The Maccabean Revolution describe the coup d’état which brought to the imperial power in..
a great-nephew of Septimius Severus through his Syrian wife Julia Domna,
he gives a perfect description of a non-Greek cult as preserved at Emesa and
integrated in the life of Greek Syria:
Both boys (the pretender and his cousin) were dedicated to the service
of the sun god whom the local inhabitants worship under its Phoeni-
cian name of Elagabalus. There was a huge temple built there, richly
ornamented with gold and silver and valuable stones. The cult extended
not just to the local inhabitants either. Satraps of all the adjacent terri-
tories and barbarian princes tried to outdo each other in sending costly
dedications to the god every year.There was no actual man-made statue
of the god, the sort Greeks and Romans put up; but there was an enormous
stone, rounded at the base and coming to a point at the top, conical
in shape and black. This stone is worshipped as if it were sent from
heaven; on it there are some small projecting pieces and markings that
are pointed out, which the people would like to believe are a rough
picture of the sun, because this is how they see them. Bassianus, the
elder of the two boys, was a priest of this god....Heused to appear in
public in barbarian clothes, wearing a long-sleeved ‘‘chiton’’ that hung
to his feet and was gold and purple. His legs from the waist down to
the tips of his toes were completely covered similarly with garments
ornamented with gold and purple. On his head he wore a crown of
precious stones glowing with different colours.^6We could not ask for a better model of how the high priest of an aniconic cult
in the city of Jerusalem might have appeared to a Greek observer if the hypo-
thetical transformation had taken place, and the cult preserved in its ancestral
form but integrated into that of a Supreme God compatible with the pan-
theon of Graeco-Roman paganism. The fact that (rightly or wrongly) Hero-
dian perceived the cult in the inland city of Emesa as ‘‘Phoenician’’ is also
significant, for two main reasons. Firstly, the Phoenician cities are the clearest
examples of pre-Greek cities which retained their traditions and identities
while also becoming integrated in the Hellenistic and Roman world.^7 Phoe-
nician inscriptions continue until the reign of Augustus, Phoenician letter-
ing on the coins of Tyre until towards the end of the second century..
. Herodian , , –, trans. C. R. Whittaker in the Loeb ed. For the cult, seeRAC, s.v.
‘‘Elagabal.’’ For Emesa, H. Seyrig, ‘‘Caractères de l’histoire d’Emèse,’’Syria (): –.
. See ‘‘The Phoenician Cities: A Case-Study of Hellenisation,’’Proc. Camb. Philol. Soc.
(): – ( chapter in the present volume).