2024/025: The Mad Emperor: Heliogabalus and the Decadence of Rome — Harry Sidebottom

2024/025: The Mad Emperor: Heliogabalus and the Decadence of Rome — Harry Sidebottom

The entire thing was invented by the author of the 'Augustan History', who gives the game away, probably intentionally, when he writes that the tale was spread by men who were marginalised at court because of their small penises (don’t worry, we will come back to the importance of cock size in politics). [loc. 2403]

The emperor known as Heliogabalus -- perhaps best known from Alma-Tadema's The Roses of Heliogabalus, depicting the Emperor watching with lazy amusement as his dinner guests are smothered in petals -- was a Syrian teenager, propelled to Rome and the purple by his grandmother. He'd been a priest of a local sun god, Elegabal, for some years, and brought his god (in the form of a black stone) to Rome, where Elegabal displaced Jupiter and was worshipped, under duress, by respectable Romans. ( Read more... )