Elagabalus

Bad Gays

This episode has everything: a tyrannical little boy king, a dictator who wanted to overthrow the Roman pantheon and install a meteorite as the object of a new monotheism, prostitution and vestal virgins, and drowning your party guests in rose petals. We break down Elagabalus: the myth, the legend, the gender-bending icon and the searcher for the biggest dicks in the Roman Empire.

Subscribe to our monthly podcast "Extra Bad Gays" and support the work we do to make the show.

----more----

SOURCES:

Cassius Cocceianus Dio, Roman History: Books 71-80, trans. E. Cary, New issue of 1927 ed Edition (Harvard University Press, 1927)

Edward Gibbon and Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volumes 1 to 6: Volumes 1-3, Volumes 4-6, Reprint Edition (Everyman’s Library, 2010)

Harry Sidebottom, The Mad Emperor: Heliogabalus and the Decadence of Rome (Oneworld Publications, 2022)

Elijah Burgher, “Our Lady of the Latrines – Western Exhibitions,” https://westernexhibitions.com/exhibition/elijah-burgher/

Anthony Birley, trans., Lives of the Later Caesars: The First Part of the Augustan History, with Newly Compiled Lives of Nerva & Trajan, Reprint edition (Harmondsworth, Eng. ; Baltimore etc.: Penguin Classics, 1976).

Our intro music is "Arpeggia Colorix" by Yann Terrien. Our outro music was made for us by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.