This week’s theme
Kings who became words

This week’s words
Nero
Herod
tantalus
Heliogabalus
Ozymandias

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(hee-lee-uh/oh-GAB-uh-luhs)

MEANING:

noun: A wildly extravagant, foolish, and self-indulgent person.

ETYMOLOGY:

After the Roman emperor Heliogabalus/Elagabalus (CE 204-222) who ruled 218-222 CE. Earliest documented use: 1589.

NOTES:

When it comes to imperial excess, Heliogabalus didn’t just raise the bar. He had it gilded, perfumed, and carried in procession. Crowned at 14 and assassinated by 18, he crammed a lifetime’s worth of scandal into four turbulent years. He married three women (and one man), held elaborate feasts where guests dined on fake food, and reportedly released wild animals into banquet halls, for ambiance, of course.

Fake hair? Yes. Makeup? Certainly. Dignity? Not so much.

The historian B.G. Niebuhr said that Heliogabalus had “nothing at all to make up for his vices, which are of such a kind that it is too disgusting even to allude to them.” And historian Adrian Goldsworthy was more blunt: “He was an incompetent, probably the least able emperor Rome ever had.”

USAGE:

“Brr, there’s a Heliogabalus in me! ... Girl, girl, why do you press your knees together?”
Frank Wedekind (Translation: Jonathan Franzen); Spring Awakening; Faber and Faber; 2007.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: