According to research, Elagabalus asked to be called "lady" and preferred other feminine addresses
UK museum says that it will be heeding research that reveals the ancient Roman emperor Elagabalus was transgender and will subsequently be referring to the ruler as “she” in its displays. According to the Telegraph the North Hertfordshire Museum will use the new set of pronouns to refer to Elagabalus based on classical texts where the emperor asked to be called “lady”. The decision follows long-standing academic interest in Elagabalus's gender identity.
Keith Hoskins, executive member for Enterprise and Arts at North Herts Council, says in a statement issued in August: “North Herts Museum has one coin of Elagabalus, which we periodically put on display as it is one of a few LGBTQ+ items we have in our collection.” The silver denarius coin was minted in Elagabalus’s rein (218-222AD).
“We try to be sensitive to identifying pronouns for people in the past, as we are for people in the present, 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,” says Hoskins.
He adds: “In the past, inaccurate translations had referred to Elagabalus as ‘they’; however we now know this was the result of the classical Greek language making no distinction between gender when referring to people in the third person, making many translations inaccurate. It is now known through evidence—such as Dio’s text [Cassius Dio was a contemporary of Elagabalus]—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.”
A statement dating from November 2021 posted on the museum website says: “If we look back into history, there are people whose identities we might now describe as transgender. The Roman emperor Elagabalus (AD 204-222) was born a male but by their teenage years, identified as a woman and tried unsuccessfully to find a doctor who could carry out sex reassignment surgery.”
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 59 | November 24, 2023 8:27 PM |
Was he the one who liked to play whorehouse in the Palace, where he was the only whore available? And was he the one who hired guards based on how hung they were and how hard they fucked him? And didn't he get married dressing up like a bride a couple of times?
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | November 21, 2023 2:20 PM |
r2 Allegedly. The problem with Roman Emperors is since so many of them died violently and had lies spread about them afterwards to justify their regicide and usurpation its difficult to pick out what isn't just propaganda. He could have been a bottom slut who ended up cutting his dick off. He could have just been an unpopular eastern emperor who tried to initiate religious reform.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | November 21, 2023 2:28 PM |
Well, I actually think this is good.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | November 21, 2023 2:28 PM |
That was one wack little sister as I recall. Used to pull trains and the entire package.
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | November 21, 2023 2:30 PM |
Is it certain he preferred those pronouns or is this just more nonsense dreamt up by Cassius Dio, who was basically a bitchy DailyMail columnist of his time?
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | November 21, 2023 2:34 PM |
Jesus fuck. It took blacks hundreds of years to obtain legal civil rights in this country, but now institution after institution across the West just falls all over themselves for the “most marginalized community, like, ever.”
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | November 21, 2023 2:36 PM |
And there were certain priests and priestesses who whored as their deities incarnate at shrines and lay devotees who did voluntary service regularly. The gender thing and same-sex coupling were treated in a much more normative way because that damned Book was not treated as Law yet in society, and a man like Mike Johnson would be regularly laughed out of countenance. Just as he is here.
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | November 21, 2023 2:37 PM |
they've turned a gay man into a silly pretend woman so other pretend women won't smash up the museum exhibit with baseball bats.
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | November 21, 2023 2:39 PM |
OP = Anti-Trans activist.
His posts are getting tiresome.
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | November 21, 2023 2:39 PM |
Isn't he the one who's grandmother killed her own daughter to get him on the throne, or something along those lines?
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | November 21, 2023 2:39 PM |
This dude gave Caligula a run for his money.
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | November 21, 2023 2:47 PM |
How long before his Wiki is updated with new pronouns?
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | November 21, 2023 2:48 PM |
Elegabulus is considered by many to be the most debauched, corrupt, and depraved person in history. Not just Roman history - just plain history. Caligula had nothing on him.
"The name Elagabalus is branded in history above all others because of his unspeakably disgusting life." - Barthold Georg Niebuhr
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | November 21, 2023 2:51 PM |
Museums used to classify native Americans in Natural History, along with the animals. They're notorious for getting it wrong. Also they wanna bump their visitors numbers. This is interesting but some people still like intellectual credibility past the flavor of the week.
