Heliogabalus

Anon. (1588?)
		Bust of Heliogabalus

Historical Records

S.R.I (3.309^v)

19 June 1594

John Danter./.		Entred for his Copie vnder th[e h]ande of Master Cawood an enterlude entituled GODFREY of Bulloigne with the Conquest of Jerusalem
John Danter./		Item an other enterlude of the lyfe and Deathe of HELIOGABILUS		xijd

Theatrical Provenance

The entry in the Stationers' Register gives no clue to company ownership or theatrical venue (but see For What It's Worth, below). If the reference by Robert Greene to Heliogabalus is to the lost play, it was most likely on stage in the same time frame as Marlowe's two-part Tamburlaine c . 1588 (see References to the Play, below).

Probable Genre(s)

Classical Tragedy

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

Heliogabalus, born Varius Avitus Bassianus c. 203 CE (also called "false Antoninus" and "Sardanapalus" by Cassius Dio), ruled from 218 to 222 CE. He was well known in the works of Roman historians and Elizabethan moralists for his extreme and perverse religiousity, reign of terror, and debauchery. He acquired the name, Elagabalus, or Heliogabalus, for his worship of the Syrian sun god of that name; when he became emperor, he promoted the rites of Elagabalus over those of Jupiter. He was killed (and his mother with him) by his own guard.

Selected Roman Sources

Herodian (c. 170-240 CE), History of the Roman Empire Since Marcus Aurelius (Book V livius.org)

Herodian emphasizes the actions by Heliogabalus to supplant the worship of traditional Roman gods with that of the Syrian sun god, Elabagalus. Heliogabalus had been raised as a priest of this god, and Herodian links his dress and behavior to perverse religious rites. Heliogabalus wore silk robes of an effeminate style, used women's make-up, and "danced around the altars to music played on every kind of instrument" (V.5). This style was so unRoman that he had a large picture of himself dressed in his favorite garb set up in the Roman Senate House so that officials would become familiar with his looks (V.5). Heliogabalus himself married three times, and he married his sun god to the moon goddess, Urania (V.6). He staged lavish spectacles with animal sacrifice, tossing gifts wantonly to the crowds who then trampled one another to grab the rewards (V.6). In one festival, Heliogabalus rigged a chariot drawn by six large white horses; in the chariot was a statue of the god, looking as if he held the reins. Heliogabalus ran backwards in front of the chariot with the actual reins in his hands. The streets were strewn with sand laced with gold so that he had better purchase as he ran, and "bodyguards supported him on each side to protect him from injury" (V.6).

Herodian's secondary focus is Heliogabalus's promotion of underlings including "charioteers, comedians, and actors of mimes" to positions of power (V.7).

Two women—his grandmother and mother—attempted to molify public opinion against Heliogabalus's excesses, but they were unable in the end to prevent his being attacked along with his mother (Soaemias) and killed; "when the bodies had been dragged throughout the city, the mutilated corpses were thrown into the public sewer which flows into the Tiber" (V.8).

Cassius Dio (c . 155-229 CE), Roman History ((www.livius.org)

Dio calls Heliogabalus by various names: "False Antonius," "the Assyrian," and "Sardanapalus"; here I use his choice, Sardanapalus. (LXXIX). After naming a number of Roman VIPs who were executed by one faction or another in the lead-up to the succession of Sardanapalus, Dio turns in most judgmental tones to the emperor's perversions.

On Syrian rites: Dio describes rituals attended also by Sardanapalus' mother and grandmother, with barbaric chants and secret sacrifices of slain boys and "shutting up alive in the god's temple a lion, a monkey, and a snake, and throwing in among them human genitals, and practising other unholy rites, while he invariably wore innumerable amulets" (p. 461, margin). Dio says that Sardanapalus "had planned, indeed, to cut off his genitals altogether, but that desire was prompted solely by his effeminacy; the circumcision which he actually carried out was a part of the priestly requirements of Elagabalus, and he accordingly mutilated many of his companions in like manner." These practices, according to Dio, as well as his appearing in public "clad in the barbaric dress which the Syrian priests use" gave him the "nickname of 'The Assyrian'" (p. 457, margin). He also sought an operation to make his body bi-sexual: "he asked the physicians to contrive a woman's vagina in his body by means of an incision" (p. 471, margin).

