Episode B35 – Bassus

The Ancient World

Scott C.

History

4.6 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2016

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Synopsis: Deception, good fortune, and Macrinus’ failings allow the Severans to retake the Roman throne. As Emperor, Elagabalus makes plans to install the black stone of Elah Gabal in the Capital. “(Elagabalus and Severus Alexander) were priests of the sun god, whom their countrymen worship under the Phoenician name Elagabalus. A huge temple was erected to this god, lavishly decorated with gold, silver, and costly gems. Not only is this god worshipped by the natives, but all the neighboring rulers and kings send generous and expensive gifts to him each year. No statue made by man in the likeness of the god stands in the temple, as in Greek and Roman temples. The temple does, however, contain a huge black stone with a pointed end and round base in the shape of a cone. The Phoenicians solemnly maintain that this stone came down from Zeus; pointing out certain small figures in relief, they assert that it is an unwrought image of the sun, for naturally that is what they wish to see.” – Herodian, History of the Roman Empire from the Death of Marcus Aurelius to the Accession off Gordian III, Book V, Chapter III Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Scott. If you're a fan of the ancient world, please help us get the word out.
0:07.0	Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and rate the series on iTunes. Thanks again for listening.
0:14.0	The ancient world,
0:17.0	the ancient world, The Ancient World Bloodline
0:27.0	B-35 B-Sus For Julia So Amyus Basiana, Emesa wasn't really home. True, she'd been born there, and it certainly held her earliest memories.
0:45.0	But she'd moved to Ostia at the age of 10, and the capital soon after.
0:51.0	And, well, after that, there was really no going back.
0:55.0	For over two decades Bassiana's home was the Imperial Palace and the Severin Court.
1:02.0	Emesa was, well, Emesa was what was left. But given her recent
1:09.6	losses, Bossiana took her comforts where she could. The first bload been the death of her
1:17.0	husband, the 50-year-old Sextus Varius Marcellus. In 215, shortly after returning from his governorship of New
1:26.0	media and on the verge of being elected Roman consul,
1:30.0	Marcellus had suddenly died.
1:32.0	And while that loss was hard, the past year, 217, had proven even worse.
1:40.0	First came the death of her father, the respected pro-consul and imperial comus, Gaius Julius
1:48.0	Avidus Alexionus. Then the murder of her cousin, the Emperor Caracala, stabbed in the back in a roadside ditch.
1:58.7	And finally her aunt, the Empress Julia Domna, who took her own life rather than bow to an
2:05.4	usurper. And of course the last two losses were far more than sentimental. With Caricala and Julia Dominic gone, the
2:16.2	several regime had crumbled. Its title stripped and its members confined to
2:21.9	their ancestral city of Emesa.
2:25.0	There was one critical thing the new emperor hadn't taken,
2:30.0	the mind-bogglingly vast severant fortune.
	...

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