Vulgar History - Rome's Horny Trans Teen Emperor, Elagabalus

00:00:00.000 Hello, and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast. My name is

00:00:13.780 Anne Foster, and this is a special bonus episode. I had recorded this a bit ago. I'd scheduled

00:00:19.800 to release this in a couple of weeks, but suddenly everyone on the internet is talking 0.99

00:00:23.340 about the goddamn Roman Empire. And I'm like, I have an episode about this. It's so timely. 0.86

00:00:28.320 everyone's thinking about this. And I love that I'm releasing this right now because the context

00:00:32.860 of this whole internet discussion about the Roman Empire, in case you're listening to this

00:00:36.340 months or years from now, is very much about sort of like cis straight men and sort of the ideals of

00:00:43.120 this like really patriarchal or how it's seen as this patriarchal, really like macho, manly time

00:00:49.660 and people are hearkening back to it or whatever. And this episode is about a part of the Roman

00:00:55.520 empire that people who are into the Roman empire may not know about. And I have such a special

00:01:01.480 guest for this episode as well. It's Kit Haim, who last year, I think I had them on to talk

00:01:07.520 about their book before we were trans, which is a history of trans people and history and just

00:01:12.340 gender and history. And I had such a good time talking with Kit. Honestly, ever since then,

00:01:16.300 I've been like trying to think of a way I've just been keeping my eyes peeled for a story or a person

00:01:20.760 to profile where I could invite Kit back on the podcast. And so this all lined up really nicely

00:01:26.820 because I came across information about this person whose podcast is about, who we call

00:01:32.460 Elagabalus, also known as Heliogabalus, potentially named Sextus Varius Avetus Bassianus. This person

00:01:41.200 became emperor as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, various names. Anyway, and this is part of where

00:01:47.160 I was intrigued because I started reading about Elagabalus and there's, we're going to get into

00:01:52.960 it, a lot of gender stuff, a lot of non-binary or is it trans or like what's going on with the

00:01:59.340 gender stuff, but there's not really any writing that really is trans affirming about this person.

00:02:04.760 So when I started reading about them, I messaged Kit just to say, hey, have you read about this?

00:02:08.940 Can you recommend sources? And Kit was like, there's kind of not really, they weren't aware

00:02:13.760 at that time of any trans-affirming writing about Elagabalus. And so I thought, well, this is a

00:02:18.720 great opportunity for the podcast. So what I prepared for this conversation you're about to

00:02:23.580 hear was sort of biographical notes based on the various biographies that exist, which are all

00:02:29.840 binary and treat Elagabalus as male, pronouns are male. But I wanted to see how does Kit engage in

00:02:38.020 their work with this sort of story? Like Kit, if you didn't hear the previous episode already,

00:02:42.500 or if you just need a refresher, Dr. Kit Hamm is a leads-based freelance writer, heritage

00:02:47.520 practitioner, trans awareness trainer, and academic. So Kit has published, well, obviously

00:02:52.760 that book before we were trans, but also articles and things. And this is what they do is kind of

00:02:57.600 look at these stories of people and find, just really investigate them in sort of an academic

00:03:03.140 way. So I was really curious to see how does Kit do this work? How do they approach a story like

00:03:09.020 this and to treat Elagabalus with, you know, respect and individuality and just sort of

00:03:15.000 considering that every single source is, every source about everybody in history is always

00:03:20.080 biased. But these are like, we'll talk about it, incredibly biased. And anyway, we're all talking

00:03:26.960 about the Roman Empire this week. And so I'm releasing this episode early because it's timely

00:03:31.080 and I'm really excited for you to all hear it. So here's my chat with Dr. Kit Haim about Elagabalus.

00:03:39.020 so i'm joined today by returning guest dr kit ham welcome back kit hi thank you so much for

00:03:52.260 having me it's a total delight to be back with you i wanted to tell you as well that i i've been

00:03:57.560 secretly trying to think of a person who i could invite you back to talk about but also a while

00:04:02.920 ago i did a just a casual poll on my instagram stories asking the listeners who would you like

00:04:08.060 to have on the show again. And your name came up a lot. So that is incredibly lovely news. Thank

00:04:13.580 you, listeners. Hello. Really nice to be chatting with you. And yeah, delighted to be talking about

00:04:19.240 the person we're talking about today. So we're talking about Elagabalus, who was briefly emperor

00:04:26.400 of Rome, got a really weird reputation. I don't know, I'm saying weird reputation just because

00:04:33.080 it's hard to understand what people are even saying this person was like and what they did.

00:04:38.060 So why I've invited you on is because of the trans element of this narrative.

00:04:44.220 And I'm using that term in kind of the broadest possible umbrella, because as we're going to discuss, what was this person's identity? 0.73

00:04:51.380 The challenge is that we don't know because Elagabalists did not leave any written records of their own thoughts, right? 0.52

00:04:59.300 Exactly. Yeah. And so we have this weird tension between not knowing anything at all about what was going on in Elagabalists' actual head 1.00

00:05:07.500 but as i guess we'll go on to talk about all of the sources pointing to really interesting

00:05:13.280 gender non-conformity which has meant that for loads of trans people today elagabalus feels like

00:05:18.780 an incredibly important ancestor and yet we have no access to what was actually going on in their

00:05:24.460 mind or with their gender or their sexuality or anything and that's where it's it's interesting

00:05:29.320 as well so well first of all like we're gonna use they them pronouns um and i for me when i

00:05:36.640 was preparing these notes i was thinking the same way as in your book um before we were trans where

00:05:40.920 you kind of explain can you explain they them pronouns to use that when you just don't know

00:05:44.840 what to how to assign a person yeah so so in before we were trans i used they them pronouns

00:05:50.900 for anyone unless we have really clear first person evidence of them stating a different

00:05:54.740 identity and that's basically to preserve multiple possibilities it's like how we use

00:06:00.240 they them in a kind of passively gender neutral way to talk about anyone who's gender we don't

00:06:05.460 know um and i think that really really applies to elagabalus um perhaps even more than most people

00:06:11.680 in the past for reasons that we'll kind of get into um so they then definitely feels like the

00:06:16.640 right choice for talking about this particular bigger definitely this is the first podcast i've

00:06:21.220 done where the person i'm talking about i'm applying they them pronouns to them um and it's

00:06:27.020 every source i was looking at uses he him basically so if i if i mess up that's because

00:06:33.120 I probably copy pasted something and forgot to change the pronouns in it. So yeah, so Elagabalus,

00:06:38.240 I just wanted to mention first, the sources that I looked at in researching this. So I listened to

00:06:43.800 a couple other podcasts. There's the Emperors of Rome podcast, which is a podcast, they just go

00:06:49.100 every episode is a different emperor of Rome, and they're going person by person, which is

00:06:52.680 very useful for me, because it's a very casual, fun podcast. But in this one, the host had an

00:06:58.200 academic guest who is explaining a bit more about this history. So the Emperors of Rome podcast,

00:07:03.840 I listened to the Totalus Rankium podcast, which is another one where they go through all the

00:07:07.880 emperors and then rank them. History is Gay podcast had an episode about Elagabalus where

00:07:12.440 interestingly, they used she, her pronouns. That's the only source that I found that did that.

00:07:17.260 And then also an article by Alexis Mijatovak. I looked at Livius.org and the Italian Art Society

00:07:24.580 blog but my main source was harry sidebottom's biography the mad emperor helio gabalis and the

00:07:31.380 decadence of rome um and i'm going to link all the sources in the notes and kit if you have other

00:07:36.860 sources you wanted to add you can let me know as well and i can add those but do you have anything

00:07:40.400 else you wanted to especially mention that you looked at the other source i read was in another

00:07:46.120 recent biography by martin x um which is called the crimes of elagabalus quite notable i think

00:07:52.800 those two recent biographies we get the mad emperor or we get the crimes of elagabalus and i think

00:07:58.060 that tells us quite a lot about the reputation we've been left with well and then also just

00:08:02.200 i'm curious how much um research have you done in your research life into ancient rome in general

00:08:09.200 because i have not done much so this is a bit of a crash course for me yeah it's fully not my

00:08:13.880 specialism either um you know i i am an early modern historian by um by specialism um so it

00:08:21.600 was really interesting not only reading um these biographies of elagabalus but also figuring out

00:08:26.600 the ways in which ancient rome understood gender and sexuality um and actually there are some

00:08:33.360 things in common with early modern europe which is quite interesting in itself but um it's yeah

00:08:38.140 it's been um a learning experience um for me as well for sure yeah my experience of ancient rome

00:08:46.020 i did i've done an episode about agrippina and i've done an episode about cleopatra and i've

00:08:50.580 watched i claudius so previously all i knew about ancient rome was really that julio claudian era

00:08:57.220 and this is this is later on this is quite a while later on but i did have a sense that ancient rome

00:09:03.440 and there's stuff in this story that it's like oh yeah this reminds me of i claudius this reminds

00:09:07.480 me of agrippine there's just a it's a especially among the imperial household there's a lot of

00:09:13.280 casual murder like there's just a lot of that's kind of the vibe so it's not like elagabalus came

00:09:18.820 man and was doing stuff that no one else was doing it's like no this is kind of expected if

00:09:22.340 you usurp power you're going to murder the people who didn't side with you that's just kind of what

00:09:27.300 everyone did right that's my understanding yeah that seems legit and i think also like

00:09:32.920 the weird thing about reading when you go back to the primary sources which i did a bit of um

00:09:37.120 for thinking about elagabalus when you go back to those you find that those authors are also like

00:09:42.480 lifting stuff from accounts of earlier mythical emperors and then just being like and elagabalus

00:09:47.140 did this too i was like so it's no wonder it feels familiar if you've read earlier sources

00:09:53.080 because like some of it's just verbatim stuff from earlier sources that they've decided to

00:09:57.620 apply to this um figure whose story they're semi-telling semi-inventing yeah exactly so

00:10:04.460 that's something else i wanted to talk about right off the top which is um the primary sources if we

