Cassius Dio’s Secret History of Elagabalus
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20061595 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Josiah Osgood (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Pages | 177-190 |
| Publication date | 2016-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Cassius Dio (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Brill (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1163/9789004335318_011 |
| OpenAlex | W2686087125 |
| ISBN | 9789004335318 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
Cassius Dio’s account of the emperor Elagabalus, with which he ends his thousand-year history of Rome, struck earlier generations of historians as inept. More recent scholarship sees Dio as exploiting rhetorical stereotypes to craft a picture of a “bad emperor” and points to the increasing ferocity of posthumous defamation of emperors beginning with Commodus. I argue that Dio’s account of Elagabalus is artfully constructed as a satire that draws the reader’s attention to other trends since the accession of Commodus that disturbed Dio. My analysis focuses on nicknames, Elagabalus’ effeminacy, and his promotion of the god Elagabal. As nowhere else in his history, Dio uses nicknames for Elagabalus – to send up the way emperors in Dio’s lifetime renamed themselves and faked genealogies to legitimize their rule. Dio’s stories of Elagabalus’ extreme effeminacy, especially the marriage to Hierocles, underscore a detachment of individual achievement from status that Dio believes was fostered by dynastic rule. The promotion of Elagabal exposes the ability of emperors since Commodus to indulge their whims to the point of megalomania. By ending his whole history with Elagabalus, Dio gives his final, most fearsome warning of the ugly potential of dynastic monarchy at Rome
Ancient history · Art · Emperor · Literature · Classical Antiquity Studies · Crime, Deviance, and Social Control · History
| Citations per year | 0.83 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2025 (6) |
| Highly cited | No |