THE CULT OF ELAGABALUS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
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Abstract
Elagabalus was the Sun god of the Syrian city of Emesa, modern Homs. He was essentially a local version of the solar god Baal, who dominated the pantheon of the broader Levantine region. Elagabalus was represented and worshipped in the form of a black betyl stone, thereby sublimating both solar and chtonic qualities as the supreme deity in Emesa. The cult remained confined to its native area until the direct annexation of Syria into the Roman state. At the end of the 2nd century, emperor Marcus Aurelius transferred a cohort of a thousand archers from Emesa to Pannonia to strenghten the Danube limes. This additional military unit was stationed in Intercisa. That colony, alongside the capital Rome, became a centre of worship of Elagabalus throughout the Empire. Several epigraphic and archaeological monuments from these two cities, dating from the reigns of emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla of the Severan dynasty, have been preserved. Quite valuable are the findings that confirm the existence of a temple dedicated to Elagabalus in the colony of Intercisa. A turning point was the accession to power of the fourteen-year-old Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (218–222), later known as Heliogabalus. Due to a series of historical circumstances, this boy held the post of high priest of the god Elagabalus in Emesa, as his grandmother, Julia Domna, Roman empress and wife of Septimius Severus, came from a hereditary priestly family in that Syrian city. Therefore, the inexperienced young man tried to use his position as Roman emperor to elevate Elagabalus to the head of the state pantheon. He built two prominent temples in the capital and proclaimed the Invincible Sun of Elagabalus as the supreme Roman deity, above Jupiter himself. Living by the rules of an Eastern cult and disregarding the centuries-old sacred traditions of the Roman people, he provoked the anger and hatred of the senatorial elite and the army in the Eternal City. An open revolt of the Praetorians broke out, and they killed their emperor in 222 AD. His decapitated body was dragged through the streets of the city and then thrown into the Tiber river. With the disgraceful death of Marcus Antoninus, his despised religious reform also came to an end. The betyl stone was returned to Emesa, and Elagabalus had significance only in the pantheon of his native land.
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