00:10:10.800 can call it that so the one that is actually from Elagabalus timeline is Cassius Dio who wrote a

00:10:18.000 history of Rome and Cassius Dio actually knew Elagabalus worked in their imperial household

00:10:24.640 and also for some previous emperors so but then as I understand it Cassius Dio after Elagabalus's

00:10:30.700 reign ended with their assassination spoiler Cassius Dio was really desperate to be like I

00:10:37.400 was not a part of this i did not approve of this like just to really so that's the one thing we

00:10:43.100 have from elagabalus's lifetime is written by a person who's desperate to be like that's not

00:10:47.300 i didn't support any of this yeah and also very confusingly to really adhere to the um

00:10:54.000 kind of damnation memoriae or damnation of memory that came in for elagabalus after their death

00:11:00.620 which was like they were effaced from all legal records and all portraits and all statues and so

00:11:05.580 at no point in Cassius Dio's account of Elagabalus's name does he actually call them Elagabalus

00:11:11.420 because he's always like alluding to them by some weird other name in order to adhere to this

00:11:16.080 prohibition on talking about them so it makes it an even more difficult source to kind of get

00:11:20.140 through for that reason oh yeah and let's talk about that as well what was it called the thing

00:11:24.320 where they after Elagabalus again rain ended badly very brief assassinated spoiler what's it called

00:11:32.400 the damnation memoriae damnation memoriae and what does that entail um so that means you are

00:11:39.640 legally effaced from history so um your names are faced from documents um statues and portraits

00:11:47.000 are destroyed and it is forbidden to talk about the fact that you happened so there's this real

00:11:54.200 block on writing effective histories um of alagabalus's reign from the moment of their

00:12:01.320 assassination basically. Well and that's interesting because I was reading other people

00:12:04.960 who were quoting from Cassius Dio. I didn't look at Cassius Dio so I didn't realize that the name

00:12:09.200 is never mentioned but I guess that's a loophole they had to work around. Yeah they call him

00:12:14.700 mostly Dio calls Elagabalus Sardanapalus which is like an earlier semi-mythical Assyrian king

00:12:20.760 so and that's where all a lot of the sort of resonances with older sources end up coming from.

00:12:27.000 So that was Cassius Dio, was alive at the same time. So that's the closest we have to somebody writing at the same time. Then we have writings of Herodian, who is a bit younger than Cassius Dio. So I don't think Herodian was around during Illigabalus' reign and relied, this is the thing, Cassius Dio wrote this and then mostly everybody else used that as their source.

00:12:50.540 But what's interesting to me about Herodian's writing is that Cassius Dio was a very wealthy, privileged member of Roman society.

00:12:58.160 Herodian was less wealthy and influential.

00:13:00.680 So his writing provides a bit of an alternative viewpoint, that of someone who's not really in the inner circle.

00:13:08.320 But again, it's drawing from Cassius Dio, I think.

00:13:11.700 Yeah, I think that's right.

00:13:13.240 And again, that means that the narratives follow each other really closely.

00:13:17.060 so for trying to figure out like what were the facts of the case that's very difficult because

00:13:21.220 of their reliance on each other and then the third ancient source is a thing called the augustan

00:13:26.880 history can you talk about the augustan history and how it's really just kind of like erotic fan

00:13:33.400 fiction basically yeah i was gonna say the augustan history is a brilliant work of historical fiction

00:13:38.960 um it's um a kind of series of biographers biographies of various emperors it's written

00:13:44.620 by one guy um about 200 years after Elagabalus um it is wildly sensational it's great fun to read

00:13:52.900 it's not primarily useful as like an actual historical source um but it has been really

00:13:59.520 influential in like forming some of Elagabalus's really really queer reputation and also just some

00:14:06.240 of like Elagabalus is kind of a out of control tyrant with I would say the author of the

00:14:13.500 augustan histories is what a creative person some of these stories are just like wow like there's

00:14:18.960 one that um there's a very famous painting of this actually and this comes from the augustan

00:14:22.820 histories which is elagabalus and the i forgot what the painting is called but anyway there's

00:14:27.600 this story in the augustan histories that elagabalus had a dinner party and somehow suspended

00:14:31.200 so many rose petals in the ceiling and then unleashed them and then all the guests drowned

00:14:37.260 in rose petals.

00:14:39.360 What a way to go.

00:14:42.640 And here's the thing, like with Elagabalus as well.

00:14:45.660 So what I did appreciate about the biography I did read, the hairy side bottom one, he

00:14:50.040 is saying like, this is from this source, this is from this source.

00:14:52.740 So I kind of, and he would say, this is why we trust this one, maybe a bit more than this

00:14:56.520 one.

00:14:57.180 And absolutely all of the wildest stories come from the Augustan history.

00:15:01.620 and those are so for me just trying to understand this story it's just like okay some of this has

00:15:09.820 to be true but some of this is clearly not true and it seems like the most sensational stories

00:15:14.860 are the ones that I'm the most dubious about really especially if they come from the Augustan

00:15:18.760 history yeah it means that I think we're talking about someone who has a really queer history but

00:15:25.500 did they have a queer present is much much harder that question is much harder to answer

00:15:31.620 Yeah. So then we're getting into the Syrian background of Elagabalus. So if we're looking at who their family was, I'm just going to talk about that for a minute. So Elagabalus was born probably around 204 CE in the Common Era.

00:15:49.120 So their father was named Sextus Verius Marcellus, who was a Roman aristocrat and politician from Syria.

00:15:56.720 And their mother was also from Syria, Julius Soamius.

00:16:00.900 She's one of three people called Julia in this story. 0.82

00:16:04.120 Kind of a triumvirate of really kind of interesting, powerful women all called Julia.

00:16:09.420 So anyway, so the family was Syrian.

00:16:12.600 What was the Syrian family doing in Rome in 204 Common Era?

00:16:17.000 So they were the in-laws of the emperor who was Caracalla.

00:16:21.440 Is that how you say that, by the way?

00:16:23.120 Do you know?

00:16:24.140 That's how I'd say it.

00:16:25.700 But I'm not an ancient Roman.

00:16:28.280 That's the thing, too. 0.77

00:16:29.100 We can't, they're not here to ask.

00:16:31.080 So Caracalla was the emperor when Elagabalus was born.

00:16:34.600 Caracalla was the son of the previous emperor, whose name is Septimius Severus,

00:16:39.560 which just is like a point of interest.

00:16:41.840 Septimius Severus was the first African-born Roman emperor.

00:16:45.520 so there is some discussion about like was he the first black emperor which like no but um

00:16:51.900 african born so septimius severus have been married to julia domna who's another one of

00:16:57.140 these julias so basically there's so many julias it was all very confusing to me but there's syrian

00:17:03.040 people and caracalla was the cousin of elagabalus their grandmothers were sisters of each other

00:17:09.940 And so all these Syrian nobles had been in Rome for something like 25 years because they were the in-laws of the imperial family. So the Syrian background becomes extremely important when we're talking about Elagabalus and everything, everything about them.

00:17:26.800 so yeah i'm gonna i'm not gonna get into the julias themselves these three women but just

00:17:31.780 know that they're really interesting and i'll probably do an episode about them some other day

00:17:35.940 but they were role models for elagabalus like that's who they were primarily raised by because

00:17:41.860 elagabalus's father died in 215 in 217 caracalla was assassinated and uh his prefect macrinus took

00:17:52.160 over as the new emperor and this is where i was like oh this is like i claudius this is just

00:17:56.320 or it's kind of like a bit of history of england in the sense of like the one king is killed and

00:18:03.300 then whoever killed him becomes the next king that's that's kind of what's happening here so

00:18:07.700 macrinus took over and in the wake of this basically this syrian family elagabalus and

00:18:14.000 all the julias um were cast out of power because um caracalla's mother julia domna had been

00:18:21.520 trying to scheme against macrinus was found out about that and so all the julias and

00:18:26.080 Elagabalus and their family were sent kind of back to Syria. And right away, Julia Mesa,

00:18:34.220 who was Elagabalus's grandmother, was just started scheming, like, how can we get back in power? How

00:18:38.820 can we, the Syrian family, get back in power in the Roman Empire? And you can't just, I don't know,

00:18:43.680 I guess if you kill the emperor, then you can proclaim yourself emperor, but you need people

00:18:47.800 to also support you at the same time, unless for some reason you are the genetic son of the emperor.

00:18:55.260 So Julia Mesa was like, hey, guess what? It turns out Elagabalus' father was Caracalla. Surprise.

00:19:02.640 guys. Well, and I think part of this is that Elagabalus resembled Caracalla. And Caracalla

00:19:08.820 had been very popular, especially among the soldiers. So it was kind of easy to get people

00:19:12.760 to support them because they liked Caracalla. Elagabalus resembled Caracalla. And so rumors

00:19:20.820 started being spread by their grandmother that Elagabalus was secretly the son of the recently

00:19:28.240 assassinated emperor. It makes the family tree really complicated and I won't get into it because

00:19:32.980 Caracelo is actually their cousin and all this stuff. But numerous battles ensued. Macrinus

00:19:40.380 ended up dying by suicide and then 14-year-old Elagabalus was named emperor of Rome. I just

00:19:47.460 skipped over half of Harry Sidebottom's book because he really gets into a lot of battle

00:19:53.720 history do you have anything to add about that i was gonna say one of my favorite aspects of

00:19:58.400 this story is the story that elagabalus basically became emperor because they were hot so it sounds

00:20:03.920 like the soldiers kind of went to the temple where elagabalus was working in syria and were like let's

00:20:09.000 check out this potential heir and then everyone was kind of awestruck by how hot elagabalus was

00:20:16.380 and watched them dancing and was like yeah this person can be emperor and like claimed they were

00:20:22.140 coming kept coming back to this temple just to you know be involved in the religious rights or to

00:20:27.900 um for political reasons but actually as Herodian says um they were just coming to watch this really

00:20:34.300 really hot teenager well and that's the thing so after the the family was sent back to Emesa which

00:20:40.060 was the place in Syria they were from so there was this temple the temple to um Elagabal so

00:20:47.880 which is the name of the god so Elagabal is that's a name that was applied to this person

00:20:52.040 later on. In their lifetime, they had various Roman names. So there's this temple of Elagabal

00:20:57.860 in Amasa. And so Elagabal is this family. They were descended from priest kings of this area.

00:21:06.760 And then when that place was taken over by the Roman empire, then they retained their power by

00:21:12.700 just remaining the priest family, the people in charge of this temple. So Elagabalus was named

00:21:17.760 the head priest in Syria, which is why they were the one doing the dancing, which is why

00:21:22.580 that's who you would see doing this stuff. And which is why Elagabalus, like of all the facts

00:21:28.920 that I've learned about this person, like clearly they were really devoted to this God and to this

00:21:36.680 religion. And so the religion, the worship of Elagabal was, I don't know, can you explain the

00:21:44.520 the statue there's this big statue that represents the god yeah so like elagabal is a sun god um

00:21:51.940 that's why if you've heard elagabalus referred to as like heliogabalus helio meaning sun in greek

00:21:57.500 like that's where that comes from um and yeah is represented on earth by a kind of big scary dark

00:22:04.840 obelisk um which um like you were saying it sounds like whatever you want to say about what we do or

00:22:14.360 don't know about Elagabalus one thing it seems really clear is that they were genuinely devoted

00:22:19.240 to this religion um that they'd been brought up as a child priest to become head priest of this

00:22:24.540 temple and that they saw being the emperor of Rome as like a really key opportunity to kind of

00:22:30.760 import this religion um to Rome and win more worshippers of this sun god and um yeah as we've

00:22:38.920 been kind of alluding to unfortunately did not work out so well well and this is i don't we're

00:22:44.520 going to talk about this story i don't know if i'm skipping ahead or not but it reading about

00:22:48.900 elagabalus and the devotion to elagabal and then being named emperor and saying like guess what

00:22:53.520 rome like this is this is the new main god they weren't trying to impose monotheism they weren't

00:22:58.560 saying like your other gods don't matter but they were saying this is now the number one god like

00:23:02.220 jupiter is now a step down elagabal is the main one and i'm like how did you think this was gonna

00:23:06.800 to end it's ancient rome like how like two emperors were just recently assassinated so

00:23:13.360 all i can think is that if they were so devoted and had such a belief in this god they felt the

00:23:17.580 god wanted this and would protect them maybe and also i think just being 14 like i didn't make

00:23:24.440 very good choices when i was 14 you know which is a really crucial point as well this is the youngest

00:23:31.220 to that point, it was the youngest ever emperor assigned. Previously, the youngest ever emperor

00:23:37.380 was Nero, who had been 16 when he was named emperor. So this is, it's unusual for Rome to

00:23:42.740 have somebody this young. And I think to Elagabalus' credit, like they were clearly had a point of view

00:23:49.200 and they weren't just the puppet of the grandmother as much as the grandmother had thought that was

00:23:53.940 going to be what happened. Elagabalus came in with a real point of view. So exactly. So Elagabalus'

00:23:59.240 this whole thing, wasn't saying like, it's not like, who is that ancient Egyptian Akhenaten who

00:24:05.020 came in and said, hey, guess what? Your religion is garbage. We're all going to worship the sun 1.00

00:24:09.700 now. Like that wasn't, El Gabelos wasn't coming in and dismissing the previous religion. They

00:24:14.560 were just coming in and saying, here's this God who is now the head God. The other gods are still

00:24:19.160 there, but this is the most important one. And this is where we're going to talk a bit more about

00:24:23.880 syrian culture and anti-syrian racism in rome can you can you introduce that topic

00:24:32.520 so it's basically impossible to kind of read and interpret all these primary sources that we do

00:24:38.060 have of elagabalus's reign without realizing how racist they are um you can't read them

00:24:45.480 properly without kind of understanding that they are all coming from what the ancient romans would

00:24:51.320 have called an anti-oriental perspective um and it is a really similar perspective to be honest

00:24:57.660 to like anti-asian racism today to what we call orientalism today so this is this association of

00:25:03.060 people from um east of the roman empire and especially actually from syria um with effeminacy

00:25:10.080 with sexual transgression with not being a proper man um with also like the kind of fashions and the

00:25:17.000 kind of fabrics that were associated with syrian culture were seen again as insufficiently manly

00:25:22.880 in roman culture so when anyone says anything about elagabalus is kind of gender transgressions 0.85

00:25:28.980 or sexual transgressions they may well be telling the truth but if they are that's partly because

00:25:35.540 of the way they're interpreting syrian dress and if they're not if they're exaggerating it it's

00:25:40.300 because that's coming from a racist place right so it's something about and i mean to me not knowing

00:25:46.620 a lot about ancient roman history again having watched i claudius but they were wearing togas

00:25:51.400 like which to me looks like a kind of gown or kind of dress but elagabalus the syrian robes

00:25:57.140 were somehow to them men in togas they thought oh that's too effeminate that robe where it's all

00:26:03.940 just robes i know like everyone in the story is wearing dresses but you got to wear the manly

00:26:08.400 dress so that's where i really want to talk about this the the religious stuff because well it's

00:26:16.080 all tied up with each other. But I guess even Caracalla, who had been the emperor for a couple

00:26:21.360 years, was half Syrian. And so while people were saying like, oh, yeah, he was beloved by the

00:26:29.280 soldiers or whatever, but it's still kind of like, but he's half Syrian. So that was just kind of

00:26:32.640 like, like there was this racism against him. Yeah. So part of, like you mentioned that people,

00:26:40.040 the prejudices against Syrians specifically were that they were effeminate, they were cowardly, 1.00

00:26:45.000 They're prone to weird god worshipping. They're also cunning and treacherous. So it's again, it's like a lot of things that are, it's so similar to the way that people talk about other cultural groups today, really. So El Gabos came in just kind of like in this kind of rush of people were excited because they thought this is the son of Caracalla. People kind of didn't like how Macrinus had elevated himself. I think he was like a lawyer or something and they didn't like that. 1.00

00:27:12.280 so they're just kind of like okay this person's great but also they're syrians so like oh this 0.55

00:27:16.580 person's gonna probably be weird there's also some in elagabalus ancestry some phoenician

00:27:22.960 background the romans were also racist about the phoenicians notably the phoenicians were thought

00:27:28.500 of as especially cruel because i guess in the distant past part of their religious ceremony

00:27:34.200 had been sacrificing their own children which is a claim that is cast about elagabalus by some

00:27:40.620 people. The Phoenicians were also thought to be sexually deviant, which in this case means oral 0.90

00:27:45.880 sex performing people. So saying all of that stuff, and then when you look at the writings 0.99

00:27:52.420 about Elagabalus, you're like, oh, okay, check, check, check. Everything we just said that is

00:27:56.700 a stereotype against Syrian and Phoenician people is what they're saying about Elagabalus. So that's 1.00

00:28:01.560 where it's like, for me, I'm just like, how do you wade through this to be like, what can we

00:28:07.760 take out of this? Because it could be somebody saw Elagabalus in these Syrian robes and thought,

00:28:13.020 oh my goodness, that's a man dressed as a woman, where it's really Elagabalus. It's just like,

00:28:18.020 I'm just a person wearing my Syrian outfit. So like what, without knowing Elagabalus' thoughts,

00:28:24.260 we don't, we just know how people were interpreting their behavior. And the grandmother

00:28:29.140 did, was concerned. Like Elagabalus hadn't been raised to become the emperor because it just kind

00:28:37.200 of Caracalla was assassinated, Macrinus took over, the family was cast out, and then their

00:28:42.440 grandmother started thinking, how can we figure this out? So then they looked at, okay, well,

00:28:46.960 how about this? The oldest grandchild had been raised as this priest of El Gabal, really devoted

00:28:52.020 to their cultural practices. So when the grandmother was trying to be like, what if you wear a manly 0.72

00:28:58.680 toga? What if you kind of calm down about worshiping this obelisk? El Gabal would not.

00:29:04.640 Like the religious fervor was very genuine.

00:29:10.340 So I don't know if this is true or not, but I like this.

00:29:14.380 I don't know.

00:29:15.040 Asterix.

00:29:15.460 I don't know if anything we're talking about is true, but I do like this as a detail that

00:29:19.360 the grandmother was like, you need to stop dressing like this.

00:29:22.160 You need to wear a manly toga.

00:29:23.660 And Elgabellus was like, well, what if I just send a portrait of myself to Rome wearing

00:29:28.480 this outfit?

00:29:29.180 So by the time I get there, they'll know to expect this and they won't be weird about

00:29:34.100 it.

00:29:34.640 Which, you know, that's kind of a nice compromise, I think.

00:29:39.200 It's quite sweet, isn't it? 1.00

00:29:40.660 Just like, we just need to introduce them to the fact that Syrian people dress in this way. 0.56

00:29:44.500 It's like, it shows a touching kind of trust in the people of Rome, which was totally not justified. 0.99

00:29:51.200 And that's the 14-year-old aspect as well, I think.

00:29:55.840 In some ways, this reminds me a bit of Lady Jane Grey, the story in English history,

00:30:01.700 who's just this young teenager who's so devoted to a religion, but incredibly sheltered and just

00:30:08.020 not realizing that everyone around them is so scheming. Yeah. And just ends up like losing

00:30:15.520 their life through the political machinations that someone decided to make them part of. Yeah.

