North Hertfordshire Museum will now refer to emperor Elagabalus with the female pronouns of she and her. It comes after classical texts claim the emperor once said "call me not Lord, for I am a Lady". A museum spokesperson said it was "only polite and respectful to be sensitive to identifying pronouns for people in the past".
The museum has one coin of Elagabalus, which is often displayed amongst other LGBTQ+ items in its collection. It said it consulted LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall to ensure "displays, publicity and talks are as up-to-date and inclusive as possible". Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, better known as Elagabalus, ruled the Roman empire for just four years from 218AD to his assassination, aged 18, in 222AD. He became an increasingly controversial figure over his short reign, developing a reputation for sexual promiscuity. Cassius Dio, a senator and contemporary of Elagabalus, writes in his historical chronicles that the emperor was married five times - four times to women, and once to Hiercoles, a former slave and chariot driver. In this final marriage, Dio writes that the emperor "was bestowed in marriage and was termed wife, mistress and queen".
The debate over Elagabalus's gender identity is long-standing and often splits academics. Dr Shushma Malik, a Cambridge university classics professor, told the BBC: "The historians we use to try and understand the life of Elagabalus are extremely hostile towards him, and therefore cannot be taken at face value. We don't have any direct evidence from Elagabalus himself of his own words. "There are many examples in Roman literature of times where effeminate language and words were used as a way of criticising or weakening a political figure. "References to Elagabalus wearing makeup, wigs and removing body hair may have been written in order to undermine the unpopular emperor." Dr Malik added that whilst Romans were aware of gender fluidity, and there are examples of pronouns being changed in literature, it "was usually used in reference to myth and religion, rather than to describe living people". However, councillor Keith Hoskins, executive member for Enterprise and Arts at North Herts Council, said texts such as Dio's provide evidence "that Elagabalus most definitely preferred the 'she' pronoun and as such this is something we reflect when discussing her in contemporary times, as we believe is standard practice elsewhere". "We know that Elagabalus identified as a woman and was explicit about which pronouns to use, which shows that pronouns are not a new thing," he added.
Museum reclassifies Roman emperor as trans woman. By Yasmin Rufo. BBC, November 21, 2023.
The North Hertfordshire Museum in the United Kingdom has reclassified a Roman emperor as a transgender woman and will refer to the ruler with she/her pronouns. The institution cited Ancient Roman writings claiming that Elagabalus, who held power between 218 and 222 CE before being assassinated at the age of 18, wore women’s clothing and preferred to be called “lady.”
While the official classification is new, scholars have long discussed Elagabalus’s sexual and gender identity, and the British Museum’s biography of the emperor states that she sought a gender-affirming surgery and frequently wore women’s garments. Depictions of the ruler in recent centuries have emphasized her feminine qualities, beauty, and opulence.
Elagabalus, who was born and lived in Syria before assuming the Roman throne at age 14, was also described as being sexually promiscuous. Roman historian Cassius Dio wrote that she had five wives, the last of whom was a man, and that she was “termed wife, mistress, and queen.” Some scholars have pointed out that Elagabalus’s contemporaries may have intentionally written discrediting text about the leader, who was ultimately overthrown and assassinated by high-ranking political leaders.
Zachary Herz, a Classics scholar and Elagabalus expert at the University of Colorado at Boulder, told Hyperallergic that he struggles with the concept of retrospectively assigning identity, adding that these texts were “almost certainly meant to discredit [Elagabalus]” and that the authors of these accounts were working for the statesman who overthrew Elagabalus in a coup. Although none of Elagabalus’s own writing survived, coins and portrait busts issued under the emperor’s reign are still around today. “The people making these coins and statues would have had a strong incentive to depict Elagabalus the way he wanted to be seen, so you can use these media to see what Elagabalus wanted to look like,” Herz said. “It happens that these coins and statues all depict Elagabalus as male, right down to the sad teenage-boy mustache.”
“On the other hand, if a trans person today reads about Elagabalus and feels less alone it’s hard to begrudge them that,” Herz continued. “My own personal take is that Elagabalus doesn’t show us ‘trans people in antiquity’ but does show us other ways of doing sex, gender, and sexuality.”
The North Herfordshire Museum owns one coin featuring Elagabalus’s face. A spokesperson for the institution told the BBC that it is “only polite and respectful to be sensitive to identifying pronouns for people in the past.”
UK Museum Reclassifies Roman Emperor as Trans Woman. By Elaine Velie. Hyperallergic, November 22, 2023.
Elagabalus ruled as Roman emperor for just four years before being murdered in AD 222. He was still a teenager when he died. Despite his short reign, Elagabalus is counted among the most infamous of Roman emperors, often listed alongside Caligula and Nero.
His
indiscretions, recorded by the Roman chroniclers, include: marrying a vestal
virgin, the most chaste of Roman priestesses, twice; dressing up as a female
prostitute and selling his body to other men; allowing himself to be penetrated
(and by the bigger the penis the better); marrying a man, the charioteer
Hierocles; and declaring himself not to be an emperor at all, but an empress:
“Call me not Lord, for I am a Lady”.
Based on
this quote, North Hertfordshire Museum has reclassified Elagabalus as a
transgender woman, and will now use the pronouns she/her. The museum has a
single coin depicting Elagabalus, which is sometimes displayed along with other
LGBTQ+ artefacts from their collection.
