October 29, 2024 • 36 mins
In 2023, a museum in England determined that they would refer to the Roman emperor Elegabalus using feminine pronouns. Elegabalus, who allegedly asked to be referred to as a lady, has become a node in queer history as a trans woman. Though it's impossible to fully know the truth of how she may have identified, we can try to unpack the ways in which sex and gender were seen in Roman society.
CW: sexual content
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. Just a
quick content note before I begin. This episode contains some
sexual content and descriptions of in vague terms of sexual acts.
So if that's something that's uncomfortable for you, or something
(00:22):
that you know you'd be sensitive about listening to with
young children around, just be aware of it. In twenty
twenty three, North Hertfordshire Museum in Hitchin, a town north
of London, made the decision to edit some of the
informational text it had on its walls. In referring to
(00:45):
the Roman emperor Eligobolis, the museum would now be using
feminine instead of masculine pronouns, consistent with the interpretation that Eligobolis,
who ruled Rome beginning in two hundred and eighteen, was
a trans woman. Elle Gobles was emperor for just four
(01:06):
years before her assassination in two hundred and twenty two,
a d at the age of eighteen. During that time,
she developed a reputation for pushing gender and sexual boundaries.
According to one classical source, she preferred she her pronouns
and announced on one occasion quote call me not lord,
(01:30):
for I am a lady. Ancient historians reported that she
wore makeup, shaved her body, and worked wool, a typically
feminine craft. One ancient historian, Diocassius, said that she would
stand outside taverns in a wig, soliciting lovers who walked by.
(01:51):
He further alleged that she had planned to approach a
physician about performing what today we would describe as a
vagino plasty. Those accounts led Keith Hoskins, executive member for
Arts at North Heartz Council, to say in a statement, quote,
Eligobolis most definitely preferred the she pronoun and as such
(02:16):
this is something we reflect when discussing her in contemporary times.
It is only polite and respectful to be sensitive to
identifying pronouns for people in the past. But this decision
proved controversial among classicists because none of those stories about
Eligobolus's gender presentation came directly from her. All of them
(02:41):
came from classical historians with something of a bone to
pick with the emperor. Dio Cassius, the ancient historian with
the most details about Eligobolis's femininity, was not a fan.
He was a senator under the emperor who had murdered her,
and therefore he had good reason to slander Eligabolis in
(03:03):
his writing. Masculinity was incredibly important to ancient Romans, and
so it was a common strategy for ancient historians to
depict emperors they didn't like as emasculated or feminine. Other emperors,
like Nero, Caligula, and even Julius Caesar were accused of
(03:24):
being too feminine. Nero was said to have worn the
bridal veil to marry a man, while Roman elder Curio
once said that Caesar was quote every man's woman. In fact,
because of his alleged affair with King Nicodemus, the fourth
of Bethenia, Caesar was called the Queen of Bethenia. In
(03:46):
the same way, you wouldn't turn to an attack ad
to write a political candidate's biography. It would be a
mistake to take those ancient invectives too literally. In an
article in The Guardian, Zach HER's, assistant professor of classics
at the University of Colorado in Boulder, said, quote these
(04:07):
quote unquote biographies of Eligobolis are hit pieces, and that
he would be inclined to read them as basically fictional.
Without any narrative accounts of Eligoblists from her perspective, It's
difficult to know what to make of these competing interpretations.
On one hand, there is no definitive proof of how
(04:30):
she identified, and contemporary classicists agree that these sources attesting
to her transness were biased, even offensive, political propaganda. But
at the same time, ancient Rome was an incredibly misogynistic
and transphobic society that prized a stoic, austere, tough masculinity
(04:55):
above all else. You could also argue that those sources
were so insulting because Eligobolis was threatening the gender norms
of the time. Many historical queer lives have shown up
in the archives in biased sources intending to smear them.
Given the dearth of transfigures in recorded Western history, Eligobolis
(05:20):
could be an important node in queer history. But given
that Roman visions of gender were so different from our own,
what does it mean for Eligobolists to have been trans?
How do we divine whatever Eligobolis's own desires were for
her gender when the historical record is so murky. I'm
(05:45):
Dana Schwartz, and this is noble blood. You probably noticed
that I'm also choosing to use feminine pronouns to refer
to Eligobolis. My reasoning is given that there is no
way of knowing for certain in this situation from more
than eighteen hundred years ago, I figure there's no harm
(06:08):
in choosing to be more inclusive rather than less. But
I do want to be very clear my analysis is
no means prescriptive or even necessarily correct. Given that gender
identity is an incredibly complicated topic, especially from historical eras
that didn't share a modern vocabulary or understanding, I don't
(06:31):
think we will ever find a definitive, quote unquote right
answer to how Eligabolis would have wanted to self identify.
But what we can do is examine her story with
nuance and try to understand it as best we can
given all the context available to us. Anyway, Eligobolos's rule
(06:53):
was controversial from the beginning. A little bit of background.
The previous emperor Macrinus had got the job by assassinating
the other candidate, Karkala, who was Eligabolus's cousin, and then
to ensure that Eligabolis's family wouldn't enact revenge. Macrinus exiled
the family to Syria, where Eligablis's family was originally from,
(07:18):
but exile did not stop Eligabolis's grandmother from plotting to
overthrow Macrinus. Their family led a religious sect that worshiped
the sun god eligabel The young Eligabolis, named after the deity,
was the heir to the priesthood of that religious sect,
even though at this time she was just fourteen. Soldiers
(07:42):
who visited Syria, many of whom supported the assassinated Caracala
over the new emperor, often stopped to see Eligabolis perform
her priestly rituals. They were purportedly captivated by her good
looks evocative of those of the young god Dionysus, and
(08:02):
her sensual dancing. Eligoblis's grandmother took advantage of that, lying
to the soldiers by telling them that Eligobolus was Caracalla's
illegitimate son and positioning her as the true heir to
the throne. The grandmother also bribed these soldiers with her
vast wealth, which these soldiers were excited to receive since
(08:26):
they already resented Macrinus for his stingy wages. These soldiers
declared Eligobolus the emperor and brought her to Antioch, where
Macrinus was based, to overthrow him and install her as
his replacement. When they got there, the troops launched an
attack on Macrinus, and they won, executing both Macrinus and
(08:50):
his son. Their severed heads were brought to Eligobolis as
war trophies, and the Roman senate was forced to accept
teenage Eligobolis as the new emperor. As Eligoblis made her
way from Antioch to Rome, ancient historian Herodian said that
Eligoblis had a painting of herself sent ahead to be
(09:12):
hung over a statue of the goddess Victoria in the
Senate house. She was said to have done this so
that the people would get to know her as the
new emperor in advance of her arrival, but many considered
it an act of hubris. Roman senators making an offering
to the goddess Victoria would have to kneel in front
(09:34):
of the painting of Eligoblis, seeming to put the new
emperor and the goddess on an equal playing field. Eligobless
finally arrived in Rome in the late summer of two
hundred and nineteen AD, refusing to wear the usual Roman
garb of wool togas. Instead, she donned a luxurious silk robe.