00:30:19.680 Really similar. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like this is an Eligabalist did not have any ambition in

00:30:24.500 life that I can tell beyond just being the best head priest possible. So it did take, 1.00

00:30:31.320 this was also interesting to me, but I guess it makes sense, the distance that you have to travel

00:30:36.140 and if you're traveling via chariot. So it took something like two, like a year and a half,

00:30:40.580 two years for El Agabalus to actually arrive in Rome, but the empire was big. So like they were

00:30:44.940 the emperor, just not actually in Rome itself. And then there's a detail that also just in terms

00:30:50.480 of the devotion to the god. So El Gabalus brought the obelisk with them from Syria on its own

00:30:57.340 chariot. And by the time they actually arrived in Rome, there was a grand entry. And so the obelisk 0.99

00:31:03.420 was in a chariot and El Gabalus was running backwards. So they could be like facing the 0.51

00:31:10.120 statue as they entered the city, which is kind of a stunning image. Apparently there was people

00:31:15.400 with them holding their elbows so they wouldn't trip over anything but that is devotion to 0.88

00:31:21.860 certainly to something maybe slightly to looking stupid but no yeah like i'm joking it's um 0.80

00:31:26.720 it's pretty impressive it's pretty impressive but it's also just kind of like the grandmother i'm

00:31:32.760 sure was just like let's tone this down and elagapus was like or what about entering the

00:31:36.760 city with the obelisk running backwards like dressed in syrian robes like that's gonna go

00:31:42.200 over well. And even from the beginning, so they were emperor, not actually in Rome, but right away

00:31:47.680 they were being the emperor. And it was really clear that just they were not suited to this job.

00:31:53.400 This was not something that interested them because their main passion in life was doing

00:31:58.680 ceremonies to El Gabal rather than being the emperor of Rome. Yeah. And then also in terms

00:32:04.260 of the army thing, so I'd mentioned a couple of times Caracalla had been popular until he was

00:32:11.160 assassinated, or even afterwards, I guess, but because he was, he had been a soldier and the

00:32:16.000 soldiers got him. He would, there's a story about Caracalla. He was so busy sitting and talking with

00:32:20.420 the soldiers that the politicians, like he kept the door shut and the politicians couldn't come

00:32:24.500 and talk about him. So having the support of the soldiers was really, really, really important

00:32:29.380 in this setting. And although El Gabel resembled Caracalla, they were potentially as much as like

00:32:37.540 a pacifist, just not into being a soldier, not into wars at all. I mean, luckily, I guess at

00:32:44.860 this point, Rome wasn't actively engaged in war anyway. So Elagabalus wasn't called upon to like

00:32:50.340 lead a legion of soldiers, but just this. So yeah, just in terms of people were first maybe excited,

00:32:57.260 like, okay, this is the new emperor. It's going to be like Caracalla. And then it's like, oh no,

00:33:00.560 this person looks like Caracalla, but they're not that kind of soldier guy. And then of course,

00:33:05.180 So part of the job of being emperor was to have legitimate children, was to have specifically sons who would become the next emperors.

00:33:15.660 So Elagabalus had a series of marriages, two women.

00:33:21.660 So the first marriage was to Cornelia Paula, who was a woman from the most aristocratic family in Rome.

00:33:29.480 There was a hugely expensive wedding ceremony, festivity to celebrate this marriage.

00:33:35.180 Elagabalus clearly really spent a lot of money throwing parties and things like that, which was also kind of unpopular, especially because they had basically one marriage per year.

00:33:47.400 And so if you think about the cost of something like, again, it's in modern times, the cost of the King Charles's coronation that just happened.

00:33:54.260 Like if that was happening every year, that would become kind of unpopular and expensive.

00:34:00.020 so the first marriage was to cornelia paula and then this is where the second marriage

00:34:06.280 is where things i don't know i'm not going to say they get strange because they've been strange

00:34:11.620 all along they get really bad this is okay can you explain the position of a vestal virgin in

00:34:18.340 roman society just so people can understand how upsetting this was so if you're consecrated to

00:34:25.120 the goddess vesta you take a 30-year vow of celibacy um if you if anyone violates that vow

00:34:32.200 whether it is the vestal virgin herself or the other person involved in that um violation of

00:34:38.720 celibacy um the punishment is death this means that marrying a vestal virgin is not an ideal

00:34:45.520 thing to do. And that is what Alicabalus did. So they divorced Paula, which side note, I just

00:34:55.860 find it funny to have a person in ancient Rome called Paula to marry Julia Aquilia Sivara,

00:35:04.160 who was one of the Vessel Virgins. And so part of the reason, I mean, this is just everyone was

00:35:10.920 shocked and appalled by this because of what you just explained, the position of a Vestal Virgin.

00:35:16.560 Elagabalus was kind of coming at this from a point of view where they were also simultaneously

00:35:21.620 marrying the statue. I don't know if it's the god Elagabal or just like the obelisk to a goddess.

00:35:29.480 So it was sort of like a double marriage where like Elagabal, the god slash statue,

00:35:35.340 was being married to a statue of Juno from Carthage.

00:35:40.700 At the same time, Elagabalus was being married to a Vestal Virgin.

00:35:43.960 And this is maybe something about then their children would be godly.

00:35:47.660 So I don't know if it could have been like a ceremonial thing,

00:35:51.160 just like the head priest of this is marrying the head priestess of this.

00:35:54.840 But it was shocking. It was shocking to everyone.

00:35:58.160 And now we're just going to take a break for a word from our sponsors.

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00:38:32.560 and we're back yeah and it's kind of a symbolism of uniting the two religions in a exactly the way

00:38:42.560 that elegevillus really wanted to and that the people of rome were really kind of not up for

00:38:48.020 there's something kind of again lovely and somewhat 14 year old about being like well i'm

00:38:52.880 the head priest and she's a really important priestess and together we will have the most

00:38:57.160 divine children and it'll be lovely and that's kind of adorable and really really short-sighted

00:39:02.440 this was of of the various things that elicobalis did that we like this was one of the most shocking

00:39:12.960 upsetting things that they did to the people of rome and this is i think one of the things they

00:39:16.740 did that we know for sure happened. Like there's coinage showing Julia, Aquilia, Severa, like this

00:39:22.400 marriage did happen. So yeah, everyone is shocked and horrified by this. And eventually the marriage

00:39:27.660 ended in divorce in less than a year, which might've just been cultural pressure. I would

00:39:32.560 imagine just saying like, this is, you can't do this. You need to undo this and marry someone

00:39:38.420 who's not a vestal virgin. And so this, this section of my notes is just kind of stuff where

00:39:44.440 I'm like, I'm going to say a thing and you'll tell me what you think, if this, what you think

00:39:48.200 about it. So apparently like knowing the devotion to this religion, Elagabalus would, um, and again,

00:39:54.460 we don't know the rituals and rights of this religion. So all we have is just kind of like

00:39:58.740 a person who hated and mistrusted them explaining what their actions were. So presumably this was

00:40:05.360 part of the religious rites. So every morning, allegedly Elagabalus would appear in public clad

00:40:10.960 in the Syrian garb, the robes and jewelry. Apparently, they were the first and only Roman

00:40:16.100 emperor to dress in robes of pure Chinese silk. Makeup may have been involved, and they performed

00:40:22.320 sacrifices to their god with the help of priests under their rule. The Senate, like the most

00:40:29.960 important men, were obliged to be present to witness this. And then there's something about

00:40:35.240 the senators when they, I don't know, when the Senate met or something like that, they had to

00:40:38.960 take a, I don't know if it's kind of like the Pledge of Allegiance now in the United States,

00:40:42.160 but they had to say a pledge to the gods and they had to put El Gabel first in this pledge. So just

00:40:47.460 the religion was openly being practiced and everyone was being encouraged to practice it

00:40:54.740 to the extent that if you didn't, I think you probably would be executed. Thoughts?

00:41:00.420 So all the stuff about gender is obviously like, as a trans historian, the most fascinating

00:41:05.860 aspect of this for me um there's a lot in dio's text not just about the clothes but also about

00:41:11.360 like jewelry and makeup and removing body hair and at one point um supposedly someone comes in

00:41:17.760 and calls elagabalus lord and elagabalus says call me not lord but i am a lady so like really

00:41:23.920 you know clear articulations of gender um and like we've said there's this sort of feedback loop

00:41:29.960 between the racism and the gender non-conformity so like it's not clear whether it was like

00:41:35.860 Elagabalus is Syrian, so we are going to say that they were gender non-conforming, or whether it's

00:41:40.900 like, we've seen that Elagabalus is gender non-conforming, so we're going to be racist 0.59

00:41:44.440 about them, and then also draw on all of the stereotypes of Syrian-ness to, like, embellish

00:41:48.860 those stories. I mean, I think, given that in Roman culture, what we know about ideas of

00:41:55.460 masculinity were that you weren't just inherently masculine if you had, like, a particular type of

00:41:59.740 body. You kind of had to earn masculinity through your actions, and it seems really clear Elagabalus

00:42:05.020 was not earning masculinity through any of their actions um or they wouldn't have got that

00:42:10.520 reputation so that much i think we can know that they were not doing roman manhood correctly um

00:42:16.480 that this was someone who was seen by their society in a way that was not masculine despite

00:42:24.140 having a certain type of body which we would now associate with maleness and so in a way i think

00:42:30.600 that's where eligabalist is trans history comes from you know we don't know what was going on in

00:42:33.940 their heads but their story tells us that masculinity could be disassociated from this

00:42:39.940 particular type of body um and also that there were lots and lots of ways in which someone

00:42:46.760 could be understood as gender non-conforming in that period and that i think is why they have so

00:42:53.180 much resonance for trans people today which is important and an aspect of their history that like

00:42:57.160 yeah i really want to acknowledge and not just sweep over under the carpet i guess

00:43:02.380 yeah and this reminds me as well um so in your book before we were trans everybody should read

00:43:09.840 it you describe how the i don't know i'll just call like the umbrella of trans history it's

00:43:16.960 it's not just you know here's a person who was assigned a certain gender at birth and from an

00:43:22.240 early age they knew that they were a different kind of person and then began expressing that

00:43:25.960 in adulthood there's just a whole umbrella of gender non-conforming behavior so in terms of

00:43:31.500 Elagabalus the sources that I was looking at they're either saying like this was a man who

00:43:37.400 was behaving in this way some that one podcast was saying like they saw this as uh as a trans

00:43:42.920 woman in that sort of conventional narrative of of gender and sex not aligning initially but can