When writing
about ancient subjects, from emperors to slaves, the first question historians
have to ask is: how do we know what we do? Most of our written sources are
fragmentary, incomplete and rarely contemporary, amounting to little more than
gossip or hearsay at best, malign propaganda at worst. It’s rare that we have a
figure’s own words to guide us.
Elagabalus
is no exception. For Elagabalus, our principle source is the Roman historian
Cassius Dio. A senator and politician before turning his hand to history, Dio
was not only a contemporary of the emperor, but part of his regime.
However,
Dio wrote his Roman history under the patronage of Elagabalus’ cousin, Severus
Alexander. He took the throne following Elagabalus’s assassination. It was
therefore in Dio’s interest to paint his patron’s predecessor in a bad light.
Sexual slurs and the Romans
Sexual
slurs were always among the first insults thrown by Roman authors. Julius
Caesar was accused of being penetrated by the Bithynian king so many times it
earned him the nickname “the Queen of Bithynia”.
It was
rumoured that both Mark Antony and Augustus had prostituted themselves for
political gain earlier in their careers. And Nero was said to have worn the
bridal veil to marry a man.
The Romans
were no stranger to same-sex relationships, however. It would have been more
unusual for a Roman emperor not to have slept with men. Roman sexual identities
were complex constructs, revolving around notions such as status and power.
The gender
of a person’s sexual partner did not come into it. Instead, sexual orientation
was informed by sexual role: were they the dominant or passive partner?
To be the
dominant partner, in business, politics and war as much as in the bedroom, was
at the root of what made a Roman man a man. The Latin word we translate as
“man”, vir, is the root of the modern word “virile”, and to the Romans there
was nothing more manly than virility. To penetrate – whether men, women, or
both – was seen as manly, and therefore as Roman.
Conversely,
for a Roman man to be passive, to be penetrated, was seen as unmanly. The
Romans thought such an act of penetration stripped a man of his virility,
making him less than a man – akin to a woman or, even worse, a slave.
A man who
enjoyed being penetrated was sometimes called a cinaedus, and in Latin
literature cinaedi are often described as taking on the role of the woman in
more than the bedroom, both dressing and acting effeminately. The implication
is always that the way they dressed, acted and had sex was somehow subversive –
distinctly un-Roman.
The word
cinaedus appears in Latin literature almost exclusively as an insult — and it’s
this literary role that is ascribed to Caesar, Mark Antony, Nero and
Elagabalus. The power of the insult stems not from saying that these men had
sex with men, but that they were penetrated by men.
It’s worth
noting that these rules of Roman sexuality only applied to freeborn adult, male
Roman citizens. They did not apply to women, slaves, freedmen, foreigners or
even beardless youths. These people were all considered fair game to a virile
Roman man, as uncomfortable a concept as that might be to us today.
Was Elagabalus transgender?
While the
Romans clearly engaged in acts that we today consider gay or straight sex, they
would not recognise the sexual orientations we associate with them. The ancient
Romans did not share the same conceptions of sexuality that we do.
Many men’s
sexual behaviour was what we would now term bisexual. Some lived in a manner we
might describe as gender non-conforming. The concept of a person being
transgender was not unknown. But an ancient Roman would not have
self-identified as any of those things.
We cannot
retroactively apply such modern, western identities to the inhabitants of the
past and we must be careful not to misgender or misidentify them – especially
if our only evidence for how they might have identified comes from hostile
writers.
In
attempting to fact check the sexual slurs and propaganda from the biographical
facts, there is a danger that we lose sight of the fact that ancient Romans did
recognise a huge variety of sexual orientations and gender identities – just as
we do today. To attempt to crudely ascribe modern labels to ancient figures
such as Elagabalus is not only to strip them of their agency, but also to
oversimplify what is a wonderfully, fabulously broad and nuanced subject.
Museum
classifies Roman emperor as trans – but modern labels oversimplify ancient
gender identities. By Andrew Kenrick. The Conversation., November 28, 2023.
There are
legendary dinner parties, and then there are the stories told about those
thrown by the Roman emperor Elagabalus. The teenage ruler, who managed just
four years as emperor before being assassinated at the age of 18 in AD222,
would serve bizarre dishes like camels’ heels or flamingos’ brains to guests,
stage themed nights when all the food was blue or green, or release lions or
bears to roam among the diners.
On one
famous occasion, according to a Roman historian, those present at a dinner were
suffocated to death under an enormous quantity of rose petals; another saw
guests seated on slowly deflating whoopee cushions – their first recorded use
in western history.
It’s not
such a stretch as it may sound. As well as throwing wild parties, Elagabalus
was also said to have openly flouted contemporary gender roles. The emperor is
said to have also dressed as a female sex worker, “married” a male slave and
acted as his “wife”, asked to be referred to as “lady” rather than “lord” and
even, according to one account, begged to have a surgical vagina made by a
physician.
The stories
led Keith Hoskins, executive member for arts at North Herts council, to say in
a statement: “Elagabalus most definitely preferred the she pronoun, and as such
this is something we reflect when discussing her in contemporary times … It is
only polite and respectful.
“We know
that Elagabalus identified as a woman and was explicit about which pronouns to
use, which shows that pronouns are not a new thing.”
