gems, glyptic, engraved gems, agate, cameo, intaglio, shell, ancient gems, Rome, Greece, ancient jewelry, rings

The account of the extravagances of Elagabalus left to us by Lampridius contains facts so bizarre that one is sometimes tempted to accuse the historian of exaggeration. After reading the annals of the reigns of Caligula, Nero, and Commodus, one might believe it impossible to add another feature to the distressing picture of imperial depravity; yet the young priest of Emesa still found new crimes and new infamies to display before the eyes of the Roman people. What, in the case of his predecessors, sprang from brutal madness seems in his case to have been the result of deliberate and ingenious sensuality. “Amid so many detestable reigns, that of Elagabalus is distinguished by something peculiar. Whatever the imagination of the Arabs has produced that is most marvelous in festivals, pomp, and riches appears only a confused tradition of the reign of the Priest of the Sun…. It was necessary that all passions and all vices should pass across the throne, so that men might consent to place religion there, religion which condemns all vices and all passions.” The illustrious author of the Historical Studies perfectly grasped the distinctive character of Elagabalus’s actions, and had he been able to read in the Arabic text (that language which, like Latin, defies modesty in its words) some of the tales of the Thousand and One Nights, we do not doubt that he would have drawn a more complete parallel between the son of Soaemias and the heroes of Oriental romances. By providing such a vivid analysis of the historians of this age of disgrace, M. de Chateaubriand has already supplied us with an excuse should anyone reproach us for publishing a monument that recalls the amusements of the shameless emperor.