Elagabalus: The weirdest Roman Emperor  

Did Nero play his fiddle while Rome burned? Did Caligula make a horse his senator? Strange stories keep popping up when it comes to ancient Roman emperors and their notoriously bizarrer courts. The problem is that we have no way of telling fact from fiction. It’s true that many of the emperors were a little mad, though most of them were also multi-talented. But it’s also true that the press at that time was much worse than now, writing authentic-sounding records, and publicising these widely to blacklist the previous emperor during the next one’s reign.  

Today we will look at Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, whose self-given name of Elagabalus became more popular after his death. His reign lasted from 16 May 218 AD to 11 March 222 AD.  

He was called Elagabalus after his favourite god  

Elagabalus was either 13 or 14 when he was crowned king. He was Syrian and a huge devotee of the Syrian sun god Elagabal. He was so strongly influenced by the god that he tried to install Elagabal over all Roman gods, including Jupiter, the King of Gods. He put out inscriptions in prominent places including coins calling Elagabal Deus Sol Invictus (i.e. ‘the unconquerable sun god’). This is what probably started making him unpopular.  

Elagabalus kept marrying… 

Even if we throw away a lot of stories from old Roman texts as rumours, there are too many records of Elagabalus’s many marriages, though he was just a teenager. Among the 5 queens he managed to get in his very short lifetime, one was Iulia Aquilia Severa, a temple priestress and another was Annia Aurelia Faustina, whose husband was executed by Elagabalus to make the marriage easier. Given his cruel nature, people started disliking him more.  

Elagabalus rode strange chariots and gave animals as gifts  

According to the Historia Augusta, a collection of biographies of Roman emperors written around the fourth century AD, Elagabalus did not throw gold and silver coins to the crowds when he was crowned. Instead, he distributed cattle, camel, donkeys and other livestock because he felt that was more kingly. He also liked riding chariots pulled by animals other than horses. Once he chose 4 African elephants, and managed to trample over tombs of several dignitaries when he rode to the palace.  

Elagabalus’s feasts were stranger than his rides  

Elagabalus, according to the Historia Augusta and a few other records, liked holding feasts with men of only one type – only bald men, short men, fat men etc. He also cracked practical joes by serving his guests food made of wax and stone while he got real food. Too bad the mobile camera was not around then!  

There are more stories about him. But poor Elagabalus was terribly hated by people within a few years. He and his mother were both killed by his own bodyguards when Elagabalus was only 18.