On promiscuity and gender-bending (p. 463, margin): Sardanapalus "wanted to imitate [women's] actions when he should lie with his lovers." "He would go to the taverns by night, wearing a wig, and there ply the trade of a female huckster. He frequented the notorious brothels, drove out the prostitutes, and played the prostitute himself." He designated "a room in the palace and there committed his indecencies, always standing nude at the door of the room, as the harlots do, and shaking the curtain which hung from gold rings, while in a soft and melting voice he solicited the passers-by." Dio comments with disgust not only on the willingness of men to participate as lovers and the money made from his patrons. Other transgendered activities: Sardanapalus "worked with wool, sometimes wore a hair-net, and painted his eyes, daubing them with white lead and alkanet. Once, indeed, he shaved his chin and held a festival to mark the event; but after that he had the hairs plucked out, so as to look more like a woman. And he often reclined while receiving the salutations of the senators (p. 465, margin).

On marriages (p. 459, margin): Sardanapalus "married Cornelia Paula, in order, as he said, that he might sooner become a father — he who could not even be a man!" He held an elaborate festival with banquets, gladiator contests, "and various wild beasts were slain, including an elephant and fifty-one tigers." Later divorcing Paula "on the ground that she had some blemish on her body," he then "cohabited with Aquilia Severa," a legally inviolable Vestal Virgin. Dio is contemptuous of Sardanapalus' boast that he took Severa in order to bear "godlike children"; Dio thinks he should have been "scourged in the Forum, thrown into prison, and then put to death." After this second marriage, he took additional wives but "returned to Severa." Dio scoffs at "the extreme absurdity" of Sardanapalus' marrying his sun god, Elagabalus, to Urania, the Carthagenian moon goddess: "as if the god had any need of marriage and children!" (p. 461, margin)

On commoners: Dio recounts how Hierocles, originally a slave, attracted Sardanapalus' attention during a chariot race when Hierocles "fell out of his chariot just opposite the seat of Sardanapalus, losing his helmet in his fall, and being still beardless and adorned with a crown of yellow hair, he attracted the attention of the emperor and was immediately rushed to the palace; and there by his nocturnal feats he captivated Sardanapalus more than ever and became exceedingly powerful" (p. 467, margin). Another slave, Aurelius Zoticus, charmed Sardanapalus by his masculine endowment and prowess, but Hierocles played a trick on the new favorite: "This Aurelius not only had a body that was beautiful all over, seeing that he was an athlete, but in particular he greatly surpassed all others in the size of his private parts." Sardanapalus had him brought to Rome. "Sardanapalus, on seeing him, sprang up with rhythmic movements, and then, when Aurelius addressed him with the usual salutation, "My Lord Emperor, Hail!" he bent his neck so as to assume a ravishing feminine pose, and turning his eyes upon him with a melting gaze, answered without any hesitation: "Call me not Lord, for I am a Lady." Then Sardanapalus immediately joined him in the bath, and finding him when stripped to be equal to his reputation, burned with even greater lust, reclined on his breast, and took dinner, like some loved mistress, in his bosom." Hierocles, jealous, "caused the cup-bearers ... to administer a drug that abated the other's manly prowess. And so Zoticus, after a whole night of embarrassment, being unable to secure an erection, was deprived of all the honours that he had received, and was driven out of the palace, out of Rome, and later out of the rest of Italy" (p. 469, margin).

On his death: Sardanapalus at first curried favor with his likely successor, Alexander, but then turned paranoid and plotted to destroy him. Alexander's supporters (including his grandmother and mother) aborted the plot, and Saradanapalus attempted "to flee, and would have got away somewhere by being placed in a chest, had he not been discovered and slain, at the age of eighteen. His mother, who embraced him and clung tightly to him, perished with him; their heads were cut off and their bodies, after being stripped naked, were first dragged all over the city, and then the mother's body was cast aside somewhere or other, while his was thrown into the river" (p. 477-9, margin).

