![]() ![]() ![]() In a banqueting-room with a reversible ceiling he once buried his guests in violets and other flowers, so that some were actually smothered to death, being unable to crawl out to the top. Oppressit in tricliniis versatilibus parasitos suos violis et floribus, sic ut animam aliqui efflaverint, cum erepere ad summum non possent. Although the Latin refers to " violets and other flowers", Alma-Tadema depicts Elagabalus smothering his unsuspecting guests with rose petals released from a false ceiling. The painting depicts a (probably invented) episode in the life of the Roman emperor Elagabalus, also known as Heliogabalus (204–222), taken from the Augustan History. A woman plays the double pipes beside a marble pillar in the background, wearing the leopard skin of a maenad, with a bronze statue of Dionysus, based on the Ludovisi Dionysus, in front of a view of distant hills. The youthful Roman emperor Elagabalus, wearing a golden silk robe and tiara, watches the spectacle from a platform behind them, with other garlanded guests. It shows a group of Roman diners at a banquet, being swamped by drifts of pink rose petals falling from a false ceiling above. ![]() ![]() The Roses of Heliogabalus is an 1888 painting by the Anglo-Dutch artist Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema depicting the young Roman emperor Elagabalus (203–222 AD) hosting a banquet. The Roses of Heliogabalus by Alma-Tadema (1888), oil on canvas. ![]()
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