00:43:49.400 you explain about trans history is there's so much gray area there's so much there's so many

00:43:55.440 different ways can you talk about that yeah I mean the way I like to look at it is that

00:44:01.140 we're not really talking about trans people in the past unless that's how they describe themselves

00:44:05.400 because it's really important to me to um understand people on their own terms so i

00:44:10.000 wouldn't call ella gabbalist a trans woman because we don't know that that's how they would have

00:44:13.680 described themselves but i would say that we can describe their story as trans history because

00:44:19.540 that's any history that helps us to understand that gender has never been uncontested or fixed

00:44:26.060 or tied to a particular types of body um and elagabalus's story shows us that really really

00:44:32.260 clearly shows us that there is nothing new about thinking about gender as something we can disrupt

00:44:38.380 and challenge and um kind of untie from particular types of body um and regardless of what was going

00:44:48.040 on in elagabalus's head we know that their contemporaries including dio saw them in a way

00:44:53.740 that was not masculine um and in fact presented them as someone who wanted to be a woman the

00:45:00.560 thing we haven't mentioned is also the story about elagabalus um wanting what we would now

00:45:04.840 call gender reassignment surgery and what's i do find that really interesting um because

00:45:10.000 like i said a lot of the kind of aspects of dio's narrative um about elagabalus

00:45:17.900 them are you know you can read them as anti-syrian racism you can also read them as

00:45:24.580 just repeating these stories about this earlier mythical king sardanapalus um but the surgery

00:45:30.600 thing is new and doesn't get applied to anyone else and that is something that really makes me

00:45:39.420 think maybe there is something other than just prejudice and racism going on in these narratives

00:45:45.040 of gender nonconformity you know because otherwise where did that come from yeah and that was um

00:45:51.140 that was the part of the story where i was exactly what you just said where there's parts of this

00:45:57.660 story that also to me they're similar to narratives of caligula or nero or other sort of like quote

00:46:03.060 unquote scandalous non-conforming roman emperors but the thing about that that el gabalus tried to

00:46:12.020 get the physicians to find a way to, to give them gender reassignment surgery. Like that's 0.83

00:46:18.460 such a specific detail. And also I don't know what that is a specific detail that doesn't

00:46:25.220 reoccur anywhere else, but then also there's something about in this, could that have been

00:46:29.780 something misinterpreted by Dio about the ritual castration that might've been involved in this

00:46:35.000 religion? I don't know. Cause that's another thing. Like some of the, the religions, some

00:46:40.260 of the eastern religions of this time did have eunuchs were a part of it so i don't know what's

00:46:46.140 interesting about what dio says is explicitly specifies this was because elagabalus wanted to

00:46:52.420 be a woman and it was definitely not for religious reasons and of course that could be a way of just

00:46:56.660 kind of delegitimizing that desire and saying it's not noble in any way but dio does go you know go

00:47:03.360 to some lengths to specify that this isn't about religion this is about what's going on in elagabalus

00:47:07.780 his mind no and that's that's the detail that really jumps out at me about this story is is

00:47:14.880 and again like we're having dio saying this is what elagabalus said but like like you just said

00:47:19.820 and i really want to emphasize it's not so many of the other stories are kind of reused stories

00:47:24.300 about other people but nowhere else i don't think anyone else is said to have this desire so that's

00:47:30.820 really interesting yeah and i i do want to also just mention like i don't i don't want it this

00:47:36.100 isn't like genital talk but like the fact that elagabalus had was married several times several

00:47:41.960 different women and never conceived a child is also interesting and could speak to physiology

00:47:48.960 in some way perhaps yeah i think that's true or to the kind of sex that elagabalus wanted to have

00:47:54.680 because you know we also haven't talked about potentially all the men they thought were really

00:47:59.340 hot we're we're just getting into that part because elagabalus loved sporting events especially

00:48:05.220 chariot racing so they would drive in races themselves and during one of these races this

00:48:10.660 very hot guy called Heracles tumbled out of his chariot apparently in front of Elagabalus took

00:48:16.800 off the helmet and just in sort of like an anime sort of thing took off the helmet shook out this

00:48:21.400 long curly blonde hair and Elagabalus was apparently immediately smitten to the point that

00:48:29.100 allegedly they took Heracles as their husband and Heracles was elevated to a very influential

00:48:35.340 part in court. So this is similar to, you hear about royal favorites, you know, like

00:48:40.020 James I slash sixth of England and Scotland had male favorites and stuff. So this is where I'm

00:48:45.980 curious to know what your thoughts are about, because there's the gender stuff, there's the

00:48:49.180 trans stuff, but then there's also this kind of queer stuff where it's like, was Elagabalus

00:48:53.600 having relationships with men? And how do you kind of, what's the relationship of those two

00:48:58.360 aspects and how do you untie that from each other yeah i guess in roman culture you sort of don't

00:49:04.360 untie them from each other because um one of the aspects of doing manhood properly for romans is

00:49:10.460 not being penetrated right so penetration by a man means that you are gendered somewhat more

00:49:17.960 femininely so it's all sort of part and parcel of the same thing it's part of the anti-syrian

00:49:23.760 racism it's part of the gender non-conformity stuff it's part of the making poor political

00:49:29.600 decisions or you know using how hot your chariot racer is as a basis for promotion it's part of 0.56

00:49:37.480 that stuff too um and it's it's really really reminiscent of researching people like you said

00:49:42.940 like james the sixth and first or like edward the second in england um who i've done work on before

00:49:47.560 it's really reminiscent of all of those stories of like maybe if elagabalus had just you know

00:49:54.460 quietly slept with these guys and not given them important jobs maybe it would all have been fine

00:49:59.340 um but much like all of those people who came afterwards elagabalus did not make those decisions

00:50:05.500 and so it really really wasn't fine yeah well and this is again you know we're saying like they

00:50:10.000 were 14 when they became emperor at this point they're i don't know 15 maybe still extremely

00:50:14.640 young but to just be like oh my gosh I'm in love like it's it's it's a bit relatable in that way

00:50:20.420 where you're just like this is the coolest guy I've ever met he's so hot like just kind of really

00:50:25.260 getting swept away with this romance perhaps and again like let 14 year olds do that right

00:50:30.600 yeah no exactly and there's I guess the thing about like maybe marrying Heracles and then

00:50:36.900 this is interesting because El Geblos allegedly wanted to name them Caesar to make them sort of

00:50:43.560 their heir to make them kind of co-ruler. And that was shut down. So it's showing at this point,

00:50:48.580 Elagabalus did not have absolute power over everything. Like their grandmother and the

00:50:56.480 senators around like would not let that happen. So there was some limits to what they were able

00:51:01.620 to get away with. Okay. This part, I don't know if it's from the Augustine history or where it's

00:51:05.920 from, but this is a wild detail is that apparently Elagabalus was really interested in men with

00:51:11.960 large penises to the point that they assign agents to go out to the bathhouses to find 0.90

00:51:18.120 men with large penises and bring them back to them thoughts on that 0.96

00:51:22.600 i mean sounds like a really really 15 year old decision um yeah there's um it seems like a really 0.98

00:51:33.660 good example of if you want to make it clear that someone is not basing their political decisions on

00:51:40.760 like logic and scholarship what's the worst thing they could be basing their political decisions on

00:51:46.220 i know penises so it seems to me to be something that comes from that place while also again like

00:51:52.980 not being a detail that crops up in other people's reigns and so potentially based on something that 0.92

00:51:58.300 was actually observed as well yeah and so out of this hunt for large penises um another they find

00:52:05.360 this man called Aurelius Zodicus, who is an athlete from Smyrna. This was the person who 0.71

00:52:10.620 met Elagabalus and said, my lord, or something, which is where Elagabalus allegedly said,

00:52:15.080 call me not lord, for I am a lady. And then some, I don't even know, allegedly there's something

00:52:22.680 about Elagabalus liked to be caught by Heracles with other men so that Heracles would beat them,

00:52:29.400 proudly showing off the black eyes as signs of love. I don't even know. That could be true.

00:52:35.180 you know to each their own but like yeah maybe just kink yeah yeah but then it's like well 0.89

00:52:42.740 how would Cassius Dio know that but then it's like I guess everyone knows what the emperor 0.89

00:52:47.780 is up to and Elagabalus was not a private person so everything they were doing was very

00:52:52.180 people would know and I guess the emperor was never really left alone so there's always going 0.74

00:52:56.500 to be servants who see things Cassius Dio does write about Elagabalus had sex with women a lot

00:53:02.760 of women all the time, apparently conducted themselves in the most licentious fashion

00:53:07.640 is how Cassius Dio described it. But then went on to say that this was practice. So 0.98

00:53:13.500 Elagablos could figure out how to better have sex with men by practicing with women. So 1.00

00:53:19.040 there's just a lot of, this is where I'm really, I don't know. Okay. So if I'm looking at a

00:53:24.200 story about someone like Cleopatra, for instance, or even Mary, Queen of Scots, women who we

00:53:30.000 know of who had two monogamous relationships in a row and yet male historians are like she was a 0.98

00:53:36.180 slut she was having sex with everybody she was a nymphomaniac where it's like it's easy to be like 0.99

00:53:40.560 no that's just somebody slandering them like that's obviously someone just slandering them 1.00

00:53:44.880 but with this i'm just like were they having all this sex with all these people like i don't know 0.99

00:53:51.020 like is that slander like to have sex with women wouldn't be but i don't know there's a lot of sex

00:53:58.560 details in Cassius Dio's writings about Elagabalus yeah very much and it's yeah I don't want to be

00:54:07.080 like clearly this is slander clearly this 15 year old who suddenly had access to loads of power and

00:54:12.640 hot people was not taking advantage of it you know in a way that would be extremely understandable

00:54:17.400 and sensible and again it feels like what Cassius Dio was really angry about is that Elagabalus is

00:54:23.160 doing this stuff sort of instead of being a good emperor i think if they'd made some like sensible