But do we
know that? Thanks to a growing awareness of more complex ideas of gender in
history, and a desire to reject historical prejudices, Elagabalus has been
reclaimed in recent decades as a genderqueer icon.
However,
many historians disagree that the evidence is as unambiguous as the museum
says. Mary Beard, formerly professor of classics at Cambridge University,
directed followers on X to her latest book, titled Emperor of Rome, which opens
with a lengthy discussion of the “tall stories” told about Elagabalus.
The
accounts of sexual unconventionality (and extravagant cruelty) largely
originate with hostile historians who wanted to win the favour of Elegabalus’s
successor, Severus Alexander, and so portrayed the emperor in the worst light
possible, she says. “How seriously should we treat them? Not very is the usual
answer,” Beard writes, calling the stories “untruths and flagrant
exaggerations”.
The Romans
may not have shared current understandings of trans identity, but several of the
contested accounts about Elagabalus feel remarkably modern, points out Zachary
Herz, assistant professor of classics at the University of Colorado in Boulder,
who has written about how we should approach the story of Elagabalus in the
context of queer theory.
Asserting
that Elagabalus requested female pronouns is an “astonishingly close
translation” of a story written by the third-century historian Cassius Dio,
says Herz. “Elagabalus is literally saying, ‘Don’t call me this word that ends
in the masculine ending, call me this word that ends in the feminine.’ So it’s
unbelievably close to correcting someone’s pronouns.”
The
problem, as he sees it, is that “I just don’t think it really happened.” “The
quote-unquote biographies” written under Elagabalus’s successor are “hit
pieces”, he says. “I would be inclined to read [them] as basically fictional.”
Racial
prejudice also played a part, says Icks: before coming to Rome to rule it,
Elagabalus was a priest in an obscure cult in Syria that venerated a black
stone meteorite – a culture that would have been deeply strange to the Romans.
“And the
stereotype that Romans had of Syrians … is that they were very effeminate and
not real men like the Romans were.”
Some facts
about Elagabalus’s biography can be asserted with confidence, says Herz, but in
truth, comparatively few. And so while he says he considers it “perfectly
justifiable” if his students use “they/them” to refer to the emperor (“if we
don’t know a person’s gender, it’s a perfectly polite thing to use”), he
believes “he” and “him” more accurately reflect the emperor’s own wishes.
“We don’t
know what Elagabalus was like. We don’t know how Elagabalus saw himself. But we
have portraits and coins that all look male, that portray him with male facial
hair, male features and in garments that would have been understood as male
within Elagabalus’s culture – including the coin that the museum has at the
centre of its display.”
While
“there is a long history of people who have been expected to be good at being a
man or being a woman and have had a hard time with that”, says Herz, “I worry
that when we tell our students they should care about Elagabalus because she’s
trans or because they’re non-binary – because they fit a modern category that our
students use for themselves – we’re depriving them of the richness of history.”
Was Roman
emperor Elagabalus really trans – and does it really matter? By Esther Addley. The Guardian, November 24, 2023.
His
reputation has suffered at the pens of historians for centuries – a suspected
revisionist attempt to hide the fact that a powerful Roman Emperor was among
the first persons in history to seek a sex reassignment surgery. Emperor
Elagabalus (or Heliogabalus) came from a prominent Arab family in present-day
Syria, where he served as head priest of the sun god Helios. He came to power
at fourteen years old, and according to historical records, Elagabalus quickly
developed a reputation for extreme eccentricity, decadence, zealotry, and
sexual promiscuity. Those biases have persisted through history up until the
present day.
An 18th
century English historian Edward Gibbon, wrote that Elagabalus “abandoned
himself to the grossest pleasures with ungoverned fury.” Germany’s leading
historian of Ancient Rome, Barthold Georg Niebuhr, said that “the name
Elagabalus is branded in history above all others” because of his “unspeakably
disgusting life.” An example of a modern historian’s assessment is Adrian
Goldsworthy’s view that: “Elagabalus was not a tyrant, but […] incompetent,
probably the least able emperor Rome had ever had.” Only archaeologist Warwick
Ball describes Elagabalus as “innovative” and “a tragic enigma lost behind
centuries of prejudice.”
When
Elagabalus was alive, a Roman statesman who kept close tabs on the lives of his
emperors. In his writings, Cassius Dio notably referred to Elagabalus by
feminine pronouns and states that the emperor wanted to marry a former male
slave and charioteer named Hierocles. Dio stated that Elagabalus delighted in
being called Hierocles’s mistress, wife, and queen. Officially, Elagabalus was
married five times (and twice to the same woman) all before he was 18, although
there were rumours he also married a man named Zoticus, an athlete from Smyrna.
During his
reign, women were first allowed into the senate, and his mother and grandmother
both received senatorial titles. They’re found on many coins and inscriptions,
a rare honor for Roman women. This establishment of a “women’s senate” would be
considered by his contemporaries as one of the many examples of Elagabalus’s
“moral corruption”.
According
to Dio, the Emperor wore makeup and wigs and preferred to be addresses as
“lady” instead of “lord”. It was also recorded that Elgabalus offered
significant payments to any doctor who could give him the equivalent of a
woman’s genitalia by means of a surgical incision. It is this detail that
convinces some scholars to see Elagabalus as an early transgender figure.
