, when he received the empire, he was called Antoninus, and he was himself the last of the Antonines in the Roman empire.

2. He was so devoted to his mother Symiamira that he did nothing in public affairs without her will, while she herself, living after the manner of a harlot, practised every kind of vileness in the palace. She had been seduced by Antoninus Caracalla, so that Varius, or Heliogabalus, was commonly supposed to have been conceived of that union. And some say that the very name Varius was given him by his schoolfellows for this reason: that, as the child of a harlot, he seemed to have been conceived of mixed seed. He is said, when his reputed father had been slain through the faction of Macrinus, to have fled for refuge to the temple of the god Heliogabalus, as to a sanctuary, lest he be killed by Macrinus, who wielded the empire most savagely together with his luxurious and cruel son. But enough of the name, though he polluted that sacred name of the Antonines, which you, most revered Constantine, so venerate that you have fashioned Marcus and Pius in gold among the Constantii and the Claudii, as though they were your own ancestors, adopting the virtues of the men of old that accord with your own character and are dear and pleasing to you.

3. But to return to Antoninus Varius: having obtained the empire, he sent messengers to Rome, and when all the orders, and indeed the whole people, were roused at the name of Antoninus, which seemed restored not only in title, as had been the case with Diadumenus, but even in blood, since he had described himself as the son of Antoninus Bassianus, a great longing for him arose. There was, besides, also that rumour which is wont to be granted to new emperors after tyrants, a rumour which never lasts unless it rests on the highest virtues, and which many a middling emperor has lost. So when the letter of Heliogabalus was read in the senate, at once auspicious words were spoken for Antoninus and curses against Macrinus and his son, and Antoninus was hailed as emperor with all willing it and eagerly believing, as the hopes of men, hastening toward credulity, are wont to do, when they long for what they desire to be true.

But as soon as he entered the city, neglecting the affairs of the provinces, he consecrated Heliogabalus on the Palatine hill beside the imperial residence, and built him a temple, being eager to transfer into that temple the emblem of the Mother, and the fire of Vesta, and the Palladium, and the shields, and all the things held sacred by the Romans, and to bring it about that no god should be worshipped at Rome save Heliogabalus alone. He used to say, moreover, that the religions of the Jews and the Samaritans and the devotion of the Christians must be transferred thither, so that the priesthood of Heliogabalus might hold the secret of every form of worship.

4. Then, when he first held a session of the senate, he gave orders that his mother be invited into the senate; and when she had come, she was summoned to the consuls' benches and took part in the drawing up of the decree, that is, she was a witness to the framing of the senate's resolution. He was the only one of all the emperors under whom a woman, as though a person of high rank, entered the senate in the place of a man. He also set up on the Quirinal hill a "little senate," that is, a senate of women, in a spot where there had formerly been a gathering of matrons, though only on festal days, and whenever some matron had been presented with the insignia of a consular marriage, which the older emperors used to bestow upon their kinswomen, especially upon those who had not ennobled husbands, so that they might not remain without rank. But under Symiamira ridiculous decrees were passed concerning the rules of the matrons: what dress each should wear in public, who should yield place to whom, who should approach whom for a kiss, who should ride in a carriage, who on a horse, who on a pack-saddle, who on an ass, who in a mule-drawn cart, who in an ox-cart, who be carried in a litter, and whether of leather, or of bone, or inlaid with ivory, or with silver, and which of them might wear gold or jewels on their shoes.

5. So when he had wintered at Nicomedia and was conducting himself in every filthy way, suffering himself to be used by men, the soldiers at once repented of their deed, in that they had conspired against Macrinus to make this man emperor, and they began to incline their hearts toward Alexander, the cousin of this same Heliogabalus, whom the senate, after Macrinus had been slain, had named Caesar. For who could endure an emperor who received lust through every orifice of his body, when no one would tolerate even a beast of that kind? At Rome, in short, he did nothing else than send out agents to seek out for him men with the largest members and to bring them to the palace, so that he might enjoy their endowments. Furthermore, he used to act in his house the story of Paris, himself taking the part of Venus, in such fashion that his garments would suddenly fall to his feet and he would sink to his knees naked, one hand at his breast and the other at his private parts, his buttocks thrust out and presented to his partner; and he would mould his face into the very expression with which Venus is painted, with his whole body smoothed, deeming this the chief enjoyment of life, to seem worthy and apt for the lust of the greatest number.

6. He sold both honours and dignities and powers, both by himself and through all his slaves and the ministers of his lusts. He enrolled men in the senate without regard to age, to property, to birth, but only for money, and he sold even military commands and tribuneships and embassies and generalships, and also procuratorships and palace offices. The charioteers Protogenes and Cordius, at first his companions in the chariot-race, he afterwards made partners in his whole life and conduct. Many men whose bodies had pleased him he transferred from the stage and the Circus and the arena into the palace. Hierocles indeed he loved so dearly that he would kiss him in a place which it is shameful even to mention, declaring that he was thereby celebrating the rites of Flora.

