About 5 results for ‘Elagabalus’
-
_-_Musei_capitolini_-_Foto_Giovanni_Dall'Orto_-_15-08-2000_.jpg/200px-Elagabalo_(203_o_204-222_d.C)_-_Musei_capitolini_-_Foto_Giovanni_Dall'Orto_-_15-08-2000_.jpg)
Elagabalus
Elagabalus (Latin: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus; ca. 203 – 11 March 222), also known as Heliogabalus, was Roman Emperor from 218 to 222. A member of the Severan Dynasty, he was Syrian on his mother's side, the son of Julia Soaemias and Sextus Varius Marcellus. Early in his youth he served as a priest of the god El-Gabal in his hometown, Emesa. Upon becoming emperor he took the name Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus and was called Elagabalus only after his death. In 217, the emperor Caracalla was assassinated and replaced by his Praetorian prefect, Marcus Opellius Macrinus. Caracalla's maternal aunt, Julia Maesa, successfully instigated a revolt among the Third Legion to have her eldest grandson, Elagabalus, declared emperor in his place. Macrinus was defeated on 8 June 218, at the Battle of Antioch. Elagabalus, barely fourteen years old, became emperor, initiating a reign known mainly for sexual scandal and religious controversy. During his rule, Elagabalus showed a disregard for Roman religious traditions and sexual taboos. He replaced the traditional head of the Roman pantheon, Jupiter, with a god held in comparable esteem in Syria, Deus Sol Invictus . He forced leading members of Rome's government to participate in religious rites celebrating this deity, rites over which he personally presided. Elagabalus was married as many as five times, lavished favours on courtiers popularly thought to have been his homosexual lovers, employed a prototype of whoopee cushions at dinner parties, and was reported to have prostituted himself in the imperial palace. Reports of his behaviour estranged the Praetorian Guard, the Senate, and the common people alike. Amidst growing opposition, Elagabalus, just 18 years old, was assassinated and replaced by his cousin Alexander Severus on 11 March 222, in a plot formulated by his grandmother, Julia Maesa, and carried out by disaffected members of the Praetorian Guard. Elagabalus developed a reputation among his contemporaries for extreme eccentricity, decadence and zealotry which was likely exaggerated by his successors and political rivals. This tradition lasted centuries, and he suffers one of the worst reputations among Roman emperors in writers of the early modern age. Edward Gibbon, for example, wrote that Elagabalus "abandoned himself to the grossest pleasures and ungoverned fury. " "The name Elagabalus is branded in history above all others" because of his "unspeakably disgusting life," according to B.G. Niebuhr. Modern writers have tried to separate fact from fiction and arrive at a more equitable view of Elagabalus and his emperorship.
-
-
-
-
-