In Ancient
Rome, cross-dressing was practiced during Saturnalia, an ancient pagan
festival, but was forbidden outside that rite, suggesting that by making such
practices unacceptable outside that rite, gender identities had been firmly
established. Romans also imposed it as a punishment, ordering deserters to wear
female clothes for three days before execution.
Modern
Historian Eric Varner notes, “Elagabalus is also alleged to have appeared as
Venus and to have epilated his entire body. Recurrent charges of effeminacy
were levelled against him, and a painted portrait was sent to the capital prior
to the young emperor’s arrival in order to accustom the inhabitants of Rome to
his exotic appearance”.
Further
historical accounts claim that Elagabalus was an avid prankster. At banquets he
would reportedly serve peas with gold, lentils with onyx, beans with amber, as
well as sprinkling pearls in lieu of pepper, and at the end of the feast, he
would bring out lions and leopards, panicking the invitees, who were unaware
they were tamed. The origin of the whoopee cushion is said to be traced back to
the Roman emperor, who regularly pulled the practical joke at his aristocratic
dinner parties. Elagabalus was a teenager, after all.
His
eccentricities (namely his relationship with Hierocles) lost Elagabalus his
support from the soldiers of the Praetorian Guard. According to Augustan
history, the hard-partying emperor lost the support of his courtiers too, who
grew weary of his decadence, zealotry, and sexual promiscuity. Dio also claimed
that Elagabalus prostituted himself in taverns and brothels. Allegedly, when
finances of the Roman Empire were in dire straits, he proposed to prostitute
himself for an insanely high price.
Eventually,
Elagabalus’s grandmother, Julia Maesa, decided that he and his mother were to
be replaced by her other grandson, a then fifteen-year-old Severus Alexander.
Elagabalus and Alexander ruled together for about a year until Elagabalus
realised the Praetorian Guard preferred his cousin over him. At this
realization, Elagabalus supposedly organised several attempts to assassinate
Alexander after the Senate refused to strip his cousin of his title. The
Praetorians then mutinied and killed Elagabalus instead. After slaughtering his
minions and tearing out their vital organs, they then fell upon Elagabalus as
he hid cowering in a latrine. They dragged his body through the streets by a
hook and attempted to stuff it into a sewer. When it proved too big, they threw
him into the River Tiber.
This was a teenage boy, struggling with hormones, discovering his sexuality, thrown into a lifestyle which offered him everything he wanted – complete power and wealth, with no hint of the consequences for acting upon his desires – and then given the ultimate punishment for taking it.
After
Elagabalus’s assassination, his supporters (including Hierocles) were killed or
deposed; his religious edicts were reversed; women were re-barred from
attending Senate meetings and he was erased from the public record. In fact,
one of his larger than life statues (portraying Elagabalus as Hercules) was
re-carved with Alexander’s heteronormative face. This practice is commonly
referred to as damnatio memoriae, and it’s reserved for those who were
disgraced. It also might have scrubbed one of the first transgendered icons
from the record.
Such a vast
propaganda campaign was set up to besmirch Elagabalus following his death, that
it’s hard to know what is and isn’t true about him. The only surviving evidence
we have of his brief life was written by people with ample motivation to discredit
and villify him. Was Elagabalus an awful emperor, or had Ancient Rome already
become a vehemently transphobic and homophobic society? In his book,
Transcending Gender: Assimilation, Identity, and Roman Imperial Portraits, Eric
R. Varner says that it was directly after Elagabalus requested the sex
reassignment surgery that he was deposed, implying that the assassination could
have likely been one of the earliest recorded hate crimes in history, disguised
as the coup of an incompetent emperor. Similarly condemned emperors like
Domitian, Commodus were all criticised for receptive homosexual behavior,
prostitution, feminine interest in exotic clothing, and excessive attention to
hair care. It’s also just as likely however, that Elagabalus wasn’t trans, and
that his enemies were exploiting roman ideas of gender to suggest that
Elagabalus was so terrible at his job that he couldn’t possibly be of the male
gender. For these reasons of historical uncertainty, we were unsure of the
appropriate pronouns for this article.
Though the
term transgender might be somewhat recent to the English language,
transgendered people were present in society as early as Ancient Egypt, which
had noted third gender categories. In the 3000 year-old Egyptian story, Tale of
Two Brothers, Bata removes his penis and tells his wife “I am a woman just like
you”; one modern scholar called him temporarily “transgendered”. Mut, Sekhmet
and other goddesses are sometimes represented androgynously, with erect
penises. Sumerian and Akkadian texts from 4500 years ago document transgender
or transvestite priests known as gala and by other names, and in Ancient Rome
too, there were galli priests who wore feminine clothes, referred to themselves
as women, often castrated themselves, and have been seen as early transgender
figures.
Elagabalus
is ranked by history among the worst and most degenerate emperors – (or
empresses) – but as Out History notes, “Her reported atrocities and crimes
however almost entirely fall under the categories of upsetting the gender,
cultural and religious norms of Roman society”. What good the teenage ruler did
is no doubt buried in academic slander, but might it be time for Elagabalus’s
story to be retold from a new perspective? It’s about time Hollywood made a new
sword-and-sandals biopic. Someone get Ridley Scott on the phone.
History
Conveniently Forgot to Tell us about the Transgender Roman Emperor. By Mary Kay McBrayer. Messy Nessy ,July 26, 2021.