Historia Augusta www.livius.org

According to livius.org, the Historia Augusta is a collection of bogus biographies in Latin of Roman emperors (Herodian and Cassius Dio's histories are in Greek). The author lived in the early Christian era; he appears to have cribbed his narrative from Marius Maximus, a contemporary of Heliogabalus' successor, Alexander. This source adds little to the biography of Heliogabalus beyond greater outrage. Below are listed details that apparently influenced sixteenth-century commentary on Heliogabalus:

• Heliogabalus' mother's name was Symiamira; she is herself presented in this history as a harlot. Her influence over her son even after he became emperor was constant and pernicious. Examples are given of her rules on clothing, public behavior, and transport by horseback or carriage (p. 115, margin)

• Heliogabalus required that not only Roman worshippers but Jews, Samaritans, and Christians transfer their rites to Elagabalus (p. 113, margin)

• According to this source, Zoticus and Heliogabalus were married (p. 129, margin).

• Heliogabalus "used to have the story of Paris played in his house, and he himself would take the rôle of Venus, and suddenly drop his clothing to the ground and fall naked on his knees, one hand on his breast, the other before his private parts, his buttocks projecting meanwhile and thrust back in front of his partner in depravity" (p. 115, margin)

• This source names two charioteers whom Heliogabalus promoted: Protogenes and Cordius (Dio's "Gordius") (p. 117, margin). It also elaborates on other commoners who were promoted beyond their state: "As prefect of the guard he appointed a dancer who had been on the stage at Rome, as prefect of the watch a chariot-driver named Cordius [named above], and as prefect of the grain-supply a barber named Claudius, and to the other posts of distinction he advanced men whose sole recommendation was the enormous size of their privates." Others promoted but not named are a mule-driver, a courier, a cook, and a locksmith (p. 131, margin).

• Expanding on Dio's point about the sacrifice of male children, this source claims that Heliogabalus "collected from the whole of Italy children of noble birth and beautiful appearance, whose fathers and mothers were alive, intending, I suppose, that the sorrow, if suffered by two parents, should be all the greater." He kept magicians to torture the children, and he studied "the children's vitals" (p. 123, margin).

• The implication of Dante's contrapasso is in this source in its description of the deaths of Heliogabalus' supporters, "killing some by tearing out the vital organs and others by piercing the anus, so that their deaths were as evil as their lives" (p. 141, margin).

Selected Sixteenth-Century English Commentators

References to Heliogabalus are common in treatises on government and morality. Thomas Elyot (1537) lists him as one of several "monstruous emperours" of the Roman period (f.97v, specifying that he "consumed infinite treasures in bordell houses" and enriched "slaues, concubynes, and baudes" (f. 132v). George Joye (1545) contrasts Nebuchadnezzar, a penitent king, with Heliogabalus, "a wyked kinge restorynge idolatrye" (62). The French emblemist Pierre Coustau (1555) mocks Heliogabalus by depicting his senate filled with strumpets, the emperor himself in feminine garb. Lodowick Lloyd (1573) calls Heliogabalus "the beast of Rome" (f. 161v); he writes a short poem on the manner of Heliogabalus' death "in a iakes" (f. 136v, elaborating that "Heliogabalus was killed vpon his stoole at his easemente" (f. 145).
		Coustau's "Senate of Heliogabalus"

Richard Rainolde, A Chronicle of all the Noble Emperours of the Romaines, 1571, ff. 75^v-79^v

Rainolde makes much in his "Epistle to the Reader" of history as a "study right profitable for all men, for magistrates, [and] for princes." He presents histories as "a spurre to vertue, a bridle to represse vice in all that fear God." His history encompasses more than the promised Roman emperors (beginning with Julius Caesar) in that he includes English kings up to Henry VIII and European princes such as Emperor Charles V. In this survey, Rainolde provides a comparatively sketchy portrait of Heliogabalus.

