Vilipendio del Cadavere e damnatio memoriae del falso Antonino. Politica – religione – memoria di un principe “luxuriosissimus"

In recent studies on the controversial figure of Emperor Elagabalus, there has so far been a lack of adequate reflection on the circumstances of his brutal murder and particularly the desecration of his corpse; this is what will be attempted in this paper, contextualizing the macabre episode in light of literary sources. Epigraphic and numismatic documentation, in turn, provides the opportunity to specify the timing of the tricky religious reform promoted by the young emperor from Emesa, including the introduction of the cult of El-Gabal in Rome, of which he was a priest, and to evaluate the consequences of the senatorial measures of damnatio memoriae and abolitio nominis that befell the prince immediately after his assassination, which we can perceive through the erasure of elements of his name and/or titles.