Emperor Elagabalus spent the greater part of his reign from 218 to 222 in or near Rome, and his main concern was to enjoy himself. The stories told of his antics are wild, and doubtless grew in the telling. The teenage emperor was married perhaps as many as six times, twice to the same woman. As well as his marriages, Elagabalus made frequent use of prostitutes, although allegedly never the same one twice. He also openly took many male lovers, and, like Nero before him, he is said to have been the bride at a wedding ceremony, and then lived with his “husband.” It was even said that he had asked doctors whether they could use surgery to give him a vagina. Emperor Trajan was said to have been too fond of boys, but had never let any favorite gain an unhealthy influence over him or persuade him to act wrongly. Elegabalus blatantly paraded and promoted his lovers. It was said that appointments to provincial commands were being allocated to the man with the largest penis.

From Adrian Goldsworthy’s The Fall of the West: The Slow Death of the Roman Superpower, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2009, pp. 79-80.