Les Roses dElagabal detail

A Difficult Line from Horace

The Roses of Heliogabalus is a famous painting of 1888 by the Anglo-Dutch academician Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, at present in private hands. It is based on a probably invented episode in the life of the Roman emperor Elagabalus, also known as Heliogabalus, (204–222), taken from the Augustan History. Although the Latin refers to "violets and other flowers", Alma-Tadema depicts Elagabalus attempting[citation needed] to smother his unsuspecting guests in rose-petals released from false ceiling panels. The original reference is this:

Oppressit in tricliniis versatilibus parasitos suos violis et floribus, sic ut animam aliqui efflaverint, cum erepere ad summum non possent.[1]
In a banqueting-room with a reversible ceiling he once buried his parasites in violets and other flowers, so that some were actually smothered to death, being unable to crawl out to the top..

The Baths at Caracalla, 1899

Sappho and Alcaeus, 1881

A Favourite Custom, 1909

The Oleander

A coign of vantage, 1895

Ask Me No More

Caracalla

Dedication to Bacchus

Women of Amphiss, 1887

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The Education of the Children of Clovis (1861)

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The Tepidarium (1881)

The mirror

Karneval flower

Water Pets

Pandora