He succeeded his cousin Elagabalus upon the latter's assassination in 222, and was ultimately assassinated himself, marking the epoch event for the Crisis of the Third Century — nearly fifty years of civil wars, foreign invasion, and collapse of the monetary economy.

It was the rumor of Alexander's death that triggered the assassination of Elagabalus and his mother.

His mother Julia Avita Mamaea was the second daughter of Julia Maesa and Syrian noble Julius Avitus and maternal aunt of Emperor Elagabalus.

In the following year, on 11 March, Elagabalus was murdered, and Alexander was proclaimed emperor by the Praetorians and accepted by the Senate.

235 ) (), often seen as just Aelian, born at Praeneste, was a Roman author and teacher of rhetoric who flourished under Septimius Severus and probably outlived Elagabalus, who died in 222.

He was called Elagabalus only after his death.

Amidst growing opposition, Elagabalus, just 18 years old, was assassinated and replaced by his cousin Alexander Severus on 11 March 222, in a plot formulated by his grandmother, Julia Maesa, and carried out by disaffected members of the Praetorian Guard.

Elagabalus developed a reputation among his contemporaries for extreme eccentricity, decadence and zealotry which was likely exaggerated by his successors and political rivals.

Elagabalus was born around the year 203 to Sextus Varius Marcellus and Julia Soaemias Bassiana.

Elagabalus's family held hereditary rights to the priesthood of the sun god Elagabal, of whom Elagabalus was the high priest at Emesa ( modern Homs ) in Syria.

The deity Elagabalus was initially venerated at Emesa.

Elagabalus ' mother publicly declared that he was the illegitimate son of Caracalla, therefore due the loyalties of Roman soldiers and senators who had sworn allegiance to Caracalla.

Macrinus now sent letters to the Senate denouncing Elagabalus as the False Antoninus and claiming he was insane.

Elagabalus declared the date of the victory at Antioch to be the beginning of his reign and assumed the imperial titles without prior senatorial approval, which violated tradition but was a common practice among 3rd-century emperors nonetheless.

The contemporary historian Cassius Dio suggests that Gannys was in fact killed by the new emperor because he was forcing Elagabalus to live " temperately and prudently.

While Elagabalus was still on his way to Rome, brief revolts broke out by the Fourth Legion at the instigation of Gellius Maximus, and the Third Legion, which itself had been responsible for the elevation of Elagabalus to the throne, under the command of Senator Verus.

Elagabalus tried to have his presumed lover, the charioteer Hierocles, declared Caesar, while another alleged lover, the athlete Aurelius Zoticus, was appointed to the non-administrative but influential position of Master of the Chamber, or Cubicularius.

Pope Saint Callixtus I or Callistus I was pope from about 217 to about 222, during the reigns of the Roman Emperors Elagabalus and Alexander Severus.

In the 3rd century Syria was home to Elagabalus, a Roman emperor of the Severan dynasty who reigned from 218 to 222.

Elagabalus ' family held hereditary rights to the priesthood of the sun god El-Gabal, of whom Elagabalus was the high priest at Emesa ( modern Homs ) in Syria.

Elagabalus married and divorced five women, three of whom are known.

Within a year, he abandoned her and married Annia Aurelia Faustina, a descendant of Marcus Aurelius and the widow of a man recently executed by Elagabalus.

He married Julia Soaemias, and was the supposed father of Varius Avitus Bassianus, the later Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, better known as Elagabalus.

* Aquilia Severa, whom Emperor Elagabalus married amid considerable scandal.

Elagabalus then married Annia Faustina, a more generally acceptable choice.

In July 221, Elagabalus married Annia Aurelia Faustina as his third wife ( her second marriage ).

When she married Elagabalus, it seemed for a time that the Nerva – Antonine dynasty rule had returned to Rome.

When the entourage reached Rome in the autumn of 219, Comazon and other allies of Julia Maesa and Elagabalus were given powerful and lucrative positions, to the outrage of many senators who did not consider them worthy of such privileges.

It is claimed by some historians, however, that many stories about Elagabalus have been exaggerated by his enemies, and so there is no certainty about what actually happened.

