Chapter 7: A Chilling Warning
Chapter 7: A Chilling Warning
[Wait… what did I do, exactly? You’re saying that while presiding over ceremonies as High Priest, I even carried out obscene sexual acts and bizarre behavior? That’s hard to believe.]
“Do I have any reason to lie to you? I need to tell you the truth to correct your perspective. You held up the banner of reforming into a new religion, but… you performed lewd, unfamiliar sexual-ritual behavior the Romans had never seen in their lives, so the backlash became even worse.”
[Why would I change like that? I can’t imagine it right now.]
I couldn’t exactly say it was because you inherited Mother’s nature.
And if someone egged you on from the side, you’d blaze up like oil poured onto a fire.
“Rome is more conservative than you think. You know that, right?”
[Of course. Surprisingly conservative.]
“Which is why the shockwave was bigger. You saw those acts as proper, exemplary behavior for a god’s proxy, so you didn’t care at all. You even insulted critics, sometimes treated it as slander… and forced certain provincial governors to commit suicide. To make matters worse, you personally demonstrated behavior that caused controversy among Romans, and shocked all of Rome.”
[So everything I did caused backlash? Everyone hated it? All of them?]
“Well… not exactly. After religious events, you always handed out all kinds of food for free. So beggars and the lower classes liked you, apparently.”
[See? There were good points too!]
“That doesn’t justify your behavior. Beggars and the lower classes weren’t the ones leading Rome—opinion leaders… no, you wouldn’t understand that phrase… let’s say they weren’t the ruling class. They didn’t have the voice that shaped public sentiment. Public sentiment is driven by commoners and nobles, isn’t it?”
[Of course. Public sentiment is influenced by them. Following it and representing it is politics, isn’t it?]
“You understand perfectly. And despite that, you took the most sacred objects of Rome’s traditional religion—Vesta’s fire, Mars’s shields, symbols of Roman goddesses, offerings from triumphal generals—pulled them out of temples and the state treasury as you pleased, and moved them into the Elagabalium where you enshrined Elagabal.”
[Really? That’s clearly wrong. That goes against public sentiment.]
“And then the antics piled on. Imagine this: you deck out a chariot pulled by six white horses with expensive gold jewelry and gaudy ornaments—but you, the emperor, don’t even ride in it. Instead, you and your entourage march around the horses as an escort. You shout, ‘The god Elagabal is before me!!’ and run back and forth holding the reins. And while doing it, you look up at the god’s face and yell, ‘I represent the god Elagabal!!’”
[That… that’s basically lunatic behavior. I really did that?]
“I’m telling you. You kept showing behavior no one could understand, over and over…”
I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that Grandmother Julia Maesa eventually made a decision.
That wasn’t something to say now.
If Varius corrected his perspective and corrected his behavior, it would be a future that never happened.
“So Roman backlash kept building, and people’s hearts turned away. And like pouring oil on fire, you kept chasing sensory pleasure.”
[Sensory pleasure? You mean sex?]
“Yeah. You kept surrendering to endless pleasure. The problem is, later you even got sick of that, grew bored, and committed even more absurd antics. That’s why later historians even labeled it a ‘disgusting life.’”
[What? A disgusting life? Isn’t that too harsh?]
“It’s not. You served guests invited to banquets food made of glass. You mixed trash and horse dung into real food and even put spiders in it. You laughed while watching the guests turn pale. At one event, you dumped an enormous amount of rose petals from the ceiling until some people were buried and suffocated to death. Isn’t that grotesque just hearing it?”
[Damn… if it was like that, ‘disgusting’ is accurate…]
“Do you know what the most serious thing was? The Vestal Virgins—when performances were held, they always received the best seats, and everyone had to show reverence when they passed. You know how respected they are in Roman society, right?”
[Of course. Their discipline is strict too—if a Vestal loses her purity in anything other than rape, she’s buried alive, and the man is beaten to death. I know that.]
“You know it well. And yet… as emperor, you raped a Vestal Virgin.”
[Wh-what? I raped a Vestal? That’s… impossible—no. In the East, for fertility and abundance, priestesses frequently have sexual relations with male believers as a form of blessing… so I unconsciously applied that custom.]
“Exactly. But would that tradition work in Rome? You didn’t consider cultural differences at all. You used your authority as emperor to violate a high-ranking religious figure like a Vestal… so of course the Romans came to hate you.”
[Ha… damn it. So the backlash came from ignoring differences in tradition.]
“There’s another serious issue. You had men as your sexual partners.”
[That’s not serious, is it? Romans do it frequently too—men with men.]