He committed incest with a Vestal Virgin. He profaned the sacred rites of the Roman people by carrying off their inmost objects. He wished to extinguish the eternal fire, and he wished to extinguish not only the religions of the Romans but those throughout the whole world, having one single aim, that the god Heliogabalus might be worshipped everywhere. He burst into the inner sanctuary of Vesta, which only the virgins and only the pontiffs may enter, himself polluted with every defilement of morals, together with those who had defiled themselves. And he attempted to carry off the sacred shrine, and when he had seized a jar as though it were the true one, which the chief Virgin had falsely pointed out to him, and had found nothing in it, he dashed it down and broke it; yet he took nothing from the worship, for there are said to be many jars made alike, so that no one might ever be able to carry off the true one. This being so, he nevertheless carried off the image which he believed to be the Palladium, and, having dipped it in gold, placed it in the temple of his god.

7. He took up also the rites of the Mother of the Gods and was initiated by the taurobolium, that he might carry off her emblem and the other things that are held deeply hidden. He tossed his head among the gelded fanatics, bound his genitals, and did everything that the Galli are wont to do; and he carried off the sacred object and transferred it into the inner sanctuary of his god. He performed too the rite of Salambo with all the wailing and frenzy of the Syrian worship, thereby making for himself an omen of his impending destruction. He used to say, indeed, that all the gods were the servants of his god, calling some of them his chamberlains, others his slaves, and others the ministers of various functions. The stones which are called divine he wished to bring from their own temple, and the image of Diana of Laodicea from its shrine, in which Orestes had placed it. They say, indeed, that Orestes did not set up only one image of Diana, nor in one place, but many in many places. After he had purified himself at the Three Rivers near the Hebrus, according to an oracle, he founded also the city Oresta, which of necessity must often be stained with the blood of men. And this city Oresta Hadrian ordered to be claimed under his own name at the time when he had begun to suffer from madness, in accordance with an oracle, for he had been told to creep into the house or the name of some madman. For from that they say his insanity was softened, the madness through which he had ordered many senators to be killed; and by saving these Antoninus Pius earned his name of Pius, because he afterwards brought back to the senate all those whom they had believed slain at the emperor's command.

8. He even sacrificed human victims, choosing for the purpose noble and handsome boys from all over Italy, who had both their fathers and mothers living, in order, I believe, that the grief of each parent might be the greater. Every sort of magician, in short, attended him and worked daily, while he urged them on and gave thanks to the gods, in that he had found their friends, even as he inspected the entrails of the children and tortured the victims after the manner of his native rite. When he had entered upon the consulship, he flung among the people, to be scrambled for, not coins of silver or gold, nor sweetmeats, nor little animals, but fat oxen and camels and asses and slaves, declaring this to be an imperial act.

He pursued the memory of Macrinus cruelly, but much more that of Diadumenus, because he had been called Antoninus, calling him "Pseudo-Antoninus," and at the same time because, though he had been most dissolute, he was said to have proved a man most brave, most excellent, most weighty, and most stern. He compelled, in fine, certain writers to relate things unspeakable, indeed unbearable to tell, concerning that man's luxury, as is set out in his life.

He built a public bath in the palace buildings, and at the same time threw open the bath of Plautinus to the people, in order that from this he might gather a supply of well-endowed men. And great care was taken that men should be sought out from the whole length of the city and from among the sailors, the so-called "onobeli," for so they used to call those who seemed more virile.

9. When he wished to make war on the Marcomanni, because Antoninus had most gloriously crushed them, it was said by some that Marcus Antoninus had brought it about, through Chaldeans and magicians, that the Marcomanni should always be devoted and friendly to the Roman people, and that this had been done by incantations and a rite of consecration. And when he asked what this was, or where it was, the matter was suppressed; for it was well known that he sought the rite of consecration in order to undo it, in the hope of stirring up war, and chiefly because he had heard there was an oracle that the Marcomannic war must be ended by an Antoninus, whereas this fellow was called Varius and Heliogabalus and the public laughing-stock, while he polluted the name of Antoninus into which he had thrust himself. He was betrayed chiefly by those men who resented that well-endowed men of greater wealth were set up against them for the practice of his lusts. From this, too, men began to plot his death; and so much for what passed within the palace.

