Elagabalus

Origin of the Name Elagabalus

As emperor, Varius Avitus became known by the Latinized version of the name of his Syrian god El-Gabal. Elagabalus also established his god as the principal one of the empire. He further alienated Rome by taking honors upon himself before they had been awarded him -- including substituting his name for that of Macrinius as consul.

In both the message to the senate and the letter to the people he styled himself emperor and Caesar, the son of Antoninus, the grandson of Severus, Pius, Felix, Augustus, proconsul, and holder of the tribunician power, assuming these titles before they had been voted, and he used, not the [na]me [of Avitus,] but that of his [pretended] f[ather]... [and] commanded that if anyone resisted him, he should call on the soldiers for assistance....
Dio Cassius LXXX

Herodian, Dio Cassius, Aelius Lampridius and Gibbon have written about Elagabalus' femininity, bisexuality, transvestism, and forcing a vestal virgin to break vows that were so solemn any virgin found to have violated them was buried alive. He appears to have worked as a prostitute and may have sought the original transgendering operation. If so, he didn't succeed. When he tried to become a gallus, he was convinced to undergo circumcision, instead. To us the difference is immense, but to Roman men, both were humiliating.

Although Elagabalus killed many of his political enemies, especially supporters of Macrinius, he wasn't a sadist who tortured and put an inordinate number of people to death. He was an attractive, hormonally charged teen with absolute power, the high priest of an exotic god and a Roman emperor from Syria who imposed his eastern customs on Rome. J.B. Bury believes that with the universal citizenship grant of Caracalla, a universal religion was necessary. The time for a unified religion may have been right when Elagabalus tried to institute it, but because of his flamboyance and failure to behave like a proper Roman, he failed. It was another century before Constantine could impose a universal religion.

Assassination of Elagabalus

Ultimately, like most of the emperors of the period, Elagabalus was killed by his soldiers, after less than four years in power. He was 17. His first cousin Alexander Severus, also from Emesa, Syria, succeeded him.