Elagabalus - Roman Emperor: 218-222 A.D. -
Silver Denarius 20mm (2.8 grams) Rome mint: 221 A.D.
Reference: RIC 40b, C 184
IMPANTONINVSPIVSAVG - Laureate, draped bust right.
PMTRPIIIICOSIIIPP - Sol standing left, raising hand and holding whip; star in
either field.
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Sol Invictus
("Unconquered Sun") was a
Roman god identified in the
later Roman empire[ambiguous]
with
Sol, accompanied with the
epithet
invictus meaning unconquered that was commonly given to Sol from the
second century CE onwards. There is much confusion about Sol Invictus because
modern scholarship long maintained that he was actually a distinct sun god
introduced from Syria
by the emperor
Aurelian in 274 CE.
In recent publications this older view has been definitively refuted, and it now
seems certain that the Romans revered the sun, Sol (with various
epithets, including invictus) as a god, without interruption, from as far
back as we can trace Roman religion until the end of
antiquity[ambiguous].As a result of these new studies, many of the older notions concerning the
role of the sun god in
Late Antiquity are falling by the wayside.
Elagabalus
(pronounced El-uh-GAB-uh-lus, c. 203 – March 11, 222), also known as
Heliogabalus or Marcus
Aurelius Antoninus, was a
Roman
Emperor of the
Severan dynasty who reigned from 218 to 222. Born Varius Avitus Bassianus,
he was
Syrian on his mother's side, the son of
Julia Soaemias and
Sextus Varius Marcellus, and in his early youth he served as a priest of the
god
El-Gabal at his hometown,
Emesa. Upon becoming emperor he took the name Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
Augustus, and was called Elagabalus only a long time after his death.
In 217,
the emperor
Caracalla was murdered 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, Elagabalus, declared as emperor in
his place. Macrinus was defeated on June 8, 218, at the
Battle of Antioch, upon which Elagabalus, barely fourteen years old,
ascended to the imperial power and began a reign that was marred by infamous
controversies, to put it mildly.
During his rule, Elagabalus showed a disregard for Roman religious traditions
and sexual taboos. He was married as many as five times and is reported to have
prostituted himself in the imperial palace. Elagabalus replaced
Jupiter, head of the
Roman pantheon, with a new god,
Deus
Sol Invictus, and forced leading members of Rome's government to
participate in religious rites celebrating this deity, which he personally led.
Amidst growing opposition, Elagabalus, only 18 years old, was assassinated
and replaced by his cousin
Alexander Severus on March 11, 222, in a plot formed by his grandmother,
Julia Maesa, and members of the
Praetorian Guard. Elagabalus developed a reputation among his contemporaries
for eccentricity, decadence, and zealotry which was likely exaggerated by his
successors and political rivals.
This propaganda was passed on and, as a result, he was one of the most reviled
Roman emperors to early historians. For example,
Edward Gibbon wrote that Elagabalus "abandoned himself to the grossest
pleasures and ungoverned fury."
"The name Elagabalus is branded in history above all others" because of his
"unspeakably disgusting life," wrote
B.G. Niebuhr.
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