10. But the soldiers could not endure that pestilence of an emperor to be cloaked under that name, and first among themselves and then in their assemblies they began to spread talk, all inclining toward Alexander, who was already Caesar, having been named so by the senate at the time when Macrinus was slain, and was the cousin of this Antoninus; for Varia was their common grandmother, whence Heliogabalus was called Varius. Zoticus had such power under him that he was treated by all the chiefs of the bureaus as though he were the consort of the master. This same Zoticus, moreover, abusing this sort of intimacy, sold all the words and deeds of Heliogabalus for empty promises, gathering for himself enormous riches; he threatened some men and made promises to others, and deceived them all, and as he came out from the emperor he would go up to each man and say, "Of you I spoke thus," "Of you I heard this," "This shall befall you." As men of this kind are, who, if they are admitted to too great an intimacy with emperors, sell the reputation not only of bad but even of good emperors, and who feed on infamous rumour-mongering through the folly or the innocence of emperors who do not see through it. He was wedded and bedded, so that he even had a bridesman and would cry out, "Strike home, Magirus!" and that, indeed, at a time when Zoticus was ill. He used then to ask of philosophers and the gravest men whether they too in their youth had suffered what he himself was suffering, and that most shamelessly; for he never spared filthy words, but would show his lewdness with his fingers, and there was no shame in him in any gathering, even with the people listening.

11. He made freedmen governors, legates, consuls, generals, and polluted all the dignities with the baseness of abandoned men. When he had invited noble friends to a vintage and had sat down by the baskets, he began to ask each of the gravest men whether he was ready for love; and when the old men blushed, he would cry out, "He has blushed, all is well!" taking silence and blushing for consent. He added, besides, an account of his own doings, without any veil of shame. After he saw that the old men blushed and were silent, whether because their age or their dignity rejected such things, he turned to the young men and began to inquire of them everything; and when from these he heard things suited to their age, he began to rejoice, saying that this was truly a "free vintage," which he celebrated thus. Many relate that it was first devised by him that at the vintage-festival many jests should be made against the masters, with the masters listening, jests which he himself had composed, and chiefly in Greek; most of these Marius Maximus reports in his life of this same Heliogabalus. There were wicked friends, certain old men too, philosophers in appearance, who would dress their hair in a net, who would say that they themselves submitted to certain shameful acts, who would boast that they had husbands; and some say that they feigned this, in order to become dearer to him by imitating his vices.

12. To the praetorian prefecture he advanced a dancer who had played the mime at Rome; he made the charioteer Cordius prefect of the watch, and a barber, Claudius, prefect of the corn-supply. To the rest of the honours he promoted men recommended to him by the monstrous size of their shameful parts. He ordered a muleteer to administer the five-percent tax on inheritances, and ordered the like of a courier, and a cook, and a maker of locks. When he entered either the Camp or the Senate-house he would bring in with him his grandmother, Varia by name, of whom we have spoken above, so that through her authority he might gain more dignity, since by himself he could not; and no woman before him, as we have already said, had entered the senate in such a way as to be invited to take part in the drafting and to speak her opinion. At banquets he placed catamites by his side especially, and took particular delight in their handling and touch, and from no one would he rather take the cup, when he had drunk from it.

13. Amid these evils of a most shameless life, he ordered Alexander, whom he had adopted, to be removed from him, saying that he repented of the adoption, and he gave instructions to the senate that the name of Caesar be taken from him. But when this was made known in the senate, there was a vast silence; for Alexander was an excellent young man, as was afterward proved by the nature of his rule, since the one reason he displeased his "father" was that he was not unchaste. He was, moreover, the cousin of the emperor, as some say, and was loved even by the soldiers and was acceptable to the senate and to the equestrian order; yet the madness was not wanting, even to the consummation of his most wicked wish. For he sent assassins against him, and in this manner: he himself withdrew to the gardens of Old Hope, as though framing vows against the young man, leaving in the palace his mother and grandmother and his cousin, and he ordered that the young man, excellent and necessary to the state, be slain. He sent also a letter to the soldiers, by which he ordered that the name of Caesar be taken from Alexander; he sent men also to cover with mud the inscriptions on his statues in the Camp, as is wont to be done with tyrants; he sent also to Alexander's tutors, whom he charged, under the hope of rewards and honours, to kill him in whatever way they wished,

14. whether in the bath or by poison or by the sword. But the wicked accomplish nothing against the innocent; for by no force could any man be brought to perform so great a crime, and the weapons he was preparing for others were turned rather against himself, and by those whom he was assailing he was himself slain. But as soon as the inscriptions of the statues had been daubed with mud, all the soldiers blazed up, and some set out for the palace, others for the gardens in which Varius was, in order to avenge Alexander and at last to drive from the state a man both foul and of a parricidal mind. And when they had come into the palace, they led Alexander, who with his mother and grandmother had been most carefully guarded, afterward into the Camp; and Symiamira, the mother of Heliogabalus, followed them on foot, anxious for her son. Thence they went to the gardens, where Varius was found preparing a chariot-race, yet waiting most intently for word to be brought him that his cousin had been slain. He, suddenly terrified by the uproar of the soldiers, hid himself in a corner and covered himself with the curtain of the bedchamber that hung at the entrance, while the prefects were sent, one to the Camp to restrain the soldiers, the other to appease those who had already come into the gardens. Antiochianus, then, one of the prefects, by reminding the soldiers who had come into the gardens of their oath, prevailed upon them not to kill him, since not many had come, and most of them had stayed behind with the standard, which the tribune Aristomachus