(09:58):
Given that Eligobles was barely through puberty when she began
her reign, her grandmother treated her as a proxy ruler.
During her rule, Eligoblus's mother, Julius Semias, and grandmother Julia
Mesa were the first women allowed into the Senate, Soemius
was given the senatorial title of Clarissima and Maisa was
(10:21):
deemed Mater castorum et senatus, or mother of the army
camp and of the Senate. Ancient historians noted how unorthodox
it was for women to be so influential on Eligoblus's rule,
with her mother and grandmother's likenesses printed on coins and inscriptions.
(10:42):
Another controversial aspect of Aligobolus's rule was her religious beliefs.
At the end of two hundred twenty, Eligoblus declared Eligobel
to be the central god of the Roman pantheon instead
of Jupiter, and made herself the quote highest priest of
the unconquered God, the son Eligabel, supreme Pontiff. Every summer
(11:07):
solstice she put on a festival in Eligobel's honor, distributing
free food and riding through the streets on a jewel
encrusted chariot. The Roman elites were scandalized that the populace
was worshiping a foreign god, and Eligobolus was to blame.
Eligobolus's love life was just as salacious. She took a
(11:31):
number of lovers, both male and female. Rumor had it
that Eligobolus wanted to marry a male charioteer named Heracles,
declaring him Caesar and herself his wife. She was also
said to have had an affair with athlete Aurelius Zodocus,
allegedly making him her husband and allowing him to have
(11:54):
political influence behind the scenes. Her most controversial relationationship was
with Vestal virgin Aquilia Severa, Vesta's high priestess, who Eligbleis
was said to have married in order to produce quote
godlike children. This was extremely taboo because any Vestal virgin
(12:17):
who had sex was supposed to be punished and buried alive.
These relationships were all speculations, but officially speaking, Eligbless would
end up marrying four times to four different women in
just four years. The emperor was also known to have
bizarre dinner parties. She gave her guests strange delicacies, like
(12:42):
camel's heels or flamingo's brains, or all green or all
blue meals. Sometimes she was said to have brought out
lions or bears to freely wander around the dining room.
One Roman historian alleged that she placed whoopee cushions on
all of the chairs as a prank, the first recorded
(13:03):
use of whoope cushions in Western history. These deviations from
quote normal Roman life made Eligoblis unpopular. When her grandmother,
Julia Mason, noted that Eligabless's reputation had soured, she decided
to replace her with her other daughter's son, Severus Alexander,
(13:25):
who was fifteen. Alexander was elevated to caesar in June
two hundred and twenty one, and Eligables and Alexander were
expected to rule together over the following year. Eligobless went
along with it at first, but she grew disillusioned with
being a co emperor. When she started noticing that the
(13:47):
Imperial Roman army liked Alexander better. She petitioned the Senate
to depose Alexander, and when they refused, she tried to
have him assassinated to no avail. According to ancient historian
Cassius Dio, Eligablis started a rumor that Alexander was about
to die to make sure the Imperial army wasn't on
(14:10):
his side. A riot broke out, with many soldiers trying
to throw Eligabolis into the barracks. On March thirteenth, two
hundred twenty two, Eligableis appeared to step down, she and
her mother performing a ceremony where they officially passed the
torch to Alexander. Upon hearing the soldiers cheer louder for
(14:34):
Alexander than they did for her, she was incensed and
immediately changed her mind. She called for the arrest and
execution of everyone there. The imperial army responded by attacking
Eligabilis and her mother. They tried to flee, but she
was found her mother holding her tight. They were both killed,
(14:56):
with their heads cut off and their bodies stripped, naked
and dragged across Rome. Not everything in that story, compiled
together from various and all very biased sources, can be verified.
Modern classicists have confirmed only the basics that Eligabolis was
(15:17):
the head priest of the worship of the Sun god.
Eligabel arrived from Syria to violently take over the Roman
government when she was fourteen, ruled for four years, married
four times, and was executed and succeeded by her cousin Alexander.
The most lurid details, including unfortunately planting whoopee cushions on
(15:41):
unsuspecting dinner guests, were all possibly fabricated. Many of the
most controversial aspects of her rule were related to her
gender and sexuality, from dancing sensually to posing as a
sex worker outside of a bar, to marrying a vestal
virgin and proposing to a male charioteer. But where did
(16:06):
those details come from and why would ancient historians have
invented or exaggerated them. Why was Eligobolis's gender and sexuality
such an issue for ancient historians? As I mentioned earlier,
Eligabolists reigned during a time when Rome had extremely strict
(16:28):
standards for masculinity. The ideal Roman citizen exhibited masculine characteristics
like valor, excellence, courage, dominance, and an austere presentation, as
opposed to women who were considered decadent, soft, and extravagant.
Men who didn't fit the masculine ideal were considered to
(16:51):
be afflicted with molita, a Latin term which can be
translated as softness or effeminacy. Those with mantilla were considered
to be preoccupied with their appearances. They shaved their bodies,
wore perfume, and rouged their cheeks. They were also seen
as overly indulgent, eating rich foods and seeking out sex.
(17:17):
These tropes almost perfectly describe ancient historians' depictions of Eligobolis.
