Museum: Roman Emperor Was Transgender

Texts suggest Elagabalus identified as a woman, though historians argue they aren't creditable
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 22, 2023 9:26 AM CST
Museum: This Roman Emperor Was a 'She'
A marble bust of the Roman emperor Elagabalus, created around AD 221.   (Wikimedia Commons/Carole Raddato)

A museum in the UK has made the decision to refer to an ancient Roman emperor as "she" and "her," saying evidence shows Elagabalus, who reigned for four years from AD 218-222, was a transgender woman. The council-run North Hertfordshire Museum in Hitchin, which has a silver denarius coin bearing Elagabalus' face, says the decision stems from classical texts indicating the emperor was born a man but identified as a woman, per Art Newspaper. However, there's much debate over whether that's truly the case. The texts come from Cassius Dio, a senator who served the emperor who ascended the throne after Elagabalus' assassination. Some historians say the text might have served to undermine Elagabalus, also known as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.

As Cambridge professor of Roman studies Andrew Wallace-Hadrill tells the Telegraph, to accuse a Roman man of feminine behavior was a great insult. Therefore, Dio's claims that Elagabalus asked to be called "lady" and requested that female genitalia be fashioned for him or her could be attempts at character assassination. Transgender was "never seen as a category by the Romans," says Christian Laes, a classicist and ancient historian at the University of Manchester. "But it remains the case that in times of troubles and crisis, so-called transgressors of the sexual norms were subject to scapegoating." Dio painted Elagabalus as sexually promiscuous, claiming the emperor who died at 18 was married four times to women and once to a man, the former slave Hiercoles, per the BBC.

During that marriage, Elagabalus was "termed wife, mistress and queen," Dio wrote. There are also references to Elagabalus wearing makeup and wigs. Laes believes "most of this is related to the aristocratic and senatorial disdain for the emperor's oriental origins and beliefs," per the Telegraph. Wallace-Hadrill similarly notes Elagabalus, who hailed from Syria, not Rome, likely faced "racial prejudice." However, Keith Hoskins, a Liberal Democrat member of the North Herts Council, says the evidence shows "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." Further, "We know that Elagabalus identified as a woman and was explicit about which pronouns to use, which shows that pronouns are not a new thing," he says. There is a lot more to unpack here. (More transgender stories.)

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