Elagabalus was one of the most notorious of Rome's 'bad emperors': a sexually-depraved and eccentric hedonist who in his short and riotous reign made unprecedented changes to Roman state religion and defied all taboos. An oriental boy-priest from Syria - aged just fourteen when he was elevated to power in 218 CE - he placed the sun god El-Gabal at the head of the established Roman pantheon, engaged in orgiastic rituals, took male and female lovers, wore feminine dress and was alleged to have prostituted himself in taverns and even inside the imperial palace. Since his assassination by the Praetorian Guard at the age of eighteen, Elagabalus has been an object of fascination to historians and a source of inspiration for artists and writers. This immensely readable book examines the life of one of the Roman Empire's most colourful figures, and charts the many guises of his legacy: from evil tyrant to firebrand rebel, from mystical androgyne to modern gay teenager, from decadent sensualist to ancient pop star.

The first study to subject the life and reign of the so-called Emperor Elagabalus to a thorough historical investigation.

Bestselling classical historian Barry Strauss delivers “an exceptionally accessible history of the Roman Empire…much of Ten Caesars reads like a script for Game of Thrones” (The Wall Street Journal)—a summation of three and a half centuries of the Roman Empire as seen through the lives of ten of the most important emperors, from Augustus to Constantine. In this essential and “enlightening” (The New York Times Book Review) work, Barry Strauss tells the story of the Roman Empire from rise to reinvention, from Augustus, who founded the empire, to Constantine, who made it Christian and moved the capital east to Constantinople. During these centuries Rome gained in splendor and territory, then lost both. By the fourth century, the time of Constantine, the Roman Empire had changed so dramatically in geography, ethnicity, religion, and culture that it would have been virtually unrecognizable to Augustus. Rome’s legacy remains today in so many ways, from language, law, and architecture to the seat of the Roman Catholic Church. Strauss examines this enduring heritage through the lives of the men who shaped it: Augustus, Tiberius, Nero, Vespasian, Trajan, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, Diocletian, and Constantine. Over the ages, they learned to maintain the family business—the government of an empire—by adapting when necessary and always persevering no matter the cost. Ten Caesars is a “captivating narrative that breathes new life into a host of transformative figures” (Publishers Weekly). This “superb summation of four centuries of Roman history, a masterpiece of compression, confirms Barry Strauss as the foremost academic classicist writing for the general reader today” (The Wall Street Journal).

Nero fiddled while Rome burned. As catchy as that aphorism is, it’s sadly untrue, even if it has a nice ring to it. The one thing Nero is well-known for is the one thing he actually didn’t do. But fear not, the truth of his life, his rule and what he did with unrestrained power, is plenty weird, salacious and horrifying. And he is not alone. Roman history, from the very foundation of the city, is replete with people and stories that shock our modern sensibilities. Evil Roman Emperors puts the worst of Rome’s rulers in one place and offers a review of their lives and a historical context for what made them into what they became. It concludes by ranking them, counting down to the worst ruler in Rome’s long history. Lucius Tarquinius Suburbus called peace conferences with warring states, only to slaughter foreign leaders; Commodus sold offices of the empire to the highest bidder; Caligula demanded to be worshipped as a god, and marched troops all the way to the ocean simply to collect seashells as “proof” of their conquest; even the Roman Senate itself was made up of oppressors, exploiters, and murderers of all stripes. Author Phillip Barlag profiles a host of evil Roman rulers across the history of their empire, along with the faceless governing bodies that condoned and even carried out heinous acts. Roman history, deviant or otherwise, is a subject of endless fascination. What’s never been done before is to look at the worst of the worst at the same time, comparing them side by side, and ranking them against one another. Until now.

My name is not Gaius Romulus Saccius, though that is how almost all my patients during my long medical career knew me. I've lived in Rome for many years, but my origins are in the province of Palestine. As a young man, many Romans thought I hailed from Judea. They were not correct. I was born and raised in a small village in Galilee, many miles away. My journey from young Galilean to well-established Roman physician was a long one which brought me into coflict and contact with some rather remarkable people, including Cesar Elagabalus. As the old curse says, I have lived in very interesting times.