Eligobolus was considered to have molita, uniting her love of
lavish dinner parties, expensive robes, and voracious sexual appetites. The
term molita also gives us a clue as to why
(17:38):
Eligabolis's sexuality and gender were such huge issues for ancient historians.
Because sexuality was so deeply tied to Roman ideals, molita
was typically assigned to outsiders, especially from the quote East.
Romans viewed Persians and Syrians as overly extravagant, feminine, sexual,
(18:05):
and servile. A common trope of Molita was the mythical
Sardanopoulis of Assyria. Allegedly, Sardanopoulos lived as a woman during
his rule, hanging out with his concubines, putting on cosmetics,
speaking with a higher tone, wearing women's clothing, and spinning wool.
(18:27):
He also drank heavily and pursued both men and women
without a care for his reputation, much to the chagrin
of Roman authors. Many of those same tropes also show
up in descriptions of Eligabolis, who was also said to
have affected a quote soft and melting voice to sound
(18:48):
more like a woman where eyeshadow, work with wool, and
hang out with sex workers. Cassius Dio, the ancient historian
who had the most issues with eligablo alleged femininity, even
called Eligoblis Sardanopoulos. According to contemporary historian martin Ix, many
(19:09):
Romans nicknamed her the Assyrian. Ancient historian Herodian also ties
Eligoblis's femininity to her status as a foreigner, especially as
the high priestess of an unfamiliar religion. Herodian emphasizes that
Eligobolus performed orgiastic dances in the temple of Amisia in Syria,
(19:33):
and then brought those dances to perform in altars around
Rome and even in the theater, embodying a sensual foreign
sensibility inappropriate for the leader of Rome. He also suggests
that Eligoblis's Syrian origins caused her to reject standard Roman
men's clothing, preferring silk dresses with gold embroidery and gem
(19:57):
covered golden tiaras, which Herodian associates with the Phoenicians, as
opposed to the plain wool clothes worn by most Roman men.
Eligoblis's foreign femininity was such a problem for ancient historians
because the emperor, as the most powerful person in Rome,
(20:19):
was expected to embody their version of ideal manliness. The
perfect Roman man was expected to dominate in his relationships
with women or boys, but also on a wider scale
with foreigners. The emperor being a foreigner herself not only
meant that she didn't care to be the ideal Roman man,
(20:42):
but also that she wasn't advancing Roman cultural dominance by
embodying absolute masculinity. This helps us to explain another aspect
of Eligboless's transness, her stereotypically feminine and passive role in sex.
In her sexual life, she was said to quote recreate
(21:06):
female characteristics within the male. The Historia Augusta presents Eligabolis
as quote taking the role of Venus in her private
re enacting of the story of the Judgment of Paris,
even going so far as to quote model the expression
on her face onto which that Venus is usually painted.
(21:29):
Cassius Dio adds that she slept with women to learn
to quote imitate their actions when she should lie with
her male lovers. She was said to have hired agents
to find and bring well endowed men to her quarters,
occasionally seeking them out herself at public baths. Ancient Romans
(21:50):
saw gender and sexuality as inexorably intertwined. They had a
gender binary, but one's gender identity was determined by someone's
birth sex, as well as the role they played in
sexual encounters. One half of the binary was the penetrators,
who were seen as strong, stoic, aggressive, and masculine, and
(22:14):
the other half were the penetrated, who were seen as weak, frivolous,
vein and feminine. If you were a penetrator. Who you
were attracted to didn't matter. You could have sex with
men or women, and you would still be considered masculine
as long as you took the active role during sex.
(22:35):
On the other hand, if you took a passive role
during sex, that would fundamentally change your gender identity. Women
and men who were penetrated in sexual encounters were both
considered to be feminine. As long as your sexual role
aligned with your societal role. Men being the penetrators and
(22:57):
women being the penetrated, you'd fit within Roman gender norms.
If you deviated from those norms, most commonly by being
a man that also wanted to be penetrated, you would
be humiliated and insulted for being too womanly. It also
went the other way around. If a man were thought
(23:19):
of as too womanly or soft, he would be assumed
to be the passive partner in sex. Who was allowed
to be the passive partner in sex depended not only
on one's gender, but also on their societal role. Women,
being the quote inferior gender, had to always occupy a
(23:42):
sexually passive role. Boys, slaves, and foreigners were also permitted
to be sexually passive. In their relationships with adult men.
This dynamic shows up in historical accounts of eligobolists. It
was fine for Eligoblists to do sexy dances as a
young attractive boy, but she was expected to age out
(24:04):
of it in her adulthood. It was extra scandalous that
she was sexually passive, given that she was the ruler
of Rome, expected to dominate everyone at all times. Contemporary
classicist Zachary Hurs alludes to another Roman trope to describe
why Eligabolis was depicted as sexually passive, the Canidis. This
(24:31):
word does not have a direct translation, It functions as
a kind of slur that describes foreign born men who
dance sensually and like to be anally penetrated, which nearly
exactly lines up with depictions of Eligabolis. Given that the
(24:52):
Canidis only shows up in politically charged smear campaigns, historians
tend to think of the Canidis as more of a
concept character or trope than an actual identity. Hers calls
the Cannidis a quote public identity, comparing the concept to
the contemporary idea of the stereotypical welfare queen. While the
(25:15):
character could describe real individuals. It functioned more as a
rhetorical tool, intended to draw the public's attention to dangers
to the status quo. Hers read depictions of Eligobolus's canidis
like sexual passivity as an expression of anxiety about the
(25:37):
state of Roman political life. Emperors previously had been chosen
from an elite class of senators and died peacefully after
a successor had already been determined. But Eligabolis was symptomatic
of a new status quo in which military support mattered
more than senatorial support, and new two emperors, most of
(26:01):
whom had barely gone through puberty by the time they
came to power, rose to the throne violently. Cassius Dio
and Marius Maximus, senators who wrote popular histories of Eligobolis,
would have been salty about losing power in that new system,
and they used the power of their pens to denigrate Eligabolis.