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | November 21, 2023 2:54 PM |
[quote] The silver denarius coin was minted in Elagabalus’s rein
Oh, dear.
| by Anonymous | reply 19 | November 21, 2023 2:55 PM |
Wikipedia discussion for him:
Pronouns
I would like to reopen discussion of the pronouns used for Elagabalus. I think that using "they" would be the best option to maintain WP:NPOV, as we can't go back in time to ask them if they were Cis or Trans, while also not contributing to Trans Erasure. EnviousDemon (talk) 22:04, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Don't we need to follow respected academic sources? Or are they all now out of date? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:05, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, Wikipedia follows the convention used in reliable sources. Sources like Icks[1] (2008), Dunstan (2010), Goldsworthy (2009), Grant (1996), and Varner[2] (2004) use male pronouns – I reference only a handful of sources that I've used, there are a plethora more which do too. Which is why we (as in Wikipedia), use male pronouns also. Mr rnddude (talk) 22:55, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Despite what the sources say, Elagabalus' gender identity is in question, and nobody can definitely say what pronouns they used. EnviousDemon (talk) 03:19, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | November 21, 2023 2:56 PM |
Well there is the fact that he wanted to cut off his penis... But I am not sure if Trans-activist want to rush to claim this one as one of their own, since it is well documented how mentally unstable he was.
| by Anonymous | reply 21 | November 21, 2023 2:57 PM |
Does Latin even HAVE pronouns?
| by Anonymous | reply 22 | November 21, 2023 3:09 PM |
The arguments on the wiki talk page is something else. People are literally calling them out for trying to rewrite history to push a political agenda. One gay person said that gays did this a number of years ago and for trans people not to fall into the same trap of wanting to classify everyone as trans (or gay). Pretty funny. Larry Kramer was one of those.
| by Anonymous | reply 23 | November 21, 2023 3:10 PM |
Elagabalus was just a bossy bottom. He'd allegedly also throw big, insane dinner parties where everything was the same color but nothing was edible.
Oh, Mary, don't ask!
| by Anonymous | reply 24 | November 21, 2023 3:16 PM |
The evidence for all of that is hostile accounts by later historians. Ancient Geek and Roman discourse was full of this kind of hyperbole. It's hard to believe that professionals, who know perfectly well how to read a text rhetorically (let's leave aside the anachronisms), would do this, but here we are.
| by Anonymous | reply 25 | November 21, 2023 3:23 PM |
Are they really sure they wanted him as a poster child? and "... identified as a woman and tried unsuccessfully to find a doctor who could carry out sex reassignment surgery.”. I hate this mindless regurgitating. He didn't "identify"; he daydreamed about being desired by men and having female genitals without having any of the sorrows, lower social status and problems that came with being a woman at the time. Enjoying being fucked doesn't make you a woman, and it didn't two millennia ago.
| by Anonymous | reply 26 | November 21, 2023 4:24 PM |
Most of the stories about Elagabalus are nonsense. Many of them are even against the laws of physics. He was supposed to have had senators smothered to death in flower petals. Fun fact - this isn't actually possible.
| by Anonymous | reply 27 | November 21, 2023 4:35 PM |
So we are now applying 21st Century sensibilities to history that occurred in the year AD 200?
I hope it makes some marginalized and martyred groups very satisfied.
| by Anonymous | reply 28 | November 21, 2023 4:41 PM |
Lord forbid we offend a statue by misgendering it.
| by Anonymous | reply 29 | November 21, 2023 4:55 PM |
Deadnaming the statue is literal violence!
| by Anonymous | reply 32 | November 21, 2023 7:03 PM |
The BBC have also reported on this now and includes the pushback
[quote]Dr Shushma Malik, a Cambridge university classics professor, told the BBC: "The words Dio uses are a not a direct quote from Elagabalus, and at the time of writing the emperor would have been in his early teenage years.
[quote]"There are many examples in Roman literature of times where effeminate language and words were used as a a way of criticising or weakening a political figure.
[quote]"References to Elagabalus wearing makeup, wigs and removing body hair may have been written in order to undermine the unpopular emperor."
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 33 | November 21, 2023 7:20 PM |
Actually Elagabalus was a Trans Woman of Color! Bear with me here. He claimed to be the illegitimate son of Emperor Caracalla, son of Emperor Septimius Severus - who came from Africa! And thus had to be black! And there we are - Elagabalus was also black and trans! (Just to be clear, I know this is nonsense, but it wouldn't be remotely a surprise for this case to be made.)
| by Anonymous | reply 34 | November 21, 2023 7:38 PM |
^^^ And to bring it full circle, Elagabalus was one of the first people at The Stonewall Inn that night.
| by Anonymous | reply 35 | November 21, 2023 8:24 PM |
There are literally thousands of texts from Elagabalus's reign (mostly on coins and inscriptions) that name him in masculine form and these are as close as we can ever get to his actual self-presentation. A woman could not be Roman Emperor, so identifying himself as a woman would have been in effect an abdication. If any contemporary had referred to him as a woman he would have had their guts for garters, probably literally, as they would have been saying he wasn't emperor. This is all basic stuff.
| by Anonymous | reply 37 | November 21, 2023 11:38 PM |
What I find most puzzling is why it’s now widely reported news what a small museum does about anything.
This place shares a building with the town hall of a town of 30,000 and lets you bring your dog.
