Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. Just a
Speaker 1: quick content note before I begin. This episode contains some
Speaker 1: sexual content and descriptions of in vague terms of sexual acts.
Speaker 1: So if that's something that's uncomfortable for you, or something
Speaker 1: that you know you'd be sensitive about listening to with
Speaker 1: young children around, just be aware of it. In twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, North Hertfordshire Museum in Hitchin, a town north
Speaker 1: of London, made the decision to edit some of the
Speaker 1: informational text it had on its walls. In referring to
Speaker 1: the Roman emperor Eligobolis, the museum would now be using
Speaker 1: feminine instead of masculine pronouns, consistent with the interpretation that Eligobolis,
Speaker 1: who ruled Rome beginning in two hundred and eighteen, was
Speaker 1: a trans woman. Elle Gobles was emperor for just four
Speaker 1: years before her assassination in two hundred and twenty two,
Speaker 1: a d at the age of eighteen. During that time,
Speaker 1: she developed a reputation for pushing gender and sexual boundaries.
Speaker 1: According to one classical source, she preferred she her pronouns
Speaker 1: and announced on one occasion quote call me not lord,
Speaker 1: for I am a lady. Ancient historians reported that she
Speaker 1: wore makeup, shaved her body, and worked wool, a typically
Speaker 1: feminine craft. One ancient historian, Diocassius, said that she would
Speaker 1: stand outside taverns in a wig, soliciting lovers who walked by.
Speaker 1: He further alleged that she had planned to approach a
Speaker 1: physician about performing what today we would describe as a
Speaker 1: vagino plasty. Those accounts led Keith Hoskins, executive member for
Speaker 1: Arts at North Heartz Council, to say in a statement, quote,
Speaker 1: Eligobolis most definitely preferred the she pronoun and as such
Speaker 1: this is something we reflect when discussing her in contemporary times.
Speaker 1: It is only polite and respectful to be sensitive to
Speaker 1: identifying pronouns for people in the past. But this decision
Speaker 1: proved controversial among classicists because none of those stories about
Speaker 1: Eligobolus's gender presentation came directly from her. All of them
Speaker 1: came from classical historians with something of a bone to
Speaker 1: pick with the emperor. Dio Cassius, the ancient historian with
Speaker 1: the most details about Eligobolis's femininity, was not a fan.
Speaker 1: He was a senator under the emperor who had murdered her,
Speaker 1: and therefore he had good reason to slander Eligabolis in
Speaker 1: his writing. Masculinity was incredibly important to ancient Romans, and
Speaker 1: so it was a common strategy for ancient historians to
Speaker 1: depict emperors they didn't like as emasculated or feminine. Other emperors,
Speaker 1: like Nero, Caligula, and even Julius Caesar were accused of
Speaker 1: being too feminine. Nero was said to have worn the
Speaker 1: bridal veil to marry a man, while Roman elder Curio
Speaker 1: once said that Caesar was quote every man's woman. In fact,
Speaker 1: because of his alleged affair with King Nicodemus, the fourth
Speaker 1: of Bethenia, Caesar was called the Queen of Bethenia. In
Speaker 1: the same way, you wouldn't turn to an attack ad
Speaker 1: to write a political candidate's biography. It would be a
Speaker 1: mistake to take those ancient invectives too literally. In an
Speaker 1: article in The Guardian, Zach HER's, assistant professor of classics
Speaker 1: at the University of Colorado in Boulder, said, quote these
Speaker 1: quote unquote biographies of Eligobolis are hit pieces, and that
Speaker 1: he would be inclined to read them as basically fictional.
Speaker 1: Without any narrative accounts of Eligoblists from her perspective, It's
Speaker 1: difficult to know what to make of these competing interpretations.
Speaker 1: On one hand, there is no definitive proof of how
Speaker 1: she identified, and contemporary classicists agree that these sources attesting
Speaker 1: to her transness were biased, even offensive, political propaganda. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, ancient Rome was an incredibly misogynistic
Speaker 1: and transphobic society that prized a stoic, austere, tough masculinity
Speaker 1: above all else. You could also argue that those sources
Speaker 1: were so insulting because Eligobolis was threatening the gender norms
Speaker 1: of the time. Many historical queer lives have shown up
Speaker 1: in the archives in biased sources intending to smear them.