15. had held back. So much for the gardens. But in the Camp the soldiers said to the prefect who entreated them that they would spare Heliogabalus, if he would remove from himself the impure men and the charioteers and the actors, and return to a sound manner of life, with especial removal of those who, to the grief of all, had the greatest power over him and who sold all his favours, whether truly or by empty promises. So there were removed from him Hierocles, Cordius, and Mirissimus, and two wicked intimates, who made him, from a fool, more foolish still. The soldiers further charged the prefects not to suffer him to live longer in this way, and that Alexander be guarded, nor any violence be offered him; and likewise that Caesar should see no friend of the Augustus, lest any imitation of his foulness arise. But Heliogabalus with vehement entreaty demanded back Hierocles, that most shameless man, and day by day pressed forward his plots against Caesar. At last, on the first of January, when both had been designated consuls together, he refused to go forth in procession with his cousin; and finally, when his grandmother and his mother told him that the soldiers were threatening his destruction unless they saw concord between the cousins, he put on the praetexta and at the sixth hour of the day went forth to the senate, his grandmother having been summoned to the senate and conducted to her seat. Then he refused to go to the Capitol to make the vows and perform the solemn rites, and everything was done by the urban praetor, as though the consuls were not there.

16. Nor did he put off the murder of his cousin; but fearing lest the senate might incline toward some other man than himself if he had killed his cousin, he suddenly ordered the senate to depart from the city, and all who lacked either carriages or slaves were ordered to set out forthwith, so that some were carried by porters, others on chance beasts and on hired mounts. Sabinus, a man of consular rank, to whom Ulpian dedicated his books, because he had remained in the city, he ordered to be killed, summoning a centurion and speaking the words too softly; but the centurion, being rather hard of hearing, believed that he was ordered to drive him from the city, and so he did; thus the centurion's defect was Sabinus's salvation. He removed also Ulpian the jurist, as being a good man, and Silvinus the rhetorician, whom he had made tutor to Caesar; and Silvinus indeed was slain, but Ulpian was spared. But the soldiers, and especially the praetorians, whether knowing what evils were being prepared against Heliogabalus, or because they saw the odium upon themselves, formed a conspiracy to free the state, and first . . . the accomplices . . . by a kind of death, killing some by tearing out their vital organs, piercing others through from the lowest part, so that the death might be consonant with the life.

17. After this an attack was made upon him, and he was killed in a latrine to which he had fled. Then he was dragged through the public streets; and an insult was added to the corpse, in that the soldiers thrust it into a sewer. But since the sewer chanced not to take it, it was thrown from the Aemilian bridge, with a weight attached so that it might not float, into the Tiber, that it might never be buried. The corpse was dragged, too, through the spaces of the Circus before it was hurled into the Tiber. His name, that is, of Antoninus, was erased at the bidding of the senate, and there remained that of Varius Heliogabalus, since he had retained the former by pretension, when he wished to seem the son of Antoninus. After his death he was called Tiberinus and Tractatius and the Defiled, and many other names, whenever those things had to be designated that seemed to have been done under him; and he was the only one of all emperors both dragged and thrown into a sewer and hurled into the Tiber. This befell him through the common hatred of all, against which emperors should especially be on their guard, since indeed they do not deserve even a tomb who do not deserve the love of the senate, the people, and the soldiers.

Of his public works there survive none save the temple of the god Heliogabalus (whom some call the Sun, others Jupiter), and the restoration of the Amphitheatre after the fire, and the bath in the Sulpician quarter, which Antoninus the son of Severus had begun. This bath, indeed, Antoninus Caracalla had dedicated by bathing in it and admitting the people, but the porticoes were lacking, which were afterward built by this counterfeit Antoninus and completed by Alexander.

18. This man was the last of the Antonines (although many think that the later Gordians, by surname, were also Antonines, who were in fact called Antonii, not Antonini), so hateful in his life, his character, and his wickedness that the senate erased even his name. I would not have called him Antoninus myself, save for the sake of identification, which often compels even those names to be uttered that have been abolished. There was slain with him also his mother Symiamira, a most infamous woman and worthy of her son; and it was decreed, above all, after Antoninus Heliogabalus, that no woman should ever enter the senate, and that the head of any man through whom this should be done should be devoted and consecrated to the gods below.

