Antonin Artaud's novelized biography of the third-century Roman Emperor Heliogabalus is both his most accessible and his most extreme book. Written in 1933, when Artaud was preparing his legendary Theatre of Cruelty, Heliogabalus is a powerful concoction of sexual excess, self-deification, and terminal violence.&lt;/P&gt; Reflecting its author's preoccupation with the occult, magic, -Satan, and esoteric religions, the author assembles an entire world-view from the raw material of insanity, sexual obsession and anger. &lt;/P&gt;