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History’s Juiciest and Intriguing Scandals

Khalid Elhassan January 11, 2021 32 min

Cheryl Crane - Johnny Stompanato — Lana Turner's daughter Cheryl being escorted from jail to juvenile court. Getty Images

10. An Emperor Who Got a Kick Out of Scandalizing His Subjects

Elagabalus made a dramatic entry into Rome. People Pill

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, better known to history as Elagabalus (203 – 222), Roman emperor from 218 until his assassination four years later, enjoyed scandalizing his subjects. His religious practices, which would have weirded-out contemporary Romans if performed by a private citizen, were shocking coming from an emperor. He had been a priest of the Syrian sun god Elagabalus. After ascending the throne as a teenager, he took the god’s name as his own and brought his worship to Rome.

There, he built Elagabalus a lavish temple, whose inauguration astonished everybody. Senators, high-ranking officials, and the public, were astonished on opening day to witness the unprecedented sight of a Roman emperor dancing around the deity’s altar, to the accompaniment of cymbals and drums. Elagabalus further offended sensibilities by attempting to incorporate his religion into the Roman pantheon. He made the sun god Elagabalus a supreme deity, above Jupiter, and transferred the most sacred relics of the Roman religion to his new temple. He also ordered that adherents of other religions, including Jews and the nascent Christians, transfer their rites to Elagabalus’ temple.

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.