Does anyone really care, other than clickbait?
| by Anonymous | reply 38 | November 22, 2023 12:55 AM |
[quote]There are literally thousands of texts from Elagabalus's reign (mostly on coins and inscriptions) that name him in masculine form and these are as close as we can ever get to his actual self-presentation. A woman could not be Roman Emperor, so identifying himself as a woman would have been in effect an abdication. If any contemporary had referred to him as a woman he would have had their guts for garters, probably literally, as they would have been saying he wasn't emperor. This is all basic stuff.
The Anglopshere is nuts. Absolutely nuts, busy rewriting the history of other countries.
Fortunately Italy isn't playing along with this leftist bullshit.
| by Anonymous | reply 40 | November 22, 2023 1:23 AM |
[quote]What I find most puzzling is why it’s now widely reported news what a small museum does about anything. This place shares a building with the town hall of a town of 30,000 and lets you bring your dog.Does anyone really care, other than clickbait?
But it is indicative of the lunacy going on in American and UK cultural institutions.
| by Anonymous | reply 41 | November 22, 2023 1:26 AM |
Remember back in the olden days before the internet when we didn't know about every stupid, unimportant thing that went on everywhere in the world?... I miss those days ☹️
| by Anonymous | reply 42 | November 22, 2023 1:29 AM |
Elegabulus's fee-fees aren't even in the top ten million things I think are worth worrying about.
And I am fairly politically correct. But even if the guy's reputation is largely science-fiction bullshit (and I suspect it is) he's a dead tyrant. I don't care about his pronouns.
| by Anonymous | reply 43 | November 22, 2023 1:38 AM |
[quote] What I find most puzzling is why it’s now widely reported news what a small museum does about anything.
Because the organization Stonewall got involved with it.
| by Anonymous | reply 44 | November 22, 2023 2:56 AM |
[quote] What I find most puzzling is why it’s now widely reported news what a small museum does about anything.
Ever heard of the word ‘publicity’?
| by Anonymous | reply 46 | November 22, 2023 6:58 AM |
I wouldn't call him pretty but.he is handsome.
| by Anonymous | reply 47 | November 22, 2023 7:40 AM |
Of course, among other things, this turns a gay male historical character into a transwoman! One more for the team - suck it gay boys!
| by Anonymous | reply 48 | November 22, 2023 12:09 PM |
What about the famous incident when he paraded around the Forum tucked and singing Goodbye Horses?
| by Anonymous | reply 49 | November 24, 2023 12:51 AM |
Don't any of you recognize negative propaganda when you see it? Yes "Heliogabalus" may have had some quirks but you can't administer a world empire with constant debauchery. Just look at all the stuff that comes across your desks everyday at work and magnify that by a 1000 and you have a day in his life, The poor guy was overwhelmed from dusk to dawn no doubt.
| by Anonymous | reply 50 | November 24, 2023 1:12 AM |
The Guardian, a little surprisingly, has done a 'yeah, this is bollocks' follow-up piece.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 51 | November 24, 2023 6:10 PM |
[quote]I am not sure if Trans-activist want to rush to claim this one as one of their own, since it is well documented how mentally unstable he was.
That's why he fits right in.
| by Anonymous | reply 52 | November 24, 2023 6:19 PM |
Recommend excellent historical novel Child Of The Sun on Elagabalus based on ancient writers. He referred to himself as "wife" and his charioteer lover as his "husband". He loved to dress in woman's clothes and wear make up. He referred to himself as "she" He refused to grow the required beard and only managed a wispy mustache. Albeit he was only 19yo when they slaughtered him. Today he would be identifying as trans.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 53 | November 24, 2023 6:21 PM |
R50 No. Elagabalus was merely a teenage figurehead. The Empire was ruled by his mother and tough as nails grandmother. When trannie Elagabalus wore out his welcome and was assassinated these women put his equally malleable cousin in his place. Also murdered but this time they killed the mother too to make sure there wouldn't be a third puppet relative of hers on the throne.
| by Anonymous | reply 54 | November 24, 2023 6:28 PM |
Basically a bunch of 23rd Century politically motivated academics (most of them closeted buggers) blithely dismissing all the ancient sources( who have been accepted for hundreds of years) as saying Elagabalus was a flaming trannie who wanted to be a woman. Why? Because Trans is Woke and Woke is anathema to right wing closeted academics. This is the worst kind of propagandic revisionism.
| by Anonymous | reply 55 | November 24, 2023 6:35 PM |
"History is a pack of tricks we play on the dead"
| by Anonymous | reply 56 | November 24, 2023 6:35 PM |
^ A pack of tricks we constantly reshuffle to suit our times.
| by Anonymous | reply 57 | November 24, 2023 6:36 PM |
Elagabalus story demands the big screen treatment. We've got just the actor with the required level of masculinity for the lead role.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 58 | November 24, 2023 6:43 PM |
I hate it when A.I. makes faces deformed like that.
| by Anonymous | reply 59 | November 24, 2023 8:27 PM |
