Elagabalus

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Varius Avitus Bassianus Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, (c. 203-March 11, 222), born Varius Avitus Bassus, and better known as Elagabalus or Heliogabalus, was a Roman emperor of the Severan dynasty who reigned from 218-222. Elagabalus was the son of Sextus Varius Marcellus and Julia Soaemias Bassiana, niece of Julia Domna (the wife of Septimius Severus). His mother claimed that his actual father was her cousin Caracalla (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus), and he adopted Caracalla's name during his short reign. The name Elagabalus (compare the Hebrew gevul and Arabic jebel) is a Latinised form of a Semitic name which originally referred to the patron deity of the emperor's birthplace, the Syrian city of Emesa (modern Homs or Hims). Elagabalus was serving as hereditary high priest of the deity when his mother and grandmother used him as a figurehead against Macrinus, who had succeeded Caracalla. In 220, having settled in Rome, Elagabalus attempted to make this deity the supreme god of the Empire under the name Deus Sol Invictus ("God the Invincible Sun"). Note that the name Heliogabalus is in fact a confusion with of the original Semitic name with the Greek word helios (sun), an understandable mistake given the emperor's religious title.

Heliogabalus is best known for the acts of debauchery and often amusing eccentricity that were supposed to have characterised his regime. After his death many denigrating stories were circulated about him; among these, that he smothered to death guests at a dinner with a mass of sweet-smelling rose petals dropped from above (see The Roses of Heliogabalus).

Elagabalus has also often been characterised by modern writers as transgender, most likely transsexual. :He is described as having been "delighted to be called the mistress, the wife, the Queen of Hierocles" and is said to have offered half the Roman Empire to the physician who could equip him with female genitalia. (H. Benjamin - The Transsexual Phenomenon [1]).

The source of many of these stories however is the Historia Augusta, which scholarly consensus now feels to be grossly unreliable in its details although based on kernels of truth, making the claim he was transgender or transsexual also highly dubious.

Due to theses stories, Heliogabalus became something of a hero to the Decadent movement in the late nineteenth century. He appears in many paintings and poems as the epitome of an amoral aesthete. Various famous works were inspired by the life and character of Heliogabalus and they include:

• The painting The Roses of Heliogabalus (1888), by the Anglo-Dutch academician Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema.
• A collection of poems by the German poet Stefan George which he entitled Algabal (1892-1919).
• The painting Heliogabalus, High Priest of the Sun (1886), by the English decadent Simeon Solomon, once a close friend of Algernon Charles Swinburne.
• The novel L'Agonie (Agony) (1889), by the French writer Jean Lombard.
• The novel De Berg van Licht (The Mountain of Light) (1905), by the Dutch writer Louis Couperus.
• The novel The Sun God (1904), by the English writer Arthur Westcott.
• A biography, The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus (1911), by the Oxford don John Stuart Hay.
• The play Héliogabale ou l'Anarchiste couronné (Heliogabalus, or the Crowned Anarchist) (1934), by the French surrealist Antonin Artaud.
• The novel Family Favourites (1960), by the Anglo-Argentine writer Alfred Duggan.
• The novel Child of the Sun (1966), by Lance Horner and Kyle Onstott, who were more famous for writing the novel behind the movie Mandingo.
• An opera, Heliogabalus imperator (Emperor Heliogabalus) (1972), by the modernist German composer Hans Werner Henze (1926- ).
• There is also a French experimental rock band called Héliogabale.
• The band Devil Doll made a CD called Eliogabalus, which refers to Heliogabalus.
• The global musician Momus (aka Nick Currie recorded a song about Heliogabalus on his 2001 album Folktronic.
• The 24 hour comic Being an Account of the Life and Death of the Emperor Heliogabulus by Neil Gaiman

See also

• Severan dynasty family tree

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations by or about Elagabalus.

• Antoninus Elagabalus and his relationship with the Senate
• [2] Entry on Elagabalus from De Imperatoribus Romanis
• Appendix C of The Transsexual Phenomenon by H. Benjamin mentioning Elagabalus as transsexual

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