According to the historian Cassius Dio, Elagabalus actually led his supporters from the front, cutting an almost divine, dashing vision at the fore of the battle. Macrinus, the man who had usurped Caracalla just a year before in 217, was defeated by the Elagbalian forces at the battle of Antioch. When the rumors spread by Julia took hold, and the soldiers in Syria proclaimed Elagabalus as the true emperor, war was inevitable. The Roman soldiers at Emesa allegedly delighted in watching the eccentric but harmless priestly duties of the handsome young man. Rather than a personified figure, this Phoenician sun-god was worshipped in the form of a large, conical black stone, also known as a baetyl. Unlike other deities of the Classical world, Elagabal had no human form. He, like others in his family before him, was the chief priest of the main god in Emesa: Elagabal. While Julia Maesa was busy buying the loyalty of the Roman soldiers and creating spurious family trees, Elagabalus was engaged in his priestly duties. Priest and Prince Coin of Uranius Antoninus with reverse depiction of the god Elagabal, British Museum, ca. Generous bribes certainly helped the soldiers stationed at Emesa believe that this Syrian youth was actually the son and rightful heir to the empire. The boy reputedly bore a striking resemblance to the former emperor as a young man. In particular, she asserted that Julia Soaemias’ son Elagabalus was actually the offspring of an adulterous affair between her daughter and the former emperor, Caracalla. Both daughters had sons, and Maesa began to spread rumors pertaining to their parentage. She had two daughters named Julia Soaemias and Julia Mammaea. Confined to their native city of Emesa in Syria after the murder of Emperor Caracalla in AD 217, Maesa began to scheme. Her sister, Julia Domna, had been the wife of one emperor, Septimius Severus, and mother of another, Caracalla. His grandmother, Julia Maesa, had previously enjoyed a life of imperial luxury. The story of Elagabalus’ rise begins with a lie. Emperor Elagabalus – A Dynastic Deception Portrait of the Emperor Caracalla as a Youth, AD 196-204, via State Hermitage Museum
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