Roman society was never a single biological people but a cultural world shaped by Romanitas, shared behaviours, values and expectations. Articles on this site examine how identity, status, sexuality, slavery and everyday life operated within that cultural system, using ancient sources to understand how Romans expressed power, negotiated belonging and made sense of their world. Elagabalus became a target of bottom shaming, a Roman way of policing masculinity by mocking any man who took a passive role in sex. The smear campaign against him shows how systemic homophobia worked in Rome, where same‑sex activity was tolerated only if a man stayed on top. Once rumours claimed Elagabalus didn’t, the elite used it to justify killing him and rewriting his reign as moral chaos.
Why Did Romans Hate Elagabalus?
Sexual Prejudice, Romanitas and Power
“Romanitas” or “Romanity” was meant to be the core of Roman identity, the cultural code that defined what it meant to be properly Roman. The ideal was thought to contain discipline, piety, military virtue, civic duty and a model of masculinity that Romans believed set them apart from everyone else. The term itself is usually credited to the North African writer Tertullian, who used it in De Pallio to describe a shared Roman way of life. He treated Romanitas as a kind of cultural uniform, a set of behaviours and values that marked someone out as belonging to the Roman world.
Tertullian is important here because he gives us one of the earliest uses of the term Romanitas, writing in Carthage around 208–210 CE, a decade before Elagabalus even became emperor.
In De Pallio, he mocks men who copy Greek habits, fuss over grooming and let their bodies be shaped in ways he sees as effeminate. For Tertullian, Romanitas isn’t just citizenship. It’s a masculine performance of dominance, discipline and muscular control. His complaints show that the cultural machinery behind Roman sexual policing and bottom shaming was already fully formed long before Elagabalus arrived.
Tertulliam proves that Romanitas was never neutral. It was a tool for excluding men who didn’t fit the heterosexual Roman ideal. Emperors in the past had succumbed because they had failed to meet up to a standards and we can think of Galba.
Over time, Roman writers turned Romanitas into a moral badge. It became a way of deciding who counted as fully Roman and who didn’t. It wasn’t just about citizenship or ancestry. It demanded the right kind of masculinity, the right religious behaviour and the right cultural performance. When we look at how Romanitas was applied, especially in the case of Elagabalus, we see how selective and prejudiced it could be. It became a tool for exclusion, used to police sexuality, gender expression and cultural conformity. In practice, Romanitas often protected heterosexual Roman men and pushed aside anyone who didn’t fit their model of dominance.
When we look closely at the short reign of Elagabalus, we see how Romanitas wasn’t a fixed ideal at all. The concept was fragile, flexible, selective and often cruel in its application. It could include and protect a young emperor aged fourteen from the provinces when it suited the elite, and exclude the same person four years later when they wanted him gone. Emperors with bad records such as Domitian and Commodus were supported for longer by the Praetorian guards and we must assume they didn’t quite offend the guards so much or so quickly.
Romanitas could be presented as a moral code, wrap up and hide some very nasty prejudices. It could claim to defend tradition, and indulge in gossip, sexual shaming and the sort of hypocrisy that Juvenal would’ve recognised instantly.
Elagabalus and the Formal Markers of Romanitas
![A Roman plated silver denarius of Elagabalus, dating to c.AD 218 - 222. Reece Period 10. IOVI CONSERVATORI, reverse type shows Jupiter, naked with mantle behind, standing left, holding thunderbolt in right hand and sceptre in left hand; at feet, eagle; to right, two standards. Mint of Rome. Gard, M. (2026) LEIC-D7E3-BC87: Roman coin. Web page available at https://finds.org.uk/pas/recorded-find/LEIC-D7E3-BC87 under a CC-BY licence [Accessed: 17 Aug 2026 11:41:49]](https://i0.wp.com/limentinus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Elagabalus-and-Jupiter.jpg?resize=700%2C500&ssl=1)
Elagabalus was born in Emesa in Syria, but his family had long been part of Roman political life. His father, Sextus Varius Marcellus, a man of senatorial rank had an impressive career in the imperial administration, but died some time earlier
He held senatorial rank, which required Roman citizenship. His mother Julia Soaemias belonged to the Severan dynasty, and her aunt Julia Domna had been one of the most powerful women in the empire. The family owned property in Rome and operated within Roman legal structures.