Speaker 1: Given the dearth of transfigures in recorded Western history, Eligobolis
Speaker 1: could be an important node in queer history. But given
Speaker 1: that Roman visions of gender were so different from our own,
Speaker 1: what does it mean for Eligobolists to have been trans?
Speaker 1: How do we divine whatever Eligobolis's own desires were for
Speaker 1: her gender when the historical record is so murky. I'm
Speaker 1: Dana Schwartz, and this is noble blood. You probably noticed
Speaker 1: that I'm also choosing to use feminine pronouns to refer
Speaker 1: to Eligobolis. My reasoning is given that there is no
Speaker 1: way of knowing for certain in this situation from more
Speaker 1: than eighteen hundred years ago, I figure there's no harm
Speaker 1: in choosing to be more inclusive rather than less. But
Speaker 1: I do want to be very clear my analysis is
Speaker 1: no means prescriptive or even necessarily correct. Given that gender
Speaker 1: identity is an incredibly complicated topic, especially from historical eras
Speaker 1: that didn't share a modern vocabulary or understanding, I don't
Speaker 1: think we will ever find a definitive, quote unquote right
Speaker 1: answer to how Eligabolis would have wanted to self identify.
Speaker 1: But what we can do is examine her story with
Speaker 1: nuance and try to understand it as best we can
Speaker 1: given all the context available to us. Anyway, Eligobolos's rule
Speaker 1: was controversial from the beginning. A little bit of background.
Speaker 1: The previous emperor Macrinus had got the job by assassinating
Speaker 1: the other candidate, Karkala, who was Eligabolus's cousin, and then
Speaker 1: to ensure that Eligabolis's family wouldn't enact revenge. Macrinus exiled
Speaker 1: the family to Syria, where Eligablis's family was originally from,
Speaker 1: but exile did not stop Eligabolis's grandmother from plotting to
Speaker 1: overthrow Macrinus. Their family led a religious sect that worshiped
Speaker 1: the sun god eligabel The young Eligabolis, named after the deity,
Speaker 1: was the heir to the priesthood of that religious sect,
Speaker 1: even though at this time she was just fourteen. Soldiers
Speaker 1: who visited Syria, many of whom supported the assassinated Caracala
Speaker 1: over the new emperor, often stopped to see Eligabolis perform
Speaker 1: her priestly rituals. They were purportedly captivated by her good
Speaker 1: looks evocative of those of the young god Dionysus, and
Speaker 1: her sensual dancing. Eligoblis's grandmother took advantage of that, lying
Speaker 1: to the soldiers by telling them that Eligobolus was Caracalla's
Speaker 1: illegitimate son and positioning her as the true heir to
Speaker 1: the throne. The grandmother also bribed these soldiers with her
Speaker 1: vast wealth, which these soldiers were excited to receive since
Speaker 1: they already resented Macrinus for his stingy wages. These soldiers
Speaker 1: declared Eligobolus the emperor and brought her to Antioch, where
Speaker 1: Macrinus was based, to overthrow him and install her as
Speaker 1: his replacement. When they got there, the troops launched an
Speaker 1: attack on Macrinus, and they won, executing both Macrinus and
Speaker 1: his son. Their severed heads were brought to Eligobolis as
Speaker 1: war trophies, and the Roman senate was forced to accept
Speaker 1: teenage Eligobolis as the new emperor. As Eligoblis made her
Speaker 1: way from Antioch to Rome, ancient historian Herodian said that
Speaker 1: Eligoblis had a painting of herself sent ahead to be
Speaker 1: hung over a statue of the goddess Victoria in the
Speaker 1: Senate house. She was said to have done this so
Speaker 1: that the people would get to know her as the
Speaker 1: new emperor in advance of her arrival, but many considered
Speaker 1: it an act of hubris. Roman senators making an offering
Speaker 1: to the goddess Victoria would have to kneel in front
Speaker 1: of the painting of Eligoblis, seeming to put the new
Speaker 1: emperor and the goddess on an equal playing field. Eligobless
Speaker 1: finally arrived in Rome in the late summer of two
Speaker 1: hundred and nineteen AD, refusing to wear the usual Roman
Speaker 1: garb of wool togas. Instead, she donned a luxurious silk robe.
Speaker 1: Given that Eligobles was barely through puberty when she began
Speaker 1: her reign, her grandmother treated her as a proxy ruler.
