Was elagabalus gay

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. The concept of a person being transgender was not unknown.

Elagabalus ruled as Roman emperor for just four years before being murdered in AD He was still a teenager when he died. Conversely, for a Roman man to be passive, to be penetrated, was seen as unmanly. Despite his short reign, Elagabalus is counted among the most infamous of Roman emperors, often listed alongside Caligula and Nero.

Elagabalus is no exception. They did not apply to women, slaves, freedmen, foreigners or even beardless youths. It was rumoured that both Mark Antony and Augustus had prostituted themselves for political gain earlier in their careers. 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 museum is to relabel its display about a Roman emperor after concluding that he was in fact a trans woman. But an ancient Roman would not have self-identified as any of those things. [20] Marcellus was an equestrian, later elevated to a senatorial. And Nero was said to have worn the bridal veil to marry a man.

To penetrate — whether men, women, or both — was seen as manly, and therefore as Roman. Elagabalus was born in or , [b] to Sextus Varius Marcellus and Julia Soaemias Bassiana, [17] who had probably married around the year (and no later than ). 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.

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. Instead, sexual orientation was informed by sexual role : were they the dominant or passive partner?

Andrew Kenrick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. Some lived in a manner we might describe as gender non-conforming.

Exploring the Lives of Gay Roman Emperors: From Trajan and Hadrian to Elagabalus, delve into the power, passion, and societal norms in Rome. On becoming emperor Elagabalus moved himself and the black stone representing his god to Rome, where his outlandish behaviour and various insults to traditional Roman morals quickly alienated him from the aristocracy and army.

The ancient Romans did not share the same conceptions of sexuality that we do. [18][19] Elagabalus's full birth name was probably (Sextus) Varius Avitus Bassianus, [c] the last name being apparently a cognomen of the Emesene dynasty. 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.

Sexual slurs were always among the first insults thrown by Roman authors. It would have been more unusual for a Roman emperor not to have slept with men. When writing about ancient subjects, from emperors to slaves, the first question historians have to ask is: how do we know what we do?

North Hertfordshire Museum will now refer to emperor Elagabalus with the female. 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 implication is always that the way they dressed, acted and had sex was somehow subversive — distinctly un-Roman.

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. These people were all considered fair game to a virile Roman man, as uncomfortable a concept as that might be to us 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.

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 power of the insult stems not from saying that these men had sex with men, but that they were penetrated by men.

The Romans were no stranger to same-sex relationships, however. He was forced to adopt his cousin, Severus Alexander, only 4 years younger than him. Roman sexual identities were complex constructs, revolving around notions such as status and power.