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Decadent and Depraved Roman Emperors Who Shocked their Subjects

Khalid Elhassan February 11, 2025 15 min

9. Rome’s Most Decadent Emperor?

A gold coin depicting Elagabalus – the reverse states ‘To the Holy Sun God Elagabal’, and depicts a golden chariot carrying a holy stone from Elagabal’s temple at Emesa, modern Homs, Syria. Wikimedia

Aside from his twisted sense of humor, Elagabalus stood out even among other decadent Roman emperors for his perversions and deviancy. A religious zealot, Elagabalus adhered to and followed eastern religious rites that seemed bizarre in Roman eyes, and shocked contemporary sensibilities with carnal practices considered unbefitting an emperor. In his youth, he had been a priest of the Syrian sun god Elagabal. Following the assassination of his cousin, the emperor Caracalla, his grandmother intrigued to have him succeed to the imperial throne.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.