Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • Emperor of Rome (218–222). A priest of Baal, he became emperor after the murder of his cousin Caracalla (217). His eccentricity and debauchery and the imposition of his religion on the Romans led to an insurrection in which he was killed.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun A Roman emperor of the Severan dynasty who reigned from 218 to 222. He was known for perverse and decadent behavior with regard especially to sex, religion, and food.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From a Latinized form of the Semitic deity El-Gabal, a manifestation of the Semitic deity Ēl.

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Examples

  • Avitus Bassianus, known as Heliogabalus, a name he assumed, reigned 218-222.

    A Source Book for Ancient Church History Joseph Cullen Ayer 1905

  • Sun called Heliogabalus and adored under the form of a black stone, 775-l.

    Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry Albert Pike 1850

  • At another banquet Heliogabalus almost smothered his guests by raining down perfumed rose petals over them.

    The Biggest Feasts Ever Nichola Fletcher 2010

  • In the 3rd century, Heliogabalus, renowned for enjoying cruel jokes, served up grains of gold mixed in with the peas, and amethysts, rubies and pearls in other dishes.

    The Biggest Feasts Ever Nichola Fletcher 2010

  • John ZornZorn has taken his music on a numerological and symbolical journey into the occult in recent years with albums such as IAO: Music in Sacred Light or the barnstorming Six Litanies for Heliogabalus.

    Magic numbers: composers and their clandestine codes 2010

  • Mirabeau424 declares that pederasty was reglementée and adds, Le goût des pédérastes, quoique moins en vogue que du temps de Henri III. (the French Heliogabalus), sous le règne desquel les hommes se provoquaient mutuellement425 sous les portiques du

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • Heliogabalus seem only to have amused, instead of disgusting, the

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • Heliogabalus, or Elagabalus as he is also called, is indeed a prime example in the category of Roman decadence, along with other notorious emperors such as Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero.

    Go ask the physiognomists, phrenologists, pathognomists and characterologists « Jahsonic 2008

  • His book was about a Roman Emperor originally from Syria named Heliogabalus, also called the Crowned Anarchist, because of his subsequent reign in Rome.

    Is George W. Bush a Crowned Anarchist? 2008

  • The villainy of slaves is a direct product of the despot; a miasma exhales from these cowering consciences wherein the master is reflected; public powers are unclean; hearts are small; consciences are dull, souls are like vermin; thus it is under Caracalla, thus it is under Commodus, thus it is under Heliogabalus, while, from the

    Les Miserables 2008

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