Did Rome Have a Transgender Emperor? The Truth About Elagabalus

Did Rome have a transgender emperor? Let's review the sources.

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Link to Mia Mulder's Video on this topic

In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), Roman Republic (509–27 BC), Roman Empire (27 BC– 395 AD), and Western Roman Empire until the fall of the western empire.[1][a]

Ancient Rome began as an Italic settlement, traditionally dated to 753 BC, beside the River Tiber in the Italian Peninsula. The settlement grew into the city and polity of Rome, and came to control its neighbours through a combination of treaties and military strength. It eventually controlled the Italian Peninsula, assimilated the Greek culture of southern Italy (Magna Grecia) and the Etruscan culture, becoming a dominant power in the Mediterranean region and parts of Europe. It was among the largest empires in the ancient world, with an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants, roughly 20% of the world's population at the time.[b] It covered around 4 million square kilometres (1.5 million square miles) at its height in AD 117.[2]

The Roman state evolved from an elective monarchy to a democratic classical republic and then to an increasingly autocratic semi-elective military dictatorship during the Empire. Through conquest, cultural, and linguistic assimilation, at its height it controlled the North African coast, Egypt, Southern Europe, and most of Western Europe, the Balkans, Crimea, and much of the Middle East, including Anatolia, Levant, and parts of Mesopotamia and Arabia. It is often grouped into classical antiquity together with ancient Greece, and their similar cultures and societies are known as the Greco-Roman world.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (born Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus, c. 204 – 11/12 March 222), better known by his nicknames Elagabalus (/ˌɛləˈɡæbələs/, EL-ə-GAB-ə-ləs) and Heliogabalus (/ˌhiːliə-, -lioʊ-/ HEE-lee-ə-, -⁠lee-oh-[3]), was Roman emperor from 218 to 222, while he was still a teenager. His short reign was notorious for sex scandals and religious controversy. A close relative to the Severan dynasty, he came from a prominent Arab family in Emesa (Homs), Syria, where since his early youth he served as head priest of the sun god Elagabal. After the death of his cousin, the emperor Caracalla, Elagabalus was raised to the principate at 14 years of age in an army revolt instigated by his grandmother Julia Maesa against Caracalla's short-lived successor, Macrinus. He only posthumously became known by the Latinised name of his god.[a]

Later historians suggest Elagabalus showed a disregard for Roman religious traditions and sexual taboos. He replaced the traditional head of the Roman pantheon, Jupiter, with the deity Elagabal, of whom he had been high priest. He forced leading members of Rome's government to participate in religious rites celebrating this deity, presiding over them in person. He married four women, including a Vestal Virgin, in addition to lavishing favours on male courtiers thought to have been his lovers.[5][6] He was also reported to have prostituted himself.[7] His behavior estranged the Praetorian Guard, the Senate and the common people alike. Amidst growing opposition, at just 18 years of age he was assassinated and replaced by his cousin Severus Alexander in March 222. The assassination plot against Elagabalus was devised by Julia Maesa and carried out by disaffected members of the Praetorian Guard.

Elagabalus developed a reputation among his contemporaries for extreme eccentricity, decadence, zealotry and sexual promiscuity. This tradition has persisted; among writers of the early modern age he endured one of the worst reputations among Roman emperors. Edward Gibbon, notably, wrote that Elagabalus "abandoned himself to the grossest pleasures with ungoverned fury".[8] According to Barthold Georg Niebuhr, "the name Elagabalus is branded in history above all others" because of his "unspeakably disgusting life".[9] An example of a modern historian's assessment is Adrian Goldsworthy's: "Elagabalus was not a tyrant, but he was an incompetent, probably the least able emperor Rome had ever had."[10] Despite near-universal condemnation of his reign, some scholars write warmly about his religious innovations.

LGBT is an initialism that stands for "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender". In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for marginalized sexualities and gender identities.[1]

#lgbtq #ancientrome #transgender

[metatronyt]

If you wish to support my work, here is a link to my rings! Thanks!

[jtmartin]

Elagabalus being trans or anything else that falls under the LGBT banner isn’t much of a “win” lol.

The dude was universally despised.

[Zetact_]

The funniest part about Elagabalus is that when people try and bring him up to talk about "historical representation of trans people" they tend to not bring up a SINGLE thing about his actual reign... Because, I mean, obviously.

Did they ever figure out what was up with that lion, monkey and snake thing?

[Dimitriterrorman]

imagine someone who doesnt like you calls you gay and now everyone thousands of years later says you were gay

[Thiborfirenz]

I'm not attacking anyone but I am SO SICK of people misrepresenting history for their own selfish political ends.

[TheOtherMwalimu]

As an anthropologist, I can confirm people always (okay, usually) ignore cultural context. 🙄 Both contemporary and historical...

[AnimaVox_]

The usual suspects: "There was a trans Roman emperor and Rome was extremely racially diverse!!!1!!11!"
Also the usual suspects: "Rome was a supremacist, colonialist oppressor!!!11!!1!!!1"
lol

[ierofei]

A big note on the use of the word effeminacy in the ancient world that should be taken into account. When we read the English word "effeminate" translated from both Greek and Latin we're not really getting the same context that they would have had. It referred less to literally acting like a woman and more to avoiding arete. An effeminate person is someone who exhibits no virtue. So when Elegabalus wants to "be like the women he lays with" what's really being said is that he wants to be base and degenerate.

[keithdean]

So, to boil it down, there are two relatively reliable, contemporary sources making reference to Elagabalus. Both of which were written by someone who despised him and really wanted to discredit him as an Emperor.

