• PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
    33·
    4 days ago

    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!

    • peopleproblems@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      4 days ago

      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

        • aaa999@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          4 days ago

          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

        • peopleproblems@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          4 days ago

          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

          • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
            4·
            4 days ago

            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

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      4 days ago

      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.

    • eestileib@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      34·
      4 days ago

      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.

      • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
        101·
        4 days ago

        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.

        • eestileib@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          22·
          4 days ago

          We don’t have to make her fit into a contemporary gender model to respect her clearly stated wishes.

          • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
            9·
            4 days ago

            to respect her clearly stated wishes.

            There’s an enduring question as to how reliable the sources are as to Elagabalus’s wishes.

  • Jyrdano@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    4 days ago

    Ive wondered how the legionnaires felt about being made to march up to the English channel coast and ordered to slap the water and collect seashells.