A Guardian journalist seems saddened that the departure of the previous editor could signal that ‘The Spectator’s similarities with the last days of the Roman empire are apparently over’. It is even more saddening to report that they never came close.
Elagabalus, Roman emperor ad 218–222, showed what could be done if you put your mind to it. Of Syrian extraction, he became emperor at 15 and took the name Elagabalus (the ‘unconquered sun god’ of Syria), planning to make that deity supreme across the Roman world. That did not go down well with the authorities back in Rome, nor did his choice of officials: he put an actor in charge of the Praetorian Guard and a hairdresser in charge of the food supplies, assigning other posts to men in relation to the size of their genitals (his sexual appetites knew no bounds). An inveterate joker, he would order his slaves to bring him, for example, a thousand pounds of spiders’ webs. But it was with his orgiastic parties in honour of the sun god that he really made his mark.
In summer he gave banquets themed by colour: green one day, glass the next, blue the next, a different colour for every day. He experimented with different foods (camels’ heels were a special favourite). He invented the idea of ‘chances’ for his guests (a spoon might have ‘ten flies’ or ‘ten pounds of gold’ inscribed on it). He would serve guests pictures of delicious food on tapestries or paintings, but no actual food. Guests would be invited to invent new sauces; the winners would receive huge rewards, but those whose efforts failed to please were forced to eat nothing else until they had come up with something better. He liked inviting parties of similarly deformed guests (all one-eyed or deaf or gout-ridden) and once invited eight fat men for the pleasure of watching them trying to recline together on the same couch. He also took to seating guests round the table on air-filled cushions, which slaves surreptitiously let down in the course of the meal (an alternative whoopee cushion?). He once organised a party at which each course was served in a different house, ensuring that the houses were as far apart as possible. A terrible fate awaited drunken guests: they would wake in the morning to find lions, leopards and bears roaming their room.
The magazine has a lot of catching up to do.
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