Varius is the nomen of the Roman emperor misnamed Elagabalus or Heliogabalus. These are names of the Syrian sun god Elagabal, whose high priest Varius was while emperor. There is no evidence that he was ever so called when alive. Thus named, his posthumous legendary or mythical avatar thrives, in academic prose and popular imagination, as a Semitic monster of cruelty, depravity, fanaticism, mockery and extravagance. Recently, this monster has metamorphosed into an anarchist saint and martyr of gay liberation. This volume explores the historical individual behind Elagabalus and Heliogabalus. Varius was probably born AD 204 in Rome, to Syro-Roman parents linked to the Severan dynasty, and brought up at the imperial court, which spent 208–211 in Britain. After his father’s death in Numidia or Italy, sometime between 214 and 218 Varius went to Syria, where, like a maternal ancestor, he became a priest of Elagabal. In Syria in 217, Macrinus murdered and succeeded the Severan emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, even then known by his nickname, Caracalla. In 218, in a coup against Macrinus, Varius, fourteen, was proclaimed emperor, on the basis of the lie, launched by his grandmother, Caracalla’s aunt, and abetted by his mother, Caracalla’s cousin, that he was Caracalla’s bastard. Varius’ grandmother intended to rule while he reigned. But Varius, now Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, had other ideas. Taking the god Elagabal, a meteorite, to Rome he sought to combine the incompatible personae of Roman emperor and High Priest of Elagabal. He was murdered in 222 before reaching eighteen by his praetorian guards, under the orders of his grandmother and aunt, to make way for his younger, more docile cousin, Alexianus, who reigned as Severus Alexander. Rhetorical invective against Varius was promptly launched to justify his murder. It grew into his mythical or legendary avatar: Elagabalus or Heliogabalus. That avatar came completely to overshadow the historical Varius. This book serves to rescue Varius for history from eighteen centuries spent in fantasy and fiction.

e emperor Nero is etched into the Western imagination as one of ancient Rome's most infamous villains, and Tacitus' Annals have played a central role in shaping the mainstream historiographical understanding of this flamboyant autocrat. This section of the text plunges us straight into the moral cesspool that Rome had apparently become in the later years of Nero's reign, chronicling the emperor's fledgling stage career including his plans for a grand tour of Greece; his participation in a city-wide orgy climaxing in his publicly consummated 'marriage' to his toy boy Pythagoras; the great fire of AD 64, during which large parts of central Rome went up in flames; and the rising of Nero's 'grotesque' new palace, the so-called 'Golden House', from the ashes of the city. This building project stoked the rumours that the emperor himself was behind the conflagration, and Tacitus goes on to present us with Nero's gruesome efforts to quell these mutterings by scapegoating and executing members of an unpopular new cult then starting to spread through the Roman empire: Christianity. All this contrasts starkly with four chapters focusing on one of Nero's most principled opponents, the Stoic senator Thrasea Paetus, an audacious figure of moral fibre, who courageously refuses to bend to the forces of imperial corruption and hypocrisy. This course book offers a portion of the original Latin text, study aids with vocabulary, and a commentary. Designed to stretch and stimulate readers, Owen's and Gildenhard's incisive commentary will be of particular interest to students of Latin at both A2 and undergraduate level. It extends beyond detailed linguistic analysis and historical background to encourage critical engagement with Tacitus' prose and discussion of the most recent scholarly thought.

From streetwalkers in the Roman Forum to imperial concubines, Roman prostitutes defined what it meant to be a 'bad girl'.

In modern politics as well as in historical times, character attacks abound. Words and images, like symbolic and psychological weapons, have sullied or destroyed numerous reputations. People mobilize significant material and psychological resources to defend themselves against such attacks. How does character assassination "work," and when does it not? Why do many targets fall so easily when they are under character attack? How can one prevent attacks and defend against them? The Routledge Handbook of Character Assassination and Reputation Management offers the first comprehensive examination of character assassination. Moving beyond studying corporate reputation management and how public figures enact and maintain their reputation, this lively volume offers a framework and cases to help understand, critically analyze, and effectively defend against such attacks. Written by an international and interdisciplinary team of experts, the book begins with a theoretical introduction and extensive description of the "five pillars" of character assassination: (1) the attacker, (2) the target, (3) the media, (4) the public, and (5) the context. The remaining chapters present engaging case studies suitable for class discussion. These include: Roman emperors; Reformation propaganda; the Founding Fathers; defamation in US politics; women politicians; autocratic regimes; European leaders; celebrities; nations; Internet campaigns. This handbook will prove invaluable to undergraduate and postgraduate students in communication, political science, history, sociology, and psychology departments. It will also help researchers become independent, critical, and informed thinkers capable of avoiding the pressure and manipulations of the media.

“A wonderfully rich, witty, insightful, and wide-ranging portrait of the two Plinys and their world.”—Sarah Bakewell, author of How to Live When Pliny the Elder perished at Stabiae during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, he left behind an enormous compendium of knowledge, his thirty-seven-volume Natural History, and a teenaged nephew who revered him as a father. Grieving his loss, Pliny the Younger inherited the Elder’s notebooks—filled with pearls of wisdom—and his legacy. At its heart, The Shadow of Vesuvius is a literary biography of the younger man, who would grow up to become a lawyer, senator, poet, collector of villas, and chronicler of the Roman Empire from the dire days of terror under Emperor Domitian to the gentler times of Emperor Trajan. A biography that will appeal to lovers of Mary Beard books, it is also a moving narrative about the profound influence of a father figure on his adopted son. Interweaving the younger Pliny’s Letters with extracts from the Elder’s Natural History, Daisy Dunn paints a vivid, compellingly readable portrait of two of antiquity’s greatest minds.