Elagabalus -  Roman Emperor : 218-222 A.D. -
Billon Silver Tetradrachm 26mm (11.87 grams) of Antioch in Seleucis and Pieria 219 A.D.
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Jupiter is usually thought to have originated as a sky god. His identifying  implement is the thunderbolt , and his primary sacred animal is  the eagle, which held precedence over other birds in the taking of auspices and became one of the most common  symbols of the Roman army (see Aquila ). The two emblems were often combined to  represent the god in the form of an eagle holding in its claws a thunderbolt,  frequently seen on Greek and Roman coins. As the sky-god, he was a divine  witness to oaths, the sacred trust on which justice and good government depend.  Many of his functions were focused on the Capitoline ("Capitol Hill"), where the citadel was located. He was the chief deity of  the early Capitoline Triad with Mars and Quirinus . In the later Capitoline Triad , he was the central  guardian of the state with Juno and Minerva . His sacred tree was the oak. The  Romans regarded Jupiter as the equivalent of the Greek Zeus, and in Latin literature and Roman art , the myths and iconography of Zeus  are adapted under the name Iuppiter.

An aquila, or eagle, was a prominent symbol used in ancient Rome, especially as the standard of a Roman legion . A legionary known as an aquilifer , or eagle-bearer, carried this  standard. Each legion carried one eagle. The eagle was extremely important to  the Roman military, beyond merely being a symbol of a legion. A lost standard  was considered an extremely grave occurrence, and the Roman military often went  to great lengths to both protect a standard and to recover it if lost; for  example, see the aftermath of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest , where the  Romans spent decades attempting to recover the lost standards of three legions.

Elagabalus - Emperor: 218-222 A.D.

Son  of Julia Soaemias | Husband of Julia Paula, Aquilia Severa and Annia Faustina | Grandson of Julia Maesa | Nephew of Julia Mamaea | Cousin of Severus Alexander | Second-cousin of Geta and Caracalla (Supposedly a natural son of Caracalla) | Great-nephew of Septimius Severus and Julia Domna |

Elagabalus (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 . In his early youth he  served as a priest of the god Elagabal (in Latin, Elagabalus) in the  hometown of his mother's family, Emesa . As a private citizen, he was probably  named Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus. Upon becoming emperor he took the name  Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus. He 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 (and  Caracalla's cousin), 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 remembered mainly for sexual scandal and religious controversy.

Later historians suggest Elagabalus showed a disregard for Roman religious  traditions and sexual taboos. He replaced the traditional head of the Roman pantheon , Jupiter , with the deity of whom he was high  priest, Elagabal . He forced leading members of Rome's  government to participate in religious rites celebrating this deity, over which  he personally presided. Elagabalus was married as many as five times, lavished  favors on male courtiers popularly thought to have been his lovers, employed a  prototype of whoopee cushions at dinner parties, and was  reported to have prostituted himself in the imperial palace. His behavior  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 . This tradition has persisted, and in  writers of the early modern age he suffers one of the worst reputations among  Roman emperors. Edward Gibbon , for example, wrote that  Elagabalus "abandoned himself to the grossest pleasures and ungoverned fury."  According to B.G. Niebuhr , "The name Elagabalus is branded  in history above all others" because of his "unspeakably disgusting life."

Family and priesthood

Elagabalus was born around the year 203  to Sextus Varius Marcellus and Julia Soaemias Bassiana . His father was  initially a member of the equestrian class, but was later elevated to the  rank of senator . His grandmother Julia Maesa was the widow of the Consul Gaius Julius Avitus Alexianus, the sister of Julia Domna , and the sister-in-law of the  emperor Septimius Severus .

His mother, Julia Soaemias, was a cousin of the Roman emperor Caracalla . Other relatives included his aunt Julia Avita Mamaea and uncle Marcus Julius Gessius Marcianus , and their son Alexander Severus . Elagabalus's family held  hereditary rights to the priesthood of the sun god Elagabal, of whom Elagabalus  was the high priest at Emesa (modern Homs) in Syria .

