The Elagabalium
Elagabalus. AD 218-222. Æ Medallion (36mm, 46.25 g, 12h). Rome mint. Struck January-early March AD 222. IMP CAES M AVREL ANTONINUS PIVS FELIX AVG, laureate, draped, and cuirassed bearded bust right, wearing “horn”; tassels at left shoulder / P M TR P V COS IIII P P, the Elagabalium: Elagabalus standing left, holding patera over Stone of Emesa set in ornate, two-tiered altar; to right of Elagabalus, attendant standing left; to left of altar, two attendants standing right; behind, tetrastyle temple façade; ornate pediment decorated with central standing figure facing flanked by anguipede figures; roof line surmounted by car; figures at ends; in foreground, triumphal entrance consisting of three
epistyla, each with closed doors and double intercolumnation between; above, four quadrigas facing, each bearing a replica of the Stone of Emesa; on ether side, ornately decorated, multi-story distyle wings of peristyle seen in perspective; pediment of each decorated with human figure; on summit of left [and right] wing, eagle standing with wings displayed; the whole set on multi-tiered base forming entry way; protective fence in exergue . Cf. Gnecchi 6 = BMCRE p. 615, † = Dressel 105 = Martinetti Coll. (Sambon & Canessa, 18 Nov. 1907), 2546 (small medallion). EF, dark green patina. Struck in high relief. Unique and unpublished.
The emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, more popularly known as Elagabalus because of his relationship with the Syrian god El-Gabal, so infuriated the conservative Roman aristocracy with his active promotion of the god’s cult in his role as its high priest, at the expense of the empire, that he was assassinated in AD 222, after a short reign of a little under four years.
Born Varius Avitius Bassianus, Elagabalus was the son of Julia Soaemias, the niece of the empress Julia Domna, and was supposedly the illegitimate son of Caracalla (SHA Heliogab. 3.1). During his early youth in Emesa, he began serving as a priest of the god El-Gabal, a Syrian deity of Canaanite origin whose name may have meant “God of the High Place,” and who was syncretized with the sun-god Helios or Sol (BMCRE 284). The god was manifested in a conical-shaped black stone, or baetyl (for a further discussion of such stones, see U. Kron, “Heilige Steine,” in Kotinos: Festschrift für Erika Simon [1992], pp. 56-70). Imperial coins of Emesa which depict the temple of El-Gabal show the stone decorated with an eagle and flanked by parasols, and set on (or in) a decorated base (BMC 16 and SNG München 817). Shortly after Elagabalus became emperor, the stone was transported from Emesa to Rome and was commemorated in a series of imperial aurei and denarii, as well as the bronze coins of at least two eastern cities (Hierapolis-Castabala in Cilicia and Aelia Capitolina [Jerusalem] in Judaea). All of these coins show the same reverse: a quadriga bearing the decorated cult-image of El-Gabal surrounded by parasols (BMCRE 284).
According to the not entirely trustworthy late fourth-century AD biography of the emperor in the Historia Augusta (Heliogab. 3.4), Elagabalus, immediately upon his arrival in Rome in AD 219 (ubi primum ingressus est urbem), consecrated and built a temple to El-Gabal on the Palatine next to the imperial palace (Heliogabalum in Palatino monte iuxta aedes imperatorias consecravit eique templum fecit). This temple was to contain the sacred emblems of all the other Roman religions, as well as those of the Jews and Christians, so that the priesthood of El-Gabal might include the mysteries of every form of worship (Heliogab. 3.4-5). According to the third-century AD historian Cassius Dio (80.11), El-Gabal was to be supreme even to Jupiter. Dio’s contemporary, Herodian (5.5), also noted the erection of this temple, which he desrcibed as “huge and magnificent” and “surrounded ... with numerous altars.” Called the aedes Heliogabali dei by the Historia Augusta, and known by later scholars as the Eliogabalium or Elagabalium, this structure has been the subject of much scholarly debate, not only regarding its exact location and physical appearance, but also whether it was an original construction of the emperor, or a rededication of a previously existing temple. Until now, the temple’s appearance was known only from a small, unique medallion in Berlin (now lost), formerly in the Gnecchi and Martinetti collections (Gnecchi 6). The appearance of this new, larger module, similarly unique medallion provides an opportunity to examine in more detail the appearance of the temple and the role of Elagabalus in relation to the cult of El-Gabal.
