Elagabalus

Elagabalus was a teenage Roman emperor from Emesa in Syria who ruled from AD 218 to 222. As hereditary priest of the sun god Elagabal, he attempted to elevate the deity within Roman public religion and staged unconventional court ceremonies and marriages. Ancient senatorial authors portrayed him as sexually transgressive, extravagant and contemptuous of Roman custom, but their accounts are intensely hostile. The Praetorian Guard killed him and his mother and replaced him with Severus Alexander.

Alfred Duggan’s Family Favourites narrates the reign through a member of the imperial household and remains one of the best-known historical novels about Elagabalus. Modern fiction often uses the emperor to explore gender, sexuality, religious difference and Roman prejudice. Care is necessary because many sensational details may be literary inventions designed to justify his overthrow and present his successor as a restoration of order.

In non-fiction, Elagabalus is discussed in Harry Sidebottom’s The Mad Emperor and L. J. Trafford’s Ancient Rome’s Worst Emperors. In Harry Sidebottom’s The Mad Emperor, this biography re-examines Elagabalus, the Syrian teenager who became Roman emperor in AD 218 and was murdered four years later.