“Right. That isn’t the issue. Romans only tolerated the active role—the man on top. But you were… bottom—no, you won’t understand that term. You took the passive role.”
Even I didn’t originally know terminology that specific.
But now I knew the modern community terms too—that the active role is described as “penetrate,” and the passive role is “bottom.”
Roman citizens were expected to dominate everywhere, always.
Which meant what?
That society believed a Roman citizen was someone who could do the penetrating—but must never be penetrated.
If a soldier got caught engaging in homosexuality? The one who took the bottom role was executed for disgracing Roman citizenship. The one who was on the receiving end… had to prove it was forced, or he wouldn’t survive.
[That’s… I was born with that disposition. Is that my fault?]
“It’s not your fault. But whether Romans tolerate it is a completely different matter. The problem is… Romans of every age openly showed contempt for you. Rumors even spread that you underwent sex reassignment surgery.”
[Sex reassignment? That I got surgery to become a woman? Who the hell started that rumor?]
“When you were emperor, you apparently issued an absurd proclamation: ‘If someone makes me a woman, I will give them half the empire.’ That probably got twisted.”
[I really issued that? Surely… it was a joke.]
“The fact that a Roman emperor issued a proclamation like that is already insane.”
[No matter how I think about it, it’s something I absolutely shouldn’t do.]
“From morning to night, every single day… you held orgies with women and men and still weren’t satisfied. Your desire wouldn’t fill. So every night you left the palace and roamed red-light districts to meet prostitutes. Sometimes you even took a prostitute’s place yourself, played instruments and sang in front of brothel customers, and acted coy… imagine how that looked.”
[Ugh! Just hearing it is horrifying… I really did that? If four years were like that, then yeah… I deserved to get killed.]
“Right? Senators, praetorians, officials—some of them probably thought it was just street gossip. So they investigated whether it was true. Then they realized you really were doing insane things, and they were stunned.”
[Hah… even the people who raised me up as emperor must have been sickened.]
They were. Grandmother included.
Julia Maesa judged there was no other way, killed you, and put Alexander up as the replacement.
“You understand now. A Roman emperor who cross-dressed in public, wore heavy makeup, and openly played the ‘female role’ while fawning over his male partner… of course Romans wouldn’t even treat him as a person, let alone respect him.”
[Fine. I understand. If I change my perspective and change my behavior, the future changes. I’ll remember that.]
Good. That’s the only way we survive what’s coming.
“Now the remaining problem is people. It’s important to pull capable, useful people onto our side.”
[That’s obvious. Why are you stressing it?]
“Because according to the records, you did none of that—you spent your time pushing people away.”
[I pushed away people close to me? Even if they didn’t do anything wrong?]
“Want the most representative example? After you became emperor, you executed Uncle Gannys, who never stopped giving you loyal advice.”
[What? Uncle Gannys? How could I do that? Didn’t you say he was a major contributor who put me on the throne?]
“Flattery is sweet, and honest counsel is bitter. That’s exactly what happened. Once you became emperor, did you think you’d see anything? It was the tragedy of someone unprepared suddenly becoming emperor.”
[Even so… me killing Uncle Gannys… that can’t be real…]
“Even if Gannys lived luxuriously, liked bribes, and led a lavish life, he didn’t harm others or weave constant plots, so he wasn’t hated. The problem was you became arrogant and out of control after you ascended.”
[After I became emperor, I acted like a disaster, so Uncle Gannys kept nagging me. Don’t live like that… why act in ways that draw people’s scorn… like that.]
“Exactly. Before you became emperor, you endured that nagging. After you ascended, your mind changed. You decided, ‘That Gannys bastard thinks I’m a puppet,’ arrested him, and killed him.”
[Grandmother would’ve raged. How did I make a judgment that arrogant?]
“Grandmother opposed it fiercely. She tried to persuade you. But it was all useless. At some point, you started living exactly as you pleased. And there were treacherous flatterers beside you, egging you on.”
[...Damn it. The more I hear, the colder my spine gets.]
“After being emperor for a few months, you realized no one could challenge you. You got drunk on power. No matter what you did, most people only sneered inwardly. Few spoke up openly with blunt counsel like Gannys did. The early days of holding power are the most dangerous, you know.”
And in every way, Mother Julia Soaemias poured oil on it. Instead of stopping it, she encouraged it, pushing her son down a depraved and vicious path.
Our greatest enemy… might be Mother. Otherwise, why would Grandmother have gone as far as disposing of both her grandson the emperor and her own daughter at once?
——