Speaker 1: During her rule, Eligoblus's mother, Julius Semias, and grandmother Julia
Speaker 1: Mesa were the first women allowed into the Senate, Soemius
Speaker 1: was given the senatorial title of Clarissima and Maisa was
Speaker 1: deemed Mater castorum et senatus, or mother of the army
Speaker 1: camp and of the Senate. Ancient historians noted how unorthodox
Speaker 1: it was for women to be so influential on Eligoblus's rule,
Speaker 1: with her mother and grandmother's likenesses printed on coins and inscriptions.
Speaker 1: Another controversial aspect of Aligobolus's rule was her religious beliefs.
Speaker 1: At the end of two hundred twenty, Eligoblus declared Eligobel
Speaker 1: to be the central god of the Roman pantheon instead
Speaker 1: of Jupiter, and made herself the quote highest priest of
Speaker 1: the unconquered God, the son Eligabel, supreme Pontiff. Every summer
Speaker 1: solstice she put on a festival in Eligobel's honor, distributing
Speaker 1: free food and riding through the streets on a jewel
Speaker 1: encrusted chariot. The Roman elites were scandalized that the populace
Speaker 1: was worshiping a foreign god, and Eligobolus was to blame.
Speaker 1: Eligobolus's love life was just as salacious. She took a
Speaker 1: number of lovers, both male and female. Rumor had it
Speaker 1: that Eligobolus wanted to marry a male charioteer named Heracles,
Speaker 1: declaring him Caesar and herself his wife. She was also
Speaker 1: said to have had an affair with athlete Aurelius Zodocus,
Speaker 1: allegedly making him her husband and allowing him to have
Speaker 1: political influence behind the scenes. Her most controversial relationationship was
Speaker 1: with Vestal virgin Aquilia Severa, Vesta's high priestess, who Eligbleis
Speaker 1: was said to have married in order to produce quote
Speaker 1: godlike children. This was extremely taboo because any Vestal virgin
Speaker 1: who had sex was supposed to be punished and buried alive.
Speaker 1: These relationships were all speculations, but officially speaking, Eligbless would
Speaker 1: end up marrying four times to four different women in
Speaker 1: just four years. The emperor was also known to have
Speaker 1: bizarre dinner parties. She gave her guests strange delicacies, like
Speaker 1: camel's heels or flamingo's brains, or all green or all
Speaker 1: blue meals. Sometimes she was said to have brought out
Speaker 1: lions or bears to freely wander around the dining room.
Speaker 1: One Roman historian alleged that she placed whoopee cushions on
Speaker 1: all of the chairs as a prank, the first recorded
Speaker 1: use of whoope cushions in Western history. These deviations from
Speaker 1: quote normal Roman life made Eligoblis unpopular. When her grandmother,
Speaker 1: Julia Mason, noted that Eligabless's reputation had soured, she decided
Speaker 1: to replace her with her other daughter's son, Severus Alexander,
Speaker 1: who was fifteen. Alexander was elevated to caesar in June
Speaker 1: two hundred and twenty one, and Eligables and Alexander were
Speaker 1: expected to rule together over the following year. Eligobless went
Speaker 1: along with it at first, but she grew disillusioned with
Speaker 1: being a co emperor. When she started noticing that the
Speaker 1: Imperial Roman army liked Alexander better. She petitioned the Senate
Speaker 1: to depose Alexander, and when they refused, she tried to
Speaker 1: have him assassinated to no avail. According to ancient historian
Speaker 1: Cassius Dio, Eligablis started a rumor that Alexander was about
Speaker 1: to die to make sure the Imperial army wasn't on
Speaker 1: his side. A riot broke out, with many soldiers trying
Speaker 1: to throw Eligabolis into the barracks. On March thirteenth, two
Speaker 1: hundred twenty two, Eligableis appeared to step down, she and
Speaker 1: her mother performing a ceremony where they officially passed the
Speaker 1: torch to Alexander. Upon hearing the soldiers cheer louder for
Speaker 1: Alexander than they did for her, she was incensed and
Speaker 1: immediately changed her mind. She called for the arrest and
Speaker 1: execution of everyone there. The imperial army responded by attacking
Speaker 1: Eligabilis and her mother. They tried to flee, but she
Speaker 1: was found her mother holding her tight. They were both killed,
Speaker 1: with their heads cut off and their bodies stripped, naked
Speaker 1: and dragged across Rome. Not everything in that story, compiled
Speaker 1: together from various and all very biased sources, can be verified.
