Dana Schwartz (0:00)

We know you've heard a million mattress ads, but trust us, this one's different. Why? Because Naturepedic is different. Well, most mattresses are full of fiberglass, polyurethane foam and chemical flame retardants. Naturepedic's organic options for the whole family are made with cotton, latex, wool, the good stuff. Shop Naturepedic's biggest sale of the year and get 20% off sitewide plus a free pillow with any kids or adult mattress@naturepedic.com nobleblood use code noble20@naturepedic.com nobleBlood to save better sleep awaits. Welcome to Nobleblood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Erin Menke. 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 that you know you'd be sensitive about listening to with young children around, just be aware of it. In 2023, 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 the Roman emperor Elagabalus, the museum would now be using feminine instead of masculine pronouns. Consistent with the interpretation that Elagabalus, who ruled rome beginning in 218 AD was a trans woman. Elagabalus was emperor for just four years before her assassination in 222 AD at the age of 18. 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, call me not lord, 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, Diocasius, said that she would stand outside taverns in a wig, soliciting lovers who walked by. He further alleged that she had planned to approach a physician about performing what today we would describe as a vaginoplasty. Those accounts led Keith Hoskins, executive member for Arts at North Hertz Council, to say in a statement, elagabalus most definitely preferred the she pronoun, and as such 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 Elagabalus gender presentation came directly from her. All of them came from classical historians with something of a bone to pick with the Emperor Dio Cassius the ancient historian with the most details about Elagabalus femininity was not a fan. He was a senator under the emperor who had murdered her, and therefore he had good reason to slander Elagabalus in 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 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 every man's woman. In fact, because of his alleged affair with King Nicodemus IV of Bithynia, Caesar was called the Queen of Bithynia. In 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, Zachary Herz, assistant professor of classics at the University of Colorado in Boulder, said these biographies of Elagabalus are hit pieces and that he would be inclined to read them as basically fictional. Without any narrative accounts of Elagabalus from her perspective, it's difficult to know what to make of these these competing interpretations. On one hand, there is no definitive proof of how she identified, and contemporary classicists agree that the 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 above all else. You could also argue that those sources were so insulting because Elagabalus 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 trans figures in recorded Western history, Elagabalus 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 Elagabalus to have been trans? How do we divine whatever Elagabalus own desires were for her gender when the historical record is so murky? Hi, I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. You probably noticed that I'm also choosing to use feminine pronouns to refer to Elagabalus. My reasoning is, given that there is no way of knowing for certain in this situation from more than 1800 years ago, I figure there's no harm 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 think we will ever find a definitive quote unquote right answer to how Elagabalus 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, Elagabalus rule was controversial from the beginning A little bit of background the previous emperor Macrinus had gotten the job by assassinating the other candidate, Caracalla, who was Elagabalus cousin. And then to ensure that Elagabalus family wouldn't enact revenge, Macrinus exiled the family to Syria, where Elagabalus family was originally from. But exile did not stop Elagabalus grandmother from plotting to overthrow Macrinus. Their family led a religious sect that worshipped the sun God Elagabel. The young Elagabalus, named after the deity, was the heir to the priesthood of that religious sect, even though at this time she was just 14. Soldiers who visited Syria, many of whom supported the assassinated Caracalla over the new emperor, often stopped to see Elagabalus perform her priestly rituals. They were purportedly captivated by her good looks, evocative of those of the young God Dionysus and her sensual dancing. Elagabalus grandmother took advantage of that, lying to the soldiers by telling them that Elagabalus 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 they already resented Macrinus for his stingy wages. These soldiers declared Elagabalus 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 his son. Their severed heads were brought to Elagabalus as war trophies and the Roman Senate was forced to accept teenage Elagabalus as the new emperor. As Elagabalus made her way from Antioch to Rome, ancient historian Herodian said that Elagabalus had a painting of herself sent ahead to be 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 but many considered it an act of hubris. Roman senators making an offering to the goddess Victoria would have to kneel in front of the painting of Elagabalus, seeming to put the new emperor and the goddess on an equal playing field. Elagabalus finally arrived in Rome in the late summer of 219 AD, refusing to wear the usual Roman garb of wool togas. Instead she donned a luxurious silk robe. Given that Elagabalus was barely through puberty when she began her reign, her grandmother treated her as a proxy ruler. During her rule, Elagabalus mother Julia Suemius and grandmother Julia Mesa were the first women allowed into the Senate. Suimius was given the senatorial title of Clarissima and Mysa was deemed Mater Castrorum 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 Elagabalus rule, with her mother and grandmother's likenesses printed on coins and inscriptions. Another controversial aspect of Elagabalus rule was her religious beliefs. At the end of 220, Elagabalus declared Elagabal to be the central God of the Roman pantheon instead of Jupiter and made herself the highest priest of the unconquered God, the sun Elagabal, supreme pontiff. Every summer solstice, she put on a festival in Elagabal's