The deity Elagabalus was initially venerated at Emesa.  This form of the god's name is a Latinized version of the Syrian Ilāh hag-Gabal,  which derives from Ilāh ("god") and gabal ("mountain"  (compare Hebrew : גבל‎ gəbul and Arabic : جبل‎ jabal)), resulting in "the God of the Mountain" the Emesene manifestation  of the deity.  The cult of the deity spread to other parts of the Roman Empire in the 2nd  century; a dedication has been found as far away as Woerden (Netherlands).  The god was later imported and assimilated with the Roman sun god known as Sol Indiges in republican times and as Sol Invictus during the 2nd and 3rd centuries  CE. In Greek the sun god is Helios , hence "Heliogabalus", a variant of "Elagabalus".

Rise to power

When the emperor Macrinus came to power, Elagabalus' mother  suppressed the threat against his reign by the family of his assassinated  predecessor, Caracalla, by exiling them—Julia Maesa, her two daughters, and her  eldest grandson Elagabalus—to their estate at Emesa in Syria . Almost upon arrival in Syria she began a  plot, with her advisor and Elagabalus' tutor Gannys, to overthrow Macrinus and  elevate the fourteen-year-old Elagabalus to the imperial throne.

His mother publicly declared that he was the illegitimate son of Caracalla,  therefore due the loyalties of Roman soldiers and senators who had sworn  allegiance to Caracalla. After Julia Maesa displayed her wealth to the Third Legion at Raphana they swore allegiance to Elagabalus. At  sunrise on 16 May 218, Publius Valerius Comazon Eutychianus , commander  of the legion, declared him emperor. To strengthen his legitimacy through  further propaganda, Elagabalus assumed Caracalla's names, Marcus Aurelius  Antoninus.

In response Macrinus dispatched his Praetorian prefect Ulpius Julianus to the  region with a contingent of troops he considered strong enough to crush the rebellion . However, this force soon joined the  faction of Elagabalus when, during the battle, they turned on their own  commanders. The officers were killed and Julianus' head was sent back to the  emperor.

Macrinus now sent letters to the Senate denouncing Elagabalus as the False  Antoninus and claiming he was insane. Both consuls and other high-ranking members of  Rome's leadership condemned Elagabalus, and the Senate subsequently declared war  on both Elagabalus and Julia Maesa.

Macrinus and his son, weakened by the desertion of the Second Legion due to bribes and promises  circulated by Julia Maesa, were defeated on 8 June 218 at the Battle of Antioch by troops commanded by  Gannys. Macrinus fled toward Italy , disguised as a courier, but was later  intercepted near Chalcedon and executed in Cappadocia . His son Diadumenianus , sent for safety to the Parthian court, was captured at Zeugma and also put to death.

Elagabalus declared the date of the victory at Antioch to be the beginning of  his reign and assumed the imperial titles without prior senatorial approval,  which violated tradition but was a common practice among 3rd-century emperors  nonetheless. Letters of reconciliation were dispatched to Rome extending amnesty to the Senate and recognizing the laws,  while also condemning the administration of Macrinus and his son.

The senators responded by acknowledging Elagabalus as emperor and accepting  his claim to be the son of Caracalla. Caracalla and Julia Domna were both deified by the Senate, both Julia Maesa and  Julia Soaemias were elevated to the rank of Augustae ,  and the memory of both Macrinus and Diadumenianus was condemned by the Senate.  The former commander of the Third Legion, Comazon, was appointed commander of  the Praetorian Guard.

Emperor  (218–222)

Elagabalus and his entourage spent the winter of 218 in Bithynia at Nicomedia , where the emperor's religious  beliefs first presented themselves as a problem. The contemporary historian Cassius Dio suggests that Gannys was in fact  killed by the new emperor because he was forcing Elagabalus to live "temperately  and prudently." To help Romans adjust to the idea of having an oriental priest  as emperor, Julia Maesa had a painting of Elagabalus in priestly robes sent to  Rome and hung over a statue of the goddess Victoria in the Senate House . This placed senators in the  awkward position of having to make offerings to Elagabalus whenever they made  offerings to Victoria.

The legions were dismayed by his behaviour and quickly came to regret having  supported his accession. While Elagabalus was still on his way to Rome, brief  revolts broke out by the Fourth Legion at the instigation of Gellius Maximus , and by the Third Legion, which  itself had been responsible for the elevation of Elagabalus to the throne, under  the command of Senator Verus . The rebellion was quickly put down, and  the Third Legion disbanded.