When Elagabalus became emperor through the support of Legio III Gallica, he took the name Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, deliberately linking himself to the Antonine line. He married Julia Cornelia Paula, described by Herodian as “a woman from the most aristocratic family in Rome”. Elagabalis was playing it straight, trying to fit in but would it be enough?
He issued coins and inscriptions in Latin, held the consulship and was accepted by the Senate in 218. He funded public works, restored civic buildings and acted as pontifex maximus. In many formal ways, he embodied Romanitas exactly as the Romans themselves defined it.
Where Elagabalus Collided with Roman Cultural Expectations
As Caligula disovered earlier, Romanitas wasn’t just about citizenship, ancestry and public office. It was also a cultural performance, and this is where Elagabalus collided with traditionalist Roman expectations. When Romans compared Elagabalus to Romulus in the foundation myths of Rome, they found Elagabalus somewhat lacking.
His devotion to the Syrian sun god El Gabal was seen as foreign and threatening. Roman religion was flexible, but the emperor was expected to prioritise Jupiter and the traditional gods. Elagabalus didn’t. He built the Elagabalium on the Palatine and tried to elevate his god above Jupiter. To Roman eyes, this looked like a rejection of the cosmic order that justified imperial rule.
His clothing and behaviour also challenged Roman ideals of masculinity. Romanitas demanded the image of the vir fortis, the strong Roman man who embodied discipline and military virtue. Elagabalus wore the robes of a Syrian priest, used cosmetics and presented himself in ways that Roman writers interpreted as effeminate or taking the passive role. He married a Vestal Virgin, which was illegal, and later married a eunuch.
These acts were framed as sexual deviance, but they also threatened Roman ideas about gender, purity and civic order. The emperor was supposed to be the guardian of Roman morality. When he behaved in ways that didn’t fit the Roman masculine ideal, writers seized on it.
He later married Aquilia Severa, who was a Vestal Virgin and considered by some as the high priestess. Elagabalus supposedly wanted this marriage to have “godlike children” from the union of a high priest and a high priestess. However, marrying a Vestal Virgin, wasn’t a wise decision and it wasn’t enough to protect a man’s honour in Rome.
The Politics of Smear and Retrospective Justification
Much of what we think we know about Elagabalus comes from writers who had every reason to smear him and evemtually he was murdered at eighteen by troops who’d once supported him.
The Senate backed the coup. His successor, a cousin called Severus Alexander, needed to justify the killing. The easiest way to do that was to portray Elagabalus as a monster.
Roman historians often wrote retrospectively, shaping events to fit moral lessons. Suetonius did it with earlier emperors, filling his biographies with gossip, sexual rumours and stories designed to shock.
The writers who described Elagabalus followed the same pattern. They presented him as a threat to Romanitas, not because he truly was, but because they needed a narrative that made his murder look like a moral necessity.
Romanitas as a System of Exclusion
When we examine the sources critically, we see how Romanitas was used to police identity. It wasn’t just about being Roman. It was about being the right kind of Roman. Elagabalus failed to embody Romanitas not because he lacked Roman ancestry or citizenship, but because he didn’t conform to Roman expectations of masculinity, religion and cultural behaviour.
His sexuality, clothing and religious devotion became tools for shaming him and Elagabalus discovered that Roman deities could be disposable.The Romans used sexual slurs and accusations of effeminacy to undermine his legitimacy. This wasn’t simply moral judgement. It was prejudice.
The Dark Side of Roman Virtue
Romanitas also revealed its darker side. It claimed to uphold virtue, althoug it relied on gossip, rumour and sexual shaming. It claimed to defend tradition, although it tolerated hypocrisy. It claimed to protect the state, anf it allowed soldiers and senators to murder emperors when it suited them. Naturally, Romanitas accommodated Roman free men and their interpretation of sexuality.