(26:23):
The stock character of the Canidis was a powerful tool,
not only because the Canidis was viewed in derogatory terms,
but because canidie never spoke for themselves. Lacking the political
upper hand, ancient historians took the rhetorical one. As Hers
(26:44):
put it Quote Doo and Maximus could no longer govern,
but they still could write ancient historians bias against Eligobolists
could partly explain why she was feminized in the historical record.
As we mentioned earlier in the episode, it was common
practice for ancient historians to call leaders quote too feminine
(27:08):
as a means to discredit them. But still, even considering
that tradition, Eligobolis remains an outlier. Other leaders like Julius, Caesar, Nero,
and Caligula were all alleged to be keneidie, wearing women's clothing,
acting passively during sex, and shaving their bodies, but none
(27:30):
of them have been reconsidered by contemporary historians to be
trans women. What makes Eligobolis so different. What's so striking
about Eligobolus's gender presentation is that she bucked traditional Roman
understandings of sex and gender. While Caesar may have been
(27:53):
every man's wife and Nero was said to have acted
as a bride in a marriage ceremony to one of
his freedmen, Elligoblis asked to be treated as a woman
throughout her life, not just during sex or in relation
to a male partner. She appeared to have a remarkably
(28:13):
modern view of gender as an identity separate from her
sexual role, but whether or not Eligblis actually represented herself
as a woman remains up for debate. Unlike many historical
queer figures, Eligoblis, as the ruler of Rome, had power
(28:33):
over how she represented herself through statues and coins she
commissioned as official representations of her and her reign. According
to scholar Eric R. Varner, imperial portraits and coins were
actually at times a space in which rulers blurred gender
(28:54):
boundaries in their self presentation. Beginning with Augustus, male rulers,
ais and goddesses were visually conjoined. For example, on certain coins,
Augustus's face was put on the goddess Diana's body, with
her hair cascading from his head. There's also an example
(29:14):
of a statue of Marcus Aurelius with his head added
to a female body dressed in an ornate toga. That said,
even with that precedent for gender bending in Roman imperial representations,
Eligoblus's portraits adhered to masculine standards. This isn't to say
that her coins were typical, fitting the rest of her
(29:37):
norm flouting rein Her coins are strange. Roman coins typically
have a head's side with a portrait of an important
person and a tail's side with a scene including Roman
gods or a personification of Rome, intended to reinforce the
dominance of Rome and the legitimacy of the current ruler.
(29:58):
In Eligobolus's coins, the quote tales side has a chariot
pulling a meteorite with an eagle on top of it,
an image utterly unique to her rule. On the head's side,
her portraits depict her wearing her sacred robes, again flouting
Roman norms of austere dress. Even though these coins break
(30:21):
from conventions in most ways, they do portray her as male,
with sideburns and a mustache. That said, she could have
publicly identified as male and expressed her transness in private,
or she could have tried to persuade the members of
her court for her coins to represent her as a woman,
(30:44):
and they could have refused. It remains unclear whether and
to what extent Eligabolis wanted to be seen as a woman,
given that the one source that attests to her requesting
to be referred to by feminine pronouns and requesting a
vaginoplasty come from one source with every intention to slander
(31:06):
her and her feminine qualities. It's hard to argue that
that is inherently an accurate rendering of her wishes to
be treated as a woman. There's no evidence that explicitly
refutes that framing, but there's nothing that directly supports it either.
With the evidence we do have, it seems most likely
(31:27):
that she was, at least to a certain extent, transfeminized
by a society hostile to any form of gender nonconformity.
Her religious dancing and silk robes threatened Roman norms of masculinity,
especially for emperors. Ancient historians interpreted this as evidence that
(31:49):
she presented herself as a woman, both in terms of
her appearance and her sexual role. They portrayed her this
way not necessarily because they took any interest in how
she understood herself, but in order to emphasize the danger
of her foreign influence. It was a kind of trans
panic about excessive femininity at the center of Roman life,
(32:13):
conflating male femininity with sex, work, decadence, and irresponsibility. But
this portrait of Eligobolis as a decadent, opulent emperor has
also kept her alive in the literary imagination. Her flounting
the status quo made her an inspirational figure to many
(32:34):
artists and writers. In the nineteen sixties, a number of
queer writers created fictional portraits of her reign, from boddice
rippers like Child of the Sun to literary fiction like
the novel Family Favorites. At a time when homosexuality was
still criminalized right before the Stonewall Riots, those more sympathetic
(32:58):
depictions of Eligobolis situated her as a node in a
longer queer lineage. We may never know exactly who Eligobolis
was or how she saw herself, but she opens up
the possibility to consider queer life in other eras, and
she allows us to examine the complexities of how ancient
(33:22):
Romans viewed sex and gender. That's the end of the
story of Eligobolis, but stick around after a brief sponsor
break to see how Eligbolis inspired Oscar Wilde's picture of
Dorian Gray. Oscar Wilde learned about Eligobolis while honeymooning in Paris,
(33:57):
where he picked up a copy of Yours Karl Heusmann
book a reboir that had just come out. Araboar was
a novel that celebrated decadence, centering around an eccentric dandy
who retreats into his own esthetic world. Heismans brings up
Eligobolis as a fellow aesthete, a figure that transcended her
(34:19):
everyday life by focusing on beauty and excess. That book
inspired Oscar Wilde to write the Picture of Dorian Gray
to such a degree actually, that both texts were cited
in Wild's eighteen ninety five trial for gross indecency as
evidence of his degeneracy. In the original manuscript of Dorian Gray,
(34:43):
Wild cites Eligabolus as a true esthete in his musings
about the nature of art, writing quote the young Priest
of the Sun, while yet a boy had been slain
for his sins, used to walk in jeweled shoe on
dust of gold in silver. This reference to Eligbolis and
any reference to Aragua was cut from the final text.
(35:08):
It's unclear why Eligabolis didn't make it into the final draft,
but scholar Nicholas Frankel suggests that editor John Marshall Stoddart
quote oversaw the elimination of anything that's smacked generally of decadence,
and Eligbolis certainly fit the bill. Noble Blood is a
(35:40):
production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky.
