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The Fairy Emperor

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If I recall correctly, there was once an emperor who dressed in women's clothing and commanded everyone to refer to him as the "Empress...." I am wondering, what was the actual Latin word used for "Empress?"

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There wasn't one (a latin word for empress because there wasnt a latin word for emperor). Emperor was derived from the latin word Imperator which is not truly the same thing as the English word implies. A women could not be an imperator by virtue of its military origins. Several imperial wives came to be known as Augusta, however. Livia was the first, though she was not known so until after her death. Claudius' wife Agrippina (nero's mother) was the first to be thus titled while still living.

 

I suppose, though, if one was to make a comparative translation to the masculine version we would use Imperatrix.

 

by the way seems to me you are speaking of Elagabalus.

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Caligula was the orgy emperor.

 

The emperors took the title "Augustus" so I suppose "Augusta" is the word I was looking for.

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i coulda sworn i heard something about him dressing in womens clothing on a history channel documentary about him... ill do a bit of research on him and find out for sure...

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"Caligula loved dressing up and used to dress in rich silk, ornamented with precious stones and he wore jewels on his shoes."

 

taken from

 

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kvenjb/madmonarchs/c...aligula_bio.htm

 

this line could be taken as him dressing up in women like clothing...

 

then again it may not, and just mean that he dressed really rich like.

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Ah, you are thinking of Elagabalbus (218-222), nephew of Carcacella and one of the worst Roman emperors. To call him a mincing, ass-bandit would be a gross understatement. The man or should I say boy did indeed like silk clothing and was made emperor when he was 14 years old, he was also a transvestite and liked to whore himself out at Brothels. He earned himself no favor with the citizenry or the army and promoted hundreds of his gay lovers to high government positions. Elgabalbus' femninity was extreme and he constantly contemplated self-castration. He was eventually killed aged 18, 4 years into his pointless reign.

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my guess would be wtih any assassination... theywere prolly afraid of screwing up and what might have happend to them if they got cought.

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One could say the same thing about Nero Caligula etc. Like all the mad emperors, Elgabalbus' insanity was transitional, i.e. it started off moderate and got worse and worse and it did take a while for people to rouse the courage to kill him. Elgabalbus did not tolerate critisism and anyone who spoke up was executed. When they did kill him they also got all of his cronies who they executed via tearing out their innards through their backsides with hooks - musing it been a fitting punnishment for their sexual orientation.

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I'd like to point out that homosexuality per se was not considered wrong by the Romans. It was wrong if it were conducted in certain ways that broke social taboos. The extreme effeminate nature displayed by the two emperors mentioned was of course against social taboos. Then there was everything else they did in the fields of politics and religion that broke social taboos and got them finally killed.

 

But sexual relations between males were not in and of themselves considered wrong by Roman culture, and some of the cruder derogatory comments about homosexual acts as insinuated by this thread is not something most Romans would themselves internalize.

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I'd just settle for a few choice slaves........

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