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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;otlichnik, post: 5234228, member: 109731&quot;]&quot;Herodotus&quot; is absolutely right.&nbsp; The link between history and coinage is one of the great things about this hobby.&nbsp; Sometimes you read or learn interesting history and then are able to find a coin that is somehow related.&nbsp; Other times it works the opposite way, you get a coin and then that leads you to read up on some history you didn&#039;t know about.</p><p><br /></p><p>The Elagabalus story is very interesting.&nbsp; Not only from sheer wonder, but as a case in historiography - the study of history itself.</p><p><br /></p><p>Elagabalus was a foreigner, an outsider.&nbsp; Politically he came from a branch related to the family of the wife of the dead Emperor Septimius Severus.&nbsp; Other members of that family were then (and after) struggling for power, as were people not from that family.&nbsp; So you need to understand him as part of a losing faction and the losers don&#039;t write history.</p><p><br /></p><p>He was also a foreigner culturally.&nbsp; He and his family came from Syria.&nbsp; Though his homeland had been ruled by the Romans for over 250 years when he came to power it was still a very foreign area.&nbsp; His people likely spoke Latin as a third language after Greek and their mother tongue, a local Semitic language like Aramaic.&nbsp; Though on the surface the elite could adopt Roman culture - dress, food, decor, etc. - when required, their own culture was still very different.</p><p><br /></p><p>Finally, he was a foreigner in religious terms.&nbsp; His religion worshiped a sun god as a supreme deity, though they did not deny the existence of other gods.&nbsp; This is henotheism - between polytheism (many gods) and monotheism (one god).&nbsp; It was quite strange in the early 3rd century, though it was basically normal by the later third century, with Aurelian and Soli Invictus.&nbsp; They saw their sun god as personified in a stone (the baetyl) which was probably a meteorite.&nbsp; Meteorites have been the centre of worship in the Middle East for thousands of years.&nbsp; If you worship the sun and/or stars and then a flaming object crashes to earth of course that object will be held with great reverence.&nbsp; Though it was a symbol to them and not the god itself.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>When you study his religion, and similar ancient Middle Eastern religions, many of the weird stories about him make sense.&nbsp; Having gods marry each other was a normal way of uniting and absorbing other religions, tribes and peoples.&nbsp; The Roman way was to kidnap the gods of those they conquered and bring them to a new temple in Rome.&nbsp; The Middle Eastern way was to unite them in marriage.</p><p><br /></p><p>Where do all our stories about Elagabalus come from?&nbsp; People that were from different political factions, cultures and religions as him.&nbsp; Elagabalus and his people have absolutely no voice today.&nbsp; Angry Romans and shocked Christians wrote everything we have.&nbsp; Furthermore, they were making points.&nbsp; Bad faction - don&#039;t give them any power.&nbsp; Bad culture - Rome is for the Romans.&nbsp; Bad religion - stay loyal to ours.</p><p><br /></p><p>So Elagabalus has come down to us today as a freak, weirdo and loony.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Unlike those Emperors who were truly unstable and bad (even if some stories are exaggerated) like Caligula, Nero, Domitian and Commodus, I truly believe that Elagabalus was simply too different for Rome.&nbsp; You don&#039;t need to look to far to see the similar way some immigrants are treated today.</p><p><br /></p><p>SC</p><p><br /></p><p>PS It is hard to find good sources that outline this part of the story.&nbsp; There are hints there in the wikipedia entry for Elagabalus, but what first planted this interpretation in my head was a book in French called &quot;Le Haut-Empire romain: les provinces de Mediterranee orientale d&#039;Auguste aux Severes&quot;, by Maurice Sartre, 1991.&nbsp; I picked up the 1997 paperback version at the gift shop at the Louvre back in 2006 though it is available online.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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