For
LGBTQIA+ history month, recent Ancient History graduate Ollie Burns explores
the life of one individual who may confuse what we know about gender
non-conformity in the ancient world.
*Although
the histories written in antiquity refer to Elagabalus unanimously as ‘he/him’,
examination of these sources suggest very strongly that the emperor did not
identify as a male, and so for the purpose of this article I have used the
pronouns ‘they/them’.
Elagabalus’
reign was short and controversial. They installed Elagabal as the new head of
the Roman pantheon, displacing Jupiter. The idea of a foreign god being
worshipped ahead of Jupiter was shocking to much of the Roman population. They
took this even further when they ordered the removal of Rome’s most sacred
relics (such as The Fire of Vesta) and had them placed at the Elagabalium, an
enormous temple dedicated to Elagabal built on the Palatine Hill. This
essentially made it impossible for Romans to worship any god without also
honouring Elagabal. Further religious controversy was stirred up when
Elagabalus married Aquilia Severa, a Vestal Virgin; Roman law very strictly
stated that all Vestal’s had to remain chaste, and any found to have engaged in
sexual intercourse were liable to be buried alive, so to many, this marriage
was unacceptable. This brings us on to the subject of Elagabalus’ sexuality and
gender identity.
Based on
the sources we have, it is difficult to ascertain Elagabalus’ sexual
orientation for certain; it is reported by Cassius Dio that Elagabalus married
five times, and that they had numerous extra-marital sexual encounters with
other women. The following is a passage from Book 80 of Dio’s Roman History:
‘’ He
married many women, and had intercourse with even more without any legal
sanction; yet it was not that he had any need of them himself, but simply that
he wanted to imitate their actions when he should lie with his lovers and
wanted to get accomplices in his wantonness by associating with them
indiscriminately. He used his body both for doing and allowing many strange
things, which no one could endure to tell or hear of; but his most conspicuous
acts, which it would be impossible to conceal, were the following. He would go
to the taverns by night, wearing a wig, and there ply the trade of a female
huckster. He frequented the notorious brothels, drove out the prostitutes, and
played the prostitute himself. Finally, he set aside a room in the palace and
there committed his indecencies, always standing nude at the door of the room,
as the harlots do, and shaking the curtain which hung from gold rings, while in
a soft and melting voice he solicited the passers-by.”
This
particular extract suggests that while Elagabalus married and indeed had sex
with women, this was only so that they could learn how women acted, in order to
replicate this with male partners, which would imply that they were homosexual.
In terms of gender identity, Elagabalus’ habit of playing a female prostitute
to solicit men shows a rejection of traditional Roman male identity, wherein
men (especially those of rank) were seen as weak and effeminate if they allowed
themselves to be penetrated by other men. Elagabalus was also known to have
married a man, the charioteer and former slave Hierocles, and they loved being
referred to as Hierocles’ wife or mistress. The emperor is also reported to
have frequently worn wigs and makeup, preferred to be called ‘domina’ (lady)
over ‘dominus’ (lord), and even offered vast sums of money to any physician who
could give them a vagina. In one particular anecdote, Dio wrote that Elagabalus
asked one of the Praetorian Prefects what the most painful method of removing
their male genitals would be, and offered the man money to do it. It is because
of reportings such as these that Elagabalus is believed by some modern
historians to have been transgender, as it seems clear that they preferred
being seen as a woman, and even sought to physically become one, however the
extent to which Dio’s writings can be trusted is also a cause for debate. Dio
wrote most of his Roman History after Elagabalus was already dead and
disgraced, and it is common in Roman histories to see unpopular emperors
slandered and have aspects of their reign negatively exaggerated to fit the
current regime’s status quo. To that end, Elagabalus is referred to as ‘A
tragic enigma lost behind centuries of prejudice’ by historian Warwick Ball.
Elagabalus’s
religious policies and general eccentricities severely alienated the Praetorian
Guard. Fearing a coup, Elagabalus’ grandmother arranged for her other grandson
and Elagabalus’ cousin, Severus Alexander to take imperial power in 222. The
Praetorian Guard murdered Elagabalus and their mother, decapitated their
bodies, and threw them in the River Tiber. Elagabalus was just 18.
LGBTQIA+
History Month – Elagabalus, The Trans Emperor of Rome? – Ollie Burns. By
Abigail Hudson. University of Birmingham blog, February 18, 2021.
This week’s
entry: Elagabalus
What it’s about: Someone who’s been singled out as the most
colorful and controversial of all of the Roman emperors, which is really saying
something. Only 14 when he took the throne, Elagabalus was unprepared to rule,
“probably the least able emperor Rome had ever had,” in the opinion of
historian Adrian Goldsworthy. He seems to have spent most of his brief reign
challenging Rome’s sexual mores, or as onetime member of Parliament Edward
Gibbon put it, he “abandoned himself to the grossest pleasures with ungoverned
fury.”
Biggest controversy: Whatever Elagabalus’ failings as
chief executive, it’s always the sex scandals that grab the headlines, even
1,800 years later. The historical record isn’t always clear, given a lot of the
material here is salacious gossip. But it seems Elagabalus married and divorced
five women in as many years. One of those, Annia Aurelia Faustina, was a
descendent of the original Marcus Aurelius, and was conveniently single after
Elagabalus had her husband executed. Another wife, Aquilia Severa, was a Vestal
Virgin. Marrying someone who had taken a holy vow of chastity was a shocking
breach of tradition, but Elagabalus claimed the union would produce “godlike
children.” And those are just the women he married. Elagabalus also had a
long-term relationship with his chariot driver, Hierocles, who Elagabalus
called his husband, and at least one source has him marrying a male athlete
named Aurelius Zoticus.
