Description
Assuming the throne at the tender age of 14, after a palace coup, Elagabalus was anything but the innocent child. Uninterested in the military or affairs of state, the young emperor made use of his imperial godhead to, as Edward Gibbon put it, ”abandon himself to the grossest pleasures and ungoverned fury.“ The stereotype of the decadent Roman orgy derives from the court of Elagabalus, also called Heliogabalus, who was assassinated at the age of 18.