[benbehzadpour]

This is true of a lot of historical rulers. Take Cleopatra VII for example: She was almost completely inbred, murdered all her brothers and sisters so she could have the Pharaoh's throne and then seduced 2 Roman generals to gain more power and ended up losing everything in the end. And yet I see lots of women claim she was a "girl boss" and so inspirational. I'm 100% certain these ladies have no clue who Cleopatra really was...

[nattravn]

as a gay man, I am so damn tired of this subject being shoehorned into everything. fine you could argue that Hadrianus was gay(ish) by MODERN standards but again MODERN standards certainly not by his or their standards. People are so quick to categorize people that lived thousands of years ago into modern concepts, that is very wrong and very unfair to the people that lived at the time.
For a crowd constantly preaching about "self-ID" and "prejudice" they sure are quick to do just that. History is history let it stay as is, no need to confuse it further it is already confusing enough.

[amyb.]

I can just imagine being one of these senators, come back from the dead and seeing what people made of their writings years in the future. And seeing that their main insult hurled at this Emperor is suddenly seen as the greatest thing since sliced bread. What a mind bender.

[CoteMoretz]

The first two minutes of this video give a perfect example of what makes your content so great. You present the truth based on what the classical text actually says, discredit those that wish to give false meaning to history based on their modern beliefs, and also give credit others that give facts based on the text even if you don’t completely agree with everything they say. Wonderful work as always.

[KarlKarsnark]

The sources of his "Trans-ness" are accepted without question while the sources about his behavior are ignored, despite being the same sources. Cherry Picking: 101.

[ljuc]

The make-up = transgender argument killed me 🤣🤣🤣. People seem to have forgotten about Persians and Egyptian nobles and priests. As a matter of fact every royal family men wore some make-up in public to look more presentable.

[jayt]

I though that I had read somewhere that some of these young men that became emperors and then went mad were sexually abused when they were still very young. This was the rumor of Nero and Agrippina, and I believe Caligula and a male relative. If these things are true, and considering the damage that we know occurs with sexual encounters between adults and adolescents, could it be that power was being given to young men who were already deeply damaged by trauma and that this encouraged them to pursue ever more destructive vices? Marcus Aurelius was one of several in his day that began openly discussing the damages they saw occurring with pederastic relationships to the juveniles involved.

[beatrizteixeira]

Everytime Metatron says he'll discuss any particular topic in a future a video, I add said video to my list of things I can't wait to watch.

I really like how every debunking/discussion video is indeed as unbiased and well-researched as we are promised it will be. No offending or disrespecting anyone, no ignoring any possible evidence from either side, no wild speculation, no egotistical "There's no way I could ever be wrong about this." Just the know facts and what we can logically conclude from them TODAY.

It's shockingly rare and sadly seen as proof of bigotry on the internet these days, but all that kind of unfair backlash does is show how this kind of approach to any topic is exactly what we need.

[sststr]

I know in China, every time a dynasty was overthrown, the new dynasty had the history of the previous dynasty written up in such a way as to make the last guy into a full on villain. Didn't matter what the previous emperor actually did, the overthrow of his family had to be justified, especially the loss of divine favor had to be explained. So making the prior family seem as evil as possible was the order of the day for the new court historian. Which obviously makes it difficult to get an accurate picture of the final emperor or two of any given dynasty, and could taint to some degree the entirety of the dynasty beyond that. It's a challenge.

I would fully expect every civilization to have some measure of such practice. Heck, we even see it right now, today, in liberal western democracies, where legions of activists constantly edit online sources in real time to make high profile political individuals into cartoon villains or superheroes according to which team they are on. Such is the nature of politics. Bleh.

[thMaiden]

I wonder if Metaton will talk about poor Sporus...the slave boy Nero castrated and forced to play the part of his empress after he murdered his real empress in a fit of rage (allegedly). The amount of ppl who think that mess was an actual gay marriage and not an overly powerful man forcing his wants on a helpless kid is extremely delulu. (That poor kid had an pretty sad life :/)

(Or Nero's husband which again was a weird account...)

[tileux]

There is a very good novel about Elagabalus written by the historian and archeologist, Alfred Duggan, called Family Favourites.

Duggan’s book portrays Elagabalus as ‘very unusual’ - a cross-dresser on occasion (bearing in mind that as a high priest of a syrian religion his normal mode of dress was wildly different to roman dress), homosexual and possibly bisexual, although Duggan leans towards homosexual, while making the point that this was not necessarily a deal breaker in the rome of the time - if Elagabalus hadn’t flaunted it. Most of Elagabalus’s heterosexual shenanigans, Duggan portrays as his religious and cultural inspired defiance towards the mores of roman society

Duggan does not portray this emperor as transgender but, having said that, when Duggan wrote this novel ‘transgender’ was arguably not a well-known thing.

Duggan also makes the point that some religious cults in syria had priests served by eunuchs, so ‘cutting things off’ was an accepted part of religion there - and Duggan makes the point that using the god’s name as his emperor name indicates that Elagabalus took his religion - and his status as part of the god in that religion - very seriously.

Duggan also makes the point that the victor writes the history and the history is not necessarily accurate in this case. For its time, the novel is very open to the evidence, non-judgmental, seems reasonably balanced and - most importantly - is quite a good read.

One point you didn’t make is Elagabalus’s attitude to the games in the colosseum. While painted as a negative by the roman sources, that arguably contradicts all the terrible things he is accused of in those sources. Thats probably why Duggan’s version treads a more middle ground version, assuming that at least some of this stuff is propaganda, used to justify the overthrow of a very - to the romans, anyway - weird emperor.

But at the end of the day the truth is anyone’s guess.