Empress Elagabalus ?

[GregH]

6 hours ago, DonnaML said:

The term "appeasement" is generally reserved for actions taken to placate powerful, evil figures like Adolf Hitler. I would respectfully suggest that your use of the term in connection with the LGBTQ community -- especially the notoriously powerful transgender community (sarcasm) -- is highly inappropriate.

Far from "rewriting history," it's clearly ahistorical to deny that trans people (like gay people) have always existed, simply because the current terminology didn't always exist.  I don't know how else one would characterize (for example) the galli who were Cybele's acolytes. Should we avoid applying words like "homosexual" or "bisexual" to someone like Hadrian because those words weren't coined until the second half of the 19th century?

In this particular case, if one were to assume that Cassius Dio's account of Elagabalus's words and actions was entirely accurate, then it would make sense to characterize Elagabalus as transgender. In fact, some people on the Internet have been doing so for a long time, from what I've read, although hardly as formally or "officially" as this museum. It would hardly have been the worst of his alleged sins, as shocking as 19th and early 20th century numismatists seem to have found it.  But others have already pointed out the problems with taking Dio, an inherently biased source with an agenda, as gospel. Not all ancient scurrilous gossip about emperors and other powerful figures should necessarily be taken as true. Otherwise, I suppose we would have to start labeling museum exhibits about Julius Caesar as "the Queen of Bithynia," and call him, with Gaius Scribonius Curio, "every man's wife and every woman's husband."  TLDR: It's fine to acknowledge the possibility, but don't officially present it as having been proven to be true.

You nailed it perfectly.

I’ll add that the LGBTQ community is not one single-minded monolith requiring appeasement. Nor do people necessarily reduce their entire identity to their sexual preference, and group themselves accordingly. Arbitrary groupings of people are divisive as they separate people into in-groups and out-groups, instead of uniting us with our common humanity. 

[GregH]

3 hours ago, Al Kowsky said:

Brace yourself if the LGBTQ community starts demanding that Apollo & Artemis be labeled transgender....

Who is the “LGBTQ Community”?

Hundreds of millions of people, grouped arbitrarily according to sexual preference/identity and they ALL have this one same demand?

[NathanB]

11 hours ago, Al Kowsky said:

I strongly resent anyone trying to rewrite history to satisfy their own agenda. 

It is important to remember that there is no single objective version of history that is completely factually true and truly exhaustive. Everyone has an agenda, and everyone has biases--whether they realize them or not.  Cassius Dio?  Agenda: to make his patrons look good! Plutarch?  To make moral judgments and inferences about character.  Thucydides: besides demonstrating a more rigorous way of writing history, to show how the war between Athens and Sparta was "a great war, and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it."  Caesar?  To win fame and glory for himself and put his spin on how the West--er, Gaul--was won.  (Of course, I do greatly simplify here.)

To use these kinds of primary sources, we have to read them critically.  A historian who uses primary sources in this way can write a history.  The history that that historian relates will concern itself with the issues and agendas that that historian has.  In the past, such histories often concerned themselves with "great men."  (Indeed, I still have on my shelves my childhood books like 100 Great Kings, Queens, and Rulers of the World, and Augustus Caesar's World. As an adult, I actually worked my way through the entirety of the Folio Society's 8 volume edition of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. And since it has been about 25 years since, I need to return to it!)

More recent historians have sought to look at not the great men, but ordinary people.  How did they live?  What were they like?  How did they interpret the world around them?  What were the currents that produced the evolutions and sudden changes of the times?

Then there are the various "isms"--Marxists would look at history and produce narratives about the evils of capitalism and the necessity for revolution.  The Freudians took to history their psycho-analytic approach.  Queer theory has looked at treatment of homosexuality, gender, and so on. 

An author might even study the same history and write more than one history!  Nowadays, Mary Beard's book Emperor of Rome is getting talked about.  But she also wrote SPQR earlier, with a very different agenda.  (I haven't read the former, but heartily recommend the latter!)

History from the very beginning was always being written and rewritten according to the agendas and biases of the writers.  

Although I haven't been a Christian for many years, I still think C.S. Lewis's essay "On the Reading of Old Books" is useful here in pointing out one thing.  Lewis wrote, if you were forced to read only one kind of books, past, present, or future, you obviously couldn't read the books of the future.  He suggested that--if you were forced to choose only one--you should read the books of the past rather than those of the present.  Why?  Because the past writers would not make the same kinds of mistakes that modern writers make.  Lewis's idea wasn't that past writers were better, or that modern writers made too many mistakes, or even that one shouldn't read current books.  Rather, he was saying that it's easier to spot the biases of past ages than to spot those of our own that we are accustomed to.

Nowadays, we have many more ways of writing history than existed in Lewis's day.  Each brings something to the table.

I would submit that we have something to learn from all the ways that history has been told over the ages (even if at times we are learning in spite of a writer rather than because of them!).  To really understand the past, we need to read widely, both in terms of primary sources and histories that use them.  We might have our own preferences about the kinds of history we think are most accurate, or the kinds that are the most enjoyable to read, but we simply can't say that the questions that we want asked are the only ones that could be asked, or should be asked.

Edited November 23, 2023 by NathanB

[Kaleun96]

10 hours ago, CPK said:

I can't say I'm surprised at this given the trend of today's culture, but it doesn't make it any less idiotic. 🙄

I don't know what aspect of this is more objectionable - the fact that they're trying to rewrite historical figures to fit modern ideologies, or that they (apparently) think we're all obligated to respect and affirm the personal delusions of a very confused man. I, for one, decline to go along. 😉

"Trying to rewrite historical figures to fit modern ideologies" has been a thing for as long as history has been recorded. There have been times (and still are) when the pendulum has swung the other way and the behaviour or predilections of certain historical figures has either been downplayed or weaponised against them, depending on what was needed at the time.

That's not to say it's correct though, just that it's not anything new and perhaps the LGBTQ community are now getting their turn at rewriting history after centuries of being on the other side. I don't agree with it myself but it's not like claims about historical figures or events that have greater implications haven't been made with less evidence by museums or historians around the world.

[Julius Germanicus]

Elagabalus had more wives than any other Emperor, so for me he will always be a man.

Here are my (former) bronzes of the five important women in his life: grandmother Julia Maesa, mother Julia Soaemias, first wife Julia Paula, second and fourth wife Julia Aquilia Severa, and third wife Annia Faustina:

 

[GregH]

2 minutes ago, Julius Germanicus said:

Elagabalus had more wives than any other Emperor, so for me he will always be a man.

Here are my (former) bronzes of the five important women in his life: grandmother Julia Maesa, mother Julia Soaemias, first wife Julia Paula, second and fourth wife Julia Aquilia Severa, and third wife Annia Faustina:

 

Man, you had an imperial Annia Faustina?? All I can manage is a provincial. She is super-rare.

[Roman Collector]

52 minutes ago, GregH said:

Man, you had an imperial Annia Faustina?? All I can manage is a provincial. She is super-rare.

I was going to say the same exact thing! Here's my provincial.

The listing for this exact coin in Lindgren:

 

 

[Heliodromus]

It seems fundamentally silly to be applying 2023 gender/identity labels to a roman emperor from a time when ideas around sexuality were significantly different. It seems the only purpose can be modern politics - it does nothing to help understand Elagabalus as a man of his times.

 

[Kaleun96]

4 minutes ago, CPK said:

Donna, I mean no disrespect to you or your friends. I have nothing but compassion for the people who are suffering in that way. I mean that. But I also will not sugarcoat the issue, and I don't think the best way to help such people is to reinforce their confusion - or to try to force everyone else in society to go along with it.

Again, I'm not trying to personally attack you or your friends. We can fundamentally disagree on this, I hope, and still remain cordial here!

"I hope, and still remain cordial here!"  

So far, you've called transgender people or their identity: pernicious, delusional, confused, and suffering of some form of an affliction.

[CPK]

2 minutes ago, Kaleun96 said:

"I hope, and still remain cordial here!"  

So far, you've called transgender people or their identity: pernicious, delusional, confused, and suffering of some form of an affliction.

I'm not particularly interested in continuing this - but to correct your statement: it is the ideology which I have called pernicious. As for the individuals - delusional, confused, and suffering? Of course they are, and they should be given all the compassion and help possible. I have already stated what I think is and isn't helpful.

[AETHER]

 

Let's end this thread, we all have our views, but I'm here for hobby, my escape, let's talk coins instead.  

[GregH]

9 hours ago, Roman Collector said:

I was going to say the same exact thing! Here's my provincial.

The listing for this exact coin in Lindgren:

 

 

 

Awesome coin! And here's mine:

Denomination: 10 Assaria
Mint: Cilicia, Flaviopolis-Flavias

Obverse: Draped bust right, wearing stephane

Reverse: Tyche (Fortuna) seated left on rocks, holding grain ears.

[DonnaML]

@Restitutor, can you please lock this thread already so nobody has to read any more strange comments and uninformed opinions about issues that have nothing to do with numismatics? If I wanted to see that kind of thing, I'd sit in on a random legislative session in Florida, and watch them ban any discussions of Hadrian in AP World History. After all, students might learn that he had a boyfriend. And that Virtus used female pronouns. Mass "confusion" would ensue!

Edited November 24, 2023 by DonnaML

[John Conduitt]

Venerunt, viderunt, vicerunt. Said the Celt, unsure how the Emperor identified.

Edited November 24, 2023 by John Conduitt

[JohanTR]

Posted just now · Hidden - This content must be approved before it can be edited.

I don't post here often, and this may be my second or third post here, but I do remember the events at "the other place" that led up to the formation of this forum.

I left that site and never went back...hope I don't have to do that here.

https://www.numisforums.com/topic/980-forum-rules-faqs/

[Restitutor]

Hiding certain posts that veered off topic, both the off topic posts and the replies that quoted them to help ensure the off topic convos don’t continue. Let’s all try and keep the discussion on topic here, and respectful. My preference is always to not have to lock threads if possible, so let’s please keep things within the forum rules or I will have to. 

It also goes without saying that trans rights are human rights, and trans people are welcome on this forum and we shouldn’t create an unwelcoming environment for them.

Now with that said, to go on topic… as a member of the LGBT community this has been an interesting decision to say the least. The only evidence we have to consider that Elagabalus was trans comes from sources who hated him. Roman men were supposed to be “manly” (whatever that means) so the greatest insult a Roman senator could levy on someone is to make him as feminine as possible. Elagabalus loved the eastern style and made no qualms about it. He was a foreigner to the elite in Rome, refused to conform to their belief system, and had a relative who many believed could “play ball”, which ultimately led to his assassination. He was also a teen. Talk about an easy target to degrade! It feels… off, to label Elagabalus as trans when it was meant as a way to insult the emperor at the highest degree. It means we are validating the criticism of him, and supporting the senators who hated him, with no actual basis in fact. All we know for sure is he existed, he was born a male, he had male and female lovers, he was an emperor, and he was assassinated. If we remove the insults thrown at him, I don’t see enough evidence to call him anything other than bisexual. Just my 2 cents. 

[Tejas]

On 11/23/2023 at 4:13 PM, Heliodromus said:

It seems fundamentally silly to be applying 2023 gender/identity labels to a roman emperor from a time when ideas around sexuality were significantly different. It seems the only purpose can be modern politics - it does nothing to help understand Elagabalus as a man of his times.

 

Well said, my view entirely.

Interestingly, I was in London last week for a conference and visited the BM (for the first time in some years). I noticed that some of the exhibits now have lables saying something like "Of LGBTQ interest", for example at a bust of Antinoos. Maybe I'm getting too old for this, but I find this odd. First, the Romans had a very different attitude towards sexuality and sexual practices that cannot be linked to the modern LGBTQ movement, and second, why would people who identify as part of the LGBTQ community be particularly interested in history related to their sexual orientation? If that was the case, I guess all other exhibits should be labled "of interest to heterosexual people"? 

Edited November 26, 2023 by Tejas

[LaraKarbritz]

I'm just not so sure we should be taking Dio as the most reliable source as he was writing under Alexander, clearly trying to insult Elagabalus. And it's not like transgenderism as we understand it was a concept in Rome, making it a bit of a sweeping statement and just inaccurate! Even though there is no harm done, there is no doubt this modern label is inaccurate. 

[panzerman]

I will not comment/ instead post some of my Elagalabus coins!

[Tejas]

The aureus is breathtaking!

[panzerman]

4 hours ago, Tejas said:

The aureus is breathtaking!

Thank you!ef

That was my first aureus. Long story/ I won an FDC Trajan Decius / and  EF supberb Severus Alexander aurei. CNG sent them to me via reg. mail. They went MIA/ so I left the $$$ with CNG for next Triton (2)

I ended up sending my prebids via mail/ 7K on the Elagalabus (which was opening bid) and 2K on a FDC Constantius AV Solidus Siscia (2 known)

A letter arrived 10 days after auction/ with invoice! So I was very happy. That Triton I  shipment/ so far (touch wood) that got stolen/ probably our customs. The tracking paper trail ended at Canadian border..

In meantime I added both Severus Alexander and Trajan Decius (thanks too Harlan Burke/ ROMA Auction.)

John