Speaker 1: Modern classicists have confirmed only the basics that Eligabolis was
Speaker 1: the head priest of the worship of the Sun god.
Speaker 1: Eligabel arrived from Syria to violently take over the Roman
Speaker 1: government when she was fourteen, ruled for four years, married
Speaker 1: four times, and was executed and succeeded by her cousin Alexander.
Speaker 1: The most lurid details, including unfortunately planting whoopee cushions on
Speaker 1: unsuspecting dinner guests, were all possibly fabricated. Many of the
Speaker 1: most controversial aspects of her rule were related to her
Speaker 1: gender and sexuality, from dancing sensually to posing as a
Speaker 1: sex worker outside of a bar, to marrying a vestal
Speaker 1: virgin and proposing to a male charioteer. But where did
Speaker 1: those details come from and why would ancient historians have
Speaker 1: invented or exaggerated them. Why was Eligobolis's gender and sexuality
Speaker 1: such an issue for ancient historians? As I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: Eligabolists reigned during a time when Rome had extremely strict
Speaker 1: standards for masculinity. The ideal Roman citizen exhibited masculine characteristics
Speaker 1: like valor, excellence, courage, dominance, and an austere presentation, as
Speaker 1: opposed to women who were considered decadent, soft, and extravagant.
Speaker 1: Men who didn't fit the masculine ideal were considered to
Speaker 1: be afflicted with molita, a Latin term which can be
Speaker 1: translated as softness or effeminacy. Those with mantilla were considered
Speaker 1: to be preoccupied with their appearances. They shaved their bodies,
Speaker 1: wore perfume, and rouged their cheeks. They were also seen
Speaker 1: as overly indulgent, eating rich foods and seeking out sex.
Speaker 1: These tropes almost perfectly describe ancient historians' depictions of Eligobolis.
Speaker 1: Eligobolus was considered to have molita, uniting her love of
Speaker 1: lavish dinner parties, expensive robes, and voracious sexual appetites. The
Speaker 1: term molita also gives us a clue as to why
Speaker 1: Eligabolis's sexuality and gender were such huge issues for ancient historians.
Speaker 1: Because sexuality was so deeply tied to Roman ideals, molita
Speaker 1: was typically assigned to outsiders, especially from the quote East.
Speaker 1: Romans viewed Persians and Syrians as overly extravagant, feminine, sexual,
Speaker 1: and servile. A common trope of Molita was the mythical
Speaker 1: Sardanopoulis of Assyria. Allegedly, Sardanopoulos lived as a woman during
Speaker 1: his rule, hanging out with his concubines, putting on cosmetics,
Speaker 1: speaking with a higher tone, wearing women's clothing, and spinning wool.
Speaker 1: He also drank heavily and pursued both men and women
Speaker 1: without a care for his reputation, much to the chagrin
Speaker 1: of Roman authors. Many of those same tropes also show
Speaker 1: up in descriptions of Eligabolis, who was also said to
Speaker 1: have affected a quote soft and melting voice to sound
Speaker 1: more like a woman where eyeshadow, work with wool, and
Speaker 1: hang out with sex workers. Cassius Dio, the ancient historian
Speaker 1: who had the most issues with eligablo alleged femininity, even
Speaker 1: called Eligoblis Sardanopoulos. According to contemporary historian martin Ix, many
Speaker 1: Romans nicknamed her the Assyrian. Ancient historian Herodian also ties
Speaker 1: Eligoblis's femininity to her status as a foreigner, especially as
Speaker 1: the high priestess of an unfamiliar religion. Herodian emphasizes that
Speaker 1: Eligobolus performed orgiastic dances in the temple of Amisia in Syria,
Speaker 1: and then brought those dances to perform in altars around
Speaker 1: Rome and even in the theater, embodying a sensual foreign
Speaker 1: sensibility inappropriate for the leader of Rome. He also suggests
Speaker 1: that Eligoblis's Syrian origins caused her to reject standard Roman
Speaker 1: men's clothing, preferring silk dresses with gold embroidery and gem
Speaker 1: covered golden tiaras, which Herodian associates with the Phoenicians, as
Speaker 1: opposed to the plain wool clothes worn by most Roman men.
