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Updated: May 28, 2025
The contemporaries of Severus in the enjoyment of the peace and glory of his reign, forgave the cruelties by which it had been introduced. Posterity, who experienced the fatal effects of his maxims and example, justly considered him as the principal author of the decline of the Roman empire. Part I. The Death Of Severus. Tyranny Of Caracalla. Usurpation Of Macrinus. Follies Of Elagabalus.
It may seem probable, the vices and follies of Elagabalus have been adorned by fancy, and blackened by prejudice. Yet, confining ourselves to the public scenes displayed before the Roman people, and attested by grave and contemporary historians, their inexpressible infamy surpasses that of any other age or country.
During these troubles Rome had been thrown into alarm at the thoughts of losing the usual supply of Egyptian grain, as since the reign of Elagabalus the Roman granaries had never held more than was wanted for the year; but Aurelian hastened to send word to the Roman people that the country was again quiet, and that the yearly supplies, which had been delayed by the wickedness of Firmus, would soon arrive.
Constantine built his church as a memorial and not as a tomb, because at that time Saint Peter's body lay in the catacombs, where it had been taken in the year 219, under Elagabalus.
From the death of Elagabalus, it enjoyed an auspicious calm of thirteen years. * The provinces, relieved from the oppressive taxes invented by Caracalla and his pretended son, flourished in peace and prosperity, under the administration of magistrates, who were convinced by experience that to deserve the love of the subjects, was their best and only method of obtaining the favor of their sovereign.
We have pictured to ourselves the imperial banquets of ancient Rome as functions of unheard of splendour; if Nero or Elagabalus could come to life and see the dining-room of a great hotel in Paris or New York resplendent with light, with crystal, with silver, he would admire it as far more beautiful than the halls in which he gave his imperial feasts.
It was impossible that such a reconciliation should last, or that even the mean soul of Elagabalus could hold an empire on such humiliating terms of dependence. He soon attempted, by a dangerous experiment, to try the temper of the soldiers.
Among the successors of Nero and Elagabalus, we have not hitherto found the imitation of their vices, the character of a Roman prince who considered pleasure as the object of life, and virtue as the enemy of pleasure. Whatever might have been the maternal care of Theodora in the education of Michael the Third, her unfortunate son was a king before he was a man.
The prefect Basilianus fled to Italy to escape from his own soldiers; and the province of Egypt then followed the example of the rest of the East in acknowledging the new emperor. For four years Rome was disgraced by the sovereignty of Elagabalus, the pretended son of Caracalla, and we find his coins each year in Alexandria.
A capricious prodigality supplied the want of taste and elegance; and whilst Elagabalus lavished away the treasures of his people in the wildest extravagance, his own voice and that of his flatterers applauded a spirit of magnificence unknown to the tameness of his predecessors.
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