Elagabalus became a victim of this system. He was young, inexperienced and culturally different. He didn’t fit the Roman masculine ideal, so he was portrayed as a threat. His murder was justified through stories that emphasised his supposed depravity.
Conclusion: Romanitas Didn’t Fail Because of Elagabalus
In the end, Elagabalus embodied Romanitas in many formal ways. He held Roman offices, used Latin, funded public works, acted as pontifex maximus and belonged to the Severan dynasty, although he failed to embody the actual cultural performance of Roman masculinity and religious conservatism. The Romans used this failure to construct a narrative that made his murder seem necessary.
The story of the fall of Elagabalus isn’t just about an emperor who didn’t fit Romanitas. It’s about how Romanitas itself was shaped by prejudice, hypocrisy and political convenience.
Romanitas as an ideal allowed heterosexual Roman men to claim virtue while condemning those who didn’t conform. It allowed the elite to justify violence while pretending to defend tradition. Elagabalus didn’t simply fail Romanitas. Romanitas failed him.
1898,1005.28 © The Trustees of the British Museum. (Resized) Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.
Disclaimer: This article discusses ancient Roman accounts of Elagabalus, including claims about his gender expression and sexual behaviour. These descriptions reflect the rhetoric and biases of Roman authors and are examined here for historical and cultural analysis, not as factual reports of personal conduct. Limentinus is a non‑commercial digital micro‑publication exploring life through liminality, power, sexuality, ancient slavery, identity, and everyday behaviour, written with academic responsibility and structured as a digital‑humanities project. It carries no advertising and generates no income. Images from public collections are credited to their institutions and used under their stated public‑domain or non‑commercial terms, with gratitude for the work these institutions make accessible. Rights holders with concerns may contact limentinus@duck.com for prompt resolution.
Further Reading
- Slave Meta Hub A structured gateway into Rome’s systems of ownership, coercion and domestic brutality.
- Roman Religion: Meta Hub Explores the rituals, household cults and civic expectations that shaped Roman identity and behaviour.
- Rome: Daily Life Meta Hub A survey of ordinary routines, labour, domestic authority and the social pressures that governed everyday life.
- The Roman World A wider contextual hub covering politics, culture, geography and the shifting ideals of Romanitas across the empire.
- Roman Sex and Sexuality: Meta Hub – Discussions of Roman sexuality.
- Icks, Martijn. “EMPIRE OF THE SUN?: CIVIC RESPONSES TO THE RISE AND FALL OF SOL ELAGABAL IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE.” Ritual Dynamics and Religious Change in the Roman Empire: Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire (Heidelberg, July 5-7, 2007), edited by Olivier Hekster et al., Brill, 2009, pp. 111–20. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctv2gjx00z.10. Accessed 2 Aug. 2026.
FAQ
Roman writers attacked Elagabalus because he didn’t fit their model of Roman masculinity. Rumours about his sexual behaviour, clothing and religious practices made him an easy target for bottom shaming, a cultural mechanism that treated sexual passivity as unmanly. Once he was framed as effeminate, the elite used these stories to justify removing him from power.
Tertullian, writing in Carthage around 208–210 CE, is one of the earliest authors to use the term Romanitas, especially in his work De Pallio. He mocked men who adopted Greek habits or effeminate grooming, showing that Romanitas was already tied to policing masculinity and excluding men who didn’t fit the dominant Roman ideal. His ideas help explain the cultural logic later used against Elagabalus.
In practice, yes. Romanitas demanded a very specific model of male dominance. Same‑sex activity wasn’t condemned outright, but any hint of sexual passivity could strip a man of Roman status. This bottom shaming created a system where masculinity, sexuality and cultural conformity were tightly policed, and men like Elagabalus could be pushed outside Roman identity for not performing dominance correctly.