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Explanation: The Roman Emperor Caligula, sometimes said to be mad, once threatened (or joked, depending on who you ask) to make his horse consul, one of the two leaders of the Senate. Caligula was a tyrant, a dick, impulsive, and petty, but one can argue he wasn't mad. Just... well, a tyrant, a dick, impulsive, and petty. And with a cruel sense of humor.
The Roman Emperor Elagabalus had a much more discernable form of madness - youth mixed with ultimate power. Elagabalus was a teenager when they (as their gender identity is a matter of perpetual debate) were oh-so-wisely granted absolute autocratic power over a continents-spanning Empire by the political machinations of their grandmother. Two of their more notable offenses were proclaiming themselves to be the Syrian sun god, and having young women hitched to their chariot like horses to pull them around Rome, whipping them all the while.
While you can say teenagers fulfilling all their most wild teenage fantasies with no one to stop them isn't 'real' madness, it seems closer to it than flexing on Senators and daring them to defy you as a petty show of power!
Two of their more notable offenses were proclaiming themselves to be the Syrian sun god, and having young women hitched to their chariot like horses to pull them around Rome, whipping them all the while.
Neat. Now I just gotta find a chariot and young women into this sort of thing
Edit: because I'm obviously the Syrian Sun God
Oh I was thinking more of being one of the women.. heh...
...I thought that's what everyone else would want too
we have to stop gay marriage from being legal because if it was legal everyone would get gay married and there would be no more babies right guys, guys? etc
Ok, now find another, and I'll get working on the chariot.
And if you got any friends I got some ideas of even more fun we could have.
I have lived under a rock my whole life so I kind of just expected this sort of thing only exists in like porn or stories
I can tell you from personal experience that a lot of people's fantasies are being done in real life. Usually you find them in specific subcultures or bdsm spaces like bdsm clubs and such. But they do exist, and I've definitively been part of what a lot of people consider to be fantasies
..it probably helps that I'm gay and trans though, queer culture tends to be a lot more open and welcoming about this kinda stuff
Someone's already done it. Look up House of Gord
But I Haven't done it.
The chariot is the hard part of that in my experience
Didn't Caligula pimp the senators wives out as whores and let everyone fuck them? That's a good deal beyond "a sick sense of humor". That's straight up evil.
Not senators' wives to my knowledge, but he did supposedly open a brothel.
My god(s), they were a walking pride parade.
Elagabala made it very clear to her contemporaries how she wanted to be addressed, I don't understand why people insist on acting like they're being enlightened by disrespecting her wishes. It's privileging transphobes to let them tell us we can'r trust people like Elagabala to tell us who she was.
There's an enduring question as to how reliable the sources are as to Elagabalus's wishes. As such the question of whether Elagabalus was trans, or nonbinary, remains. I would regard only referring to Elagabalus as a man as inappropriate.
We don't have to make her fit into a contemporary gender model to respect her clearly stated wishes.
to respect her clearly stated wishes.
There’s an enduring question as to how reliable the sources are as to Elagabalus’s wishes.
I'd like to ask you about your sources now, but I don't know how not to make it sound like I don't believe you :) I just became really interested in Elagabalwhatevertheendingofthenameis and I'd love to read some more. I know nothing about Syrian history, unfortunately.
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/80*.html
Cassius Dio here refers to Elagabalus as 'The False Antoninus', 'Avitus', and 'Sardanapalus'; Elagabalus was the name of the Syrian sun god they identified with.
Thank you. And now excuse me, I'm jumping right into this rabbit hole!