The Crimes of Elagabalus: The Life and Legacy of Rome's Decadent Boy Emperor - Hardcover

Icks, Martijn

 
9781848853621: The Crimes of Elagabalus: The Life and Legacy of Rome's Decadent Boy Emperor
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1848853629 ISBN 13: 9781848853621
Publisher: I.B. Tauris, 2011

Synopsis

Elagablus, raised to the throne at the age of fourteen in 218 AD, and assassinated only four years later, remains among the most notorious and enigmatic of Roman Emperors. The contemporary and Byzantine sources on his reign portray a life of decadence and sexual and criminal excess, as well as religious affront to Rome's traditions. In this entertaining but scholarly read Martijn Icks treats the lurid contemporary stories alongside the emperor's afterlife in art and literature, seeking both to get at what may actually have happened in his reign and how his actions should be interpreted and at how they have resonated down the centuries. He takes a thematic approach, examining aspects of the reign and Elagabalus' otherness in turn, including his Syrian upbringing, his religious reforms and his reputation for decadence, whilst at the same time showing that religion aside, there is little from the non literary sources which actually marks out his reign as unusual.

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About the Author

Martijn Icks is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Dusseldorf, Germany. He obtained his PhD cum laude at the University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands in 2008.

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Publisher
I.B. Tauris
Publication date
2011
Language
English
ISBN 10 
1848853629
ISBN 13 
9781848853621
Binding
Hardcover
Number of pages
288