It was really the army's fault. Bored with respectable middle-aged generals, they picked Elagabalus, thirteen-year-old high priest of a Syrian sun-god, to be Emperor of Rome. Golden-haired, handsome as a god, a brilliant charioteer with a passion for stable boys -- this wilful adolescent was hardly a fit successor to Caesar and Augustus. With real government in the able hands of family favourites -- grandmother, mother, aunt -- he was left free to pursue his own extravagant pleasures until his inevitable assassination. This fantastic reign with its fabulous banquets and practical jokes, painted boys and rickshaw girls, makes a fine subject for one of Alfred Duggan's most skilful reconstructions of history. 'An intimate first-hand account of the bizarre, off-beat moment in history when the exotic East descended upon the sober West' Evening Standard 'Mr Duggan has a marvellously wry quality in his writing. Behind the straight face of his novel there is a disciplined hilarity which is tremendously appealing' Sunday Times
- ISBN10 1447228936
- ISBN13 9781447228936
- Publish Date 19 July 2012 (first published 4 January 2007)
- Publish Status Permanently Withdrawn
- Out of Print 19 October 2023
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Pan Macmillan
- Imprint Macmillan Bello
- Format eBook (EPUB)
- Pages 240
- Language English