*Harry Sidebottom, author of The Mad Emperor*

We have our fair share of bizarre rulers in the twenty first century, but the subject of today’s episode makes Putin, Trump and Kim Jong Il seem rather tame. According to the academic and novelist Harry Sidebottom, our time travel guide this week, the Roman Emperor Heliogabalus was the maddest and baddest of them all.

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Heliogabalus turned Rome upside down as he rampaged over political and religious tradition during his lust-fuelled, four-year reign, contributing to the instability and chaos of the later third century AD.

*Bust of Elagabalus/Heliogabalus, Palazzo Nuovo, Musei Capitolini (Wiki Commons*)

In this special end of year episode, we get into the spirit of Heliogabalus by allowing Harry Sidebottom to trample on our own tradition of choosing just one year in history to travel back to. Today we will visit three separate years, 218, 220 and 222 so we can hear the full extraordinary story he tells in his new book The Mad Emperor.

Heliogabalus’ was a short and eventful life. He was elevated to power at the age of just fourteen by his powerful grandmother, Julia Maesa, who was planning on ruling through him. She was in for a nasty surprise as she quickly lost control of her headstrong and increasingly insane grandson who wielded power like a sex-crazed, iconoclastic adolescent – which is exactly what he was.

He humiliated senators, squandered huge amounts of money, hosted orgies, suffocated guests with rose petals and married at least five times, once to a man (he took the role of the bride) and twice to a Vestal Virgin.

The situation came to head when he tried to replace the established Roman gods with his own local deity from Syria, represented by a huge black conical stone which he led in a chariot while running backwards dressed as a priest.

The Romans could not stomach what they viewed as a parody of an Imperial Triumph, with their own gods in the place of the captives and booty taken in the campaign, it was viewed as an existential threat to the empire itself.

Julia Maesa was forced to destroy the monster she had created. After a disastrous showdown with the Pretorian Guard, Heliogabalus and his mother were hacked to death by soldiers on her orders. Their corpses were mutilated and dragged around the city before being thrown into the Tiber.

Undeterred, Julia Maesa went on to replace him with another of her grandsons, Severus Alexander, who was much more amenable, but the damage had been done and before long Rome was sliding into the period known as the Crisis of the Third Century.

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The characters and stories that feature in this episode of Travels Through Time form part of Sidebottom’s latest book. The Mad Emperor: Heliogabalus and the Decadence of Rome is out now.

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Show notes:

Scene One: 1 May 218. Heliogabalus’ grandmother sneaks him out of Emesa (modern day Homs) in Syria to start the revolt that will elevate him to the position of Emperor of Rome.

Scene Two: Midsummer’s Day 220. Heliogabalus holds a huge parade in Rome to demonstrate his new religion.

Scene Three: March 222. Heliogabalus is murdered on the orders of his grandmother.

Memento: Heliogabalus’ horn.

People/Social

Presenter: Violet Moller

Guest: Harry Sidebottom

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours

Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan

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About Harry Sidebottom

Dr Harry Sidebottom teaches Ancient History at Lincoln College, Oxford. Since publication of Fire in the East in 2008, he has written and published a novel each year, all of which have been Sunday Times top 5 bestsellers. His Warrior of Rome series has been published in 14 countries. Harry is also the editor of the Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Ancient Battles.