Elagabalus will reportedly be known as ‘she’, as a classical creator claims he requested a lover to name him a woman
The North Hertfordshire Museum in Hitchin, England, has introduced that the Roman emperor Elagabalus, who dominated Rome from AD 218 till his assassination on the age of 18 in 222, was transgender, the Telegraph reported Monday.
Elagabalus reportedly was given feminine pronouns primarily based on texts by Cassius Dio, a Roman chronicler who claimed the emperor requested a lover to name him “girl” and used to cross-dress and put on make-up.
In line with the historian, the emperor was “termed spouse, mistress and queen,” and as soon as informed a lover “name me not Lord, for I’m a Woman.” The chronicler additionally wrote that Elagabalus allegedly requested medical doctors to carry out a type of sex-change operation on him, promising them giant sums of cash for it.
The museum has a coin minted in the course of the reign of Elagabalus that has been utilized in LGBTQ-themed exhibitions, and has consulted with the LGBTQ charity Stonewall and the LGBTQ wing of the commerce union Unison to make sure that “shows, publicity and talks are as up-to-date and inclusive as potential,” based on The Telegraph.
Commenting on the topic, Keith Hoskins, a Liberal Democrat councilor and government member for arts at North Herts Council, informed the paper that “Elagabalus most positively most popular the she pronoun, and as such that is one thing we replicate when discussing her in up to date instances.”
On the similar time, some historians have expressed doubts concerning the credibility of Cassius Dio’s claims, as he served the emperor Severus Alexander, who succeeded Elagabalus.
For instance, the outlet cited the opinion of Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, professor of classics at Cambridge, who mentioned that the Romans “used accusations of sexual behaviour ‘as a lady’ as one of many worst insults towards males.” He additionally famous that since Elagabalus was of Syrian origin and never a Roman, “there’s racial prejudice happening there too.”
Little proof of Elagabalus’ reign has been preserved except for the works of Cassius, though the chronicler himself admitted that he spent a lot of the related interval outdoors of Rome and needed to depend on second-hand data.
One other up to date, Herodianus, additionally chronicled the emperor’s short-lived reign, however is claimed to be much less biased. His writings have been corroborated by numismatists and archaeologists.
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