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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Tejas, post: 7626106, member: 84905&quot;]Elagabalus is certainly an interesting figure, with all the stories about his deprived and outrageous behaviour. As is the case so often, it is not clear if all these stories were true or if these were exaggerations to damage his reputation and justify his murder. After all he was only about 18 years old when he was killed.</p><p><br /></p><p>In any case, the numismatic evidence seem to confirm that Elagabalus was an extravagant and exotic exception who will like have shocked the Roman elite:</p><p><br /></p><p>First, there are his titles as priest (SACERDOS) of the sun god:</p><p><br /></p><p>I have the INVICTVS SACERDOS AVG variety:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1312077[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>and the SVMMUS SACERDOS AVG</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1312078[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>An emperor, who paraded around as priest in exotic eastern dress must have alienated a lot of Romans.</p><p><br /></p><p>Second, the first coin shows the famous &quot;horn&quot;, which some say is a bull&#039;s penis. If true, this would certainly have been cause for outrage.</p><p><br /></p><p>Imagine Elagabalus in his priestly garb, possibly even wearing the &quot;horn&quot; at the Mars-field &quot;parade&quot; in 222. Battle hardened soldiers starting to mock him for it. Eventually the situation got out of hand. The sources say Elagabalus sought refuge in a latrine, where the outraged soldiers found him and hacked im to pieces. Than again, his murder was perhaps planned by his grandmother Julia Maesa who sought to replace the unpopular Elagabal with Severus Alexander.</p><p><br /></p><p>Judging by the coins above, this is a fairly plausible reconstruction of his face:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1312084[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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