When the entourage reached Rome in the autumn of 219, Comazon and other  allies of Julia Maesa and Elagabalus were given powerful and lucrative  positions, to the outrage of many senators who did not consider them worthy of  such privileges. After his tenure as Praetorian prefect , Comazon would serve as the  city prefect of Rome three times, and as consul twice. Elagabalus soon devalued the Roman currency . He decreased the silver purity  of the denarius from 58% to 46.5% — the actual  silver weight dropping from 1.82 grams to 1.41 grams. He also demonetized the antoninianus during this period in Rome.

Elagabalus tried to have his presumed lover, the charioteer Hierocles , declared Caesar , while another alleged lover, the  athlete Aurelius Zoticus, was appointed to the non-administrative but  influential position of Master of the Chamber, or Cubicularius .  His offer of amnesty for the Roman upper class was largely honored, though the jurist Ulpian was exiled.

The relationships between Julia Maesa, Julia Soaemias, and Elagabalus were  strong at first. His mother and grandmother became the first women to be allowed  into the Senate, and both received senatorial titles: Soaemias the established  title of Clarissima, and Maesa the more unorthodox Mater Castrorum et  Senatus ("Mother of the army camp and of the Senate").  While Julia Maesa tried to position herself as the power behind the throne and  thus the most powerful woman in the world, Elagabalus would prove to be highly  independent, set in his ways, and impossible to control.

Religious controversy

Since the reign of Septimius Severus , sun worship had increased throughout the  Empire. Elagabalus saw this as an opportunity to install Elagabal as the chief  deity of the Roman pantheon . The god was renamed Deus Sol Invictus , meaning God the  Undefeated Sun, and honored above Jupiter .

As a token of respect for Roman religion, however, Elagabalus joined either Astarte , Minerva , Urania , or some combination of the three to  Elagabal as wife. Before constructing a temple in dedication to Elagabal,  Elagabalus placed the meteorite of Elagabal next to the throne of Jupiter at the  temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.

He caused further discontent when he himself married the Vestal Virgin Aquilia Severa , claiming the marriage would  produce "godlike children". This was a flagrant breach of Roman law and  tradition, which held that any Vestal found to have engaged in sexual  intercourse was to be buried alive .

A lavish temple called the Elagabalium was built on the east face of the Palatine Hill to house Elagabal, who was  represented by a black conical meteorite from Emesa. Herodian wrote "this stone is worshipped as  though it were sent from heaven; on it there are some small projecting pieces  and markings that are pointed out, which the people would like to believe are a  rough picture of the sun, because this is how they see them".

In order to become the high priest of his new religion, Elagabalus had  himself circumcised.  He forced senators to watch while he danced around the altar of Deus Sol  Invictus to the accompaniment of drums and cymbals.  Each summer solstice he held a festival dedicated to the  god, which became popular with the masses because of the free food distributed  on such occasions.  During this festival, Elagabalus placed the Emesa stone on a chariot adorned with gold and jewels, which he  paraded through the city:

A six horse chariot carried the divinity, the horses huge and flawlessly  white, with expensive gold fittings and rich ornaments. No one held the  reins, and no one rode in the chariot; the vehicle was escorted as if  the god himself were the charioteer. Elagabalus ran backward in front of  the chariot, facing the god and holding the horses' reins. He made the  whole journey in this reverse fashion, looking up into the face of his  god.

The most sacred relics from the Roman religion were transferred from their  respective shrines to the Elagabalium, including the emblem of the Great Mother , the fire of Vesta , the Shields of the Salii and the Palladium , so that no other god could be  worshipped except in company with Elagabal.

Sex/gender  controversy

Roman denarius depicting Aquilia Severa , the second wife of  Elagabalus. The marriage caused a public outrage because Aquilia was  a Vestal Virgin , sworn by Roman law  to celibacy for 30 years.

Elagabalus' sexual orientation and gender identity are the subject of much debate.  Elagabalus married and divorced five women, three of whom are known. His first  wife was Julia Cornelia Paula ; the second was the Vestal Virgin Julia Aquilia Severa .

