HELIOGABALUS (ELAGABALUS), Roman emperor (A.D. 218-222), was born at Emesa about 205. His real name was Varius Avitus. On the murder of Caracalla (217), Iulia Maesa, Varius's grandmother and Caracalla's aunt, left Rome and retired to Emesa, accompanied by her grandsons (Varius and Alexander Severus). Varius, though still only a boy, was appointed high priest of the Syrian sun-god Elagabalus, one of the chief seats of whose worship was Emesa (Homs). His beauty, and the splendid ceremonials at which he presided, made him a great favourite with the troops stationed in that part of Syria, and Maesa in creased his popularity by spreading reports that he was in reality the illegitimate son of Caracalla. An insurrection was set on foot, and on May 16, 218 Varius was proclaimed emperor as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. The troops sent to quell the revolt went over to him, and Macrinus was defeated near Antioch on June 8. Heliogabalus was at once recognized by the senate as emperor.
After spending the winter in Nicomedia, he proceeded in 219 to Rome, where he made it his business to exalt the deity whose priest he was and whose name he assumed. The shameless profligacy of the emperor's life was such as to shock even a Roman public. His popularity with the army declined, and Maesa, perceiving that the soldiers were in favour of Alexander Severus, persuaded Heliogabalus to raise his cousin to the dignity of Caesar (221), a step of which he soon repented. An attempt to murder Alexander was frustrated by Maesa. Another attempt in 222 produced a mutiny among the praetorians, in which Helio gabalus and his mother Soemias (Soaemias) were slain (probably in the first half of March).
AuTHoRITIEs.--Life by Aelius Lampridius in Scriptores historiae Augustae; Herodian v. 3-8 ; Dio Cassius lxxviii. 3o sqq., lxxix. 1-21; monograph by G. Duviquet, Heliogabale (i9o3), containing a transla tion of the various accounts of Heliogabalus in Greek and Latin authors, notes, bibliography and illustrations; O. F. Butler, Studies in the Life of Heliogabalus (New York, 1908) ; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. 6. On the Syrian god see F. Cumont in Pauly-Wissowa's Realen cyclopiidie, v. pt. ii. (1905). See also J. S. Hay, The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus (1911) .