Worst Roman Emperors: The Eccentric Elagabalus
Public DomainThe Roses of Heliogabalus, a 19th-century depiction of the story that Elagabalus once smothered his dinner guests by dropping flowers from the ceiling.
In one story about the Roman emperor Elagabalus, the ruler purportedly smothered his dinner guests after ordering a cascade of flowers to be dropped from the ceiling. The story may or may not be true, but it’s just one anecdote (and a tame one at that) associated with Elagabalus that makes him one of the worst Roman emperors.
Born around 203 C.E. in present-day Syria as Varius Avitus Bassianus, the emperor became known as Elagabalus at a young age because he served as a priest for Elah-Gabal, a Sun god. After Elagabalus’ cousin, the Roman emperor Caracalla, was murdered, Elagabalus’ mother and grandmother successfully plotted to put him on the Roman throne.
Once there, Elagabalus quickly made an impression on Roman citizens.
Public DomainElagabalus on a coin.
He introduced Elah-Gabal to the Roman pantheon of gods, erected a huge temple on Palatine Hill, married several times — including to a Vestal Virgin — and purportedly sought to find doctors to give him a vagina. He also, according to some sources, practiced human sacrifice.
“Elagabalus also sacrificed human victims, and for this purpose he collected from the whole of Italy children of noble birth and beautiful appearance, whose fathers and mothers were alive, intending, I suppose that the sorrow, if suffered by two parents, should be all the greater,” the Historia Augusta, published around the fourth century C.E., claims.
The text continues: “Finally, he kept about him every kind of magician and had them perform daily sacrifices, himself urging them on and giving thanks to the gods because he found them to be well-disposed to these men; and all the while he would examine the children’s vitals and torture the victims after the manner of his own native rites.”
Elagabalus’ eccentricities eventually became too much for Romans. He was murdered by the Praetorian Guard in 222 C.E.