honor, distributing free food and riding through the streets on a jewel encrusted chariot. The Roman elite were scandalized that the populace was worshiping a foreign God and Elagabalus was to blame. Elagabalus love life was just as salacious. She took a number of lovers, both male and female. Rumor had it that Elagabalus 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 Zoticus, allegedly making him her husband and allowing him to have political influence behind the scenes. Her most controversial relationship was with Vestal virgin Aquilia Severa, Vesta's high priestess, who Elagabalus was said to have married in order to produce godlike children. This was extremely taboo because any Vestal virgin who had sex was supposed to be punished and buried alive. These relationships were all speculations, but officially speaking, Elagabalus 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 camel's heels or flamingos 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 use of whoopee cushions in Western history. These deviations from quote normal Roman life made Elagabalus unpopular. When her grandmother Julia Mason, noted that Elagabalus reputation had soured, she decided to replace her with her other daughter's son, Severus Alexander, who was 15. Alexander was elevated to Caesar in June 221, and Elagabalus and Alexander were expected to rule together over the following year. Elagabalus went along with it at first, but she grew disillusioned with being a co emperor. When she started noticing that the 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, Elagabalus started a rumor that Alexander was about to die to make sure the imperial army wasn't on his side. A riot broke out with many soldiers trying to throw Elagabalus into the barracks. On March 13, 222, Elagabalus 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 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 Elagabalus and her mother. They tried to flee, but she was found her mother holding her tight. They were both killed 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 Elagabalus was the head priest of the worship of the sun God. Elagabal arrived from Syria to violently take over the Roman government when she was 14, 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 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 those details come from? And why would ancient historians have invaded, prevented or exaggerated them? Why was Elagabalus gender and sexuality. Such an issue for ancient historians. As I mentioned earlier, Elagabalus reigned during a time when Rome had extremely strict 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 be afflicted with molita, a Latin term which can be translated as softness or effeminacy. Those with Motila were considered to be preoccupied with their appearance 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. These tropes almost perfectly describe ancient historians depictions of Elagabalus. Elagabalus was considered to have Molita uniting her love of lavish dinner parties, except expensive robes and voracious sexual appetites. The term Molita also gives us a clue as to why Elagabalus, 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 East. Romans viewed Persians and Syrians as overly extravagant, feminine, sexual and servile. A common trope of Molita was the mythical Sardanapalus of Assyria. Allegedly, Sardanapalus 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. 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 Elagabalus, who was also said to have affected a soft and melting voice to sound more like a woman, wear eyeshadow, work with wool and hang out with sex workers. Cassius Dio, the ancient historian who had the most issues with Elagabalus, alleged femininity, even called Elagabalus Sardanapalus. According to contemporary historian Martin Ickes, many Romans nicknamed her the Assyrian ancient historian. Herodian also ties Elagabalus femininity to her status as a foreigner, especially as the high priestess of an unfamiliar religion. Herodian emphasizes that Elagabalus performed orgiastic dances in the Temple of Amicia in Syria 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 Elagabalus Syrian origins caused her to reject standard Roman men's clothing, preferring silk dresses with Gold embroidery and gem covered golden tiaras which Herodian associates with the Phoenicians, as opposed to the plain wool clothes worn by most Roman men. Elagabalus foreign femininity was such a problem for ancient historians because the Emperor, as the most powerful person in Rome, 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 form foreigners. The Emperor, being a foreigner herself, not only meant that she didn't care to be the ideal Roman man, but also that she wasn't advancing Roman cultural dominance by embodying absolute masculinity. This helps us to explain another aspect of Elagabalus transness, her stereotypically feminine, passive role in sex. In her sexual life, she was said to recreate female characteristics within the male. The Historia Augusta presents Elagabalus as taking the role of Venus in her private re enacting of the story of the Judgment of Paris, even going so far as to model the expression on her face onto which that Venus is usually painted. Cassius Dio adds that she slept with women to learn to 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 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 the other half were the penetrated, who were seen as weak, frivolous, vain 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. 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 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 weak womanly. It also went the other way around. If a man were thought 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 inferior gender, had to always occupy a 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 Elagabalus. It was fine for Elagabalus to do sexy dances as a young attractive boy, but she was expected to age out 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 Herz alludes to another Roman trope to describe why Elagabalus was depicted as sexually the cinniatus. This word does not 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 Elagabalus. Given that the conidus only shows up in politically charged smear campaigns, historians tend to think of the conitus as more of a concept, character or trope than an actual identity. Hers calls the conitus a public identity, comparing the concept to the contemporary idea of the stereotypical welfare queen. While the