Speaker 1: Eligoblis's foreign femininity was such a problem for ancient historians
Speaker 1: because the emperor, as the most powerful person in Rome,
Speaker 1: was expected to embody their version of ideal manliness. The
Speaker 1: perfect Roman man was expected to dominate in his relationships
Speaker 1: with women or boys, but also on a wider scale
Speaker 1: with foreigners. The emperor being a foreigner herself not only
Speaker 1: meant that she didn't care to be the ideal Roman man,
Speaker 1: but also that she wasn't advancing Roman cultural dominance by
Speaker 1: embodying absolute masculinity. This helps us to explain another aspect
Speaker 1: of Eligboless's transness, her stereotypically feminine and passive role in sex.
Speaker 1: In her sexual life, she was said to quote recreate
Speaker 1: female characteristics within the male. The Historia Augusta presents Eligabolis
Speaker 1: as quote taking the role of Venus in her private
Speaker 1: re enacting of the story of the Judgment of Paris,
Speaker 1: even going so far as to quote model the expression
Speaker 1: on her face onto which that Venus is usually painted.
Speaker 1: Cassius Dio adds that she slept with women to learn
Speaker 1: to quote imitate their actions when she should lie with
Speaker 1: her male lovers. She was said to have hired agents
Speaker 1: to find and bring well endowed men to her quarters,
Speaker 1: occasionally seeking them out herself at public baths. Ancient Romans
Speaker 1: saw gender and sexuality as inexorably intertwined. They had a
Speaker 1: gender binary, but one's gender identity was determined by someone's
Speaker 1: birth sex, as well as the role they played in
Speaker 1: sexual encounters. One half of the binary was the penetrators,
Speaker 1: who were seen as strong, stoic, aggressive, and masculine, and
Speaker 1: the other half were the penetrated, who were seen as weak, frivolous,
Speaker 1: vein and feminine. If you were a penetrator. Who you
Speaker 1: were attracted to didn't matter. You could have sex with
Speaker 1: men or women, and you would still be considered masculine
Speaker 1: as long as you took the active role during sex.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, if you took a passive role
Speaker 1: during sex, that would fundamentally change your gender identity. Women
Speaker 1: and men who were penetrated in sexual encounters were both
Speaker 1: considered to be feminine. As long as your sexual role
Speaker 1: aligned with your societal role. Men being the penetrators and
Speaker 1: women being the penetrated, you'd fit within Roman gender norms.
Speaker 1: If you deviated from those norms, most commonly by being
Speaker 1: a man that also wanted to be penetrated, you would
Speaker 1: be humiliated and insulted for being too womanly. It also
Speaker 1: went the other way around. If a man were thought
Speaker 1: of as too womanly or soft, he would be assumed
Speaker 1: to be the passive partner in sex. Who was allowed
Speaker 1: to be the passive partner in sex depended not only
Speaker 1: on one's gender, but also on their societal role. Women,
Speaker 1: being the quote inferior gender, had to always occupy a
Speaker 1: sexually passive role. Boys, slaves, and foreigners were also permitted
Speaker 1: to be sexually passive. In their relationships with adult men.
Speaker 1: This dynamic shows up in historical accounts of eligobolists. It
Speaker 1: was fine for Eligoblists to do sexy dances as a
Speaker 1: young attractive boy, but she was expected to age out
Speaker 1: of it in her adulthood. It was extra scandalous that
Speaker 1: she was sexually passive, given that she was the ruler
Speaker 1: of Rome, expected to dominate everyone at all times. Contemporary
Speaker 1: classicist Zachary Hurs alludes to another Roman trope to describe
Speaker 1: why Eligabolis was depicted as sexually passive, the Canidis. This
Speaker 1: word does not have a direct translation, It functions as
Speaker 1: a kind of slur that describes foreign born men who
Speaker 1: dance sensually and like to be anally penetrated, which nearly
Speaker 1: exactly lines up with depictions of Eligabolis. Given that the
Speaker 1: Canidis only shows up in politically charged smear campaigns, historians
Speaker 1: tend to think of the Canidis as more of a
Speaker 1: concept character or trope than an actual identity. Hers calls
Speaker 1: the Cannidis a quote public identity, comparing the concept to
Speaker 1: the contemporary idea of the stereotypical welfare queen. While the
Speaker 1: character could describe real individuals. It functioned more as a
Speaker 1: rhetorical tool, intended to draw the public's attention to dangers
Speaker 1: to the status quo. Hers read depictions of Eligobolus's canidis
Speaker 1: like sexual passivity as an expression of anxiety about the
Speaker 1: state of Roman political life. Emperors previously had been chosen
Speaker 1: from an elite class of senators and died peacefully after
Speaker 1: a successor had already been determined. But Eligabolis was symptomatic
Speaker 1: of a new status quo in which military support mattered
Speaker 1: more than senatorial support, and new two emperors, most of
Speaker 1: whom had barely gone through puberty by the time they
Speaker 1: came to power, rose to the throne violently. Cassius Dio
Speaker 1: and Marius Maximus, senators who wrote popular histories of Eligobolis,
Speaker 1: would have been salty about losing power in that new system,
Speaker 1: and they used the power of their pens to denigrate Eligabolis.