Within a year, he abandoned her and married Annia Aurelia Faustina , a descendant of Marcus Aurelius and the widow of a man recently  executed by Elagabalus. He had returned to his second wife Severa by the end of  the year. According to Cassius Dio, his most stable relationship seems to have  been with his chariot driver, a blond slave from Caria named Hierocles , whom he referred to as his husband.

The Augustan History claims that he also married a man named Zoticus,  an athlete from Smyrna, in a public ceremony at Rome. Cassius Dio reported that  Elagabalus would paint his eyes, epilate his hair and wear wigs before prostituting himself in taverns, brothels, and  even in the imperial palace:

Finally, he set aside a room in the palace and there committed his  indecencies, always standing nude at the door of the room, as the  harlots do, and shaking the curtain which hung from gold rings, while in  a soft and melting voice he solicited the passers-by. There were, of  course, men who had been specially instructed to play their part. For,  as in other matters, so in this business, too, he had numerous agents  who sought out those who could best please him by their foulness. He  would collect money from his patrons and give himself airs over his  gains; he would also dispute with his associates in this shameful  occupation, claiming that he had more lovers than they and took in more  money.

Herodian commented that Elagabalus enhanced his natural good looks by the  regular application of cosmetics. He was described as having been "delighted to  be called the mistress, the wife, the queen of Hierocles" and was reported to  have offered vast sums of money to any physician who could equip him with female  genitalia. Elagabalus has been characterized by some modern writers as transgender , perhaps transsexual .

Fall from power

By 221 Elagabalus' eccentricities, particularly his relationship with  Hierocles, increasingly provoked the soldiers of the Praetorian Guard . When Elagabalus' grandmother  Julia Maesa perceived that popular support for the emperor was waning, she  decided that he and his mother, who had encouraged his religious practices, had  to be replaced.  As alternatives, she turned to her other daughter, Julia Avita Mamaea , and her daughter's son, the  thirteen-year-old Severus Alexander .

Prevailing on Elagabalus, she arranged that he appoint his cousin Alexander  as his heir and be given the title of Caesar. Alexander shared the  consulship with the emperor that year. However, Elagabalus reconsidered this  arrangement when he began to suspect that the Praetorian Guard preferred his  cousin above himself.

Following the failure of various attempts on Alexander's life, Elagabalus  stripped his cousin of his titles, revoked his consulship, and circulated the  news that Alexander was near death, in order to see how the Praetorians would  react. A riot ensued, and the guard demanded to see Elagabalus and Alexander in  the Praetorian camp .

Assassination

The emperor complied and on 11 March 222 he publicly presented his cousin  along with his own mother, Julia Soaemias. On their arrival the soldiers started  cheering Alexander while ignoring Elagabalus, who ordered the summary arrest and  execution of anyone who had taken part in this display of insubordination. In  response, members of the Praetorian Guard attacked Elagabalus and his  mother:

So he made an attempt to flee, and would have got away somewhere by  being placed in a chest, had he not been discovered and slain, at the  age of 18. His mother, who embraced him and clung tightly to him,  perished with him; their heads were cut off and their bodies, after  being stripped naked, were first dragged all over the city, then the  mother's body was cast aside somewhere or other while his was thrown  into the [Tiber].

Following his assassination, many associates of Elagabalus were killed or  deposed, including Hierocles and Comazon.  His religious edicts were reversed and the stone of Elagabal was sent back to Emesa . Women were again barred from attending  meetings of the Senate.  The practice of damnatio memoriae —erasing from the public  record a disgraced personage formerly of note—was systematically applied in his  case.

Sources

Augustan History

The source of many of these stories of Elagabalus's depravity is the Augustan History (Historia Augusta),  which includes controversial claims. The Historia Augusta was most likely  written toward the end of the 4th century during the reign of emperor Theodosius I . The life of Elagabalus as  described in the Augustan History is of uncertain historical merit.  Sections 13 to 17, relating to the fall of Elagabalus, are less controversial  among historians.

Cassius Dio

Sources often considered more credible than the Augustan History  include the contemporary historians Cassius Dio and Herodian. Cassius Dio lived  from the second half of the 2nd century until sometime after 229. Born into a patrician family, he spent the greater part of  his life in public service. He was a senator under emperor Commodus and governor of Smyrna after the death of Septimius Severus . Afterwards he served as  suffect consul around 205, and as proconsul in Africa and Pannonia .

