Marriages, sexual orientation and gender identity
Roman denarius depicting Aquilia Severa, the second wife of Elagabalus. The marriage caused a public outrage because Aquilia was a Vestal Virgin, sworn by Roman law to celibacy for 30 years. Inscription: iulia aquilia severa aug·
The question of Elagabalus's sexual orientation and gender identity is confused, owing to salacious and unreliable sources. Cassius Dio states that Elagabalus was married five times (twice to the same woman). His first wife was Julia Cornelia Paula, whom he married prior to 29 August 219; between then and 28 August 220, he divorced Paula, took the Vestal Virgin Julia Aquilia Severa as his second wife, divorced her, and took a third wife, who Herodian says was Annia Aurelia Faustina, a descendant of Marcus Aurelius and the widow of a man Elagabalus had recently executed, Pomponius Bassus. In the last year of his reign, Elagabalus divorced Annia Faustina and remarried Aquilia Severa.
Dio states that another "husband of this woman [Elagabalus] was Hierocles", an ex-slave and chariot driver from Caria. The Augustan History claims that Elagabalus also married a man named Zoticus, an athlete from Smyrna, while Dio says only that Zoticus was his cubicularius. Dio says that Elagabalus prostituted himself in taverns and brothels.
Some writers suggest that Elagabalus may have identified as female or been transgender, and may have sought sex reassignment surgery.[83][84][85][86][87] Dio says Elagabalus delighted in being called Hierocles's mistress, wife, and queen.[85] The emperor reportedly wore makeup and wigs, preferred to be called a lady and not a lord, and supposedly offered vast sums to any physician who could provide him with a vagina by means of incision.[85] Some historians treat these accounts with caution, as sources for Elagabalus' life were often antagonistic towards him.[89]
In November 2023, the North Hertfordshire Museum in Hitchin, United Kingdom, announced that Elagabalus would be considered as transgender and hence referred to with female pronouns in its exhibits due to claims that the emperor had said "call me not Lord, for I am a Lady". The museum has one Elagabalus coin.[90][91]
Fall from power
Elagabalus stoked the animus of Roman elites and the Praetorian Guard through his perceptibly foreign conduct and his religious provocations. When Elagabalus's grandmother Julia Maesa perceived that popular support for the emperor was waning, she decided that he and his mother, who had encouraged his religious practices, had to be replaced. As alternatives, she turned to her other daughter, Julia Avita Mamaea, and her daughter's son, the fifteen-year-old Severus Alexander.
Prevailing on Elagabalus, she arranged that he appoint his cousin Alexander as his heir and that the boy be given the title of caesar. Alexander was elevated to caesar in June 221, possibly on 26 June. Elagabalus and Alexander were each named consul designatus for the following year, probably on 1 July. Elagabalus took up his fourth consulship for the year of 222. Alexander shared the consulship with the emperor that year. However, Elagabalus reconsidered this arrangement when he began to suspect that the Praetorian Guard preferred his cousin to himself.
Elagabalus ordered various attempts on Alexander's life, after failing to obtain approval from the Senate for stripping Alexander of his shared title. According to Dio, Elagabalus invented the rumor that Alexander was near death, in order to see how the Praetorians would react. A riot ensued, and the Guard demanded to see Elagabalus and Alexander in the Praetorian camp.
Assassination
Statue of Elagabalus as Hercules, re-faced as his successor, Alexander Severus (National Archaeological Museum, Naples)
The emperor complied and on 11 or 12 March 222[98] he publicly presented his cousin along with his own mother, Julia Soaemias. On their arrival the soldiers started cheering Alexander while ignoring Elagabalus, who ordered the summary arrest and execution of anyone who had taken part in this display of insubordination. In response, members of the Praetorian Guard attacked Elagabalus and his mother:
He made an attempt 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 Tiber.