Many obscene things have been set down in writing concerning his life, which, because they are not worthy of mention, I have judged that those alone should be made known which pertain to his luxury, some of which he is reported to have done as a private man, others now as emperor, since he himself used to say that, as a private man, he imitated Apicius, but as an emperor,

19. Otho and Vitellius. For he was the first of all private men to cover his couches with cloths of gold, since at that time this might be done by the authority of Marcus Antoninus, who had publicly sold off all the imperial appointments. Next he presented summer banquets distinguished by colours, so that on one day he would display green, another day glass-blue, and then sea-blue in turn, always varying through all the summer days. He was the first, then, to have silver self-boiling pots, the first too to have silver cooking-pans. Then he had silver vessels weighing a hundred pounds, engraved, and some of them defiled with the most lascivious figures. He was the first to devise wine flavoured with mastic and with pennyroyal, and all those things which luxury now retains. For wine flavoured with roses, which he received from others, he made more fragrant by adding the bruising of pine-cones; indeed, these kinds of drinks are not recorded before Heliogabalus. Nor had he any life save the seeking out of pleasures. He first made forcemeats of fish, first of oysters and shell-fish and other such marine shells, and of crayfish and prawns and shrimps. He strewed the dining-couches too with roses, and the beds and the porticoes, and so walked about, and that with every kind of flower, with lilies, violets, hyacinths, and narcissi. He never swam save in pools steeped with costly unguent or with saffron. Nor did he readily lie down on couches unless they were stuffed with hare's fur or the down from beneath partridges' wings, and he often changed the cushions.

20. The senate he sometimes so despised that he called them "slaves in togas"; he called the Roman people "the tillers of a single farm," and held the equestrian order of no account at all. He often invited the city prefect after dinner to drink with him, with the praetorian prefects also summoned, so that, if they refused, the masters of the offices compelled them. He wished, too, to make city prefects throughout each region of the city, so that there might be fourteen in the city, and he would have done so had he lived, intending to promote all the basest men and men of the lowest calling. This man had couches made of solid silver, both for dining and for the bedchamber. He often ate, in imitation of Apicius, the heels of camels and the combs cut from living cocks, and the tongues of peacocks and nightingales, because it was said that one who ate them was safe from the plague. He set before the palace guests too huge platters heaped with the entrails of mullets, and with the brains of flamingos, and the eggs of partridges, and the brains of thrushes, and the heads of parrots and pheasants and peacocks. The beards of mullets, indeed, he ordered to be served in such quantity that he would set them forth in heaped bowls and dishes in place of cress, parsley, beans, and fenugreek, which is especially astonishing.

21. He fed dogs on the livers of geese. He kept as pets lions and leopards with their claws and teeth drawn, which, trained by keepers, he would order suddenly to lie down at the second and third course, while all were ignorant that they had been disarmed, in order to stir up ridiculous panic. He sent also Apamean grapes into the mangers for his horses, and fed lions and other animals on parrots and pheasants. He served wild-boar udders for ten days, thirty a day, together with their wombs, serving peas with grains of gold, lentils with onyx-stones, beans with amber, and rice with pearls. Pearls, moreover, he sprinkled on fish and truffles in place of pepper. In his banqueting-rooms with movable ceilings he smothered his parasites with violets and flowers, so that some of them breathed out their lives, being unable to crawl out to the top. He flavoured his swimming-pools and bathing-tubs with spiced wine and with wine flavoured with rose and wormwood. He invited the common folk to drink, and himself drank with the people so much that, seeing what one man had drunk, you would have understood that he had drunk a whole pool. As party-gifts he gave eunuchs; he gave four-horse chariots, horses with their trappings, mules, sedan-chairs, and carriages; he gave too

22. a thousand gold pieces and a hundred pounds of silver. As banquet-lots he had inscriptions written on spoons, of such a kind that one man would draw "ten camels," another "ten flies," another "ten pounds of gold," another "ten of lead," another "ten ostriches," another "ten hens' eggs," so that they were truly lots and fates were put to the test. And this indeed he displayed at his games also, where he had in the lottery ten bears, ten dormice, ten lettuces, and ten pounds of gold; and he was the first to establish this custom of the lottery which we now see. But he summoned the stage-folk to a real lottery, where he had in the lottery dead dogs and a pound of beef, and likewise a hundred gold pieces and a thousand silver and a hundred bags of copper, and other such things, which the people received so gladly that they afterward rejoiced that he was emperor.

23. He is said to have presented mock sea-fights in canals filled with wine, to have poured out cloaks dyed with the juice of wild-vine flowers, to have driven four-horse chariots of elephants on the Vatican, the tombs that stood in the way being destroyed, and to have yoked four camels apiece to chariots in a private spectacle in the Circus. He is said to have had serpents collected by priests of the Marsian people, and suddenly, before dawn, when the people are wont to gather for the crowded games, to have poured them out, and many were stricken by their bite and in the flight. He used a tunic all of gold, and one of purple, and one of Persian make set with jewels, complaining that he was burdened with the weight of his pleasure. He had jewels on his shoes too, and those engraved, which moved everyone to laughter, as though the engravings of noble craftsmen could be seen in the jewels that clung to his feet. He wished to use also a diadem set with jewels, that he might become more beautiful and more fitted to a woman's face, and he did use it at home. He is said to have promised the phoenix to his guests, or in its stead a thousand pounds of gold, so that he might dismiss them from the palace with these. He displayed pools of sea-water, especially in inland places, and dismissed them to his friends as they swam, and again filled them with fish. He made in summer a mountain of snow in the garden of his house, the snow being brought thither; at the sea he never ate fish, but in places far from the sea he always served everything from the sea, and in inland places he fed his rustics on the milt of lampreys and pike.