The coinage of Elagabalus dated TR P V COS IIII, which commenced on 1 January AD 222 and certainly ended with the emperor’s assassination on 11 March of that year, consists of a series of extremely rare aureii and very rare denarii, struck at the mints of Rome and Antioch and connected in some way to the worship of El-Gabal. Apart from the unique medallions, no other imperial bronze coins were struck during this period. The portraits of these issues sometimes display the so-called “horn,” an object which may be the tip of a bull’s penis and has been connected with his function as a priest of El-Gabal (for a discussion of this “horn,” see E. Krengel, “Das sogennante “Horn” des Elagabal- Die Spitze eines Stierpenis. Eine Umdeutung als Ergebnis fachübergreifender Forschung,” JNG 47 [1997], pp. 53-72).
The two bronze medallions, depicting a temple complex, bear the only known contemporary representations of the appearance of the Elagabalium. The type of temple varies according to the medallion: the small medallion shows a hexastyle temple, while the large medallion shows only a tetrastyle one. Both temples, however, are richly decorated and are surrounded by ornately decorated, multi-story distyle wings of a peristyle seen in perspective with a triumphal entrance consisting of three epistyla, each with closed doors and double intercolumnation between them. Along the roof line of this triumphal entrance are four quadrigas facing, each bearing a replica of the baetyl. Both medallions have an eagle on the summit of each wing flanking the entrance. The precinct was approached by a long staircase and at the base was a protective fencing that separated the sacred enclosure.
According to the Historia Augusta (Heliogab. 1.6), the Elagabalium was founded on the site of an earlier shrine to Orcus, a native Italic god of the underworld and a punisher of broken oaths. Topographical studies and archaeological evidence, however, have been unable to confirm the biography’s claim, suggesting that this statement was a literary device designed to create a sense of irony and make the temple’s construction and existence ill-omened. A portion of a capital from the Elagabalium, found in the Forum Romanum, within the vicinity of the Palatine, supports its location on that hill (R. Turcan, The Cults of the Roman Empire, 10th ed. [2008], p. 181, pl. 21). This capital confirms the appearance of the cult image and includes images of Minerva and Juno, providing important clues to the claims of Herodian (5.6) and Dio (80.12) that the emperor transported the Palladium to the Palatine in order to wed her to El-Gabal and later included a second spouse by bringing the the cult statue of Juno Caelestis, the Punic Tanit, from Carthage. By doing so, Elagabalus was recreating at Rome the Emesene triad consisting of El-Gabal, Atargatis (Minerva), and Astarte (Juno Caelestis), thereby superseding the traditional Capitoline triad of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva.
Where on the Palatine the Elagabalium was located has been a matter of speculation. In his discussion of the excavations on the Palatine, published in 1888, the Italian archaeologist, Rodolfo Lanciani related the 1730 discovery and possible destruction there of a large, brown, lava-like stone found among the ruins of what appeared to be an imperial chapel (Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries [1888], p. 128). The Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, begun by the British archaeologist Samuel Ball Platner and completed by Thomas Ashby (published posthumously in 1929), suggested that, based on the significant amount of pre-Severan monumental remains on the site, the Elagabalium was most likely the conversion of an earlier temple on the site that was renovated and rededicated to the new god. The similarity of the Elagabalium to the Temple of Jupiter Ultor that appears on the reverse of a medallion of Severus Alexander (BMCRE 207-9), and its similarity to an earlier temple dedicated to Jupiter Victor, which also sat on the Palatine, supports such a hypothesis. Philip V. Hill, in his cogent discussion of the topic (The Monuments of Ancient Rome as Coin Types [1989], s.v. Templum Iovis Victoris), offers evidence from various later literary sources to conclude that the Elagabalium and the Temple of Jupiter Ultor were one and the same edifice that was situated on the northeast corner of the Palatine, and suggests that these two structures were originally the Temple of Jupiter Victor. Given Elagabalus’s desire to supplant Jupiter with El-Gabal, the appropriation of a temple near the palace which was already dedicated to Jupiter Victor would be an ironically fitting act, while its reappropriation for Jupiter, now in the guise of Ultor (the Avenger) would be a fitting act of vengeance and a way to placate Jupiter Victor.
Regarding the original appearance of the Elagabalium (as with many long extinct ancient monuments), numismatic evidence is critical, but must be used with caution, since engravers routinely omitted or simplified details in order to fit as much of the design as possible onto the available flan. While the features of the Elagabalium on the medallions of Elagabalus and the Temple of Jupiter Ultor on the medallion of Severus Alexander are, virtually identical in overall plan, the same, one significant difference is the number of columns in the temple façade. The medallion of Severus Alexander shows a hexastyle façade – a façade style which also appears on the small medallion of Elagabalus. The larger medallion of Elagabalus, however, shows a tetrastyle façade. The engraver almost certainly employed this variation to focus attention on the sacrifice scene. Despite this artistic device, enough similarity between the temple design on the two medallions exists to conclude that the Temple of Jupiter Ultor and the Elagabalium were one and the same; the medallion of Severus Alexander being struck in AD 224 to commemorate the temple’s rededication to Jupiter.