Alexander Severus held him in high esteem and made him his consul again. His Roman History spans nearly a millennium , from the arrival of Aeneas in Italy until the year 229. As a  contemporary of Elagabalus, Cassius Dio's account of his reign is generally  considered more reliable than the Augustan History, although by his own  admission Dio spent the greater part of the relevant period outside of Rome and  had to rely on second-hand accounts.

Furthermore, the political climate in the aftermath of Elagabalus' reign, as  well as Dio's own position within the government of Alexander, likely influenced  the truth of this part of his history for the worse. Dio regularly refers to  Elagabalus as Sardanapalus , partly to distinguish him from  his divine namesake,  but chiefly to do his part in maintaining the damnatio memoriae enforced after the  emperor's death and to associate him with another autocrat notorious for a  debauched life.

Herodian

Medal of Elagabalus, Louvre Museum .

Another contemporary of Elagabalus was Herodian , who was a minor Roman civil servant  who lived from c. 170 until 240. His work, History of the Roman Empire since  Marcus Aurelius, commonly abbreviated as Roman History, is an  eyewitness account of the reign of Commodus until the beginning of the reign of Gordian III . His work largely overlaps with  Dio's own Roman History, but both texts seem to be independently  consistent with each other.

Although Herodian is not deemed as reliable as Cassius Dio, his lack of  literary and scholarly pretensions make him less biased than senatorial  historians. Herodian is considered the most important source for the religious  reforms which took place during the reign of Elagabalus, which have been  confirmed by numismatic and archaeological evidence.

Edward Gibbon and other, later historians

For readers of the modern age, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire   by Edward Gibbon (1737–94) further cemented the  scandalous reputation of Elagabalus. Gibbon not only accepted and expressed  outrage at the allegations of the ancient historians, but might have added some  details of his own; he is the first historian known to state that Gannys was a  eunuch, for example.  Gibbon wrote:

To confound the order of the season and climate, to sport with the  passions and prejudices of his subjects, and to subvert every law of  nature and decency, were in the number of his most delicious amusements.  A long train of concubines, and a rapid succession of wives, among whom  was a vestal virgin, ravished by force from her sacred asylum, were  insufficient to satisfy the impotence of his passions. The master of the  Roman world affected to copy the manners and dress of the female sex,  preferring the distaff to the sceptre, and dishonored the principal  dignities of the empire by distributing them among his numerous lovers;  one of whom was publicly invested with the title and authority of the  emperor's, or, as he more properly styled himself, the empress's  husband. It may seem probable, the vices and follies of Elagabalus have  been adorned by fancy, and blackened by prejudice. Yet, confining  ourselves to the public scenes displayed before the Roman people, and  attested by grave and contemporary historians, their inexpressible  infamy surpasses that of any other age or country.

Two hundred years after the age of Pliny, the use of pure, or even of  mixed silks, was confined to the female sex, till the opulent citizens  of Rome and the provinces were insensibly familiarized with the example  of Elagabalus, the first who, by this effeminate habit, had sullied the  dignity of an emperor and a man.

Some recent historians argue for a more favorable picture of his life and  reign. Martijn Icks in Images of Elagabalus (2008; republished as The  Crimes of Elagabalus in 2012) doubts the reliability of the ancient sources  and argues that it was the emperor's unorthodox religious policies that  alienated the power elite of Rome, to the point that his grandmother saw fit to  eliminate him and replace him with his cousin. Leonardo de Arrizabalaga y Prado,  in The Emperor Elagabalus: Fact of Fiction? (2008), is also critical of  the ancient historians and speculates that neither religion nor sexuality played  a role in the fall of the young emperor, who was simply the loser in a power  struggle within the imperial family; the loyalty of the Praetorian Guards was up  for sale, and Julia Maesa had the resources to outmaneuver and outbribe her  grandson. According to this version, once Elagabalus, his mother, and his  immediate circle had been murdered, a wholesale propaganda war against his  memory resulted in a vicious caricature which has persisted to the present,  repeated and often embellished by later historians displaying their own  prejudices against effeminacy and other vices which Elagabalus had come to  epitomize.

