ELAGABALUS (Imp. M. Aurelius Antoninus), Roman Emperor. - B. at Emesa in 204, d. at Rome on 11 March 222. Son of Varius Marcellus and Julia Soaemias, he was named Varius Avitus, but is more commonly known by the name of E., from the god whose priest he was at Emesa during the exile of the Severan family to which he belonged. Through the intrigues of his grandmother Julia Mesea, who had him proclaimed as the son of Caracalla, in the spring of 218 he was proclaimed emperor following a soldiers' revolt. A depraved youth, in whom were summed up all the vices and extravagances of the East, he attempted to replace the gods of Olympus with the cult of his own god, Elagabalus, with its orgiastic and sanguinary rites.
In the syncretistic activity of Atun-Ra and Harachte, he was included in the Heliopolitan ennead, of which he became the chief.
Around 2000 B.C., Amenemhet I (12th Dynasty) erected a sumptuous temple to him on the ruins of a previous one; it was improved by his son Senusret I (the Sesostris of the Greeks). The temple soon became a center of priestly science; Strabo (XVII, 27-28) still saw its chambers, where Plato and Eudoxus were said to have lodged, but found there above all traces of Cambyses' devastations and noted the decline of ancient priestly science; he did note, however, the presence of obelisks, one of which still survives (Arabic el-misallah) of Syenite granite, over 20 m high, with a hieroglyphic inscription of Senusret commemorating the Sed festival, i.e., the jubilee; another obelisk fell in the 12th century; now, beside the obelisk, there are ruins of the city and, 5 km away, a necropolis. In the Bible, 'On is mentioned five times: first in Gen. 41:45-50 and 46:20 as the home of Joseph's father-in-law, in Ex. 1:11 as one of the cities built by the Israelites at Pharaoh's command.
About 1 km south of the ruins of E., toward the south in the direction of Cairo, is today the village of el-Matarijjah, where stands the so-called "tree of Mary," that is, a sycamore planted in 1672 and fallen in 1906; only one green branch remains of II.
The legend tells that the Holy Family lived here during the exile, and that the Virgin Mary with the child Jesus rested in its shade; a spring still existing is said to have been made to gush forth by Jesus and does not dry up like the others in the vicinity. There is now a chapel served by the Jesuits. Some apocryphal works dwell on the sojourn of Jesus in Egypt, such as the so-called Gospel of Thomas and the Spurious Matthew; in them it is narrated, among other things, that Jesus would have entered a temple (of E.?) and performed miracles there.