24. He always ate fish cooked, as though in sea-water, in their own colour, with a sea-blue sauce. He displayed pools instantly made of rose-water and roses, and bathed with all his company, serving them hot baths of nard. The same man burned balsam in his lamps. The same man never had the same woman twice, except his wife. He set up brothels in his house for his friends, his clients, and his slaves. The same man never dined at less cost than a hundred thousand sesterces, that is, thirty pounds of silver; and sometimes he dined at the cost of three million sesterces, when all that he spent was reckoned up. Indeed, he surpassed the banquets of both Vitellius and Apicius. He drew fish from his fish-ponds with oxen. Passing through the meat-market he wept over the poverty of the public; he used to bind his parasites to a water-wheel and send them down beneath the water with its turning, and roll them up again to the top, and he called them "river Ixions." He paved too with Spartan and porphyry stones the squares on the Palatine, which he called the Antonine squares; these stones lasted down to our own memory, but were lately dug up and cut out. He had also resolved to set up one huge column, to be ascended within, so that he might place the god Heliogabalus on its summit; but he could not find so great a stone, though he had thought to bring it from the Thebaid.

25. He often shut up his friends when drunk, and suddenly, in the night, let in lions and leopards and bears with their claws and teeth drawn, so that when they awoke they would find in the same bedchamber lions, bears, and leopards, either by daylight or, what is worse, by night, and from this many died of fright. For many of his meaner friends he strewed inflated bags in place of cushions, and let the air out of them while they were dining, so that often, in the midst of dining, they were suddenly found beneath the tables. He was the first, indeed, to devise spreading the semicircular couch on the ground, not on benches, so that bags might be loosed at their feet by boys to let out the air. In his mimic adulteries he ordered those things which are usually done in pretence to be done in earnest. He often bought up courtesans from all the procurers and set them free. When, amid intimate conversation, talk had arisen as to how many men in the city of Rome might be ruptured, he ordered them all to be marked down and brought to his baths and bathed with them, including some men of rank. Before a banquet he watched gladiators fighting, and boxers frequently. He spread for himself a dining-couch on the top of a sporting-ground, and, while he dined, presented to himself condemned men and hunting-shows. To his parasites at the second course he often presented a waxen banquet, often a wooden one, often one of ivory, sometimes of earthenware, sometimes even of marble or of stone, so that all that he himself ate was set before them, to be looked upon, made of different material, while they drank only at each course and washed their hands as though they had eaten.

26. He is said to have been the first of the Romans to use a garment all of silk, when half-silk garments were already in use. Linen that had been washed he never touched, calling those men beggars who used washed linens. He was often seen in public after dinner wearing a Dalmatian tunic, calling himself "Fabius Gurges" and "Scipio," because he was clothed in the same garment in which Fabius and Cornelius had been brought before the public by their parents as youths, to amend their ways. All the courtesans from the Circus, the theatre, the Stadium, and from every place and the baths he gathered into the public buildings, and held before them a harangue as though a military one, calling them his fellow-soldiers, and discoursing on the kinds of postures and of pleasures. He brought afterward to such a harangue procurers and catamites gathered from everywhere, and the most dissolute young boys and young men; and when he had come forth to the courtesans in a woman's dress with a breast thrust out, he came to the catamites in the garb of boys who prostitute themselves. After the harangue he proclaimed to them, as though to soldiers, a donative of three gold pieces each, and asked them to pray to the gods that they might have others to recommend to him.

He used to jest with his slaves in such a way that he would order them to bring him a thousand pounds of cobwebs, a reward being set; and he is said to have collected ten thousand pounds of cobwebs, saying that from this it could be understood how great Rome was. He sent to his parasites, in place of the storehouse of their yearly allowance, jars filled with frogs and scorpions, and with serpents and monsters of that kind. He shut up in such jars countless flies, calling them tame bees.

27. He always presented to himself in the dining-rooms and the porticoes the four-horse chariots of the Circus, while he ate his lunch and his dinner, compelling old men, some of them men of rank, to drive them. Now as emperor he would order ten thousand mice to be presented to him, a thousand weasels, a thousand shrews. He had such confectioners and dairy-cooks that whatever the cooks, or the carvers, or the fruiterers had presented from various foods, those men would present, now of sweetmeats, now of dairy-stuffs. He presented to his parasites banquets even of glass, and sometimes sent onto the table as many painted napkins, painted with the foods that were to be set on, as there were to be courses, so that they were displayed either in needlework or in woven painting. Sometimes, however, painted panels were displayed to them, so that all things, as it were, were set before them, and yet they were worn out with hunger. He mixed jewels with apples and flowers, and threw out of the window foods as many as he had displayed to his friends. He had even ordered that one year's grain-ration of the Roman people be given to the courtesans, procurers, and catamites within the walls, with a further promise to those without the walls, though at that time, in accordance with the provision of Severus and Trajan, there was at Rome a seven-years' store of grain.