00:54:29.140 emperor decisions and then gone off and had loads of sex that probably would have been okay yeah

00:54:34.540 you're right so it's that that element of it so it's not just it's the fact that they were 0.96

00:54:39.500 worshiping elagabal and or having sex with people apparently 24 hours a day to the exclusion of

00:54:46.800 being emperor. So then Cassius Dio writes that Elagabalus left the palace wearing a wig and went

00:54:55.300 to taverns and brothels, driving up the sex workers and taking their place and also equipped

00:54:59.760 a room in the palace as a brothel. He writes that Elagabalus wore makeup, a hairnet and worked with

00:55:05.240 wool as a woman would. Like this is again, just sort of the effeminacy, but the, um, the sex work 0.99

00:55:10.660 stuff like there's something about some religions at this time had ritual prostitution so there's

00:55:18.820 the option that maybe that's what Elgabalus was doing but like to go out and work as a sex worker

00:55:25.040 is not again it's not something that comes up in Caligula it's not something that comes up in Nero

00:55:29.480 like it said that they both went to the brothels but to actually go there and be a sex worker is a

00:55:34.580 different accusation yeah and it's kind of the ultimate in you know quote-unquote licentiousness

00:55:41.300 i guess isn't it that um someone would choose to make having sex and probably being penetrated

00:55:48.480 that's what's being implied here right it's like you are your clients are men um and that

00:55:53.920 is so there's it feels like there's an element of dio going what is the worst thing i could say

00:55:59.540 about this person but then also where did that come from given that as you say it's not something

00:56:05.400 that's been drawn from other um from accounts of other emperor's reigns in the same way as some of

00:56:10.160 the other details are it is something that's pretty unique and so again really hard to tell

00:56:16.640 whether it's what we might think of as slander or whether it's an accurate depiction maybe not

00:56:22.640 of elagabalus doing this for money but of elagabalus really devoting a lot of time and

00:56:28.620 kind of an investment to sex in a way that was not they weren't supposed to do and it's interesting

00:56:35.940 in um it's in the harry sidebottom book towards the end he's talking about you know cassie's dio

00:56:42.140 was obviously appalled by all of this and wrote this whole book or not this whole book but this

00:56:46.240 part of the book just being like look at this stuff that this horrible person did but the

00:56:51.200 average everyday people like did they care did they support it and harry sidebottom suggests

00:56:56.180 that maybe some people did. Maybe some people thought it was kind of cool to be the emperor

00:57:00.120 and just to be like really sexually liberated or whatever you would call it back then. So

00:57:05.720 the sex acts themselves were not necessarily what was shocking. It was the fact that they were not

00:57:12.900 also being the emperor, I guess. Yeah, I reckon that's exactly what's going on,

00:57:19.000 that we would have a really different narrative if we'd had a really effective emperor who also 0.98

00:57:23.940 happens to have a lot of sex. So Elgabalus, last time we talked about their marital status, 0.55

00:57:29.900 married the Vestal Virgin, that marriage was ended. So then they married somebody whose name

00:57:34.820 was Ania Aurelia Faustina, who was another aristocrat. She was already married to a man.

00:57:42.920 So that man was executed and then Elgabalus married her. And to me, that seems kind of par

00:57:49.040 for the course for ancient Rome marriage things. That to me is like the most normal part of this

00:57:54.620 story. But this marriage was also brief because Elagabalus divorced her and remarried Julia

00:58:01.040 Aquilia Severa, the Vestal Virgin again. So it's something like the reign was like three years long

00:58:09.660 or something and contained at least four marriages, potentially more. But I will also notice in terms

00:58:16.280 of like doing emperor stuff. So archaeologists have established El Gabalus was responsible for

00:58:21.040 a circuit for the creation, like building structures being made. So a circus to the east

00:58:25.660 of the city, and they were responsible for the finishing touches to the baths of Caracalla in

00:58:30.120 Rome. And in the gardens of the bathhouse, they built shops, an athletic track, sports fields,

00:58:35.840 gardens, massage rooms, saunas, two reading rooms, a hair salon, perfumeries, cafeterias,

00:58:40.600 music pavilions, and a museum, which sounds like a really great place to go spend the day.

00:58:46.280 So there was that sort of building of buildings was an important part about being Roman emperor,

00:58:50.860 and they did manage to do a bit of that. But again, like we mentioned to this several times,

00:58:57.340 but this reign is very short-lived. It was clear very early on, especially to his grandmother,

00:59:02.540 Julia Mesa, that this is not the way to restore their Syrian family to a great influential

00:59:10.320 position in Roman society because El Gabalus was not doing a very good job of being the emperor.

00:59:16.080 So she tried to think of what's a way that she could keep power. 0.96

00:59:19.620 Her family could keep their influence, but get rid of Elgabalus. 0.97

00:59:23.020 So I wanted to mention, too, just the role of women in Roman society at this time. 1.00

00:59:28.320 So women could not hold civic or military office. 0.87

00:59:31.320 She could not rule as empress in her own name, even though she was clearly, probably, fundamentally suited to that job, just based on her scheminess, her ambitions. 0.76

00:59:43.160 So her plan was to get her other grandson, Alexander, who is just a couple of years younger

00:59:49.400 than Elgabalus, named Elgabalus's heir and kind of co-emperor. And Alexander, because he was

00:59:56.840 younger and because the family had already been cast out when he was young, he had been kind of

01:00:00.420 groomed in this way, like raised to know how to be a good emperor in a way that Elgabalus was not.

01:00:06.640 so eventually like julia's plan was to have alexander named co-heir and then to 0.66

01:00:13.540 get el gabellus assassinated probably um so alexander could take over el gabellus didn't

01:00:20.140 know that that was the secret plan and so agreed to adopt their 12 year old cousin and this adoption

01:00:25.500 was done in the senate and this is like this is i tried to find some more details about this 0.97

01:00:30.160 because it interested me the role of women in the Senate during this era. So these three women, 1.00

01:00:36.480 all called Julia, were all really powerful and really smart and very influential over Ella 0.92

01:00:41.500 Gabalis. So he arrived at the Senate with his young cousin, as well as Julia Mesa, their mother,

01:00:47.640 Julia Suimas, who sat on either side of them. So women were not supposed to be allowed in the 1.00

01:00:54.280 Senate. This was not done. I did a whole episode with Agrippina where she hid behind some sort of 1.00

01:00:59.220 curtain just to listen in so she could have influence. So women were brought in. And in fact, 1.00

01:01:05.060 during this brief reign, women, basically women in their family, whose name was Julia,

01:01:10.920 were able to attend the Senate for the first time in Roman history. El Gabalus perhaps created a

01:01:16.300 Senate for women. And I think one of the Julias, maybe the mom, was named actually a senator. 0.96

01:01:23.220 Anyway, after El Gabalus' death, this women's Senate was one of the first measures to be revoked.

01:01:27.760 And the male senators vowed that no woman would ever enter the Senate's house again. 0.78

01:01:32.500 So I just thought that was interesting in terms of under the umbrella of gender nonconformity,

01:01:37.580 like Elagabalus viewing women as equal to men in this way that was very unconventional and unusual.

01:01:45.820 Which would potentially make sense if Elagabalus saw themselves as a woman or as, you know,

01:01:51.540 neither a man nor a woman, that they would have a more flexible perspective on gender, right?

01:01:55.580 No, exactly. And I, that's another thing that I find stands out to me in this story that they

01:02:00.060 were clearly not thinking in this binary way. Women are like this, men are like this.

01:02:05.280 Anyway, so they adopted Alexander. Um, this is the point. So they divorced the Vestal Virgin 0.95

01:02:12.580 again. Um, or maybe this is the first time the timeline is a bit, anyway, it's a very short

01:02:19.280 reign. There's a lot of marriages and divorces all happening, but so they kind of were playing

01:02:23.620 nice. They agreed to adopt Alexander, divorce the Vestal Virgin. But as time went by and Alexander

01:02:30.040 rapidly became more popular across Roman society, Elagabalus was like, wait, wait, wait, wait,

01:02:35.660 this is like, I see what happened here. And so plotted to have Alexander killed, but he was

01:02:41.120 outsmarted by the Julias who were mostly, except for his mother or their mother, supporting 0.99

01:02:46.560 Alexander. To the point that their grandmother, Julia Mesa, began claiming that it actually turns

01:02:52.420 out, wouldn't you know, Alexander was also secretly the son of Caracalla. What a coincidence.

01:02:59.520 So therefore, Alexander could rule his emperor himself without having to be connected to

01:03:03.660 Elagabalus. Elagabalus began to spread rumors that Alexander was dying. And when they made

01:03:09.400 public appearances, they wouldn't bring Alexander with them. But the public really liked Alexander

01:03:13.860 and they worried about Alexander. So there was a joint appearance made, Elagabalus and Alexander.

01:03:20.280 And I don't know if this happened sequentially right that day, but effectively what happened is the crowd was really happy to see Alexander. Elagabalus got upset in order that the crowd be punished. But instead, the soldiers rioted against the emperor and everyone who supported the emperor. Elagabalus' courtiers were killed. Elagabalus was assassinated, as was their mother. And then their bodies were dragged through the city and then thrown into the sewers.

