Diadumenian

Diadumenian ( dy-AD-uu-MEE-nee-ən; Latin: Marcus Opellius Antoninus Diadumenianus; 14 September 208 – June 218) was the son of the Roman emperor Macrinus and served as his co-ruler for a brief time in 218. His mother, Macrinus's wife, is called Nonia Celsa in the unreliable Historia Augusta, though this name may have been fictional. Diadumenian became caesar in May 217, shortly after his father's accession to the imperial throne. Elagabalus, a relative of the recently deceased Caracalla, revolted in May of the following year, and Diadumenian was elevated to co-emperor. After Macrinus was defeated in the Battle of Antioch on 8 June 218, Diadumenian was sent to the court of Artabanus IV of Parthia to ensure his safety; however, he was captured and executed along the way. After his death and that of his father, the Senate declared both of them enemies of Rome and had their names struck from records and their images destroyed, a process known in modern scholarship as damnatio memoriae.

History

Diadumenian was born on 14 September 208, named Marcus Opellius Diadumenianus, to Macrinus, the praetorian prefect and future emperor of Berber origin. The unreliable Historia Augusta, a collection of biographies of Roman emperors and usurpers, mistakenly names Diadumenian as "Diadumenus". The same source also states that Diadumenian's mother (Macrinus's wife) was called Nonia Celsa, though this name may have been invented by the author of the text. Little information survives about Diadumenian, although the details of his physical appearance can be deduced from coinage and a description from the Historia Augusta, which relates that he was "beautiful beyond all others, somewhat tall of stature, with golden hair, black eyes and an aquiline nose; his chin was wholly lovely in its molding, his mouth designed for a kiss, and he was by nature strong and by training graceful".