Noble Blood is hosted by me Danish Forts, with additional
writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender,
Julia Milani, and Armand Cassam. The show is edited and
perdue used by Noahmy Griffin and rima Il Kahali, with
(36:04):
supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams,
and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. Just a
quick content note before I begin. This episode contains some
sexual content and descriptions of in vague terms of sexual acts.
So if that's something that's uncomfortable for you, or something
(00:22):
that you know you'd be sensitive about listening to with
young children around, just be aware of it. In twenty
twenty three, North Hertfordshire Museum in Hitchin, a town north
of London, made the decision to edit some of the
informational text it had on its walls. In referring to
(00:45):
the Roman emperor Eligobolis, the museum would now be using
feminine instead of masculine pronouns, consistent with the interpretation that Eligobolis,
who ruled Rome beginning in two hundred and eighteen, was
a trans woman. Elle Gobles was emperor for just four
(01:06):
years before her assassination in two hundred and twenty two,
a d at the age of eighteen. During that time,
she developed a reputation for pushing gender and sexual boundaries.
According to one classical source, she preferred she her pronouns
and announced on one occasion quote call me not lord,
(01:30):
for I am a lady. Ancient historians reported that she
wore makeup, shaved her body, and worked wool, a typically
feminine craft. One ancient historian, Diocassius, said that she would
stand outside taverns in a wig, soliciting lovers who walked by.
(01:51):
He further alleged that she had planned to approach a
physician about performing what today we would describe as a
vagino plasty. Those accounts led Keith Hoskins, executive member for
Arts at North Heartz Council, to say in a statement, quote,
Eligobolis most definitely preferred the she pronoun and as such
(02:16):
this is something we reflect when discussing her in contemporary times.
It is only polite and respectful to be sensitive to
identifying pronouns for people in the past. But this decision
proved controversial among classicists because none of those stories about
Eligobolus's gender presentation came directly from her. All of them
(02:41):
came from classical historians with something of a bone to
pick with the emperor. Dio Cassius, the ancient historian with
the most details about Eligobolis's femininity, was not a fan.
He was a senator under the emperor who had murdered her,
and therefore he had good reason to slander Eligabolis in
(03:03):
his writing. Masculinity was incredibly important to ancient Romans, and
so it was a common strategy for ancient historians to
depict emperors they didn't like as emasculated or feminine. Other emperors,
like Nero, Caligula, and even Julius Caesar were accused of
(03:24):
being too feminine. Nero was said to have worn the
bridal veil to marry a man, while Roman elder Curio
once said that Caesar was quote every man's woman. In fact,
because of his alleged affair with King Nicodemus, the fourth
of Bethenia, Caesar was called the Queen of Bethenia. In
(03:46):
the same way, you wouldn't turn to an attack ad
to write a political candidate's biography. It would be a
mistake to take those ancient invectives too literally. In an
article in The Guardian, Zach HER's, assistant professor of classics
at the University of Colorado in Boulder, said, quote these
(04:07):
quote unquote biographies of Eligobolis are hit pieces, and that
he would be inclined to read them as basically fictional.
Without any narrative accounts of Eligoblists from her perspective, It's
difficult to know what to make of these competing interpretations.
On one hand, there is no definitive proof of how
(04:30):
she identified, and contemporary classicists agree that these sources attesting
to her transness were biased, even offensive, political propaganda. But
at the same time, ancient Rome was an incredibly misogynistic
and transphobic society that prized a stoic, austere, tough masculinity
(04:55):
above all else. You could also argue that those sources
were so insulting because Eligobolis was threatening the gender norms
of the time. Many historical queer lives have shown up
in the archives in biased sources intending to smear them.
Given the dearth of transfigures in recorded Western history, Eligobolis
(05:20):
could be an important node in queer history. But given
that Roman visions of gender were so different from our own,
what does it mean for Eligobolists to have been trans?
How do we divine whatever Eligobolis's own desires were for
her gender when the historical record is so murky. I'm
(05:45):
Dana Schwartz, and this is noble blood. You probably noticed
that I'm also choosing to use feminine pronouns to refer
to Eligobolis. My reasoning is given that there is no
way of knowing for certain in this situation from more
than eighteen hundred years ago, I figure there's no harm
(06:08):
in choosing to be more inclusive rather than less. But
I do want to be very clear my analysis is
no means prescriptive or even necessarily correct. Given that gender
identity is an incredibly complicated topic, especially from historical eras
that didn't share a modern vocabulary or understanding, I don't
(06:31):
think we will ever find a definitive, quote unquote right
answer to how Eligabolis would have wanted to self identify.
But what we can do is examine her story with
nuance and try to understand it as best we can
given all the context available to us. Anyway, Eligobolos's rule
(06:53):
was controversial from the beginning. A little bit of background.
The previous emperor Macrinus had got the job by assassinating
the other candidate, Karkala, who was Eligabolus's cousin, and then
to ensure that Eligabolis's family wouldn't enact revenge. Macrinus exiled
the family to Syria, where Eligablis's family was originally from,
(07:18):
but exile did not stop Eligabolis's grandmother from plotting to
overthrow Macrinus. Their family led a religious sect that worshiped
the sun god eligabel The young Eligabolis, named after the deity,
was the heir to the priesthood of that religious sect,
even though at this time she was just fourteen. Soldiers
(07:42):
who visited Syria, many of whom supported the assassinated Caracala
over the new emperor, often stopped to see Eligabolis perform
her priestly rituals. They were purportedly captivated by her good
looks evocative of those of the young god Dionysus, and
(08:02):
her sensual dancing. Eligoblis's grandmother took advantage of that, lying
to the soldiers by telling them that Eligobolus was Caracalla's
illegitimate son and positioning her as the true heir to
the throne. The grandmother also bribed these soldiers with her
vast wealth, which these soldiers were excited to receive since
(08:26):
they already resented Macrinus for his stingy wages. These soldiers
declared Eligobolus the emperor and brought her to Antioch, where
Macrinus was based, to overthrow him and install her as
his replacement. When they got there, the troops launched an
attack on Macrinus, and they won, executing both Macrinus and
(08:50):
his son. Their severed heads were brought to Eligobolis as
war trophies, and the Roman senate was forced to accept
teenage Eligobolis as the new emperor. As Eligoblis made her
way from Antioch to Rome, ancient historian Herodian said that
Eligoblis had a painting of herself sent ahead to be
(09:12):
hung over a statue of the goddess Victoria in the
Senate house. She was said to have done this so
that the people would get to know her as the
new emperor in advance of her arrival, but many considered
it an act of hubris. Roman senators making an offering
to the goddess Victoria would have to kneel in front
(09:34):
of the painting of Eligoblis, seeming to put the new
emperor and the goddess on an equal playing field. Eligobless
finally arrived in Rome in the late summer of two
hundred and nineteen AD, refusing to wear the usual Roman
garb of wool togas. Instead, she donned a luxurious silk robe.
