The Lexicon of Abuse: Drunkenness and political illegitimacy in the late Roman world
By Mark Humphries
Humour, History and Politics in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, edited by Guy Halsall (Cambridge University Press, 2002)
Introduction In the anonymous, mid-fourth century narrative known as the Origo Constantini Imperatoris (The Origin of the Emperor Constantine), several apparently remarkable statements are made about the moral fibre — or more precisely the lack of it — of the enemies of the emperor Constantine. Prominent among these villains are Galerius, Augustus of the eastern empire (305-311), and his short-lived associate as western emperor, Severus (Caesar 305-6; Augustus, 306-7). The relationship between the two men, so our anonymous author has it, was based on their shared propensity to heavy drinking: ‘Severus Caesar was ignoble both by character and by birth; he was a heavy drinker (ebriosus) and for this reason he was a friend of Galerius.’ Galerius’ own fondness for drink and its deleterious effects are soon described: ‘Galerius was such a heavy drinker (ebriosus) that, when he was intoxicated, he gave orders such as should not be implemented.’
This paper will explain why it is significant that an emperor should be characterized as an ebriosus. It will show that emperors described in this fashion were not ‘mere’ heavy drinkers, but that allegations of drunkenness were employed to undermine the very legitimacy of their rule. My discussion here will focus primarily on texts dealing with emperors of the tetrarchy established by Diocletian and the succeeding Constantinian dynasty, so that the material will cover both the political and religious rivalries of the late third and early fourth centuries AD. It will emerge that no single religious group monopolized this particular vituperative technique, and that the connection between drunkenness and illegitimacy was drawn equally by pagans and Christians.
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