[Sidenote:  A.D. 219 (a.u. 972)] [Sidenote:—­9—­] As to his marriage.  He espoused Cornelia Paula in order that he might sooner (these are his words) become a father,—­he, who could not even be a man.  On the occasion of his marriage not only the senate and the equestrian order but also the wives of the senators received some distribution of presents.  The people were given a banquet at the per capita rate of one hundred and fifty denarii, and the soldiers had one that cost a hundred more.  There were contests of gladiators at which the prince wore a purple-bordered toga, the same as he had done at the ludi votivi.  Various beasts were slain, among them an elephant and fifty-one tigers, a greater number than had ever yet been despatched at one time.  Afterwards he dismissed Paula on the pretext that she had some blemish on her person and cohabited with Aqulia Severa,—­a most flagrant breach of law.  She was consecrated to Vesta and yet he most sinfully ravished her and actually dared to say:  “I did it in order that godlike children may spring from me, the high-priest, and from her, the high-priestess.”  He felicitated himself on an act which was destined to lead to his being maltreated in the Forum and thrown into prison and subsequently put to death.  However, he did not keep even this woman for long, but married a second, and then a third, and still another; after that he went back to Severa.

[Sidenote:—­10—­] Portents had been taking place in Rome, one of them on the statue of Isis, which is borne upon a dog above the pediment of her temple:  it consisted in her turning her face towards the interior.—­Sardanapalus was conducting games and numerous spectacles, in which Helix, the athlete, won renown.  How far he surpassed his adversaries is shown by his wishing to contend in both wrestling and pancratium at Olympia, and by his winning victories in both at the Capitolina.  The Eleans, being jealous of him, and through fear that he might prove the eighth from Hercules (as the saying is), [Footnote:  The history and significance of this proverb are not known.] would not call any wrestler into the stadium, in spite of their having inscribed this contest on the bulletin-board.  But in Rome he won each of the two games,—­a feat that no one else had accomplished.

[Sidenote:—­11—­] And here I must omit mention of the barbaric chants which Sardanapalus chanted to Elagabalus, and his mother and grandmother, all three, as also of the secret sacrifices that he offered to him:  at these he slaughtered boys, and used charms, besides shutting up in the god’s temple a live lion and monkey and snake, throwing in among them human genitals, and practicing other unholy rites, while he wore invariably innumerable amulets. [Sidenote:—­12—­] But to run briefly over these matters, he actually (most ridiculous of all) courted a wife for Elagabalus, on the assumption that the god wanted marriage and children.  Such a wife might be neither poor nor low-born, and so he chose the Carthaginian Urania, summoned her to come thence, and established her in the palace.  He gathered wedding gifts for her from all his subjects, as he might have done in the case of his own wives.  All these presents that were given during his lifetime were exacted later, but in the way of dowry he declared that nothing should be brought save the gold lions, which were melted down.