(09:58):
Given that Eligobles was barely through puberty when she began
her reign, her grandmother treated her as a proxy ruler.
During her rule, Eligoblus's mother, Julius Semias, and grandmother Julia
Mesa were the first women allowed into the Senate, Soemius
was given the senatorial title of Clarissima and Maisa was
(10:21):
deemed Mater castorum et senatus, or mother of the army
camp and of the Senate. Ancient historians noted how unorthodox
it was for women to be so influential on Eligoblus's rule,
with her mother and grandmother's likenesses printed on coins and inscriptions.
(10:42):
Another controversial aspect of Aligobolus's rule was her religious beliefs.
At the end of two hundred twenty, Eligoblus declared Eligobel
to be the central god of the Roman pantheon instead
of Jupiter, and made herself the quote highest priest of
the unconquered God, the son Eligabel, supreme Pontiff. Every summer
(11:07):
solstice she put on a festival in Eligobel's honor, distributing
free food and riding through the streets on a jewel
encrusted chariot. The Roman elites were scandalized that the populace
was worshiping a foreign god, and Eligobolus was to blame.
Eligobolus's love life was just as salacious. She took a
(11:31):
number of lovers, both male and female. Rumor had it
that Eligobolus wanted to marry a male charioteer named Heracles,
declaring him Caesar and herself his wife. She was also
said to have had an affair with athlete Aurelius Zodocus,
allegedly making him her husband and allowing him to have
(11:54):
political influence behind the scenes. Her most controversial relationationship was
with Vestal virgin Aquilia Severa, Vesta's high priestess, who Eligbleis
was said to have married in order to produce quote
godlike children. This was extremely taboo because any Vestal virgin
(12:17):
who had sex was supposed to be punished and buried alive.
These relationships were all speculations, but officially speaking, Eligbless would
end up marrying four times to four different women in
just four years. The emperor was also known to have
bizarre dinner parties. She gave her guests strange delicacies, like
(12:42):
camel's heels or flamingo's brains, or all green or all
blue meals. Sometimes she was said to have brought out
lions or bears to freely wander around the dining room.
One Roman historian alleged that she placed whoopee cushions on
all of the chairs as a prank, the first recorded
(13:03):
use of whoope cushions in Western history. These deviations from
quote normal Roman life made Eligoblis unpopular. When her grandmother,
Julia Mason, noted that Eligabless's reputation had soured, she decided
to replace her with her other daughter's son, Severus Alexander,
(13:25):
who was fifteen. Alexander was elevated to caesar in June
two hundred and twenty one, and Eligables and Alexander were
expected to rule together over the following year. Eligobless went
along with it at first, but she grew disillusioned with
being a co emperor. When she started noticing that the
(13:47):
Imperial Roman army liked Alexander better. She petitioned the Senate
to depose Alexander, and when they refused, she tried to
have him assassinated to no avail. According to ancient historian
Cassius Dio, Eligablis started a rumor that Alexander was about
to die to make sure the Imperial army wasn't on
(14:10):
his side. A riot broke out, with many soldiers trying
to throw Eligabolis into the barracks. On March thirteenth, two
hundred twenty two, Eligableis appeared to step down, she and
her mother performing a ceremony where they officially passed the
torch to Alexander. Upon hearing the soldiers cheer louder for
(14:34):
Alexander than they did for her, she was incensed and
immediately changed her mind. She called for the arrest and
execution of everyone there. The imperial army responded by attacking
Eligabilis and her mother. They tried to flee, but she
was found her mother holding her tight. They were both killed,
(14:56):
with their heads cut off and their bodies stripped, naked
and dragged across Rome. Not everything in that story, compiled
together from various and all very biased sources, can be verified.
Modern classicists have confirmed only the basics that Eligabolis was
(15:17):
the head priest of the worship of the Sun god.
Eligabel arrived from Syria to violently take over the Roman
government when she was fourteen, ruled for four years, married
four times, and was executed and succeeded by her cousin Alexander.
The most lurid details, including unfortunately planting whoopee cushions on
(15:41):
unsuspecting dinner guests, were all possibly fabricated. Many of the
most controversial aspects of her rule were related to her
gender and sexuality, from dancing sensually to posing as a
sex worker outside of a bar, to marrying a vestal
virgin and proposing to a male charioteer. But where did
(16:06):
those details come from and why would ancient historians have
invented or exaggerated them. Why was Eligobolis's gender and sexuality
such an issue for ancient historians? As I mentioned earlier,
Eligabolists reigned during a time when Rome had extremely strict
(16:28):
standards for masculinity. The ideal Roman citizen exhibited masculine characteristics
like valor, excellence, courage, dominance, and an austere presentation, as
opposed to women who were considered decadent, soft, and extravagant.
Men who didn't fit the masculine ideal were considered to
(16:51):
be afflicted with molita, a Latin term which can be
translated as softness or effeminacy. Those with mantilla were considered
to be preoccupied with their appearances. They shaved their bodies,
wore perfume, and rouged their cheeks. They were also seen
as overly indulgent, eating rich foods and seeking out sex.
(17:17):
These tropes almost perfectly describe ancient historians' depictions of Eligobolis.
Eligobolus was considered to have molita, uniting her love of
lavish dinner parties, expensive robes, and voracious sexual appetites. The
term molita also gives us a clue as to why
(17:38):
Eligabolis's sexuality and gender were such huge issues for ancient historians.