What is striking about Rainolde's treatment of Heliogabalus (whom he often calls "Bassianus" is his discretion in regard to Heliogabalus' vices. Rainolde describes the emperor's male companions as "certaine gallants ... whose pleasure was in Courtly behauiour, and all thinges delectable to delight a Prince" (f. 76). Rainolde does refer more than once to Heliogabalus' "beastly manners" in face painting (f.78^v but elaborates more in terms of his clothing than sexual behavior. The clothes, according to Rainolde, were "a mingle mangle" of the Eastern style, which set a "new fashion" in Rome, not welcomed by the staid senators (f. 76,sup>v). In one opportunity to be more specific, Rainolde quotes Heliogabalus' manifesto on behavior as follows: "It shall behoue a Prince ... to be an excellent daunser, a riotous person, & to vse women" (f. 79). Rainolde does characterize Heliogabalus' recreations as "beastly follye" (f. 79), which is probably sufficient as code for behavior more transgressive than using many women.

Lloyd, Lodowick, The Pilgrimage of Princes, 1571

Richard Robinson, The Rewarde of Wickednesse, 1574

Antonio de Guevara, A Chronicle Conteyning the Liues of Tenne Emperours of Rome, 1577

This work was written for Emperor Charles V as a Plutarch-like contrast of good rulers and bad. Distinguishing additions, omissions, and elaborations to the legend of Heliogabalus in this work are as follows:

• various persons in the narrative of Heliogabalus are named: Mesia, his grandmother; Semiamira, his other; Zotipus, his favorite; Gabalus, Herodes, Gordius, and Murius, four additional favorites

• details of Heliogabalus' early years are recounted, with an emphasis on his having been begotten in adultery and his grandmother's protection of him by spiriting him away to Phoenicia; the Syrian god is called Heliogabalus in this chronicle. Mesia, the grandmother, buys Heliogabalus' election by bribing six respected Roman captains; de Guevera claims that the general opinion was that since Heliogabalus "had so good a face, necessarily it followeth, that his deedes should be virtuous" (384).

•Heliogabalus' looks: "of meane stature, redde haired, white faced, small mouthed, shorte legged, and largely bearded" (377); his dress (with his brother) as priest of Heliogabalus: "shirtes of Linsey Woolsey, their garments of gold and cotton, their sleeues buttoned with Corrall, their robes trailing, their beades couered with silke calies, about their neckes collars of golde, their feet bare vppon the instep, leaden ringes vppon their little fingers, and ringes of golde vpon their thumbes" (377).

• this account features letters (surely fanciful) from Mesia, Heliogabalus' grandmother, who, hearing of his suddenly dissolute life in Rome, assures the Senate that she has "instructed [Heliogabalus] to be milde, chaste, silent, patient, sober pitiful, and abstinent" (405); de Guevara opines that his new behavior stems from the liberty of being out from under his grandmother's supervision (406).

• there is a chapter on Heliogabalus' laws, most of which are frivolous but tend toward populism

•this chronicle, though hinting darkly at Heliogabalus' sexual excesses and telling the occasional anecdote such as the play ex tempore of Paris and Helen (but without the raunchy details of the Augusta Historia), emphasizes far more the absurdity of Heliogabalus' lifestyle. For example, the soles of his shoes “were of Vnicorne, and gold of Nilus: and the instep and vpper part therof set with pearle and most rich stones” (426); he walked only on sand of gold, but wore leather rather than bejeweled rings (426); his urinal was "of Vnicorne, and his stoole of fine gold" (426).