Elagabalus
was also a prostitute, working in taverns, brothels, and even the palace. He
bragged that he out-earned other prostitutes, and according to later Roman
historian Cassius Dio, “he had numerous agents who sought out those who could
best please him by their foulness.” In and out of the brothel, Elagabalus would
“paint his eyes, depilate his body hair and wear wigs” to appear more feminine,
and preferred to be called a lady and not a lord. Cassius Dio wrote that
“Elagabalus delighted in being called Hierocles’ mistress, wife, and queen.” He
also “offered vast sums to any physician who could provide him with a vagina,”
which may have made Elagabalus the first person on record as seeking out
gender-reassignment surgery.
(A note on
pronouns: While it’s possible Elagabalus was a trans woman, we only have
speculation based on centuries-old gossip to go on, so absent stronger evidence
one way or the other, we’ll continue to use the emperor’s assigned-at-birth
gender, as the Wikipedia article does.)
Strangest fact: His name wasn’t Elagabalus. Like the Pope,
the emperor often assumed a new name upon taking the throne; Elagabalus’ was
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus. His given name was likely Sextus Varius
Avitus Bassianus, although the historical record doesn’t seem sure. The name
Elagabalus came from a Syrian sun god who was folded into the Roman pantheon.
Our emperor was a priest of Elagabalus as a child, and as emperor replaced
Jupiter with Elagabalus as the head of the pantheon of gods (to much
consternation from the Roman faithful), and presided over religious ceremonies
in his honor. Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus was only referred to as
Elagabalus after his death, most likely to differentiate him from Caracalla,
three emperors previous, who also went by those same four names.
Thing we were happiest to learn: Women’s rights took a small step
forward under Elagabalus. Powerful women in Rome could usually only assert
power indirectly, and Elagabalus was put in power through his grandmother’s
influence. When Caracalla was assassinated, he was replaced by the head of the
Praetorian Guard, Marcus Opellius Macrinus, but Caracallas’ aunt (and
Elagabalus’ grandmother), Julia Maesa, convinced the army’s Third Legion to
revolt and put her grandson on the throne at age 14. Once in power, Elagabalus
gave senatorial titles to both his mother and grandmother (women had previously
never been allowed in the Senate chamber), and both can be found on Roman
coins, rare for women in any era of Rome.
Thing we were unhappiest to learn: Elagabalus’ reign didn’t last.
After less than five scandalous years, Elagabalus had exhausted the patience of
the real power behind the throne. The Praetorian Guard disapproved of his
sexual antics, particularly his relationship with his chariot-driver husband
Hierocles, while Maesa realized her grandson had no popular support and hung
both him and her daughter out to dry.
Maesa
pushed Elagabalus to appoint his cousin, Severus Alexander, as his heir and
co-consul. Elagabalus quickly realized the Praetorians preferred Alexander, and
after several failed assassination attempts, Elagabalus had to be content to
strip his cousin of his titles and revoke his citizenship. The Praetorian Guard
demanded to see the two cousins in their camp. When they, along with
Elagabalus’ mother, appeared, the Praetorians cheered Alexander and ignored the
emperor. Enraged, Elagabalus ordered the arrest and execution of the
insubordinate soldiers. Instead, the guards killed him and his mother. We
return to Cassius Dio: “[T]heir heads were cut off and their bodies, after
being stripped naked, were first dragged all over the city, and then the
mother’s body was cast aside somewhere or other, while his was thrown into the
Tiber.” Hierocles and several of Elagabalus’ other associates were killed soon
after.
Also noteworthy: Some more recent historians question the
narrative of Elagabalus as an oversexed incompetent. After his death,
Elagabalus suffered damnatio memoriae—his name was erased from public records,
and statues of him were re-carved to resemble Severus Alexander. As a result,
much of what was written about Elagabalus came from his enemies, and has
therefore come under question. Martijn Icks’ 2008 book Images Of Elagabalus
argues that it was Elagabalus upending the Roman religion, not his sexual
exploits, that turned the Roman elites against him. Leonardo de Arrizabalaga y
Prado’s The Emperor Elagabalus: Fact Or Fiction? from the same year suggests he
was merely a pawn in his grandmother’s power struggles, and the more salacious
stories were part of a campaign of character assassination, which quickly
followed his more literal assassination.
Further down the Wormhole: We mention Cassius Dio several
times, because as historians go, he’s the closest thing we have to a primary
source on Elagabalus. Cassius Dio was his contemporary, and while he wasn’t in
Rome during much of the young emperor’s reign, he had easy access to eyewitness
accounts. He also served as consul under Severus Alexander, so his accounts may
contain a bit of bias, but in general, Dio is a terrific source, as his book
Roman History spans nearly a thousand years, starting with the arrival of
Aeneas in Italy. A hero of the Trojan War (second cousin to Hector and Paris)
mentioned in The Iliad, Aeneas is a revered figure in both Greek and Roman
mythology.