Because sexuality was so deeply tied to Roman ideals, molita
was typically assigned to outsiders, especially from the quote East.
Romans viewed Persians and Syrians as overly extravagant, feminine, sexual,
(18:05):
and servile. A common trope of Molita was the mythical
Sardanopoulis of Assyria. Allegedly, Sardanopoulos lived as a woman during
his rule, hanging out with his concubines, putting on cosmetics,
speaking with a higher tone, wearing women's clothing, and spinning wool.
(18:27):
He also drank heavily and pursued both men and women
without a care for his reputation, much to the chagrin
of Roman authors. Many of those same tropes also show
up in descriptions of Eligabolis, who was also said to
have affected a quote soft and melting voice to sound
(18:48):
more like a woman where eyeshadow, work with wool, and
hang out with sex workers. Cassius Dio, the ancient historian
who had the most issues with eligablo alleged femininity, even
called Eligoblis Sardanopoulos. According to contemporary historian martin Ix, many
(19:09):
Romans nicknamed her the Assyrian. Ancient historian Herodian also ties
Eligoblis's femininity to her status as a foreigner, especially as
the high priestess of an unfamiliar religion. Herodian emphasizes that
Eligobolus performed orgiastic dances in the temple of Amisia in Syria,
(19:33):
and then brought those dances to perform in altars around
Rome and even in the theater, embodying a sensual foreign
sensibility inappropriate for the leader of Rome. He also suggests
that Eligoblis's Syrian origins caused her to reject standard Roman
men's clothing, preferring silk dresses with gold embroidery and gem
(19:57):
covered golden tiaras, which Herodian associates with the Phoenicians, as
opposed to the plain wool clothes worn by most Roman men.
Eligoblis's foreign femininity was such a problem for ancient historians
because the emperor, as the most powerful person in Rome,
(20:19):
was expected to embody their version of ideal manliness. The
perfect Roman man was expected to dominate in his relationships
with women or boys, but also on a wider scale
with foreigners. The emperor being a foreigner herself not only
meant that she didn't care to be the ideal Roman man,
(20:42):
but also that she wasn't advancing Roman cultural dominance by
embodying absolute masculinity. This helps us to explain another aspect
of Eligboless's transness, her stereotypically feminine and passive role in sex.
In her sexual life, she was said to quote recreate
(21:06):
female characteristics within the male. The Historia Augusta presents Eligabolis
as quote taking the role of Venus in her private
re enacting of the story of the Judgment of Paris,
even going so far as to quote model the expression
on her face onto which that Venus is usually painted.
(21:29):
Cassius Dio adds that she slept with women to learn
to quote imitate their actions when she should lie with
her male lovers. She was said to have hired agents
to find and bring well endowed men to her quarters,
occasionally seeking them out herself at public baths. Ancient Romans
(21:50):
saw gender and sexuality as inexorably intertwined. They had a
gender binary, but one's gender identity was determined by someone's
birth sex, as well as the role they played in
sexual encounters. One half of the binary was the penetrators,
who were seen as strong, stoic, aggressive, and masculine, and
(22:14):
the other half were the penetrated, who were seen as weak, frivolous,
vein and feminine. If you were a penetrator. Who you
were attracted to didn't matter. You could have sex with
men or women, and you would still be considered masculine
as long as you took the active role during sex.
(22:35):
On the other hand, if you took a passive role
during sex, that would fundamentally change your gender identity. Women
and men who were penetrated in sexual encounters were both
considered to be feminine. As long as your sexual role
aligned with your societal role. Men being the penetrators and
(22:57):
women being the penetrated, you'd fit within Roman gender norms.
If you deviated from those norms, most commonly by being
a man that also wanted to be penetrated, you would
be humiliated and insulted for being too womanly. It also
went the other way around. If a man were thought
(23:19):
of as too womanly or soft, he would be assumed
to be the passive partner in sex. Who was allowed
to be the passive partner in sex depended not only
on one's gender, but also on their societal role. Women,
being the quote inferior gender, had to always occupy a
(23:42):
sexually passive role. Boys, slaves, and foreigners were also permitted
to be sexually passive. In their relationships with adult men.
This dynamic shows up in historical accounts of eligobolists. It
was fine for Eligoblists to do sexy dances as a
young attractive boy, but she was expected to age out
(24:04):
of it in her adulthood. It was extra scandalous that
she was sexually passive, given that she was the ruler
of Rome, expected to dominate everyone at all times. Contemporary
classicist Zachary Hurs alludes to another Roman trope to describe
why Eligabolis was depicted as sexually passive, the Canidis. This
(24:31):
word does not have a direct translation, It functions as
a kind of slur that describes foreign born men who
dance sensually and like to be anally penetrated, which nearly
exactly lines up with depictions of Eligabolis. Given that the
(24:52):
Canidis only shows up in politically charged smear campaigns, historians
tend to think of the Canidis as more of a
concept character or trope than an actual identity. Hers calls
the Cannidis a quote public identity, comparing the concept to
the contemporary idea of the stereotypical welfare queen. While the
(25:15):
character could describe real individuals. It functioned more as a
rhetorical tool, intended to draw the public's attention to dangers
to the status quo. Hers read depictions of Eligobolus's canidis
like sexual passivity as an expression of anxiety about the
(25:37):
state of Roman political life. Emperors previously had been chosen
from an elite class of senators and died peacefully after
a successor had already been determined. But Eligabolis was symptomatic
of a new status quo in which military support mattered
more than senatorial support, and new two emperors, most of
(26:01):
whom had barely gone through puberty by the time they
came to power, rose to the throne violently. Cassius Dio
and Marius Maximus, senators who wrote popular histories of Eligobolis,
would have been salty about losing power in that new system,
and they used the power of their pens to denigrate Eligabolis.
(26:23):
The stock character of the Canidis was a powerful tool,
not only because the Canidis was viewed in derogatory terms,
but because canidie never spoke for themselves. Lacking the political
upper hand, ancient historians took the rhetorical one. As Hers
(26:44):
put it Quote Doo and Maximus could no longer govern,
but they still could write ancient historians bias against Eligobolists
could partly explain why she was feminized in the historical record.