01:03:46.660 and that was the brief reign of elagabalus i guess and it's really kind of sad because this

01:03:53.800 is just you know if you look at it one way this is a story of a teenager who was having

01:03:57.200 a totally fine life devoted to a religion that they've been raised in who was then plucked from

01:04:04.220 that made emperor tried to make it work made some decisions that like many 14 year olds would make

01:04:11.260 that weren't really in their best interests and but they were in the interests of the religion

01:04:15.400 they were devoted to and probably also in the interest of being excited about suddenly having

01:04:20.200 access to sex as a teenager had their family turn against them because they were no longer useful

01:04:25.940 and was murdered at the age of 18 that's pretty tragical told i think yeah and then you look at

01:04:33.060 the those biographies like the mad emperor the crimes of of of elicobalis like the the reputation

01:04:40.540 is so much focused on like that it was just this that they were this power mad tyrannical 0.97

01:04:47.840 sex obsessed weirdo where it's like what 16 year old is not a power mad tyrannical sex obsessed 0.91

01:04:54.980 weirdo that's yeah put anyone in that position at the age of 16 14 to 18 um you know the years 0.98

01:05:05.360 where they were actually in power and um and see what they do and only then judge elagabalus i

01:05:11.680 think i think so too i think so too so they were after their you described already the um after

01:05:18.560 their death so statues were taken down statues were some of them were chiseled off and redone

01:05:23.840 to have alexander's face and elagabalus's face name was chiseled off of inscriptions the coins

01:05:30.640 were melted down um they made new coins with alexander on them instead and immediately um

01:05:36.940 as part of this just so stories were spreading about what a horrible emperor they had been what

01:05:44.120 a tyrant they were so and this is partially and i don't know and we don't know but partially just

01:05:50.340 as part of this what what was it called the term that damnation memoriae so as part of that just

01:05:58.440 sort of stories about them being terrible were shared. But also it's like, well, maybe some

01:06:02.000 people had been secretly thinking they were terrible and now they felt safe to share those

01:06:05.700 stories. But how much of that is just racism, et cetera. And then it was 200 years later,

01:06:12.700 the Augustan history came out, which really came out with all these stories like drowning in rose

01:06:17.500 petals and there's stuff about like, I don't know, just weird things like that El Agabus would lock 0.81

01:06:24.400 an elephant and a tiger in a chapel and then would like throw testicles in there it's just

01:06:29.320 like weird weird stuff like a great work of fiction but just really just making el gabelle 0.89

01:06:35.500 as this complete unrelatable absolute monster yeah just how much scandalous stuff can we make

01:06:43.260 up and get away with and yeah that kind of develops later on into a really interestingly 0.86

01:06:49.540 queer reputation like by the 19th 20th century um queer people mostly men mostly gay like gay

01:06:55.660 queer men are kind of relating to elagabalus and then as we get into 20th 21st century trans people

01:07:03.420 are going this person asked people to make them a vagina in the roman empire that's pretty trans

01:07:10.480 um and so we have elagabalus going from being like totally ostracized and going from this 0.95

01:07:16.320 damnatio memoriae which by the way shout out to brilliant author ada palmer for teaching me like

01:07:21.800 how to say that and what that is um it's not something i just know because of ancient rome

01:07:26.360 it's something i know because of sci-fi um but um it um we go from that to actually queer

01:07:34.480 communities really finding elagabalus a kind of important ancestor um and that in a way for me is

01:07:42.620 like the happiest thing that comes out of this like it's a tragic story but then the fact that

01:07:47.160 so many people have found community in it later on is the kind of redemptive in some way well and

01:07:54.120 it's interesting too to see how that reputation developed you mentioned so in the 19th century

01:07:58.220 people it's like the decadent movement so people like oscar wilde and that sort of people like

01:08:02.960 they found i think the augustan history and they were just like oh this person is just like us you

01:08:06.980 know, just sort of like a person who's into just sort of living sensually, like a hedonist. And so

01:08:13.300 they, they related to that aspect of, of Eligabalus. And now, like you mentioned, I think

01:08:18.380 the stuff about Eligabalus wanting gender reassignment surgery becomes sort of, I don't

01:08:23.380 know. So, and this is part of what your work was, especially in your first book was it's not looking

01:08:29.400 at queer people from history is like, they're all heroes, but it's just kind of like, well,

01:08:33.800 they were there. And that's somewhat, that's just interesting. And that's important to know and to

01:08:38.900 acknowledge. Like El Cabela was a terrible emperor, but a tragic figure, just this kind of teenager 0.84

01:08:45.740 who didn't really know what they were doing. And that's, so I'm not here to be like, El Cabela is

01:08:50.780 like, yeah, greatest emperor in history, but an interesting and notable person. And I'm glad that

01:08:55.540 their story is being shared and found and appreciated. Yeah, a hundred percent. And the

01:09:02.180 for queer people now who are thinking you know was there anyone like me in the past that we have

01:09:09.220 these stories and these reputations which don't necessarily tell us that much about what was going

01:09:13.700 on in Elagapalus's head but do tell us about how they were seen and therefore do tell us that gender

01:09:19.560 and sexuality have always been so much more flexible than we think and that's important in

01:09:24.120 itself. I think so too yeah so even like Elagapalus's story is interesting and noteworthy

01:09:31.840 but also just the way that gender and sexuality have been understood throughout all of history,

01:09:37.280 I think is a really important thing to, for people to understand and to see. It's not just

01:09:42.980 like gender was invented in America in the 1950s. And it's like, no, like everything's always been 0.55

01:09:50.100 sort of fluid and flexible and interesting. And there's been gray areas like throughout all of

01:09:54.620 history. Like this is such an incredibly long time ago that 2000 years ago that this was happening.

01:10:00.360 And even then, Elagabellus proudly wore these robes that people in Rome thought were more effeminate and whatever. I don't know. I think it's really, really, really important to look at through all of history. It's not just been a binary experience.

01:10:18.460 Yeah, 100%. And if people take anything from Elagabellus' story, I think they should take that.

01:10:24.920 thank you so much for talking about this with me it was such a challenging thing for me to research

01:10:31.800 because there's so little known and the sources are so incredibly biased thank you so much for

01:10:39.640 having me it's been a really great opportunity to look at some weird weird roman texts and to

01:10:46.980 think about how we do tell the story of someone who's um inner thoughts we can't access and how

01:10:52.800 we talk about them as trans history while respecting the whole multiplicity of what

01:10:57.120 was going on for them and for the people who was writing their story. I've loved it. Thank you so

01:11:01.260 much. Can you tell everybody just about your book, which I think is just coming on paperback as well,

01:11:06.320 if they want to learn more about your work? I think that book is a great introduction to what

01:11:11.180 you've been, what you're doing, what you're about. Sure, thank you. So yeah, my book Before We Were

01:11:16.800 Trans, A New History of Gender, is a global history of gender nonconformity. Of all the

01:11:21.660 people who don't really fit into kind of modern and or western trans categories but who still

01:11:26.760 show us that gender has always been open to disruption and challenge and play and yeah just

01:11:32.180 came out in paperback in the uk and it's also out in north america and i think the paperback

01:11:36.300 um over there will be out next year um so do check it out if you'd like to and you have a website as

01:11:42.560 well i'm just thinking after people hear this episode they're going to want to know more about

01:11:46.000 you and see what you're up to so can you just share like your website and social media and

01:11:49.960 things so people can see what you're what you're thinking about lately sure so you can find my

01:11:54.360 website at kit hayham.com um find out about all the heritage and other stuff that i'm working

01:11:59.420 at the moment um and my twitter is at kr hayham that's fabulous thank you so so much for joining

01:12:05.580 me again for this wild ride honestly just what a story thanks so much for having me

01:12:11.720 so i'm joined by kit ham for a return appearance to wrap up the elagabalus episode because

01:12:19.920 i only realized i think it was only after i posted the episode someone said why didn't you score

01:12:24.420 elagabalus i was like i completely forgot i completely forgot that that's what i do so

01:12:29.820 kit thank you so much for taking the time to to go through this again elagabalus i mean

01:12:35.100 the first category is scandalousness which i mean i mean they they were literally murdered 0.52

01:12:43.900 for this gundaliciousness i i can't really off the top of my head think of many people

01:12:50.640 who you've covered on your podcast who would need to score higher than elagabalus i mean just the

01:12:56.960 highlights of it like i'm going to edit this on to the end of the episode itself but the you know

01:13:02.580 running backwards into this city trying to change the religion of rome to worship this obelisk

01:13:08.060 like volunteering at night to go work in brothels for fun um just call me not man for i am a lady 0.69

01:13:17.180 um all of the kind of brilliant teenage unconsciousness of how badly they were doing

01:13:28.120 emperor and how badly they were doing roman masculinity and um yeah as a result as you say

01:13:36.420 emperor for five minutes murdered pretty quickly literally their entire story erased from roman

01:13:44.880 history by law um they've got to be a 10 in scandalousness right if there was a higher

01:13:51.140 than 10 they would get that because even in the context of ancient rome which was a very

01:13:58.500 scandalous society people were murdering each other like all the time the fact that elagabalus

01:14:04.020 was like one step too far for them is yeah that's a lot i think that's it's a lot um so sort of like

01:14:13.720 the conversation just had about public universal friend though i don't know about scheminess for 0.86

01:14:17.580 i feel like they weren't coming in being like here's my five point plan to change roman religion

01:14:23.400 i think they were just like hey let's just do this let's just have a good time i think i don't

01:14:28.360 think there was much if they'd done any effective scheming they might not have crashed and burned

01:14:34.360 so spectacularly i like you know let's give them some credit they were a teenager they'd just been

01:14:39.840 like a really hot young priest and then were co-opted to be roman emperor um they didn't

01:14:46.460 really have a chance of the whole scheming thing i know yeah i think they get a pretty low score on

01:14:53.040 i mean the only scheminess points i would give them is if genetically they had inherited any

01:14:59.820 from their incredibly scheming mother um if there's like a dormant scheminess dna strand

01:15:05.740 that just never got to be activated if some of the mom scheming wore off on them i'm gonna say

01:15:11.640 one i'm gonna give them a one for scheminess because they did

01:15:17.180 for dna reasons um significance of elagabalus and i'm very curious to know how you see their

01:15:28.700 significance to for instance trans history yeah i think i mean they've got a really queer afterlife

01:15:34.560 they were seen as a um kind of important gay male figure for quite a while for a lot of people in

01:15:40.820 the 19th century they were really significant to like gay men's history and then um they've been

01:15:46.560 taken up um as a kind of a trans ancestor by lots of trans people subsequently um and are now really

01:15:54.100 important to lots of people because of that um so yeah i'd go pretty high in that respect um

01:16:01.380 as we talked about in the kind of main episode like most of what we know about them is reputation

01:16:07.880 rather than you know it's the is the mark they left on the society after their death rather than

01:16:13.940 necessarily anything from their perspective.

