The Crimes of Elagabalus

The Life and Legacy of Rome's Decadent Boy Emperor

Martijn Icks

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English

I B TAURIS
30 April 2013

History; European history; Classical history & classical civilisation; Ancient religions & mythologies

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.

By: Martijn Icks
Imprint: I B TAURIS
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 135mm, Spine: 22mm
Weight: 328g
ISBN: 9781780765501
ISBN 10: 1780765509
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 30 April 2013
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction Chapter 1: The boy on the throne Chapter 2: The child priest from Emesa Chapter 3: The invincible priest-emperor Chapter 4: The rejected ruler Chapter 5: The evil tyrant Chapter 6: The decadent emperor Chapter 7: The modern prince Epilogue The Nachleben of Elagabalus in art and literature: an overview Severan family tree Notes Select bibliography Index

Martijn Icks is a Marie Curie fellow at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universitat Heidelberg, Germany. He was previously Lecturer in History and Literature Studies at the University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands and obtained his PhD cum laude in 2008.

Reviews for The Crimes of Elagabalus: The Life and Legacy of Rome's Decadent Boy Emperor

Icks' book [is] an excellent overview, worth adding to the Roman history shelves of anybody's library. But it's the second half of The Crimes of Elagabalus that makes the book truly remarkable. In those later chapters, Icks completes his careful, detailed narrative of the boy-emperor's brief reign and turns to the surprisingly vast literary legacy that reign generated. Play by play, pamphlet by pamphlet, novel by novel, Icks painstakingly traces how centuries of non-historians have characterized Elagabalus This will be the standard account in English for the foreseeable future.--Steve Donoghue Open Letters Monthly (03/01/2012)