Speaker 1: The stock character of the Canidis was a powerful tool,
Speaker 1: not only because the Canidis was viewed in derogatory terms,
Speaker 1: but because canidie never spoke for themselves. Lacking the political
Speaker 1: upper hand, ancient historians took the rhetorical one. As Hers
Speaker 1: put it Quote Doo and Maximus could no longer govern,
Speaker 1: but they still could write ancient historians bias against Eligobolists
Speaker 1: could partly explain why she was feminized in the historical record.
Speaker 1: As we mentioned earlier in the episode, it was common
Speaker 1: practice for ancient historians to call leaders quote too feminine
Speaker 1: as a means to discredit them. But still, even considering
Speaker 1: that tradition, Eligobolis remains an outlier. Other leaders like Julius, Caesar, Nero,
Speaker 1: and Caligula were all alleged to be keneidie, wearing women's clothing,
Speaker 1: acting passively during sex, and shaving their bodies, but none
Speaker 1: of them have been reconsidered by contemporary historians to be
Speaker 1: trans women. What makes Eligobolis so different. What's so striking
Speaker 1: about Eligobolus's gender presentation is that she bucked traditional Roman
Speaker 1: understandings of sex and gender. While Caesar may have been
Speaker 1: every man's wife and Nero was said to have acted
Speaker 1: as a bride in a marriage ceremony to one of
Speaker 1: his freedmen, Elligoblis asked to be treated as a woman
Speaker 1: throughout her life, not just during sex or in relation
Speaker 1: to a male partner. She appeared to have a remarkably
Speaker 1: modern view of gender as an identity separate from her
Speaker 1: sexual role, but whether or not Eligblis actually represented herself
Speaker 1: as a woman remains up for debate. Unlike many historical
Speaker 1: queer figures, Eligoblis, as the ruler of Rome, had power
Speaker 1: over how she represented herself through statues and coins she
Speaker 1: commissioned as official representations of her and her reign. According
Speaker 1: to scholar Eric R. Varner, imperial portraits and coins were
Speaker 1: actually at times a space in which rulers blurred gender
Speaker 1: boundaries in their self presentation. Beginning with Augustus, male rulers,
Speaker 1: ais and goddesses were visually conjoined. For example, on certain coins,
Speaker 1: Augustus's face was put on the goddess Diana's body, with
Speaker 1: her hair cascading from his head. There's also an example
Speaker 1: of a statue of Marcus Aurelius with his head added
Speaker 1: to a female body dressed in an ornate toga. That said,
Speaker 1: even with that precedent for gender bending in Roman imperial representations,
Speaker 1: Eligoblus's portraits adhered to masculine standards. This isn't to say
Speaker 1: that her coins were typical, fitting the rest of her
Speaker 1: norm flouting rein Her coins are strange. Roman coins typically
Speaker 1: have a head's side with a portrait of an important
Speaker 1: person and a tail's side with a scene including Roman
Speaker 1: gods or a personification of Rome, intended to reinforce the
Speaker 1: dominance of Rome and the legitimacy of the current ruler.
Speaker 1: In Eligobolus's coins, the quote tales side has a chariot
Speaker 1: pulling a meteorite with an eagle on top of it,
Speaker 1: an image utterly unique to her rule. On the head's side,
Speaker 1: her portraits depict her wearing her sacred robes, again flouting
Speaker 1: Roman norms of austere dress. Even though these coins break
Speaker 1: from conventions in most ways, they do portray her as male,
Speaker 1: with sideburns and a mustache. That said, she could have
Speaker 1: publicly identified as male and expressed her transness in private,
Speaker 1: or she could have tried to persuade the members of
Speaker 1: her court for her coins to represent her as a woman,
Speaker 1: and they could have refused. It remains unclear whether and
Speaker 1: to what extent Eligabolis wanted to be seen as a woman,
Speaker 1: given that the one source that attests to her requesting
Speaker 1: to be referred to by feminine pronouns and requesting a
Speaker 1: vaginoplasty come from one source with every intention to slander
Speaker 1: her and her feminine qualities. It's hard to argue that
Speaker 1: that is inherently an accurate rendering of her wishes to
Speaker 1: be treated as a woman. There's no evidence that explicitly
Speaker 1: refutes that framing, but there's nothing that directly supports it either.