As we mentioned earlier in the episode, it was common
practice for ancient historians to call leaders quote too feminine
(27:08):
as a means to discredit them. But still, even considering
that tradition, Eligobolis remains an outlier. Other leaders like Julius, Caesar, Nero,
and Caligula were all alleged to be keneidie, wearing women's clothing,
acting passively during sex, and shaving their bodies, but none
(27:30):
of them have been reconsidered by contemporary historians to be
trans women. What makes Eligobolis so different. What's so striking
about Eligobolus's gender presentation is that she bucked traditional Roman
understandings of sex and gender. While Caesar may have been
(27:53):
every man's wife and Nero was said to have acted
as a bride in a marriage ceremony to one of
his freedmen, Elligoblis asked to be treated as a woman
throughout her life, not just during sex or in relation
to a male partner. She appeared to have a remarkably
(28:13):
modern view of gender as an identity separate from her
sexual role, but whether or not Eligblis actually represented herself
as a woman remains up for debate. Unlike many historical
queer figures, Eligoblis, as the ruler of Rome, had power
(28:33):
over how she represented herself through statues and coins she
commissioned as official representations of her and her reign. According
to scholar Eric R. Varner, imperial portraits and coins were
actually at times a space in which rulers blurred gender
(28:54):
boundaries in their self presentation. Beginning with Augustus, male rulers,
ais and goddesses were visually conjoined. For example, on certain coins,
Augustus's face was put on the goddess Diana's body, with
her hair cascading from his head. There's also an example
(29:14):
of a statue of Marcus Aurelius with his head added
to a female body dressed in an ornate toga. That said,
even with that precedent for gender bending in Roman imperial representations,
Eligoblus's portraits adhered to masculine standards. This isn't to say
that her coins were typical, fitting the rest of her
(29:37):
norm flouting rein Her coins are strange. Roman coins typically
have a head's side with a portrait of an important
person and a tail's side with a scene including Roman
gods or a personification of Rome, intended to reinforce the
dominance of Rome and the legitimacy of the current ruler.
(29:58):
In Eligobolus's coins, the quote tales side has a chariot
pulling a meteorite with an eagle on top of it,
an image utterly unique to her rule. On the head's side,
her portraits depict her wearing her sacred robes, again flouting
Roman norms of austere dress. Even though these coins break
(30:21):
from conventions in most ways, they do portray her as male,
with sideburns and a mustache. That said, she could have
publicly identified as male and expressed her transness in private,
or she could have tried to persuade the members of
her court for her coins to represent her as a woman,
(30:44):
and they could have refused. It remains unclear whether and
to what extent Eligabolis wanted to be seen as a woman,
given that the one source that attests to her requesting
to be referred to by feminine pronouns and requesting a
vaginoplasty come from one source with every intention to slander
(31:06):
her and her feminine qualities. It's hard to argue that
that is inherently an accurate rendering of her wishes to
be treated as a woman. There's no evidence that explicitly
refutes that framing, but there's nothing that directly supports it either.
With the evidence we do have, it seems most likely
(31:27):
that she was, at least to a certain extent, transfeminized
by a society hostile to any form of gender nonconformity.
Her religious dancing and silk robes threatened Roman norms of masculinity,
especially for emperors. Ancient historians interpreted this as evidence that
(31:49):
she presented herself as a woman, both in terms of
her appearance and her sexual role. They portrayed her this
way not necessarily because they took any interest in how
she understood herself, but in order to emphasize the danger
of her foreign influence. It was a kind of trans
panic about excessive femininity at the center of Roman life,
(32:13):
conflating male femininity with sex, work, decadence, and irresponsibility. But
this portrait of Eligobolis as a decadent, opulent emperor has
also kept her alive in the literary imagination. Her flounting
the status quo made her an inspirational figure to many
(32:34):
artists and writers. In the nineteen sixties, a number of
queer writers created fictional portraits of her reign, from boddice
rippers like Child of the Sun to literary fiction like
the novel Family Favorites. At a time when homosexuality was
still criminalized right before the Stonewall Riots, those more sympathetic
(32:58):
depictions of Eligobolis situated her as a node in a
longer queer lineage. We may never know exactly who Eligobolis
was or how she saw herself, but she opens up
the possibility to consider queer life in other eras, and
she allows us to examine the complexities of how ancient
(33:22):
Romans viewed sex and gender. That's the end of the
story of Eligobolis, but stick around after a brief sponsor
break to see how Eligbolis inspired Oscar Wilde's picture of
Dorian Gray. Oscar Wilde learned about Eligobolis while honeymooning in Paris,
(33:57):
where he picked up a copy of Yours Karl Heusmann
book a reboir that had just come out. Araboar was
a novel that celebrated decadence, centering around an eccentric dandy
who retreats into his own esthetic world. Heismans brings up
Eligobolis as a fellow aesthete, a figure that transcended her
(34:19):
everyday life by focusing on beauty and excess. That book
inspired Oscar Wilde to write the Picture of Dorian Gray
to such a degree actually, that both texts were cited
in Wild's eighteen ninety five trial for gross indecency as
evidence of his degeneracy. In the original manuscript of Dorian Gray,
(34:43):
Wild cites Eligabolus as a true esthete in his musings
about the nature of art, writing quote the young Priest
of the Sun, while yet a boy had been slain
for his sins, used to walk in jeweled shoe on
dust of gold in silver. This reference to Eligbolis and
any reference to Aragua was cut from the final text.
(35:08):
It's unclear why Eligabolis didn't make it into the final draft,
but scholar Nicholas Frankel suggests that editor John Marshall Stoddart
quote oversaw the elimination of anything that's smacked generally of decadence,
and Eligbolis certainly fit the bill. Noble Blood is a
(35:40):
production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky.
Noble Blood is hosted by me Danish Forts, with additional
writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender,
Julia Milani, and Armand Cassam. The show is edited and
perdue used by Noahmy Griffin and rima Il Kahali, with
(36:04):
supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams,
and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Host
Dana Schwartz
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