01:16:17.440 But because of that reputation,

01:16:18.980 they've become really significant

01:16:20.200 to queer history, I think.

01:16:21.780 More so than they are to Roman history, 0.99

01:16:23.540 arguably, given that they didn't really

01:16:24.840 get to do very much as emperor.

01:16:27.460 No, they're very much a footnote

01:16:30.280 in a longer saga of Roman history.

01:16:32.640 Yeah, their significance as Roman emperor

01:16:34.420 was like, just everyone was kind of

01:16:35.840 freaked out for two weeks

01:16:36.860 and then they killed them.

01:16:38.800 But I do feel like their significance,

01:16:40.700 and this is where, like,

01:16:41.540 I like to have my scoring skill

01:16:42.940 where people who are significant to this show

01:16:45.040 or like how we talk about people in the show

01:16:47.540 and their significance in a not to the mainstream academic way

01:16:54.000 that these figures have been looked at throughout history.

01:16:55.920 Like I think that the significance to queer history

01:16:57.880 and trans history is huge for Elagabalus, 1.00

01:17:01.620 this messy weirdo. 1.00

01:17:06.360 I want to say a 10 for significance as well. 1.00

01:17:09.900 just in terms of um like as a trans ancestor but also the importance of queer men but also there's

01:17:15.240 like the famous painting that one with the falling yeah yeah huge like cultural afterlife

01:17:21.820 exactly not there's been there were so many roman emperors who did not have

01:17:28.220 this renaissance of interest in the 19th century so um and then again the complex sexism bonus

01:17:37.680 yeah i kind of think sexism held elegabilis back quite a lot in that one of the major problems

01:17:45.740 with the people had with them was their inability to conform to roman styles of masculinity or

01:17:50.800 standards of masculinity which as we talked about in the main episode is partly a racism thing and

01:17:55.920 partly um about the association of syrian people with effeminacy and you know much as you were

01:18:04.480 talking about earlier um definitely sexism was not the only problem there was racism going on

01:18:09.920 there was um opposition to their religious beliefs going on but if there hadn't been so much

01:18:16.800 misogyny in their life i think they've had a better time yeah i do think and that's that's a

01:18:22.800 i love that interpretation of sexism because often when i'm looking at the story of like a cis woman

01:18:28.660 it's just kind of like well women in society couldn't do this and this and this but sexism

01:18:32.460 is not just anti-women's anti-femininity anti-feminacy which is what yeah like elagabalist 0.95

01:18:41.300 has yeah overlapping things that people were freaked out about but the gender presentation

01:18:48.140 i think was a huge one so how much is that i mean i could see elagabalist being a different

01:18:54.900 sort of teenager who maybe did conform to the masculinity might still have been assassinated

01:19:00.440 i think for religious reasons the whole trying to change the religion of rome thing is never

01:19:06.800 going to do well even if you're incredibly masculine but i'd go maybe like a seven or eight

01:19:10.540 yeah i'm gonna let's go with an eight so this gets them up to a 29 so let me just see who that

01:19:18.460 makes them neighbors with who you might be familiar with het shepson is 29 um a more

01:19:25.300 successful ruler but also someone whose memory was erased after their death interestingly

01:19:29.680 yeah and who also had some um the way the gender was presented was part of why their memory was

01:19:37.760 erased afterwards oh and you know who else is it has a 29 louisa may alcott oh hey all of the

01:19:43.280 yeah 29 is a popular score for for people outside the gender binary but thank you so much for for

01:19:54.020 joining me to to add that on so i'm gonna post this so people can can see where elagabalus fits

01:19:59.220 and on this scale.

01:20:00.080 And thank you again, Kit,

01:20:01.400 for joining me for another

01:20:02.580 excellent conversation.

01:20:03.760 Thanks so much for having me.

01:20:04.420 It's been a total joy as always.

01:20:08.880 So Kit mentioned there on Twitter,

01:20:11.980 this interview was recorded

01:20:13.620 a few months ago

01:20:14.560 prior to Twitter slash X

01:20:16.880 kind of imploding

01:20:18.360 and where Kit is now,

01:20:20.640 as well as potentially

01:20:21.560 maybe on Twitter sometimes,

01:20:22.800 is on Instagram at Kit Ham Writer.

01:20:25.840 So you can look them up there

01:20:27.000 to keep up with what they're doing.

01:20:28.540 actually currently on leave but anyway you can follow kit there and also they have a website

01:20:34.340 kitham.com and what a treat honestly like i love talking with kit i'm already like scheming ways to

01:20:41.660 like how can i bring them back on it's also i i think i mentioned this in the interview or maybe

01:20:47.820 it was before i started recording but a while back before i started doing as many author interviews

01:20:52.300 i had asked on instagram like who is a guest that you would like to have back and kit's name was like

01:20:56.720 at the top of that list. Everybody loves hearing from them. I was really excited to have them on

01:21:00.300 for this. And I love the timeliness of this to just engage with this discussion of the Roman

01:21:05.340 Empire where it's like, it's not just the story of like Julius Caesar or Octavian or even people

01:21:10.780 I've talked about on the podcast before, Cleopatra and Agrippina. It's a more nuanced and interesting

01:21:15.960 subject matter. No tea, no shade to anyone who thinks about the Roman Empire every day.

01:21:21.660 But for those of you who don't now, now you did today. Anyway, so I also wanted to mention that

01:21:28.720 since we're doing this surprise episode, there is a live show coming up with Vulgar History.

01:21:34.040 We're going live on YouTube on October 21st at 5.30pm Central Time, which I know that there's

01:21:42.740 people listening to this from all around the world. So you can like, if you go to the if you

01:21:47.620 look up on YouTube, just Vulgar History, and you go in live, like you'll see where it is,

01:21:51.140 and you can, you know, figure that out for your own time zone. But we will keep the video up later

01:21:55.240 if that's like the middle of the night for you or whatever. You can watch it on a delay as well.

01:22:00.440 Anyway, the links to all that are in the show notes and also the emergency of this. I'm just

01:22:07.060 like usually more prepared when I'm saying these farewell messages. Anyway, I have a website,

01:22:12.400 which is vulgarhistory.com. And when you go on there, you can find there's the full

01:22:16.700 Scandaliciousness scale to see where Elagabalus fits in amongst everybody else there. But also

01:22:22.060 there's a form there where you can contact me, email me at vulgarhistorypod at gmail.com. And

01:22:27.980 also if you go to their website, vulgarhistory.com, we're working on getting transcripts. So Aveline

01:22:33.880 Malek from The Wordery has been doing amazing work making transcriptions of some of these

01:22:39.440 incredibly long episodes we've been doing lately. But so the most recent ones mostly have

01:22:44.420 transcriptions. And then Aveline is kind of working backwards from there. So if you prefer

01:22:48.580 to read a podcast, or if you want to refer back to it, if you want to quote me in your academic

01:22:53.080 paper, first of all, like, let me know you're doing that. But second of all, so I'm on Instagram,

01:22:59.020 same as Kit. They are at Kit Ham writer and I am at vulgar history pod on Instagram. I'm also on

01:23:05.300 like, God knows I'm on threats. I'm on blue sky. I'm on like, whatever, like wherever you are,

01:23:10.420 there's probably vulgar history there. And if you want to connect with me, you can tag me on any of

01:23:14.200 places. I'm also on TikTok at Vulgar History, where I've started TikToking again. So check me

01:23:20.760 out there. We also have merch available at vulgarhistory.com slash store, which is the

01:23:25.880 best shipping for if you're in the US. If you're outside the US, you can also get stuff with a bit

01:23:30.380 better shipping at vulgarhistory.redbubble.com. And just in terms of like Kit and the transness

01:23:36.800 of it all, if you look at their first post on Instagram at Kit Hamwriter, they are in fact 0.92

01:23:43.380 wearing one of the vulgar history merch shirts it's the image of the chevalier day on who was

01:23:48.380 the first trans person i talked about on on the show last year then with special guest maya dean

01:23:53.960 and it was just really special for me to see like his kids wearing the shirt from vulgar history and

01:23:59.240 that was a design done by jan yupiter who is an artist that i collaborate with a lot for merch

01:24:04.860 and jan is also non-binary so it's just like it's a beautiful thing and you can also support the

01:24:11.340 podcast we have a patreon which is patreon.com and foster writer so there for one dollar a month

01:24:17.980 you get early ad free access to all episodes um and or for five dollars or more a month you get

01:24:23.620 bonus episodes of vulgar peace theater which is where i talk about costume dramas with friends

01:24:29.420 of the podcast and frequent guest stars alison epstein and lana wood johnson also with that 0.97

01:24:34.520 five dollars a month you get access to the bonus episodes so initially it was just so this asshole 0.73

01:24:39.220 episodes where I talked about just gross men from history, but that was just bumming me out. 0.89

01:24:43.040 So lately I've been talking about, I did an episode of Bushrangers who were like Australian

01:24:47.700 highwaymen. And you're going to learn more about those later on here on the regular feed. But I'm

01:24:53.180 also going to be doing some episodes that are just like, so this messy bitch, like just kind of like 1.00

01:24:58.180 trashy people from history who don't quite fit in the regular podcast. Anyway, you know what? 1.00

01:25:04.400 keep thinking about the Roman Empire or not, but thank you so much for listening to this podcast 0.99

01:25:10.040 and keep your pants on and your tits out. Vulgar History is researched, written, and hosted by Ann 0.97

01:25:17.320 Foster. That's me. The editor is Christina Lumagi. Theme music is by The Severn Duo. The Vulgar 0.98

01:25:24.360 History Show image is by Deborah Wong. Transcripts are written by Aveline Malek. Find transcripts of

01:25:29.960 recent episodes at vulgarhistory.com.

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Vulgar History - September 23, 2023

Rome's Horny Trans Teen Emperor, Elagabalus

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Transcript