Heliogabalus divinely dressed: the religious clothes of Elagabalus’ priest emperor

Abstract

Heliogabalus was a young Roman emperor from a Syriac origin and member of the Severan dynasty (193-235). Following a family tradition, Heliogabalus was the priest of the solar god Elagabal, from the city of Emesa, in Syria. Developing an analysis of the contemporary textual documentation of Heliogabalus, crossed with analyzes of the coins issued in the emperor's government, I will present elements about his priestly clothes of worship to Elagabalus, which were considered in the ancient textual documentation as cross-dressing, in other words, transitioning the normative gender boundaries of that time. I will analyze the representation of his religious dress and relate to this representation the idea brought by Cassius Dio about the attempt of Heliogabalus to make a surgery intervention in his body, seeking to build a vagina. Also related to his religious clothes, I will present the analysis on the possibility of what would be a priestly symbol found in the image of the emperor's head on some of his coins.