28. He yoked four huge dogs to a chariot and was so carried about within the royal house, and this same thing he did as a private man on his estates. He went forth in public yoked also with four huge stags; he yoked lions too to himself, calling himself the Great Mother; he yoked tigers also, calling himself Liber, and behaving in the same garb in which the gods are painted whom he was imitating. He kept little Egyptian snakes at Rome, which they call agathodaemones; he had hippopotami too, and a crocodile and a rhinoceros, and all the Egyptian creatures that could by their nature be displayed. He served ostriches at his banquets several times, saying that it had been commanded to the Jews that they should eat them.

That, indeed, seems remarkable which is said to have been done by him, that he strewed a couch with saffron, when he had invited the highest men to lunch, saying that, according to their dignity, he was serving them hay. He turned day-doings into night and night-doings into day, reckoning this among the instruments of luxury, so that he would rise late from sleep and begin his levee, but begin to sleep in the morning. He received friends daily, and would not readily leave any of them ungifted, except one whom he found to be honest, as though abandoned.

29. He had twin carriages, gilded, despising those of silver and ivory and bronze. He yoked four most beautiful women, and two to a little carriage, or three and more, and so was carried about, but generally naked, while the naked women drew him. He had this custom too, of inviting eight bald men to dinner, and likewise eight one-eyed, and likewise eight gouty men, eight deaf men, eight black men, eight tall men, and eight fat men, who, since they could not be contained in one semicircle, would raise laughter at the expense of them all. He gave to his guests all the silver he had at the banquet, and all the furnishing of cups, and that often. He was the first of the Roman generals to display publicly the fish-sauce called hydrogarum, whereas before it had been a soldiers' dish, which afterward Alexander at once restored to its place. He set before them, moreover, as it were problems, that they should devise new sauces for the seasoning of foods, and to him whose invention had pleased he gave a very great reward, so that he would present a silk garment, which then was seen as a rarity and held in honour; but if a sauce had displeased, he would order the inventor always to eat of it, until he should devise something better. He always sat either among flowers or among precious perfumes. He loved that higher prices should be named to him for those things that were prepared for the table, declaring that this was the appetizer of the banquet.

30. He painted himself as a sweet-seller, as a perfume-dealer, as a cook-shop keeper, as a tavern-keeper, as a procurer, and all this he always practised at home. The heads of six hundred ostriches he served at a single dinner on many tables, that the brains might be eaten. He once presented also such a banquet that he had twenty-two courses of enormous viands, but at each course they washed and used women, both he himself and his friends, with an oath that they would achieve their pleasure. He celebrated likewise such a banquet that single courses were prepared at the houses of his several friends; and though one of them dwelt on the Capitol, another on the Palatine, another above the Agger, another on the Caelian, another across the Tiber, yet in each man's house, wherever he dwelt, the single courses were eaten in order, and they went to the houses of all; so that one banquet was scarcely finished in a whole day, since at each course they washed and used women. He always served the Sybaritic dish made of oil and fish-sauce, which in the very year the Sybarites discovered it they also perished. He is said too to have built baths in many places and to have bathed once and then at once destroyed them, that he might not have baths for use; and the same thing he is said to have done with houses, with mansions, and with country-villas. But both these and certain other things that pass belief I believe to have been invented by those who wished, to gratify Alexander, to disfigure Heliogabalus.

31. He is said too to have bought up a most famous and most beautiful courtesan for a hundred thousand sesterces and to have kept her untouched, as though a virgin. When, while still a private man, someone said to him, "Are you not afraid of becoming poor?" he is said to have answered, "What better than that I should be my own heir, and my wife's?" He had, moreover, properties left to him by many out of regard for his father; the same man used to say that he did not wish for sons, lest any honest child should be born to him. He ordered Indian perfumes to be burned without coals to fill his chambers with their vapour. As a private man he never made a journey with fewer than sixty carriages, though his grandmother Varia protested that he would lose all he had. As emperor, indeed, he is said to have led even six hundred carriages, alleging that the king of the Persians travelled with ten thousand camels, and that Nero had made a journey with five hundred wagons. The cause of the carriages was the multitude of procurers, bawds, courtesans, catamites, and even well-endowed minions. In the baths he was always with women, so that he himself treated them with a depilatory, and likewise dressed his own beard with a depilatory, and, what is shameful to tell, with the same drug with which the women were treated, and at the same hour. He shaved the private parts of his minions with a razor, with his own hand, with which afterward he trimmed his beard. He strewed the portico with the dust of gold and of silver, grieving that he could not do so with amber too, and that often, wherever he made his way on foot up to his horse or his carriage, as is done today with golden sand.