However, many people in the upper classes ignored such negative ideas about playing a passive role, as is proved by the actions of the Roman Emperors Nero and Elagabalus.

Book five is about the reign of Elagabalus from 218 through 222, and book six deals with the reign of Severus Alexander from 222 to 235.

His poetry exemplifies a classic example of modern Serbian language and features the standard Decadent motifs of the epoch: cruel nature ( e. g. cold wind blowing across empty fields ), and times of Elagabalus.

However, this force soon joined the faction of Elagabalus when, during the battle, they turned on their own commanders.

Both consuls and other high-ranking members of Rome's leadership condemned Elagabalus, and the Senate subsequently declared war on both Elagabalus and Julia Maesa.

During this festival, Elagabalus placed the Emesa stone on a chariot adorned with gold and jewels, which he paraded through the city:

One of his most famous paintings is The Roses of Heliogabalus ( 1888 ) – based on an episode from the life of the debauched Roman Emperor Elagabalus ( Heliogabalus ), the painting depicts the psychopathic Emperor suffocating his guest at an orgy under a cascade of rose petals.

Born Varius Avitus Bassianus on May 16, 205, known later as M. Aurelius Antonius, he was appointed at an early age to be priest of the sun God, Elagabalus, represented by a phallus, by which name he is known to historians ( his name is sometimes written " Heliogabalus ").

Herodian also relates that Elagabalus forced senators to watch while he danced around his deity's altar to the sound of drums and cymbals, and at each summer solstice celebrated a great festival, popular with the masses because of food distributions, during which he placed the holy stone on a chariot adorned with gold and jewels, which he paraded through the city:

Elagabalus ( also known as Heliogabalus ) banished him from Rome, but on the accession of Alexander ( 222 ) he was reinstated, and finally became the emperor's chief adviser and praefectus praetorio.

The Roses of Heliogabalus is a famous painting of 1888 by the Anglo-Dutch academician Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, at present in private hands, and based on a probably invented episode in the life of the Roman emperor Elagabalus, also known as Heliogabalus, ( 204 – 222 ), taken from the Augustan History.

According to some accounts, perhaps embellished by Nero's political enemies, on one occasion such quantities of rose petals were dropped that one unlucky guest was asphyxiated ( a similar story is told of the emperor Elagabalus ).

* 218 – Macrinus deposed and executed, Elagabalus is installed on the throne

She largely donated to the legion, which, in turn, proclaimed emperor Julia Maesa's grandson, the fourteen years old Elagabalus, on the dawn of 16 May.

Eventually Elagabalus and his mother Julia Soaemias proved incompetent rulers and favour fell on Alexander, Julia's son.

The biography of Macrinus is notoriously unreliable, and after a partial reversion to reliability in the Elagabalus, the life of Alexander Severus, one of the longest biographies in the entire work, develops into a kind of exemplary and rhetorical fable on the theme of the wise philosopher king.

The Romans are recorded — the veracity of the accounts depending on the case — to have dragged the bodies of a number of people to the sewers rather than give them proper burial, among them the emperor Elagabalus and Saint Sebastian: the latter scene is the subject of a well-known artwork by Lodovico Carracci.

This has been seen as an abortive attempt to impose the Syrian sun god on Rome ; but because it is now clear that the Roman cult of Sol remained firmly established in Rome throughout the Roman period, this Syrian Sol Elagabalus has become no more relevant to our understanding of the Roman Sol than, for example, the Syrian Jupiter Dolichenus is for our understanding of the Roman Jupiter.

This was possibly on the urging of Julia Maesa, the grandmother who had engineered Elagabalus ' rise to the imperial throne.

Porphyry states that on one occasion at Edessa, Bardaisan interviewed an Indian deputation of holy men ( designated as Σαρμαναίοι, Sramanas ) who had been sent to the Roman emperor Elagabalus or another Severan dynasty Roman Emperor, and questioned them as to the nature of Indian religion.

This prompted Legio III Gallica to hail Elagabalus as emperor on 16 May 218.