The Mad Emperor
Book description
'Buy the book; it's very entertaining.' David Aaronovitch, The Times
A Financial Times, BBC History and Spectator Book of the Year
On 8 June 218 AD, a fourteen-year-old Syrian boy, egged on by his grandmother, led an army to battle in a Roman civil war. Against all expectations, he was…
Why read it?
2 authors picked The Mad Emperor as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
A new take on a much maligned Roman emperor
Heliogabalus became Emperor aged 14, manipulated into power by his mother and grandmother.
As a relative and possible illegtimate son of Caracalla, he appears in my Imperial Assassin series in the days before he rose to power. He is considered by many to be one of the worst Roman Emperors on account mainly of his outrageous lifestyle.
He married a Vestal Virgin, and a male charioteer, was reputed to have prostituted himself and to have turned the palace into a brothel, and offered a fortune to any doctor that could turn him into a woman.
He scandalised the religious Romans…
From Alex's list on biographies of powerful and important Ancient Romans.
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