While
Aeneas may have been an historical figure, most of the stories about him are
mythological—Aphrodite and Apollo frequently intervene on his behalf, and
Poseidon rescues him after an assault by Achilles. The Iliad’s main character,
and the greatest of Greece’s warriors, Achilles also blurs myth and history,
and as with Aeneas, myth wins out, as Achilles is most famous for his heel—his
only vulnerable spot, after being dipped in the River Styx and granted magical
invulnerability. The Iliad refers to Achilles as “the brightest star in the
sky.” That star would be Sirius, visible from almost everywhere in the world,
apart from the very northernmost latitudes. We’ll beat the summer heat by
visiting the list of northernmost settlements next week.
This
teenage Roman emperor may have been the earliest recorded trans woman. By Mike
Vago. The A.V. Club, June 28, 2020.
Elagabalus’
name is not quite as notorious as that of Nero and Caligula, or even Commodus,
recently featured as the villain in Russell Crowe’s Gladiator. Like the three
emperors mentioned above, Elagabalus has consistently been ranked among the
worst and most depraved holders of the Imperial honor. Her reported atrocities
and crimes however almost entirely fall under the categories of upsetting the
gender, cultural and religious norms of Roman society. In this biography I will
briefly narrate her life and evaluate what her contemporaries found so shocking
about her. I will also show how examining her life and career can teach us much
about the intersections of cultural conflict in ancient times and the lavish
amount of attention transgender phenomenon have received since at least as long
as history was recorded.
Name and Pronouns
First a
note on name and pronouns: Historical sources uniformly refer to Elagabalus
with male pronouns. The emperor is best known under this title (which is
grammatically masculine) and she was assigned male at birth. I have decided to
use female pronouns because, based on the evidence, this choice is just as
valid as male pronouns. The three extant sources from antiquity, while they do
contradict each other, still broadly concur that the sovereign did have very
strong manifestations of cross-gender behavior. Telling aspects such as the
story related by Dio Cassius that Elagabalus offered half the empire to the
surgeon that would correct her genitalia seem to go far beyond merely
scandalizing an effeminate monarch and more towards showing the desperation a transgender
person might well feel in an age long before any methods were found to modify
her body according to her desires.
Background
Elagabalus
was born in the year 203 AD, and her brief reign occurred in the years 218-222
at the end of which she was killed. Well known through the ages, Elagabalus
lived a very short but tumultuous life. Related to the family of Septimius
Severus, Elagabalus was born into the highest level of privilege in Ancient
Rome.
Elagabalus
was inducted to the hereditary priesthood of the solar deity El Gabal, who was
worshipped in her native city as the supreme deity. In a different approach to
the Greeks and Romans who erected statues of their deities in their temples, El
Gabal was worshiped in the form of a meteoric black stone. Elaborate ceremonies
would mark this stone’s entry and brief residence in Rome.
Septimius
Severus was a Roman general of North African origin who wrested the supreme
power after the period of chaos that ensued from Commodus’ death (the son of
one of the last of the “Five Good Emperors,” Marcus Aurelius). While Severus
restored order to Rome, his stern and highly militaristic dictatorship undermined
traditional Roman institutions (such as the Senate). Severus’ son, Caracalla
was a ruthless tyrant, succeeding his father along with his brother Geta. The
cleverly ruthless Caracalla killed the equally ruthless but clumsier Geta.
Caracalla continued the militaristic dictatorship of Septimius Severus but was
known for more erratic behavior. His most famous legal act was the widening of
Roman citizenship to include virtually all free inhabitants of the Empire. This
act helped further weaken the Roman tradition by weakening cultural and social
distinctions. While this act seems appealing to modern sensibilities, it seems
to have simply been a brazen ploy to increase tax revenues. Caracalla was
killed by his soldiers in a plot, and the usurper Marcrinus (of commoner
descent) took the throne for a brief period. The emergence of the military as
the only legitimate source of power and the weakening of Roman tradition both
became especially present in the Severan era and help us understand the context
of Elagabalus’ brief reign.
Marcrinus’
welcome was quickly worn out when he attempted to reform the pay of the Roman
legions to assist the solvency of the Empire. His attempted fiscal reforms
angered the soldiers who, after overthrowing Caracalla, now missed that
Emperor’s generous ways. The atmosphere all over Rome became very tense. Enter
Julia Mamaea, the sister-in-law of Septimius Severus. She claimed that
Elagabalus, the young child-priest, was the illegitimate son of Caracalla and
this claim cemented that young person’s rise to the throne.
What makes
Elagabalus rise to fame and power unusual was that the soldiers who had a
chance to see her were entranced by her beauty as she danced ceremonies to El
Gabal. All the ancient authors describe her sensuous robes that she wore while
performing priestly duties. The fact that young boys could be sexually
objectified and sexualized as much as women in the Classical world no doubt
adds to Elagabalus’ ability to woo soldiers by dancing in luxurious robes and
elaborate makeup rather than gain their respect with military feats in armor
and sword.
Skilled
generals and soldiers supported Elagabalus so Marcrinus’ forces were quickly
defeated and the way was cleared for Elagabalus to reign.
Reign
The young
Empress (for that is what she wanted to call herself) wasn’t used to the
exercise of power. All the ancient sources agree that she made irresponsible
appointments to the highest offices of government and religion. Herodian and
the Historia Augusta salaciously assert that Elagabalus was in the habit of
appointing ministers on account of the length of their penises.