character could describe real individuals, it functioned more as a rhetorical tool intended to draw the public's attention attention to dangers, to the status quo. Herz read depictions of Elagabalus cinnitus, like sexual passivity, as an expression of anxiety about the 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 Elagabalus was symptomatic of a new status quo in which military support mattered more than senatorial support. And new emperors, most of 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 Elagabalus, would have been salty about losing power in that new system, and they used the power of their pens to denigrate Elagabalus. The stock character of the Cinniadus was a powerful tool, not only because the Cinnitus was viewed in derogatory terms, but because Cnidi never spoke for themselves. Lacking the political upper hand, ancient historians took the rhetorical one. As hers put it, dio and Maximus could no longer govern, but they still could. Write ancient historians bias against Elagabalus 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 too feminine as a means to discredit them. But still, even considering that tradition, Elagabalus remains an outlier. Other leaders like Julius Caesar Nero and Caligula were all alleged to be cnidi wearing women's clothing, acting passively during sex and shaving their bodies. But none of them have been reconsidered by contemporary historians to be trans women. What makes Elagabalus so different? What's so striking about Elagabalus gender presentation is that she bucked traditional Roman understandings of sex and gender. While Caesar may have been every man's wife and Nero was said to have acted as a bride in a marriage ceremony to one of his free men, Elagabalus 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 modern view of gender as an identity separate from her sexual role. But whether or not Elagabalus actually represented herself as a woman remains up for debate. Unlike many historical queer figures, Elagabalus as the ruler of Rome had power 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 boundaries in their self presentation. Beginning with Augustus, male rulers and goddesses were visually conjoined. For example, on certain coins, Augustus face was put on the goddess Diana's body with her hair cascading from his head. There's also an example 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, Elagabalus portraits adhered to masculine standards. This isn't to say that her coins were typical fitting the rest of her norm flouting reign. Her coins are strange. Roman coins typically have a head's side with a portion portrait of an important person and a tales 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. In Elagabalus coins, the 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 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 trans in private, or she could have tried to persuade the members of her court for her coins to represent her as a woman, and they could have refused. It remains unclear whether and to what extent Elagabalus 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 a vaginoplasty come from one source with every intention to slander 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 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 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, conflating male femininity with sex, work, decadence, and irresponsibility. But this portrait of Elagabalus as a decadent, opulent emperor has also kept her alive in the literary imagination. Her flaunting the status quo made her an inspirational figure to many artists and writers. In the 1960s, a number of queer writers created fictional portraits of her reign, from bodice 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 depictions of Elagabalus situated her as a node in a longer queer lineage. We may never know exactly who Elagabalus 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 Romans viewed sex and gender. That's the end of the story of Elagabalus, but stick around after a brief sponsor break to see how elaGabalus inspired Oscar Wilde's picture of Dorian Gray. I live in Los Angeles, but I absolutely love Fall. Here is a very incomplete list of things that I love as fall comes around going to a pumpkin patch way too sweet lattes and slipping into a cozy sweater from Queen Quince. 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While most mattresses are full of fiberglass, polyurethane foam and chemical flame retardants, Naturepedic's organic options for the whole family are made with cotton, latex wool. The good stuff. Shop Naturepedic's biggest sale of the year and get 20% off site wide plus a free pillow with any kids or adult mattress@naturepedic.com nobleblood use code noble20@naturepedic.com nobleBlood to save better sleep awaits Oscar Wilde learned about Elagabalus while honeymooning in Paris, where he picked up a copy of Joris Carl Huysman's book A Reboer that had just come out. A Rebor was a novel that celebrated decadence centering around an eccentric dandy who retreats into his own aesthetic world. Huysmans brings up Elagabalus as a fellow aesthete, a figure that transcended her 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 Wilde's 1895 trial for gross indecency as evidence of his degeneracy. In the original manuscript of Dorian Gray, Wilde cites Elagabalus as a true aesthete in his musings about the nature of art, writing 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 and silver. This reference to Elagabalus and any reference to Arobois was cut from the final text. It's unclear why Elagabalus didn't make it into the final draft, but scholar Nicholas Frankel suggests that editor John Marshall Stoddart oversaw the elimination of anything that smacked generally of decadence, and Elagabalus certainly fit the bill. Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Menke. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Julia Milani and Arman Kassan. The show is edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and Reema Il Kayali, with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Menke, Alex Williams and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. We know you've heard a million mattress ads, but trust us, this one's different. Why? Because Naturepedic is different. Well, most mattresses are full of fiberglass, polyurethane foam and chemical flame retardants. Naturepedic's organic options for the whole family are made with cotton, latex, wool. The good stuff. 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