32. He never wore the same shoes twice, and he is said never to have worn the same rings twice. He often tore up costly garments. He caught a whale and weighed it, and served to his friends fish to the value of its weight. He sank ships laden with cargo in the harbour, saying that this was a mark of greatness of soul. He received the burden of his belly in vessels of gold, and he made water in vessels of murra and onyx. He is said to have said, "If I have an heir, I will give him a guardian who will compel him to do these things which I myself have done and shall do." He had also this custom, of presenting to himself banquets such that on one day he would eat nothing but pheasants and build all his courses of pheasant-flesh alone; likewise on another day of chickens, on another of this fish, and likewise that, on another of pork, on another of ostriches, on another of vegetables, on another of fruits, on another of sweets, on another of dairy-fare. He often shut up his friends with old Ethiopian hags for the night's lodging and kept them until daylight, telling them that the most beautiful women had been provided for them. He did the same too with boys, and then, before Philip's time as it was, this was permitted. He sometimes laughed in such a way that, in public, in the theatre, he alone could be heard. He himself sang, danced, recited to the flutes, blew the trumpet, played the pandura, and modulated on the organ. He is said too on one day to have gone in to all the courtesans of the Circus, the theatre, the Amphitheatre, and all the places of the city, covered with a muleteer's hood that he might not be recognized, and yet to all the courtesans, without the consummation of his lust, he gave gold pieces, adding, "Let no one know; Antoninus gives these."

33. He devised certain kinds of lusts, that he might surpass the spintriae of the wicked men of old, and he knew all the apparatus of Tiberius and Caligula and Nero. And it had been foretold to him by the Syrian priests that he would die a violent death. He had therefore prepared cords twisted of purple and silk and scarlet, by which, if it were necessary, he might end his life with the noose. He had prepared too golden swords, with which to kill himself if any force pressed upon him. He had prepared poisons also in cerauniae and hyacinths and emeralds, by which to make away with himself if any graver thing threatened. He had built too a very high tower, with gilded and jewelled boards spread before it, from which to hurl himself down, saying that even his death must be costly and for a show of luxury, that it might be said that no one had perished thus. But none of these things availed; for, as we have said, he was both killed by ruffians, and dragged through the streets, and most foully drawn through the sewers, and let down into the Tiber. This was the end of the name of the Antonines in the state, all men knowing that this Antoninus was as false in his life as in his name.

34. It may perhaps seem strange to someone, venerable Constantine, that this calamity which I have related held the place of an emperor, and that indeed for nearly three years; so that there was then no one in the state who would draw this man from the helm of Roman majesty, whereas a tyrant-slayer was never wanting to Nero, Vitellius, Caligula, and the rest of that kind. But first of all I myself beg pardon that I have committed to writing these things which I found in various authors, although I have kept silent about many wicked deeds, even such as cannot be spoken without the greatest shame, while those I have told I have veiled, so far as I could, by employing a covering of words. Next, I believed I must have regard to that which your Clemency is wont to say, "To be emperor is a matter of fortune." For there have been kings both less good and very bad; but the thing to do is what your Piety is wont to say: that those whom a fatal force has brought to the necessity of ruling should be worthy of empire. And since this man was the last of the Antonines, and afterward this name was not used in the state in the place of emperors, this too must be added, lest any error arise when I shall have begun to tell of the two Gordians, father and son, who wished to be said to be of the family of the Antonines: in them it was not a name in the first place but a praenomen; and next, as I find in very many books, they were called Antonii, not Antonini.

35. These things are of Heliogabalus, whose life, gathered from Greek and Latin authors, you wished me, unwilling and reluctant, to write and to offer to you, since we have already produced the lives of others before. I shall now begin to write of those who follow after, of whom Alexander is the best and must be described with care, an emperor at thirteen years of age; others ruled six months, and scarcely a year, and two years; Aurelian was outstanding, and the glory of all these was Claudius, the founder of your line, of whom I fear, in writing to your Clemency, to tell the truth, lest I seem a flatterer to the ill-disposed; but I shall be acquitted against the spite of the wicked, since I have perceived that he is held in honour among others also. To these must be joined Diocletian, the father of a golden age, and Maximian, as is commonly said, of an iron one, and the rest down to your Piety. But you, venerable Augustus, those who follow will pursue in many pages, and those more eloquent, to whom a happier nature has granted this. To these must be added Licinius and Maxentius, the right over all of whom has come into your dominion, but in such a way that nothing is taken from their virtue. For I will not do what very many writers are wont to do, namely, to detract from those who have been conquered, since I understand that it adds to your glory if I truly proclaim all the good things which they had in themselves.