Speaker 1: With the evidence we do have, it seems most likely
Speaker 1: that she was, at least to a certain extent, transfeminized
Speaker 1: by a society hostile to any form of gender nonconformity.
Speaker 1: Her religious dancing and silk robes threatened Roman norms of masculinity,
Speaker 1: especially for emperors. Ancient historians interpreted this as evidence that
Speaker 1: she presented herself as a woman, both in terms of
Speaker 1: her appearance and her sexual role. They portrayed her this
Speaker 1: way not necessarily because they took any interest in how
Speaker 1: she understood herself, but in order to emphasize the danger
Speaker 1: of her foreign influence. It was a kind of trans
Speaker 1: panic about excessive femininity at the center of Roman life,
Speaker 1: conflating male femininity with sex, work, decadence, and irresponsibility. But
Speaker 1: this portrait of Eligobolis as a decadent, opulent emperor has
Speaker 1: also kept her alive in the literary imagination. Her flounting
Speaker 1: the status quo made her an inspirational figure to many
Speaker 1: artists and writers. In the nineteen sixties, a number of
Speaker 1: queer writers created fictional portraits of her reign, from boddice
Speaker 1: rippers like Child of the Sun to literary fiction like
Speaker 1: the novel Family Favorites. At a time when homosexuality was
Speaker 1: still criminalized right before the Stonewall Riots, those more sympathetic
Speaker 1: depictions of Eligobolis situated her as a node in a
Speaker 1: longer queer lineage. We may never know exactly who Eligobolis
Speaker 1: was or how she saw herself, but she opens up
Speaker 1: the possibility to consider queer life in other eras, and
Speaker 1: she allows us to examine the complexities of how ancient
Speaker 1: Romans viewed sex and gender. That's the end of the
Speaker 1: story of Eligobolis, but stick around after a brief sponsor
Speaker 1: break to see how Eligbolis inspired Oscar Wilde's picture of
Speaker 1: Dorian Gray. Oscar Wilde learned about Eligobolis while honeymooning in Paris,
Speaker 1: where he picked up a copy of Yours Karl Heusmann
Speaker 1: book a reboir that had just come out. Araboar was
Speaker 1: a novel that celebrated decadence, centering around an eccentric dandy
Speaker 1: who retreats into his own esthetic world. Heismans brings up
Speaker 1: Eligobolis as a fellow aesthete, a figure that transcended her
Speaker 1: everyday life by focusing on beauty and excess. That book
Speaker 1: inspired Oscar Wilde to write the Picture of Dorian Gray
Speaker 1: to such a degree actually, that both texts were cited
Speaker 1: in Wild's eighteen ninety five trial for gross indecency as
Speaker 1: evidence of his degeneracy. In the original manuscript of Dorian Gray,
Speaker 1: Wild cites Eligabolus as a true esthete in his musings
Speaker 1: about the nature of art, writing quote the young Priest
Speaker 1: of the Sun, while yet a boy had been slain
Speaker 1: for his sins, used to walk in jeweled shoe on
Speaker 1: dust of gold in silver. This reference to Eligbolis and
Speaker 1: any reference to Aragua was cut from the final text.
Speaker 1: It's unclear why Eligabolis didn't make it into the final draft,
Speaker 1: but scholar Nicholas Frankel suggests that editor John Marshall Stoddart
Speaker 1: quote oversaw the elimination of anything that's smacked generally of decadence,
Speaker 1: and Eligbolis certainly fit the bill. Noble Blood is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky.
Speaker 1: Noble Blood is hosted by me Danish Forts, with additional
Speaker 1: writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender,
Speaker 1: Julia Milani, and Armand Cassam. The show is edited and
Speaker 1: perdue used by Noahmy Griffin and rima Il Kahali, with
Speaker 1: supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.