It becomes more difficult, however, to associate this temple with those depictions of the Temple of Jupiter Victor which appear on the denarii of Domitian and sestertii of Trajan. All these coins consistently show a temple with an octastyle façade; the sestertii of Trajan show the addition of colonnades on either side, which could be the same colonnades seen on the medallions of Elagabalus and Severus Alexander. The seated figure depicted within on these earlier issues is quite definitely a male god who holds a scepter (and on some examples possibly a thunderbolt), while on the sestertius of Trajan, the winged victories at the points of the roof line, each holding a tropaeum, would be consistent with the imagery associated with Jupiter Victor. Although some scholars have suggested that this temple has been identifed with the Temple of Venus Genetrix, of Nerva, or of Trajan himself, or a heretofore unknown restoration of the Temple of Jupiter Victor by Trajan, its depiction as part of a series of coinage struck to commemorate Trajan’s decennalia in AD 107 may have been included to represent, like the depiction of the Temple of Honos, one of the emperor’s numerous virtues (Hill, op. cit. p. 36). The change from an octastyle to a hexastyle façade may be explained by one of the site’s restorations, possibly when the cult-statue was either removed or restored, at which time the decoration would have been altered or removed for reuse elsewhere. Whether the triumphal entry to the sanctuary, possibly the same structure known as the pentapylum in the mid-fourth century AD Notitia urbis Romae regionum, was present at this time is uncertain. It is highly plausible that it was added at the time of the rededication by Elagabalus as part of the rededication to El-Gabal, as the fifth century AD Vita S. Sebastiani decscribes St. Sebastian addressing the emperor Diocletian from the “Steps of Heliogabalus” (Hill, op. cit. p. 35) In the tenth century, this saint had a church dedicated to him on a portion of the site.
This medallion, like its smaller version, was meant to be presented to specific recipients within the government and the military on Elagabalus’ fourth consular anniversary on 1 January AD 222. By this point, the emperor’s seemingly maniacal devotion to El-Gabal had driven the Roman government into crisis. His numerous, near scandalous marriages had failed to produce an heir and in AD 221 he was compelled by his grandmother, Julia Maesa, to adopt his cousin, Alexianus, who was renamed Alexander, as Caesar. By the beginning of AD 222, Elagabalus became increasingly distant from his advisors, as well as his grandmother and Alexander. According to the Historia Augusta (Heliogab. 15.5-7), Elagabalus refused to appear in public with Severus Alexander on New Year’s Day AD 222, even though the two were joint consuls for the year, entering the Senate at the sixth hour (noon). He also refused to perform the traditional New Year’s rites at the Capitolium, the site of the temple to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, the supreme Roman god, leaving them to be completed by the urban praetor. The mention of the Capitolium in this context is significant, for it emphasizes the emperor’s attempt to subordinate Jupiter to El-Gabal, to promote the latter god’s rites, and emphasize the emperor’s unique connection with his god. Herodian’s statement (5.5) that Elagabalus demanded the Senate to honor El-Gabal before all other gods when performing their traditional sacrifices, provides further evidence of Elagabalus’ promotion of his god. Furthermore, the Elagabalium was to be the new center of this worship where, as mentioned earlier, the cult figures of other divinities were to be deposited and set up as a competing triad to that of Jupiter. Thus, these medallions were meant to commemorate the New Year’s ritual under the new, eastern divine arrangement, rather than the Roman tradition. Consequently, these medallions would be distributed once the ceremony, celebrating the new order, had taken place.
The benefits of this ceremony (if it occurred) were short lived. Elagabalus became increasingly distrustful of Alexander, going so far as to order his murder. When that failed, on 11 March AD 222, Elagabalus and his mother, Julia Soaemias were themselves murdered by the soldiers and their bodies were dumped into the Tiber. Once in power, Alexander wasted little time in undoing the work of Elagabalus. In AD 224, he restored and rededicated the Elagabalium to Jupiter (Herodian 6.1, SHA, Heliogab. 17.8), and returned the baetyl to Emesa, where it appears on later coins of that city, including issues of the usurper Uranius Antoninus.