The reign
witnessed many actions that caused shock and offense to conservative Romans.
Elagabalus married a vestal virgin, claiming, according to Herodian, that the
priestly marriage would create divine children. Vestals’ chastity was very
important to Roman religious practice and the punishment for violating chastity
used to be execution by live burial. This marriage was thus an unprecedented
violation akin to desecrating the Eucharist for observant Roman Catholics.
Furthermore Elagabalus arranged a marriage between her deity El Gabal and
Urania the goddess most worshiped in Carthage, which was the most ancient and
hated enemy of Rome. In order to participate in her administration and gain
Imperial favor, senators and other Roman dignitaries were forced to dress in
un-Roman ways and to participate in elaborate sacrifices and other ceremonies.
The topic
of Elagabalus’ genitalia comes up frequently. One way Greeks and Romans
distinguished themselves from the near Eastern civilizations was that they did
not practice and abhorred circumcision. The ancient sources claim that
Elagabalus was circumcised as part of the requirements for the priestly
profession and the later Historia Augusta even claims that her penis was
infibulated (meaning that the head of the penis was divided in two.)
Castration, according to Dio Cassius, was one of Elagabalus’ fondest desires,
not out of religion but out of “effeminacy.” This last statement seems to very
strongly indicate a condition that would today be called transsexualism.
The only
symbols of Elagabalus reign that survive are precious metal coins and a very
few examples of statuary. Many of the coins do indeed show the religious
changes: displaying the meteoric stone of El Gabal and calling for that deity’s
blessings. The statuary on the other hand shows a young man with hair cut in
classic Roman style and thus seems designed to placate those of traditional feelings
as it showed the young ruler as being similar in appearance to Caracalla and
other Roman emperors. Some historians use this lack of archeological evidence
to claim that Elagabalus cross gender behavior was greatly exaggerated or even
simply made up to smear her. I think it is just as plausible that the fact that
only gender normative visual records of Elagabalus survive shows that her
sexual and gender variance was disapproved of and often hidden and can lead one
to suppose that only images more respectable to Ancient Roman values were
preserved, while evidence of cross gender behavior was effaced.
As
Elagabalus’ standing decreased in the eyes of powerful Romans, she was forced
to adopt her cousin Severus Alexander as a “son” and successor. Alexander was
only four years younger! Meticulous care was taken to ensure that this boy was
not corrupted by his eccentric cousin and was instead carefully reared
according to the most conservative Greco-Roman values. Understanding quickly
that Alexander was a threat, Elagabalus sought to remove him but the ploy
failed and when coming to appear before the camp of the Praetorian guards,
Elagabalus was murdered along with her mother. Their mutilated bodies were
carried through the streets and then thrown into the Tiber as if to wash away
the upset that came upon the Roman world.
Legacy
After
Elagabalus’ reign, women were never allowed to enter the building where the
Senate was convened. Her establishment of a “women’s senate” was considered one
of the many examples of Elagabalus’ depravity. The fact that women like her
grandmother, mother, and aunt wielded significant power and influence was also
condemned by writers with deep patriarchal values. Care was taken to erase
Elagabalus from the historical record like other Roman emperors that were
considered tyrants in a process called damnatio memoriae. Elagabalus was used
by subsequent historians, Roman and post-Roman, as an example of one of the
worst rulers ever.
Transgender
behavior existed in Rome before and after Elagabalus. Transgender practice was
tolerated and even sometimes respected by the Roman populace when it was
practiced by the male-born priestesses of Cybele, known as the Gallae. These
women would celebrate a taurobolium which (originally meant to be the castration
of a bull) was a castration ceremony where someone formally defined as male
would lose their genitalia, bleed like in menstruation or childbirth, and then
subsequently wear women’s clothing and go by female names. Like other cultural
practices this was a highly ritualistic and mystical understanding of gender
identity. Rome was a vast empire and culturally diverse empire and in some
respects it can be said a marketplace of religions existed. A male-born person
with strong cross gender identification could potentially seek out the local
Gallae temple to Cybele and have herself castrated, both to please her goddess
and also perhaps to fix a deep inadequate feeling toward her own anatomy.
The Gallae
however, existed somewhat on the periphery of Roman society. While Roman
polytheism greatly revered the Goddess Cybele as a very important goddess, her
worship was not considered Roman and was not integrated with traditional Roman
practice. For a brief span that didn’t exceed four years, however, a radical transgender
and religious experiment was imposed on the Roman world by a passionate young
person known as Elagabalus. It is a mistake to suppose that Elagabalus had
goals akin to contemporary understandings of feminism and gender theory:
Elagabalus was a product of her own time and place and the social structures in
force at the time ensured her rise to power. Transgender people and phenomena
have always existed but for once a person of strong gender variance caused a
deep upset in an ancient culture.
Part of : Challenging
Gender Boundaries: A Trans Biography Project by Students of Catherine Jacquet. A
collection of biographies written by the students in Catherine Jacquet's Fall
2012 class at the University of Illinois, Chicago. The class was titled
"Gender Non-Conformity in Historical Perspective."
A Brief
Biography of Elagabalus: the transgender ruler of Rome. By Alexis Mijatovic.OutHistory, 2012.
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