I was just reading Edward Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (good read btw) and came across the Roman Emperor Elagabalus (aka Marcus Aurelius Antoninus).

So, basically, some random African dude starts this whole big movement prophesying that this politician Macrinus was going to become the new Emperor. Macrinus and the Emperor Caracalla are residing in Syria at this time (AD 217). The people in Rome send a letter to Caracalla advising him to kill Macrinus because of this weird prophecy. But Caracalla was too busy having fun doing chariot races so he just handed off the unopened letter to his minister of civil affairs to deal with. Guess who the minister of civil affairs was? Macrinus. So, Macrinus is understandably scared for his life and so convinces an aggrieved soldier to kill the Emperor. He succeeded. The Praetorian guards (who loved Caracalla because he lavished them with money) start fighting about who should don the purple and come to the conclusion that this guy Macrinus, who was close to the Emperor and in heavy grief concerning his death, was the least likely person to have conspired to kill Caracalla. And so Macrinus became Emperor.

A bit later, Macrinus decided that the Praetorian Guard were being paid too much so he heavily decreased the pay of new Guard members (while keeping the old Guard at the high salary). The Guard saw this and plotted to kill Macrinus in response. Now Caracalla's mother's sister's daughter's son, Bassianus, (seriously) was the high priest of the Sun in Emesa, a city in Syria, which just so happened to be where the Guard was spending their winter. Bassianus' grandmother saw an opportunity here and bribed enough people to convince the Guard that Bassianus was Caracalla's lost son. Also, there was an eclipse and a comet at this time, which convinced the army. Bassianus, now named Antoninus, was declared Emperor by these people and they marched on Antioch, where Macrinus was located atm. Their armies clashed and Macrinus got scared so he ran away, this made his own army turn on him in disgust and they hunted down and killed Macrinus.

The Emperor, now named Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, arrived at Rome a while later, and the Romans were surprised to find the Emperor wearing makeup and jewelry and extremely feminine clothes. Now, the Emperor attributed his new authority position to be the work of the Sun god he so faithfully had worshipped. That Sun god's name? Elagabalus, which the Emperor began calling himself. Oh, and that god is the same Baal the Old Testament references. Elagabalus repurposed the Temple on Palatine Mount in Rome to worship this Sun god, whom he renamed Deus Sol Invictus and placed as the leader of the pantheon, and eventually the sole monotheistic God to be worshipped. He held huge parties and lavish feasts at the Temple. Also he both circumcised and castrated himself. (Monotheist and circumcised? 🤔 Also, he "abstained from hog's flesh") Elagabalus lived a life of pure hedonism, having sex with many women and many men, and Elagabalus wore women's clothing and eventually considered herself Empress of the Roman Empire.

Just look at Elagabalus' statue: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elagabalus Physiognomy is real lmao. Also this is a good biography of them: https://archive.org/details/rsamazingemperor00hayjuoft/page/n8/mode/2up

Anyways she always wore makeup and wigs. She regularly plucked out her body hair. And she prostituted herself in taverns, brothels and the imperial palace. She also promised an enormous amount of money to any physician who could successfully give her a vagina (instead of her girldick). Worst of all, she gave women the right to vote in the Senate. After four years of all this there eventually was an uprising where she was killed and her body mutilated The Senate then quickly outlawed women from ever having legislative power again.