The Roses of Heliogabalus

“The Roses of Heliogabalus”

I saw the other day in the museum here the bust of a young man of grave, somewhat severe beauty [...] the expression of pride and ennui. On referring to the catalogue I found that it was the Emperor Heliogabalus.

Oscar Wilde (1897)

A SUBVERSIVE CLASSICIST

An oil painting self-portrait of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. The artist, a man with a beard and wire-rimmed glasses wearing a dark suit and cravat, looks directly at the viewer while holding a thin paintbrush in his right hand.

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s highly successful art presented an intriguing, deeply ironic view of the ancient world.

While his contemporaries painted noble mythological heroes, Alma-Tadema frequently highlighted the corrupt, risqué, and subversive aspects of Rome. His highly detailed, sensual visions of antiquity left such a tangible legacy that they became the direct visual blueprints for Hollywood epics like Gladiator.

I lament not having been a contemporary of Sardanapalus [...] or even of Heliogabalus, emperor of Rome and priest of the Sun.

Théophile Gautier, a prominent 19th-century French decadent writer.

A BEAUTIFUL DEATH

The painting 'The Roses of Heliogabalus' by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, showing decadent Roman banqueters watching from a raised platform as their guests are buried beneath a massive avalanche of pink rose petals.

The Roses of Heliogabalus (1888) depicts the famously cruel Roman emperor Elagabalus calmly watching his banquet guests suffocate beneath a deadly cascade of pink rose petals.

While 19th-century tales of Roman decadence typically relied on a moralizing Christian lens to safely condemn the emperors, Alma-Tadema strips away this expected outrage. By presenting a horrific murder as an unashamedly gorgeous spectacle, he makes the viewer complicit.

ELEMENTS OF SIN

The Roses of Heliogabalus Pocket Square in Marble — A feast overwhelmed by a cascade of rose petals, from Lawrence Alma-Tadema's The Roses of Heliogabalus (1888), framed by our signature house-style.

Alma-Tadema deliberately changed the historical "violets" to roses. In Victorian imagery, roses symbolized sensuous love and imperial excess, transforming an assassination into a scene of luxurious decadence.

The Emperor Heliogabalus reclines on a silver-inlaid couch, wearing a tunic of silk and gold thread, watching his guests suffocate with detached amusement.

Behind the Emperor stands a statue of Bacchus, god of wine, accompanied by a panther and a faun, or it is Ampelus? In Roman myth, he became the first vine, his blood transformed into wine.

The palace is embellished with expensive, archaeologically accurate variegated marbles, proving Alma-Tadema grounded this unbelievable scene in strict historical reality.

The Emperor Heliogabalus reclines on a silver-inlaid couch, wearing a tunic of silk and gold thread, watching his guests suffocate with detached amusement.

Behind the Emperor stands a statue of Bacchus, god of wine, accompanied by a panther and a faun, or it is Ampelus? In Roman myth, he became the first vine, his blood transformed into wine.

The palace is embellished with expensive, archaeologically accurate variegated marbles, proving Alma-Tadema grounded this unbelievable scene in strict historical reality.

THE CROWNED ANARCHIST

Bust of Elagabalus, Palazzo Nuovo, Musei Capitolini, Rome 2016

Ruling from fourteen to eighteen, the boy-emperor Heliogabalus was famously dubbed a "crowned anarchist."

Treating the Roman Empire as his personal playground, he left behind a scandalous legacy. In displays of terrifying whimsy, he unleashed tamed lions and leopards at lavish banquets, roaring with laughter at his guests' panic.

He openly paraded his sexual perversions, humiliating the military by appointing a stage dancer to command the elite Praetorian Guard. In other cruel games, he bound courtiers to water-wheels, repeatedly plunging them into the depths while playfully calling his terrified guests "river-Ixions.

MIRROR OF DECAY

The Roses of Heliogabalus was a dark mirror held up to Victorian society.

The public craved Roman decadence, yet demanded a strict "moral agenda" where Christian goodness triumphed and "bad" Roman emperors were punished.

Alma-Tadema stripped away this moral lecture, exposing his audience's true appetite for bloodshed and sensuality. By masking psychopathic murder beneath flawless pink petals, he invited them to simply "enjoy the show"—turning respectable society into willing accomplices to his beautiful corruption. As the artist ultimately confessed:

There is not such a great difference between the ancients and the moderns as we are apt to suppose [...] the old Romans were human flesh and blood like ourselves, moved by the same passions and emotions.

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema