Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the museum and study the history of ancient Rome, this happens. In the formerly Great Britain, the North Hertfordshire Museum has pronounced the Roman Emperor Elagabulus, who was Emperor from 218AD to 222AD, as a transgender woman. This was based, of course, on the claims of the Roman chronicler Cassius Dio, who served the next Emperor Severus Alexander, who had the 18-year-old Elagabalus assassinated. Sound like a conflict of interest to you?
The North Hertfordshire Museum claimed that Elagabalus, who ruled from 218 AD until his assassination at the age of 18 in 222 AD, asked to be called “lady.”
According to the museum’s policy, pronouns used in displays will be those “the individual in question might have used themselves” or whatever pronoun “in retrospect, is appropriate.”
The Daily Telegraph reported that the museum in Hitchin, England, which has a coin minted during Elagabalus’ rule, consulted LGBT charity Stonewall and the LGBT wing of the trade union Unison so that their “…displays, publicity, and talks are as up-to-date and inclusive as possible”.
The update was made due to the account of Cassius Dio, a Roman chronicler from the same period, who claimed Elagabalus was “termed wife, mistress and queen” and told one lover “Call me not Lord, for I am a Lady.”
Yeah, that's pretty thin. Especially when you consider who Cassius Dio was and who he worked for. (Disclaimer: Dio also wrote a lot of very telling commentary on the lives and times of Romans in the Empire; it's worth reading if you're interested in ancient Rome.)
Cambridge classics professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill said: “The Romans didn’t have our idea of ‘trans’ as a category, but they used accusations of sexual behaviour ‘as a woman’ as one of the worst insults against men.”
He added that because Elagabalus was Syrian, not Roman, “there’s racial prejudice going on there too.”
University of Manchester classicist professor Christian Laes said that the chronicles of the emperor’s life should be taken with “a huge pinch of salt.”
I would argue that the claims made about Elagabalus should be taken with a truckload of salt. Granted, Elagabalus was a bit of an eccentric, but that's hardly unusual in the history of an empire that gave the world the likes of Nero and Caligula. He also was very likely primarily interested in the intimate company of other men, but that doesn't necessarily make him "transgender," just gay, or possibly bisexual. It's important to bear in mind that the portrayal of a Roman man as having feminine characteristics was a deadly insult in ancient Rome, having been one of the nastier insults hurled at Mark Antony by Marcus Tullius Cicero in his Philippicae speeches.
The point here is that it's impossible to know. The contemporary accounts are likely intended to justify Elagabalus' assassination, too much time has passed, and considering the attitudes of Roman society at that time, it's very likely that Elagabalus' proclivities were, at least, exaggerated. I've done a lot of personal research into ancient Rome, mostly into the late Republic but some into the Empire as well, partly as research for a fiction series and partly just out of personal interest. Personal insults, especially maligning a political or personal enemy with accusations of sexual deviancy, were certainly common; to me, this seems like another example of that.
It's all too common to judge people in the past by today's standards. And today's standards can be pretty strange. But here's the thing about this case: The North Hertfordshire Museum is not really judging this history by the evidence. This speculation, for speculation is all it is, is not evidence-driven but agenda-driven; the Museum wanted to throw a bone to the "transgender" community (as a note, the first people they consulted were LGBT activist organizations) and is using some flimsy evidence surrounded by a boatload of guesswork and justification.
That's not how history is supposed to be done. This is not history. This is propaganda.
