Reviewed by: The Emperor Elagabalus: Fact or Fiction? by Leonardo de Arrizabalaga y Prado Charmaine Gorrie Leonardo de Arrizabalaga y Prado . The Emperor Elagabalus: Fact or Fiction?, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , 2010 . Pp. xxxv + 381 . CDN $100.95 . ISBN 9780521895552 . The reign of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, popularly known as Elagabalus, who became emperor when he was barely 14 years old and ruled from AD 218–222, is noted for the reports in the ancient sources of his bizarre behaviour, sexual depravity, and fanatical attempts, as priest of the deity Elagabal, to promote the worship of this god in Rome at the [End Page 415] expense of the traditional pantheon. As is the case with the reigns of other “bad emperors” in Roman history, it is difficult to separate fact from fiction in the ancient accounts, particularly since one is the troublesome Historia Augusta. The surviving sources were surely influenced by the tainting of Elagabalus’ reputation that took place after his assassination by his cousin and successor Alexander Severus. In his book, The Emperor Elagabalus: Fact or Fiction? Leonardo de Arrizabalaga y Prado (hereafter P.) sets out to investigate what can truly be known about this emperor, whom he calls by his original name, Varius (P. argues that the names Elagabalus and Heliogabalus have come to define the creature of fiction, while Varius is a character of fact [25]). P. suggests that his approach is different from most work on this emperor in that it questions the veracity of ancient historiography and refuses to be led by it. The aim of his book is to answer the question posed by Arnaldo Momigliano: “how to proceed in writing ancient history where we cannot be guided by the ancient historians” (6). P. uses artifacts such as coins, inscriptions, papyri, sculpture and topography not only to illustrate ancient historiographical accounts but to question and verify them through what he calls a virtual cross-examination (11–12). In the first chapter, “Exposition,” P. sets out the problem he will address and his method of enquiry. As noted above, P. is extremely skeptical of the literary sources available but suggests that by applying certain tests to the material one can judge whether the author is telling the truth, fully or partially. One can also apply artifactual evidence, also subject to certain tests, to verify the literary evidence, and historiography in turn can serve as a check on the potential lies of artifacts. P. uses the second chapter, called “Explosion,” to explode the myth of the fictive creation Elagabalus and to establish the facts about Varius through setting up his series of tests for the historiographical evidence. From the texts of the ancient authors he culls 840 propositions about Varius that are checked against eight tests (inherent verifiability, controversiality, vitality to purpose, publicity, random public contemporary verification, risk, incentive, and collusion) to determine whether they are true, virtual facts, unverifiable, false, or a statement of opinion or emotion. The results of these tests are displayed in a table in an appendix, which fills over 50 pages of the book. P. determines that 24 propositions are true, 43 are virtually so, 13 are false, 16 are statements of opinion or emotion, and 744 are unverifiable. Whether the veracity of ancient texts can be quantified in such a manner is questionable, and some of these tests and their results are at times contradictory and even puzzling. Why are some propositions true and others only virtually true? What does “virtually true” mean? P. provides the reasons for his conclusions only for a few propositions as an illustration. Otherwise, the reader is referred to articles published elsewhere, making it difficult to understand and evaluate his conclusions. [End Page 416] In Chapter 3, entitled “Constitution,” P. turns his attention to the examination of artifacts in order to construct the factual Varius. In this chapter P. asks the reader to join him in the mental exercise of pretending that no ancient sources exist for the reign and relying only on the material culture. In this exercise P. isolates each type of artifact from the others in the course of his investigation. P. notes that one of the drawbacks of applying such a...