ns at Rome, in Numidia and in Dacia.[24] The most celebrated of
those gods then was the Jupiter of Doliche, a small city of Commagene, that
owed its fame to him. Because of the troops coming from that region, this
obscure Baal, whose name is mentioned by no author, found worshipers in
every Roman province as far as Africa, Germany and Brittany. The number of
known inscriptions consecrated to him exceeds a hundred, and it is still
growing. Being originally nothing but a god of lightning, represented as
brandishing an ax, this local genius of the tempest was elevated to the
rank of tutelary divinity of the imperial armies.[25]

The diffusion of the Semitic religions in Italy that commenced
imperceptibly under the republic became more marked after the first century
of our era. Their expansion and multiplication were rapid, and they
attained the apogee of their power during the third century. Their
influence became almost predominant when the accession of the Severi lent
them the support of a court that was half Syrian. Functionaries of all
kinds, senators and officers, vied with each other in devotion to the
patron gods of their sovereigns, gods which the sovereigns patronized in
turn. Intelligent and ambitious princesses like Julia Domna, Julia Maesa,
Julia Mammea, whose ascendency was very {114} considerable, became
propagators of their national religion. We all know the audacious
pronunciamento of the year 218 that placed upon the throne the
fourteen-year-old emperor Heliogabalus, a worshiper of the Baal of Emesa.
His intention was to give supremacy over all other gods to his barbarian
divinity, who had heretofore been almost unknown. The ancient authors
narrate with indignation how this crowned priest attempted to elevate his
black stone, the coarse idol brought from Emesa, to the rank of supreme
divinity of the empire by subordinating the whole ancient pantheon to it;
they never tire of giving revolting details about the dissoluteness of the
debaucheries for which the festivities of the new _Sol invictus Elagabal_
furnished a pretext.[26] However, the question arises whether the Roman
historians, being very hostile to that foreigner who haughtily favored the
customs of his own country, did not misrepresent or partly misunderstand
the facts. Heliogabalus's attempt to have his god recognized as supreme,
and to establish a kind of monotheism in heaven as there was monarchy on
earth, was undoubtedly too violent, awkward and