Legacy

 

Elagabalus on a wall painting at castle Forchtenstein

Due to the ancient tradition about him, Elagabalus became something of an  (anti-)hero in the Decadent movement of the late 19th century. He  often appears in literature and other creative media as the epitome of a young,  amoral aesthete. His life and character have informed or at least inspired many  famous works of art, by Decadents, even by contemporary artists. The most  notable of these works include:

Poems,  Novels, and Biographies

• Joris-Karl Huysmans 's' À rebours (1884), one of the literary  touchstones of the Decadent movement, describes in chapter 2 the ingenuity  behind a banquet designed by Des Esseintes, the protagonist, consisting  solely of black foodstuffs, intended as a kind of perverse memorial to his  lost virility. The episode is partly inspired by the highly artificial,  monochromatic feasts that Elagabalus is said to have contrived (Historia  Augusta, Life of Elagabalus, chapter 18).
• L'Agonie (Agony) (1888), the  best known novel by the French writer Jean Lombard , featuring Elagabulus as the  protagonist
• In 1903 Georges Duviquet published what purports to be a faithful  biography of the emperor: Héliogabale: Raconté par les historians Grecs  et Latins, [avec] dix-huit gravures d'après les monuments original.
• The previous pair of works inspired the Dutch writer Louis Couperus to produce his novel De Berg van Licht (The Mountain of  Light) (1905), which presents Elagabalus in a sympathetic light.
• Algabal (1892–1919), a collection of  poems by the German poet Stefan George
• The Sun God (1904), a novel by the English writer Arthur Westcott
• The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus   (1911), a biography by the Oxford don John Stuart Hay
• Héliogabale ou l'Anarchiste couronné (Heliogabalus  or The Anarchist Crowned) (1934) by Antonin Artaud , combining essay, biography,  and fiction
• Family Favourites (1960), a novel by  the Anglo-Argentine writer Alfred Duggan in which Heliogabalus is seen  through the eyes of a faithful Gaulish bodyguard and depicted as a gentle  and charming aesthete, personally lovable but lacking political skills.
• Child of the Sun (1966), a novel by Lance Horner and Kyle Onstott , better known for writing the  novel that inspired the movie Mandingo
• Super-Eliogabalo (1969), a novel by the Italian writer Alberto Arbasino
• Boy Caesar (2004), a novel by the  English writer Jeremy Reed
• Roman Dusk (2008), a novel in the vampire Count Saint-Germain series by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Plays

• Zygmunt Krasiński . "Irydion"  (1836), in which Elagabalus is portrayed as a cruel tyrant
• Mencken , H.L. and Nathan, George Jean . Heliogabalus A Buffoonery in Three Acts.   New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1920
• de Escobar Fagundes, C.H. Heliogabalo: O Sol é a Pátria. Ed.  Devir. Rio de Janeiro, 1980
• Gilbert, S. Heliogabalus: A Love Story.  Toronto, Cabaret Theatre Company, 2002
• Ferreyra, Shawn. Elagabalus, Emperor of Rome , 2008
• Arelis. Heliogabalus (2008)

Paintings

 

The Roses of Heliogabalus , Lawrence Alma-Tadema , 1888.

• Heliogabalus, High Priest of the Sun   (1866), by the English decadent Simeon Solomon
• One of the most notorious incidents laid to his account is immortalized  in the 19th-century painting The Roses of Heliogabalus (1888), by  the Anglo-Dutch academician Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema . It shows guests at  one of his extravagant dinner parties smothered under a mass of "violets and  other flowers" dropped from above.
• Lui (1906), by Gustav-Adolf Mossa
• Heliogabalus (1974), by Anselm Kiefer
• Antonin Artaud Heliogabalus (2010–11),  by Anselm Kiefer

Music

• Eliogabalo , an opera by Venetian  Baroque composer Francesco Cavalli (1667)
• Heliogabale, an opera by French composer Déodat de Séverac (1910)
• Heliogabalus Imperator (Emperor  Heliogabalus), an orchestral work by the German composer Hans Werner Henze (1972)
• Six Litanies for Heliogabalus , by the  composer and saxophonist John Zorn (2007)

Dance

• Héliogabale, a contemporary dance choreographed by Maurice Béjart

Film

• Héliogabale , a 1909
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