• de Guevara makes much of Heliogabalus' pranks and excesses. He assigns the chariot ride described by Herodian to the wedding of Heliogabalus (the god) to Pallas (not Urania), and the chariot/coach brings the statue of the goddess to the church for the nuptial ceremony (423). In the feast following the marriage, huge numbers of animals were slaughtered and the people forced to eat the flesh; de Guevara lists the animals: "there they did eate Lions, Beares, Woolues, Tygers, Unicornes, Dunces, Horses, Asses, Doggs, Beeues, Buffes, and other wilde beastes, Bores excepted" because the Syrian god forbade pork (424). In one prank, a host of jugglers were strangled with roses (425); in another, Heliogabalus had 100 pitchers of flies gathered, which he loosed at a banquet in the hot summertime, driving off guests 'and the flies sate downe to eate'” (425) In still another prank, Heliogabalus loosed “an hundreth cattes, tenne thousand rates, an hundreth greyhounds, & a thousand hares” among the worshipers at a feast for his god (425). Heliogabalus was accompanied by a retinue of 600 wagons of "women, jeasters, [and] musicians" (426).

• the account of Heliogabalus' death conforms in general detail to the Historia Augusta with these embellishments: Heliogabalus made a mockery of the prophecy that he would be killed in a suitable manner by having nooses of silk and weapons of gold made up (427); Heliogabalus buried himself up to the neck in the privy and the guards struck off his unconcealed head (431); they killed not only his mother but also "his cattes and dogges, his Parratts, horses, peacocks, and monkies" (431); after his death, his statues were broken down and his name struck from any monuments (432).

George Whetstone, The Enemie to Vnthryftinesse, 1586

References to the Play

Robert Greene, in the preface to Peremedies the Blacke-Smith (1588), complains about "two Gentlemen Poets, made two mad men of Rome beate it out of their paper bucklers: & [who] had it in derision, for that I could not make my verses iet vpon the stage in tragicall buskins, euerie worde filling the mouth like the faburden of Bo-Bell, daring God out of heauen with that Atheist Tamburlan, or blaspheming with the mad preest of the sonne .... " (A3).

Critical Commentary

E. K. Chambers W. W. Greg Charles Nichol Tom Rutter Greene scholars?? Knutson, "Naming of Parts"

For What It's Worth

Sardanapalus:

In the Roman History of Cassius Dio, Heliogabalus is called "Sardanapalus," confusing him thus with a semi-fictional king of Assyria. In sixteenth-century commentators, the mythical king (Sardanapalus) and the historical emperor (Heliogabalus) are more frequently separate figres but cited, often together, as similarly debauched. De Guevara separates Heliogabalus from Sardanapalus, characterizing the latter gently in ssaying he "was with all men so humaine, that women made him spinne" (3).

Herodian's History of the Roman Empire Since Marcus Aurelius was published in England by William Copland at the sign of the rose garland. The edition carries no date, but the English Short Title Catalogue assigns it tentatively to 1556.

Contemporary circumstances:

Earlier on the same day of 19 June 1594 that he entered "Heliogabalus," John Danter entered the play of "Godfrey of Boulogne," with the following phrasing: “an enterlude entituled Godfrey of Bulloigne wth the Conquest of Ierusalem.” One week after the entry in stationers records (19 July), the Admiral's men introduced "Godfrey of Boulogne, Part 2", marked "ne"; a play consistently designated "Godfrey of Boulogne" without a mark of "ne" was introduced a week later (26 July). The coincidence of Danter's having "Godfrey of Boulogne" and "Heliogabalus" on 19 June 1594 allows the possibility that he acquired the two plays from the same source. The fact that "Godfrey of Boulogne" was not marked "ne" suggests that Danter's source was a playing company, but which one that might have been is unknown.

A possible allusion?

In John Day's Law Tricks, Polymetes (son of the Duke of Genoa) and Horatio (a young count) discuss a dinner menu, and Horatio observes, "A roasted Phoenix were excellent good for that Lady" (MSR, 1280-1).

Works Cited

Cassius Dio, Roman History (livius.org). Antonio de Guevara, A Chronicle Conteyning the Liues of Tenne Emperours of Rome, 1577 Herodian, History of the Roman Empire Since Marcus Aurelius (livius.org). Historia Augusta (livius.org).

Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 11 February 2011.