- Plot of the Severan Women
- Fall of Macrinus partly own agency
- Line between usurper and legitimate emperor very fine
- Unsettled army
- Court – elite senators – unhappy with an equestrian being on the throne/equestrian bureaucracy
- Macrinus starts to appoint other equestrians to office
- Problems with finances
- Partly caused by Julia Maesa
- Orchestrates the return of Severans to power through her grandchild Elagabalus
- Julia Maesa grandmother of Bassianus (Elagabalus) who resembles Caracalla
- May 218 – takes Bassianus to camp and is declared emperor by troops, renamed Marcus Aurelius Antoninus – attempt to bind with Caracalla and claim to legitimacy with image
- Fall of Macrinus
- Macrius sends Parthian legion, but they change sides once they arrive
- Pays them before they go to declared Diadumenianus co-emperor
- Macrinus had Praetorian and some auxiliary units
- Macrinus flees, army surrenders
- Macrinus killed by escort
- The Beast from the East
- Reigned 218-222
- From 217, held ancestral priesthood of ‘lh ‘gbl (Elagabal)
- Very popular in Emesa, Syria
- 13 years old when held priesthood; 15 when became emperor
- Took priesthood seriously; no intention to cease the priesthood
- Sends image of himself to senate so that they can get used to his unusual dress
- Also on his public imagery
- In 2020, makes Elagabalus chief god in Pantheon
- Tyrannical Behaviour
- Criticisms of Elagabalus encompass eastern, orientalised negativity on the part of Greco-Roman authors
- Part of what they are insulting is the fact that he is an emperor who came from Syria
- Series of graphic and erotic stories told about him
- Exacerbated by eastern focus
- Emperor supposed to be symbol of masculine value
- Aided by imagery of emperor
- Coinage contains disctinctive headband of Syrian priests
- Chose to be represented in an unsual way in official coinage
- Fall of Elagabalus
- Behaviour becomes too much for everyone… even Maesa
- June 26 221 – Elagabalus compelled to adopt younger cousin as Caesar
- Gessius Alexianus Bassianus (Severus Alexander) 225-235
- 12 years old at time
- Leads to commentary on how ridiculous the imperial family had become, having emperors as young as 12
- March 11 222 Alexander replaces Elagabalus as emperor
- Circumstances not entirely clear
- Alexander not seen in public, guard riot
- Elagabalus goes to camp to placate; mother brings Alexander
- Killed, together with mother (Julia Soaemias)
- Alexander declared emperor at 13 years old
- No pretence of gradually acquiring titles and office which had still persisted to this point into the third century
- Simply voted all titles initially and immediately
- Worked well in a period where they were limited claimants to power
- Now multiple claimants and the longer you wait, the greater license that gives to other individuals to make a claim to power
- Unclear who emperor is in moments of transition – army can claim an individual as emperor, the senate can ratify a different person, but the person who ends up emperor may be someone entirely different
- Nature of office has to change because it’s becoming harder and harder to hold onto the office – necessity of conditions changing the rules
- When authors reference women they often do so to cast an image on their associated male figures
- Herodian commenting that affairs and controls of empire in the hands of women – Herodian 6.1.1
- Herodian suggesting things were managed better by the women precisely because the Severan men were not in control
- Out of this period of crisis, the question of genuine female agency comes to the foreground
- Policy
- ‘Traditional reign? Attempt to get back to how things were under Septimius Severus
- Overtures to the senate
- Many who were consuls under Septimius were made consul again under Alexander
- Including CASSIUS DIO hence being understandably positive
- Conventional approaches to finances
- Attempt by behaviour and image to bind himself back into the Golden Age
- Trajan and Marcus have become the touchpoints for the Golden Age – the best emperor and the philosophical emperor
- Has to reckon with the rise of Sassanids beat Arsacids
- 224: Ardashir of Sassanid family defeats Artabanus of Arsacids
- King of Kings – unites previously separate Parthain tribes into a newly invigorated Persian empire
- Puts up imagery of this in the same place of previous dominant Persian rulers – Darius, Cyrus etc.
- Contrasts with obvious weakness of Rome’s ruling dynasty
- 230 attacks Roman frontier
- Alexander’s response neither quick nor successful
- Disinclination to war?
- Buys into an image of young, inexperienced emperor on the throne
- Celebrates a triumph despite poor outcome
- Out of touch with reality of what happened
- Herodian remembers the defeat to be specifically the fault of Alexander
- Ascribes to excessive feminine influence
- Hint that his weakness opens the floodgates of what is to eventually come
- Maximinus revolt in which Alexander and his mother are both killed in 235
- Legacy
- Positive legacy – why?
- In part the lack of information – in general, when there is an absence of evidence, history is usually kinder than not – cf. Titus
- Senate liked Alexander and in particular, Cassius Dio liked him
- Calm before the storm
- OR a passive observer on already escalating issues
- Amusing that the last fact Dio tells us about his epic narrative is that he himself had to leave Rome
- Dio sees the rise of Persia to be the real problem
- Rome loses control of the narrative
- 1st and 2nd century Rome is the dominant power in the Mediterranean but in the 3rd century Rome loses control of the narrative and Persia becomes dominant
- Rome a passive recipient of the agency of others
- Argument to be made that the 3rd century is then viewed through the control of the new Persian empire
- Alexander the last emperor who can tell the story
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